One Year Home

May 10, 2017 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

Not at all an unusual day, today.

We had our more intense school day of the week, then I got somewhat busy with my online freelance job, ordered parts for the car repair, read through scripts for the upcoming stage plays, made some wondrous guacamole with mum and dad, listened to a lot of music, looked forward to going to work and being with my colleagues and still. Still, this day is a special one.

Today, exactly one year ago, I arrived. Back in Germany. After 17 months. Long months, well lived.
In all the everyday struggle you hardly get to thinking back.

In this past year I ‘arrived’ in many ways. Have not only found a cool new job in shape of the apprenticeship, but also a company that I can call myself a part of.
I picked up some hobbies, got to know anew and to value some aspects of live, have traveled (smaller style) and kept on sharing it all with you.

Of course not as high frequented as back then, as every other day there were new things to experience. These days, my routine and also my plans have become more long-term-ish. And it wasn’t to be expected otherwise.

I want to make it about a picture, which illustrates my trail of thought well:

In the middle of December 2014 I stood in this exact place for the first time.

Back then I walked up Mount Victoria in Wellington and always marveled at the fantastic view you got when surpassing a crest on your way up.

As are these days not always made from sugar, but there are plenty of these crests along the way, after which you are presented with a splendorous panorama. And I want to rise up, want to see more of them and to go up the mountain to the very summit.
Up there, you can stay for a while, take in the view and enjoy. And from that point, you can look out for the next mountain you want to climb…

You will hear from me. 🙂

Skiing School Trip II

Apr 8, 2017 | After The Great Journey, Photos, Trips

You read right: The second one!

But if you look around my blog for the first one, you might be left empty-handed.
As the same took place long before. This blog began at the end of my first apprenticeship back then.
And the week I am about to tell you all about has actually happened just like that already.

For we went on a school trip. After a better half of a year into the apprenticeship we went to South Tirol to partake in the late skiing season! Just as we did back in the day…

One difference there was though, for sure: My camera was with me and I made good use of it!

Rest stop ambiance.

 

 

After a long bus ride we finally arrived in Ahrntal and moved into the fine rooms. 5 days we then spent in mostly harsh sunlight on the slopes.
The weather was almost too nice, as snow likes to melt. You can picture it; it is not as nice underneath your skis. Nevertheless, it was a splendid blast of a time, to shed the dust from the skills with the slats.

One day I felt as good, back from the slopes, as to have myself a little walk. Come with me!

The loud chatter of these cuties might be the last thing you want to hear in your afternoon nap. 🙂

Only at the end of it I came to notice the name of this hiking track. How fitting! 😀
(Translation: Way of Reflexion)

What time is it??

Of course my camera had to go to the top of the mountain, how else would I capture all those impressions?

It pays off to look out towards the valley inside the gondola.

Even musical accompaniment was provided!

This day, we stayed in the mountains to the late hour, because of the hike at dusk.

Already before that I had noticed the appropriately brute snow grooming machinery.
They are in charge of reshaping the ridden slopes to be all smooth and hard in the next morning.
And they day’s work I wanted to capture by all means:

 

 

This is what it looks like, then… 🙂

Until the shadows had reached the terrace, we stayed outside. After dinner, we went on our way into the valley. Where in colder months you can go down hill on a sled, we hiked down on foot in the end…

 

 

And here the spectacular picture of proof:

YEEEEEAAAAAH!!

So, this trip was a striking success! From a photogenic point of view, and also from the classmateship perspective. For you get closer, when spending more time together than those few hours in school only. 🙂

So, this trip was a striking success! From a photogenic point of view, and also from the classmateship perspective. For you get closer, when spending more time together than those few hours in school only. 🙂

You could really think about starting an apprenticeship solely for skiing trips like this. 😀 As it is worth it!

Pictures from Zurich

Feb 28, 2017 | After The Great Journey, Photos, Trips

February is going towards its end and I don’t want to let him go without a blog blog post.
The highlight of this short month was very much a weekend, which didn’t take place in Germany, but in Switzerland.

After New Zealand my group of friends has spread over a vast area, so that meeting often come with visits of bigger cities. As was this time. And you can come with me on the picture journey to Zurich:

 

 

Imprinted Impressions

Jan 30, 2017 | After The Great Journey, Photos

This post is the first of its kind on my blog, as it is a product review. NO other object would be more fitting than a photobook, don’t you think?

The company Saal-Digital gave me the opportunity to test their photobook and I made use of it!

It is a nice thing, to HAVE pictures and to share them online, but imprinted you give them a whole new significance.

