phuuhh, a lot has happended in june. so i will give a quick update:

1st weekend of june saskia and i went to london and oxford. pictures can be viewed at flickr. london was very spanish - food, music, cloths style and people in the hostel were from spain and the language was to be heared everywhere. so we spent a great but exhausting weekend in the pubs and in camdon and oxford.

there at flickr you can also find some pictures of the spacekidheadcup in may and some people on the chair in front of the library after one long night out...


on the 16th we had 10th class reunion in suhl in the (in)famous pub thoshi's station.

thats it for today. its summer and one ought to enjoy the sun.

he dicho ya que el 23 de juno seria sant juan, entonces estaba ayer. mientras esté otra vez capaz a escribir lo intentaré.

every two or three weeks people here need a good excuse to celebrate something. thursday 23th of june, it comes to enjoy St Juan. it is one of the shortest nights of the year and if there is one around people spent it at the beaches. all night long there is music, bonfires and fireworks at the coast and in the cities and the night is supposed to be magic.
fortunately i left the city with some friends and we woke through the night on on of the smaller beaches near castelfefels where we had a lovely party with some other people we met there but didn't have to cope with wast crowds and the disadvantages of there being such crowds. (watching your things all the time, being threatened by firework-throwing-party-people, not being able to move and a general loss of free space, screaming pakistanis selling beer, agua fria, cola light...)
to give a general summery of the night; i found myself like being in a baccadi-commercial on the beach. people were dancing around fires, having a midnight-swim in the warm and calm sea or jumping over the fire - it is said, it will bring luck. under the yellow-orange moon that was reflected by the water we danced, talked, dreamed trough the short night. this sounds quite a bit too perfect, but i swear it was like this, a bit too perfect. maybe some drinks and the like softened my view on things additionally.
little by little than the sun rose again and slowly temperatures conerted themselfes from cool over warm to hot, staying at level for the rest of the day.

... ok, looking forward to next st juan. esto que me gustaba montón. de verdad

... ach, und so langsam könnte die knallerei auch mal wieder aufhören, ist ja schlimmer als silvester in deutschland. ist schliesslich schon ein tag danach und nach 2 wochen böllergeschiesse, hab ich mich ein wenig sattgehört ...

finaly i escaped the city for one day. no traffic, just some tourists, no noise and hurry. went to montserat to climb a bit with some friends.
can't describe the landscape, towers of stone resembling the ones in the saxionian "elbsandsteingebirge", bright as the limestone in "dolormiten". in the background you see the pyrenees with snow already on their tops and at the same time feel the sun on your back and on the stone you are climbing.
a famous monastery is there too and a few others that atract the tourists. you can of course climb there too.

the stone is strange. its some kind of conglomerate and consists out of limestone, sandstone, porphyre and various othere types of stone that are bound together in something that looks and feels like concrete. when climbing, you always get the feeling that those stones will break out of the wall but they are quite solid. strange strucktures though.
it seems to be easy, is good secured, is not at all sloppy but consists out of sloppers so it counsumes a lot of strengths. i found it quite hard but the landscape is breathtaking and it gives you reason to practice...

one out of many but at the same time one of the biggest fiestas in barcelona is mercè. it took place last weekend and lasted 4 days. while friday is a holiday it starts on thursday and goes on till sunday night. it combines folklore and modern stuff and is more or less a accumulation of many other festivals as the BAM (Barcelona acció musical) or the Festival de Músics de Carrer. the city just doesn't sleep during mercè and the metro is running all night long.

At mercè there you'll meet Giants in the streets and castellers. to explain it a little: people are forming towers or castles out of themselfs up to 5 flights high. on the bottem strong men, on the top lightweighted children they are quite impressive and sometimes they crash. unfortunately i didn't see any of them, i rather went to
concerts. Still there is a picture of some giants i took.

Yes, the concerts. i expected something but not something that big and good. Almost every place in town was cramped with people standing in front of stages and were enjoying themselves while dancing, drinkin and chatting to each other. one of the biggest concerts took place in placa catalunia and it was one of the best ones i've seen for a long time. You won't probably know the artists: La Mala Rodriguez and Macaco. In between they came up with a remarkably good dj for the pause. Did i write earlier that they only listen to bad music over here? This night i learned
the better. For more information see the website of the
mercè.

Oh, and than one of the most important things is of course the correfoc. this is catalunian for "running fire" and this is to be unterstood literally. people and kids are carrying heyforcs and sticks with lots of pyrotechnic articles stuck on them who were cirling and firespitting while people are dancing and taking showers in a rain
of sparkles. they are of course all propperly dressed up for this; whiches hats, mummed and hooded whith whatever and with painted faces. there are dragons and rats in a long parade and there is firework everywhere. they say it is meant to chase the deamons and dragons out of the city and it has to work quite well. its noisy, dangerous and fun to watch. of course, when you see something really good like this you either don't carry your camera with you or the battery is empty. i experienced the latter, so i can only refer to the website:

http://www.bcn.es/merce

the rest of the time i (yes, i admit it) drunk al lot and had some
fun. enjoy your kirmes in germany and especially the zwiebelmarkt in
weimar.

i am still and always was a big fan of the ilmpark in weimar. green meddows with tangled paths that make you feel the parc was twice es big as it is indeed.

now take away all the green green grass, add some hills and a stunning view over the city, some enchanted buildings, a museum of gaudi and some arcards made
out of rough stone instead of tiny caves on the sides of the park like in weimar.
instead of the kubus, imagine a big hall full of majestic pillars. than you get an area full of mediteranian vegetation which is of course worlds apart from resembling the ilmpark in the slightes way. well of course. but how could one explain when one
only knew the ilmpark bevor.

well, it may be a bit harder than it was in weimar, but it is not imposible at all. i even believe it to be a task much more easier than finding a nice room in cities like munich or hamburg.

it took me 3 days to find something nice and as a handy side effect i got to know the basic structure of barcelona on my journeys.
a website that turned out to be realy helpfull is
www.habitagejove.com

on the other hand it was impossible to find somthing in adwanced when i was still in germany. long term planing does not seem to be in favourite of some spanish people, at least not, when it comes to renting a room. every time i asked if i could visit somthing the next week or so i got a: ¿eres
aqui? ¡llamas commo eres aqui en barcelona!
but the better this way. i don't like planing in advance much either.