Time passes quickly when days are so short. Almost 2 weeks now, since I last posted. Time for a birthday post!

Of course most days I worked - we only work when the weather is good (which is most of the time) but we also went hiking again.

Trash was to be found at many places ( there was a microwave oven in the midst of a forest...). This is just another example showing that most people here care little about nature. They are also rather trigger happy with chemicals here, which has lead to the demise of many a roaming cat here. They seem to have little respect for animals in general here. The streets contain quite a few dead hares, chickens and cats. Those things which once were animals have been driven over so often that they are little more that a thin layer on the street and it is almost impossible to figure out which animal such a thing once was..

I really should register with one of these picture sharing sites to be able to post all of the pictures. I have a few higher resolution pictures now which were taken by my uncle (no, I don't have a good camera now).

I feel older now. Not a birthday post anymore. I'll have to go to sleep now and continue soon!

Incoherence

I have been on the Balearic island called Majorca for a week now and didn't yet manage to write here. When I arrived it was getting dark already and so I just 'settled in' that day.

(if you want a google maps link where you can walk around here(in 3D) tell me via facebook, mail or some other means) The next day I started working, and did the same for the following days. Everybody has a pool around here .. kind of strange considering we aren't that far away from the sea.
On Saturday then my relatives here were going to hike with some friends and I joined them. We walked along a beach and picniced after an hour or so. Then on our way back we walked past a sun bathing topless woman(She actually had been there when we came already [maybe she thought her skin was looking to young] and greeted me[people here seem far more likely than Germans to greet] just lying differently, leaning against an old bunker and nobody seemed to notice her then. There also was a cliché-weirdo, wearing sunglasses and sitting about 15 metres away, constantly staring at her). So everybody (actually mostly the women, but not only) started complaining that there would be a nudist (FKK on German) beach nearby. Beforehand (the women) suggested that I go bathe nude in the sea... Well that much for coherence in behaviour.
Later then I checked Online - they were wrong  - that was actually the nudist part of the beach. Now I can tell everybody that I have been on a nudist beach. :D

The next day I rode an old bike to Palma - well actually almost rode through Palma!

The locals don't seem to care much about signs here. There was no sign indicating that I was in Palma and names of streets aren't given at every crossing. The only reason I stopped was because I couldn't imagine El Arenal being that huge! Then after I finally found indications that I was in Palma I got lost a bit in the streets and had to head back already because there was a storm predicted. Apparently even here people think of Bavaria when hearing Germany. They have "Oberbayern" here(meaning upper Bavaria, however this also means something like "in the deepest woods". Ober is similar in meaning to "Uber".)
It wouldn't have made much of a difference though, if the storm wouldn't have been predicted for that time, since it was getting dark at about the same time the storm came and the bike doesn't have lights etc.. so I'd have returned at about the same time no matter what.
In the end I realised I wasn't cool enough for biking .. so I cooled down somewhat:

(The wind and salty water proved quite nasty when I was close to the beach with the bike - I had red eyes when I arrived in Palma)

To be continued.

The Start

So the flight goes today. Originally I wanted to post beforehand, but in the end time somehow flew away and I still have a bit to do before I can board the plane, so I'll keep this short.

I'll have to get the last vaccination shot today, unfortunately I forgot to call the pharmacy yesterday to ensure, that they'll have the vaccine on store. I hope I am in luck, at least they said, they normally do have the vaccine and I should just call to be sure..

Then I'll still have things left to pack, for example this Laptop I am currently writing on. I decided to take it along in the end, (probably being a bad idea) which cost some extra time yesterday moving data around..
Well I'll better stop now and call the pharmacy.

I'll finish off with this image:

Translation: Tame birds sing of freedom, wild birds fly !

P.S. A small tip: you can subscribe to the RSS feed to always see when I wrote something new.

Dhrontal

Now, with just a few days left until my journey starts (on the 24th) I thought I'd show the place where I am spending my last days (in Germany). Which is a perfect opportunity to present the miserable image quality that I'll have to live with for now, since I'll be using a 'smartphone' to take the images. I am hoping to find a cheap camera of reasonable quality while traveling.. A cheap high quality camera is acceptable too. ;) Anybody willing to part with a waterproof Canon for a few bucks ? :P

The place I am staying currently is a place in the Dhrontal. The Dhrontal is a forested dale and I grew up here. Originally there was a water mill of some sort here, but nobody knows exactly what the mill processed. The water came from the brook called Dhron. When looking at the pictures the Dhron is between the willows which separate the pastures.

I made a few shots on a cloudy, cold and unfriendly day.

This is the maximum quality. Yep a maximum resolution of 320x240.
Awesome isn't it ? The neat thing is, that this seems perfect for blogging purposes! Oh and I can shoot thousands of images considering their small size.
Another option is to use a small crappy crappy video camera. That way I could make higher resolution images, which are just horribly noisy. That isn't the only catch though, battery lifetime is extremely short.

