- I'm gonna be a maid of honour for the first time! And since I'm also responsible for the invitations, the decoration, the schedule... hell lotta work ahead of me but I'm kinda looking forward to it!
- I'm hopelessly in love with Daddy on Orange Is the New Black. Exactly the kind of woman I like... that is a soft butch, I suppose? The fact that she is dating officer McCollough IRL is pretty awesome (although I'm obviously very jealous).
- Hardcover books with a bookmark ribbon.
- Attending the Itchy concert with Manu who acted as a human fan by waving his hat through the air.
- A trip to Walchensee with Raphaela! I met her neighbour's huge cat, accidently found out she was pregnant (nobody had known so far), we enjoyed the crystal clear turquoise water and got ice-cream from the van at the edge of the forest. Later: pizza dinner. The best.
- Pub Quiz with Lena, Maike and Barbara (I'm still her secret admirer, she's pretty damn cool).
- Spending time with Ashley and Kilian! I like the outdoor swimming pool in Dinkelscherben.
- A good yoga session. Being really bendy comes in very handy.
- Sitting on a hill in Olympiapark with Frank during sunset, seeing the lights from the fair below us getting brighter as the contrast sharpens.
- Joan Wasser. Jesus, what a... presence. Aura. Coolness. Whatever it is. Great concert!
- Hanging out with Bibi at Starnberger See.
- Meeting Kazuki from Tokio! Weird setting though: he cleaned my teeth at the dentist's.
- Elsa and Andi's wedding: riding over the fields on a tractor in order to fell a tree in the woods, the train ride, so many storks. The song they played during the ceremony. Dancing until the wee hours. The new house Andi and Elsa built.
- Australia. Phew, where can I start. So, the accent is definitely amazing and I'd love to be able to imitate it more appropriately. Anyway. The first thing I noticed upon arriving was that the moon seemed to be upside down and there were new constellations - I saw the Triangulum Australe for the first time and the Big Dipper was invisible. There were strange smells and sounds, I recognised Let it Be just from the beat - someone played it in their house. I arrived at my hosts and cuddled Rabbit the tailless cat in my comfy bed. Avocado on toast and matcha latte for breakfast was a pretty good idea, too. Bless the vegan café!
- Petting my very first koala. Watching the fruit bats and the wombats - my favourite. Feeding wallabies and kangaroos. The smell of dextrose and eucalyptus in the Koala Sanctuary.
- People getting out of the bus yelling "Thanks, mate!" to the driver. / Seeing my first ibis in the middle of Brisbane, right next to the bus stop. Nobody cared but me. (Later I also saw wild cockatoos and a weird breed of turkey everywhere.) / Pygmalion at the Gardens Theatre in Brisbane. / Thrifting next to the river. / The outside pool at night. / Getting lost on Mount Coo-Tha. / Buying a linen dress at Valley Girl. / My Baskin Robbins obsession. / Australians coming in in slippers and a dressing gown for breakfast at Arlette's Kitchen. / A British teenage girl feeding me with mint chocolate Oreos on the train up north. / Giraffes at Steve Irwin Wildlife Park.
- Spending the evening with Gabriel and Jennifer hiking up Mount Ngungun to watch the sunset from up there. The view over the Glasshouse Mountains was breathtaking. I loved the stories she told us about the Aboriginal spirits and climbing up into the cave. She even drove me to my hostel in Caloundra!
