G'Day folks
After my great great video (that only a few were able to understand haha) I had to take a break for a couple of days but now I got a few minutes to write a new post. Unfortunately it's really only a few minutes as I am at my band rehearsal waiting for my turn right now. The "big camp" has nearly started, tonight is the official opening ceremony and everyone is dropping in at the moment. I don't really know how many as I have been rehearsing for nearly 6 hours today. We had quite a lot to do the last days and we volunteers got great jobs from the camp chiefs such as... cleaning all the toilets in the area and put up 12 giant tents while getting eaten up by mosquitos and millions of other insects trying not to melt or dehydrate in the heat. Yeah poor me i know ;) But we still had some fun and went for a swim every day before lunch and dinner.
That will probably not be the case today or tomorrow as I have a bandage around my foot ... I thought it was about time to get one :)
But i only managed to come in second in the first aid tent before the camp even started (there was one before me that had a giant mosquito bite but the nurse couldn't really do anything about that, so I was actually the first "real" case :)) Yesterday night we all decided to do the "survival track" a newly built obstacle course (not the one we made, one that's a bit harder...more creeping through the mud and climbing over 3,5m high walls involved here ;) ) So we were about 20 people that didn't have anything else to do at 10.30 pm than to do that track. So there I was, standing in a creek trying to fight my way through all the crocodiles and piranhas... oh no, that was another story ;) no, i just slipped off a stone and got a nice cut on my ankle, I didn't really feel it until I saw that my foot was slightly covered in blood when I got to my room. So at some point last night when I couldn't sleep because my silly foot started aching I decided it might be smart to let the nurse take a look at it and prevent any further infection, so no swimming for me for the next days :( or at least not when everyone's looking :)
But a sore foot doesn't keep me from being really excited about an awesome camp; the weather has been great over the past days and our band is rocking so it just has to be good ;) I am also going to meet nearly everyone that I had contact with throughout the 6 months I have been here, there are for example people I met on the seminar in Budapest in April and others from a big scout meeting in May and then all the volunteers from Örebro of course, so it's a nice chance to have a kind of review over the time I have spent here in Sweden before I leave, even if that's still a bit away.
So I will probably not write anything or be online much during this week as I am trying to enjoy as much of the camp as possible. (I am partly staff member, so there's also a bit of work waiting for me here)

I will write how everything (like our concert infront of all the 1048 participants) went when I'm back
Enjoy the summer and the sun (for the ones in the northern hemisphere) and keep on rocking ;)

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Haha! Neues video neues video neues video neues video!!
(that means new video in german, repeated 4 times in an excited voice :) )
It's in german and without subtitles (sorry - i'm lazy and should actually be working) for those who don't understand it : learn german or just look at the pictures ;) I'm showing a bit of the place i'm working at and pull some lame jokes - nothing special haha
I should learn to look on my display a bit more often, but meh, looking at the trees is also nice :)

have fun!

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Me again
Late one this is, but eventhough it is quarter past midnight and I am about to fall asleep everything's good. We had a bit of a motivation-low at work and a fair bit of stress this afternoon when we (the volunteers plus our boss) had to take care of about 70 people that wanted dinner. the people that usually work in the kitchen prepared everything and left after lunch. What we didn't see coming was that we were running out of food quite fast so it got a little hectic which was actually quite fun though, maybe not that amusing for the hungry people standing in the queue waiting for food but I had fun running through the kitchen with the other volunteers while our boss was chillaxing somewhere else - very professional he is...
well we managed and after a while the big pile of dirty dishes seemed to get smaller and at arounnd 8pm a big bowl of ice cream was waiting for everyone so that made it up a bit :)
now it's only one week to go to the camp and we will get two new volunteers on monday that will help us a bit with all the things that need to be done. We weren't doing much of these things this weekend as we had a big group of line dancers here (strange kind of dance...) that needed to be taken care of. But we were actually quite glad about that as we all got a bit tired of buidling our obstacle course which just seemed to be jinxed, we ran out of screws when we needed them, the batteries of the cordless screwdriver didn't load properly over night and were useless the next morning and when everything was fixed the rain started to pour down. We will see how things will be on Monday.
I also made a new video - hooray!!! with a camera that had an awful inbuilt microphone so you can't understand a word of what i'm saying - Boooh!! so you will have to be a bit more patient until you get to see this place as I am waiting for good weather and free time at the same moment .. nearly impossible ;)
other than that we are watching gangs of new york right now, but are about to fall asleep so i am keeping myself awake by writing this. Although I am running out of things to say (i know that sounds a bit unrealistic) but i somehow don't think that you are interested in reading that I digged 5 holes for flagpoles that were half a meter deep each haha yeah I'm strong ;) Ok I will stop here, I think it's about as effective writing a blog in the middle of the night as it is making a video at 6am in the morning
so good night everyone!!