And lastly a few shots from today with better weather:

The Dhron:

 

 

I lived in that house, back when I lived here:

 

And before that in there:

There used to be an aviary of which you can still see the beams.

Stalkers and how they live

Among the 'bad' things that have happened to me already, one was to be stalked. Maybe it wasn't that bad in comparison - I think I got away just before it would've gotten bad. The worst that happened to me was to be held in a (public transport) bus and - well I don't remember what it was, the stalker said. I just wanted to get away.
That was also almost the last time I crossed the stalker's path. I once was under siege at home after that, but didn't really care, since the door was shut and I turned music on loud, so I didn't hear what was shouted. Then I moved away and my stalker hasn't found me since then(and hopefully has given up). I am not sure for how long I haven't been stalked now. I think it really started when I was about 18 and ended a few years later, with a short break, because I had also relocated at that time and my stalker had to catch up.

Today I heard by chance about that stalker's living conditions. Apparently the room is filled with piles of paper and this person is now incapable of heating the oven in that room, probably because of those piles of paper are in the way... From what I heard it seemed poverty had stricken.
This is all really strange because IIRC that person is a university alumnus and also sent me 2000 - I think it was €uros already - for one birthday(I didn't take the money).
That just shows how sad lives of real stalkers are. It isn't a nice experience to be stalked, but stalkers are ruining their own lives too...

Water Cleansing

When I visited the doc for vaccination purposes, he suggested I take a chemical water cleansing agent with me, named Micropur. Supposedly this is also used by the army. Somehow I don't really like the idea of chemical water cleansing. It is low weight though, so I'll take a few tabs of that with me. Just for emergency cases however.

I think I do prefer the SODIS method,(see SODIS (Wikipedia, en) for details) when the water is somewhat safe. This simply involves filling the water into a PET bottle and exposing it to direct sunlight for 6 hours. For the rest of the time I'll hopefully be able to buy bottled water.
Of course there is all that fancy equipment I could buy (for Example UV-A lamps), but such equipment is either heavy or expensive and I don't intend to go for the extreme outdoor and survival experience. At least for now... ;)

Advertisements

I presume some have noticed the addition of ads.. I thought it might be a good idea as additional source of income, while I am on my way through the world. It may be just a few extra pence, but anything helps.

I am wondering though is this too much already ? I have only added Google ads so far and was considering adding an Amazon.com link too.
So, what do you think, are those ads too much already ? I prefer to not scare people away, to keeping the ads, if you think they are too annoying. Oh and I'd also like to know whether some readers would prefer to also have the posts written on German ? (Spanish may be an option for the future. :D )
Würdet ihr bevorzugen, wenn ich die gleichen Texte auch auf deutsch verfasse, statt nur englisch?

Vaccination

Different climates harbour different germs. As a precaution I am going through a kind of vaccination marathon. First just the standard vaccinations that are relevant in Europe too. Tetanus for example, although I am probably immune to that, but virtue of acquiring a wound every now and then and not caring about manual cleansing or using patches. The good part about these vaccines is, that the they are paid for by the health insurance.

However yesterday was an expensive day in vaccination terms. I payed ~102 €uros for two shots. One was for typhus, comparably cheap and the other was a combined shot for hepatitis A and B. I payed about 80 €uros for that one alone! The annoying part is, I have to buy 2 more shots of that. I also have to stay a little longer in Germany because of that, since the third shot is to be given 21 days after the first. Oh well, more time for preparation then. ;)

Suggestions so far

I have received a few suggestions so far (from people interested in my room). The first one was to visit Northern Bazil, from a girl that was born there. I personally wanted to visit Peru for a while now. So yeah, I hope to give South America a visit. Although it seems to be one of the more dangerous places (wildlife and diseases) and the climate there is also very different from Germany... ;)
Another suggestion was New Zealand. Also seems like a good suggestion if I manage to get to Australia, as desired.
I am also considering Spain and Italy. My mother suggested Tunesia, but after reading about schistosomiasis, I am not so sure I like that suggestion..
I am very interested in seeing Greece, but'll have to see whether that fits my plans. Similarly Egypt would be a nice stop, but seems slightly dangerous for the time being.
Seeing Russia and China would be nice too, but seem very unlikely destinations.

Destinations

I have just started selling mostly everything I own to accrue some money for the trip. Feels a bit weird.
I think I am going to miss my sofa, but there are worse things in life .. I think. ;)

I still have not decided on all the places I'll go to though. The starting point will be majorca, since I have relatives living there. Another potential destination would be Australia, but I am not sure yet. Ideally I want to travel in such a way as to always stay in a comfortable climate (not too hot and not too cold).
So I am open to any suggestions on follow up locations.

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