Monday, November 05, 2012

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Sharm El Sheikh and about

Here I go again, sun, sea and sand, here I come. Vacation time again and the chance to catch some sun before the winter rolls into Europe.

I arrived with a nice flight at noon, just couldn't find the camera that afternoon. As you can see, I am having my first breakfast, looking out to sea and the beach from the seabreeze restaurant.

After a few of basing in the sun, I decided it was time to do something and I joined the red sea pirates for a spin around the coast. Captain Ahab was there himself and I had a relaxing time. We managed to coax stupid tourists onto the boat and we sold them in across the sea in Saudi Arabia for a good price.

Still, that wasn't enough sightseeing.

After a little check of where I am exactly, I decided to go and see some sights. So what else is there in Sinai, of cource, mount sinai! So off I went, tagging along secretly with a bus full of unsuspecting people who paid a good price and I got to go for naught. Off I went to the St.Katherine Monastry, you know the one where they have them secret books and so on.


The path to enlightment, I guess. Passing the garden full of old olive trees and the orthodox priests tending them, but look there, they have a cute tractor to drive around on. (Shucks, can't find that picture anymore.)

Now guess what this is!?

Yes, the burning bush, as you can see from the fire extinguisher, standing beside it! (You can't, aw, well sorry but takin' pictures is hard for me.) And them russians like it a lot too.

I say, the desert is sure a strange place, everything is more a bit like at sea, they have seadunes and desertships, like this strange donkey here, and such stuff.

On my way back I passed by Dahab which was a bit hippie town like in some parts but still nice.

And they seem to be a bit looney too, but the desert is hot for sure so I guess it's a bit of a tradition too.

Apart from not being allowed to bring your horse to the bar, like in the old west.

See how pretey they made the bed?

During the last days the sun must have gotten to me a bit as I did some silly stuff ...

... taking pictures of the desert garden and it was pricley for sure. I'll be much more carefull the next time.

Just so you know, I met a few good friends of mine, them clown fishes, and we had a good ride around the place.

At the airport I did look surprised when I met "them" about to go snorkeling.

See, I was in Asia, as the Sinai is part of it and not part of Africa. If you look closely when at the airport, across the runway, you can see Saudia Arabia. across the Gulf of Aqaba, that's true!

That's all this time.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Here is a greeting card for U ...

.... from Innsbruck with a greeting from my bear friends.
jepp, Austria (Österreich)

Sunday, July 22, 2012

"sea bear" on the adriatic ocean

At last I had the chance to be a sea bear and travel the high seas. I have to admit, the adriatic sea close to shore is quite calm, which was great to relax.

It all started with a train ride to the huge Frankfurt / Main Airport, I never understood why we had to go there instead of flying from Munich, but it wass first class there and back and was a relaxed start into the vacation, even though I had to get up at 2:30 AM, which definetly was a ghastly hour of night.

Here I am sitting on the magnificently restored city wall of Dubrovnik in Croatia at the Adriatic Sea, waiting for the church bells to ring and glancing into the old towns harbor, which you can see on the left.

Here I am obviously lending a helping hand to our captain on our the boat Leonardo, every time he needed some time off the wheel.

On the island of Hvar I took a rest on the very old castle at the top of town. The oldest parts of this castle are from 1000 BC, the newer ones from 1400 AC

I hope you can see me on this picture, I am sitting on the wall, above the sign. It really was so scary down there that I didn't manage to take a picture, I ran back out as fast as my paws would take me. It was huge for me but for humans it must have been awfully cramped in there.

Here I found a friend (of my yellow ruberducky bathtub friend at home), waiting for new customers to arrive. The rooms where always very pretty and cozy.

Seeing food and eating sea food is quite the same here, as it is so fresh, that one feels, that the fish just maybe has to be killed a second time, after it was grilled and flopped on the plate, cause it is so fresh and juicy.

Sitting by the sea and enjoying the sundowners dinner, watching boats return to the harbour from a day out at sea.

As you can see, the nears here have respectable jobs, working for the local croatiian ice food company. Each bear has it's own picture, one for frozen fish, holding a fish, the one for bakeries seen here, aso.

This vacation was excellent and I wouldn't mind to return to this country for another boating week anytime.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Steel for coal

I joined another outing to a special place I did not understand.
When we arrived, I saw this and didn't understand anything. Why did we come here to go and look at an oversized, strange and rickety looking ironing board?