- Sitting at the white sandy beach one morning after Dutch style apple cinnamon and cream pancakes for breakfast. A pelican casually flying by. Of course. / The fact that the word haberdashery actually exists and that Australians actively use it. / Drawing the beautiful scenery into my sketchbook at a Greyhound bus stop. Sitting next to a giant kangaroo statue. / A sentimental moment: they played Layla by Eric Clapton and the Dominos on the bus and I thought about my dad who loved that song and had never seen Australia before he died. / Speaking of music - I love Australian radio stations. Selected gems were Prince's Raspberry Beret, I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness, I Try by Macy Gray and The Magic by Joan as Police Woman. /
- Staying at Dave's place in Hervey Bay. I mean, he was a show-off cheapskate and probably a bit sexist, too - but we did have fun at the dinner table and Lucie's cooking was delicious. The best part were the two help-ex Frenchies: one of them gave me his car so I could drive to Rainbow Beach and go diving with the Grey Nurse Sharks at Wolf Rock. I loved the diving instructor (long, dark blonde hair and light green eyes, yes please) and we saw loads of pelicans from up close. Well, and the sharks, even a manta ray. So exciting.
- Whale-watching! I saw whales for the first time in my life. Absolutely majestic. When you're diving you can hear their songs, one instructor even said that his chest vibrates whenever a whale is close by. From the sailing boat we saw a nursing humpback mother with her calf and quite a few males. One would beat his tail fin repeatedly on the surface because I boat came too close for his taste.
- Sailing in the Whitsundays. Seriously, I was very lucky - arrived in Airlie Beach without a booking. Just ran into a random travel agency and boom, there was Mary, selling me a two-night-ticket for a boat leaving in an hour. I met many great people - Peter and the skipper who worked many many years as a diving instructor and told the best stories, the German dudes from Flensburg, Ben from Western Australia (I had a tiny little crush on him), Kelsey from the Isle of Man, Charlotte from the Netherlands. Johanna from Karlsruhe. My highlights: Climbing over the rail, jumping into the ocean right from the boat / meeting George, the toe-sucking giant fish / finding five turtles on a snorkelling tour / Whitehaven Beach - the most gorgeous white silica beach ever, they even filmed parts of Pirates of the Caribbean there; I was able to follow around some lemon sharks and stingrays in the shallow water / feeding seahawks from the boat by throwing pieces of meat up in the air / the swaying motions of the sailing boat make you feel like a baby in the cradle, they make you fall asleep instantaneously / friendly banter with Timo / sleeping in the Orgy Room. Back in Airlie I slept in a room at Magnum's with Charlotte and Johanna and we spent the evening with some others from the boat. We ended up in another hostel's yard where Charlotte was kidnapped by a weird dude who immediately started making out with her.
- The Yongala wreck dive. Amazing, seriously. There was a huge school of rays (mainly sting rays and eagle rays) swimming with the current right above me. And I had a close encounter with a white sea snake... Seriously, what a gorgeous experience. Staying at the diving centre in Alva Beach was pretty nice, too. Riding the van with Patrik, getting ice-cream at the store (when we picked up Iolo from Wales and the German travelling with Sasha the budgie), a sunset walk at the beach (woah, crazy tides - I saw a jeep getting stuck in the sand). Oh, and the night out at the pub in Ayr. Meeting Kirsty, the wombat-whisperer. Wearing weird hats, singing, drinking free Rum Fists all night long.
- Meeting the South-African sailing instructor at Magnum's. Who told me stories about diving for diamonds in Namibia. It's crazy how much you learn and how many interesting people you meet when you're travelling.
- Making my way up to Cairns. Listening to the reef teach lecture about seven-gill sharks. Shopping with Friedericke. And obviously Uncle Brian's waterfall tour. I saw several wild platypuses (platypi?), took hair flip pictures in front of the Millaa Millaa waterfall (and I swam through it - the water was freezing but I loved the prickling feeling on my scalp and watching the water falling down from behind was kinda amazing) and used some boulders as a water slide. We played games and sang along to old songs on the bus and made our way back through the Atherton Tablelands. Adam, the tour guide, was especially great. He made us lick green ants because they really do taste like limes.
- Meeting Johanna once again up in Cairns, spending a last day together (snorkelling on Green Island where I got a glimpse of a snapper turtle but apart from that the Great Barrier Reef was pretty sad to look at in that area).
aug 8 2018 ∞
oct 16 2018 +