As much as I usually like photography, a photobook of the own pictures you don’t capture every day…

This now is the result. My most loved pictures of many lovely places on paper. As this is my very first photobook, I will just tell from my perspective, how it works with Saal-Digital.

So you begin with installing the software you install on your computer.
The same offers many functions for any kind of product, of which the photobook might just be the most complex.
The process is quite simple, you just drag the images from the proprietary file explorer to the desired page, all intuitive. Cutting and pasting works like a charm, too, as does the feature to mirror to pictures on a centerfold. But all that mighty the internal file explorer is not, so I effectively chose the pictures from the Windows file explorer. Maybe, on the other hand, I just have a ton of pictures. 😀

 

 

I designed my first photobook in a puristic way and left out twirls and text entirely. Colour and print quality are most fine, I do not doubt, as far as my inexperienced eye can evaluate that. Even more, as the images out of my small-sensor camera let their limited detail show. I am happy not to have chosen a bigger format. For that you need bigger pictures. Also impressive are the black areas. For they are just black.

 

 

One point of convenience I didn’t notice until my family pointed it out to me: Not every supplier of photobook lets you design the fronts inside covers.
Also, you get the option to remove the Saal-Digital bar code for an additional fee.
In the end I missed the chance to see all pages back to back. You do get the scroll bar to browse through the pages, but I couldn’t make it full-frame. As rearranging the pictures between any page would be the icing of the designer’s cake.

 

 

 

 

With the cover I went for the cushioned variant. Now the book feels appealingly soft and every beholder liked to turn it over a second time in his hands. 🙂

Bottom line:
A splendid product, which is determined only by the own pictures and design ideas, in the end. Delivery was very fast as well.
Now I want to put more pictures of mine on paper. Yay!

Change

Jan 15, 2017 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

For 8 months I now live the life of a homecomer. That is not even half of the time period I spent abroad. It was evident that there would be much change. Compared to the time before, compared to the time over there and the life right now. The life after.

Just as the new year began, it made me think. Where have I been in all of 2016? You can read up on it. From the most beautiful end of the world, through an exciting continent after the other, towards the familiar home my way has led me.
Where will I be in 2017? In my home town. In an apprenticeship. And that won’t be the last year of that kind. After many months of short-term plans, my life is put on rail tracks once again. In a blog post from 3 years ago I said it with the same words already. But back then I didn’t know about the opposite. About the life without rail tracks.

In New Zealand I didn’t have these commitments at all. Places, people lifestyles you could change just like that and of course keep the best of it. Wellington, the life in the flat and my newly won friends are most precious to me to this day.
But even these commitments had to be let go sooner or later.  When you moved on, moved out or circumstances changed. The best thing about it is meeting again. Either over there or here… Some things in our lives change, but when the strongest ropes prevail, everything stays as is. Unchanged.

Every decision you make, brings a trail of change. Back then I decided to move in to a flat and I got friends for life out of it. We set out on a short weekend in the South Island with some au pairs who hadn’t ever met before then. To this day we are true friends. And Wellington got quite a number of hearty stories out of it! The au pair family I have left, alongside Wellington. But only to become friends with many more in the South Island, get into some nice work places and live in an amazing flat one more time. When I traveled with my parents and with Elvis, I got to see many places and people again, before actually moving on.

Many homecomers see all the differences between the life abroad and the life ahead directly from the start. And many have trouble fitting in again. I didn’t have a hard time to re-accustom to ‘Mum’s bosom’. There wasn’t so much of a change that wouldn’t let me live the life I had before.
And the flow was there, to see the people, to tell many times how I liked New Zealand and most of all, deciding for a career path, which you would like to walk on for a longer time.

Now I have been walking this path and come to notice that this might pretty much be the last greater decision I will have taken for some time.

Do you remember, how I longed for a regular life at the end of my time in New Zealand?
Now I have it. And now it is just this element of ever-present change, which I come to miss.

I know that for my career it is a good thing, to have a regular life. To concentrate. To live consistency. To have frames, to have rail tracks.
And you notice in my way of blogging that variety and number of the posts have ceased to some extent. Among other things, I continue the blog exactly because of this, to let you see how life changes.

 

This is my bog posts about the subject ‘homecoming’. Of course I have been home for a long time and I can’t seem to grasp it anymore, having traveled for such a long period. But now the meaning begins to get to me. And with these broad subjects I like it more, to report from the ‘big picture’ perspective, rather than out of the moment itself. Especially forming a conclusion like this.
But never fear, this is but an interim conclusion! Because as much less change I go through right now; there is still a chance for anything to happen.
And not for the least, you have always a say in this process yourself…