Well, I did understand this thingamagiggy after my visit to the museum. This was a huge coal excarvator transport system, rather like the baggage conveyor belts from the airport.

So you can understand this a bit better, here is a cross cut through the open surface mining pit.

The big thingy in the middle is the F60 conveyor, only here the pit was filled with water, to become a camping with lake park. Lots of steel to move the dug out coal to be moved away.



Up and Up
Here you can see the future lake.

Here are the engines to move the huge beast, quite unbelievable.

Looking down from the very top, back down the conveyor belt.

A view from the side and top, looking at the track laying train at the very bottom on the right.

Here I am at the very end and right at the top, which is at the very right on the first picture.

And here I'm back at the bottom, having a look from the other end. If you want to see more, you can visit the website: F60


And this is my new friend, Lona. She was waiting for me to go outside, as you can obviously see from the look on her face.

Noodle factory in Riesa

 Recently I decided to find out how noodles are made, and since I was not far from Riesa in Saxony, Germany, I visited the factory.

Here I am kneading the noodle dough with a rolling pin.

Here I am with noodle shaping die (Nudelmatrize) The noodle dough is squeezed through these dies which shape the dough and then it is cut off, this happen very quickly so that the noodles fall down and then are dried slowly.

They make a lot of noodles and forms.
.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Medival dinner

Just recently I had been at a great dinner. It was a special occasion for my peer, his 40th birthday I think. Anyways, I found this a very fun way of getting to know the old times, of around 1550 in this part of the world.

Here I am, holding the menu card.



I hope you can  read it, but mind you, it's written in old medieval German.



I did get quite thirsty after all that yummy food and took a lot of gulps from this great, old style, dark beer. It was very tasty, Germans would say: "süffig"


I mean, look at me, anyone can see it's great!

Saturday, April 07, 2012

New best friend

.I want to introduce you all today to my new best friend:

She is called L. The rest of her name is secret.

If she is peacefull, you will find her to be like this.
She is still quite young and bouncy, so sadly I can't ride on her back as yet, but maybe later when she is older.


Most of the time though, you will see her like this,


jumpin' about all the time until the battery runs out. (Well, it seems to be like that, give her a short recharge nap, and back she is, bouncin' about .)

Saturday, March 24, 2012

der Berg ruft / the mountain becons.

I had a few days of time on my hands and decided that it was time for a spontaneous break, at the end of this years winter and beginning of spring time. Even the clocks where going to switch from winter to summer time this Sunday, so everyone was "springy" this week.

Here is my hotel, an old family castle from a rich miner family. Obviously I was staying in the old rooms and in one of the corner towers, not visible from here though. The night picture was taken from there, it had a grand view of the hills and mountains. The place had a strange name "Fieberbrunn", but I was feeling great.

As you know me, I like to do things my own way. I started out at the top, well, nearly at the top. At the Streuböden - Mittelstation, 2140 meters above sea level, at least that is what is says on the sign behind me where the cable-car stopped for the first time. One can switch to another cable-car here and get up higher, I had other plans though.
It was very pretty here, the view was great, mountains all around and it was cozy to sit here, on those stupid flat sheep or maybe goats. I guess they fell down the mountain and the people up here re-use them, as seat warmers. Makes sense, as who is so stupid as to climb around where they do, I am talking of the goats. They just have to fall of the sheer rock they jump around on, some time or other, right?

I figured it would be fun to go on a winter hike; not up, the hard way; but downwards as this was my first winter hike. I agreed to that some people accompany me, but rather as a safety precaution than in need. Now you may wonder why a bear like me is up and jumping around at this time of year? First of all I abandoned this silly stuff with hibernation, it´s what my computer dose but not me! And anyways, the big bears are all up and running all around the woods already, feeling hungry and all, so be careful trapsying around the woods, I can smell it! (And read about it on Google News, so who you going to believe?)
The snow cover was about one meter high, as there where meadow posts stickin´ out of it, which where ripped out in some places by the snow pushing down the mountain side.

I did have to "chill out" on my way down, there really was a lot of snow on this roof.

In the evening I sat on the window sill and looked out over the castles courtyard until it got too cold.
 These people here are ski crazy, they even ski at night with lights along the downhill ski run.