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Just a quick one before I start work. Everything's great here, two days ago the other volunteers arrived and everything's a bit more fun here now. We are 5 hard-working scouts now ;) and got loads of things to do before the big camp starts in two weeks. At the moment we're building an obstacle course - like the ones in the army movies, everyone that's not nice on the camp has to do that 50 times :)
Other than that the confirmation-kids and their leaders are gone now which makes it pretty quiet here, but we're doing our best to work on that. I had a very lazy day off on Sunday as my plans of riding my bike to "town" were ruined a bit by the tons of rain that came cown every 20 minutes. So instead I just went for a swim in the approx. 13°C cold water while the rain was pouring down on me - after ten minutes I decided that was enough excersise and stupidity for the day and chillaxed in the big manor - all on my own as nobody was there. My boss went home for the day and all the other workers didn't have a reason to come as there was no one there anyway. Only one of them, who lives on the grounds popped up every once in a while. He's about 75 so great company ;) He wasn't much of a help though when some people walked up to my enquiring about vacant rooms. My boss didn't leave me his mobile number (of course) and the office was locked - hooray! After about 10 minutes running around getting wrong keys, right keys, wrong telephone numbers an not working phones the guests just decided they will look around somewhere else. I was a bit more prepared for the Dutch family that showed up in the evening wanting to hire canoes but then decided to just drive back to their camp site and hire them there as they are staying next to a little river (perfectly made for canoeing) and wouldn't have to drive the canoes up to the water like they would if they hired our boats. Yes I made some nice customer-experiences during the last days ;)
On Monday the prep team of the camp (www.summercamp08.com) came (same camp where I will be playing bass in the "camp-band", we also got a website Los Campidos)and talked about all the things they want to have done within the next two weeks - and that's lots! From building obstacle courses to billboards that should be nearly everywhere in the area to simple grass trimming. I started with the latter yesterday and can now hardly move my shoulders as they are so sore but no - i'm not whinging everything's great ;)
will try to put up a video of everything here soon, will see where I can fit it in my tight schedule ;)
Alright, breakfast time now! Catch ya later and have some great summer days with lots of sun like here in Sweden (haha)

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Here’s a little update again. The last two days have been quite good. My plan after my last post to do a bit more work instead of lying around in the sun worked out really well. I was asked if I wanted to help at the rock climbing wall and belay (control the rope of the one that’s climbing in case he falls or wants to come down) while my Danish friends were trying to get to the top of the wall. As I haven’t done that in a while and used different equipment then I pretty much just sat in the hall for about two hours and had a look how everything worked. As I am not the tallest person either I couldn’t really help as the boys were a slightly bit taller and heavier than me so that would have probably just swept me off my feet. But I managed to convince the youngest one in the group who didn’t want to climb in the beginning to give it a go so that I had something to do, too. After this quite relaxing morning one of the highlights of the day took place. I got to clear a path in the forest with a kind of mini-lawn mower that you carry around and that cuts everything down that’s in its way. So there I was; standing in the middle of the forest with a helmet and ear guards fighting my way through the bush… I must admit it felt pretty cool ;) The thing was running on a little fuel motor that I couldn’t start myself in the beginning which is why I had one of the other workers behind me looking out that I didn’t cut down a tree by accident (I’m sure I would have managed that with that little beast haha) and started the motor again when it died. This happened quite a lot, especially in the beginning because there were just so many plants and they all just seemed to be there to get stuck in the blades. After a while it went really well though which I regretted a bit after a few minutes because I then started to notice how strenuous the whole job really was and that I am still allergic to pollen and grass and everything. But with sweat running down my forehead and scratches all over my arms I kept on going ;) Was a cool experience but I then decided that that was enough physical work for the day and continued to translate some Swedish texts to English (interesting stuff, I now know how to find Orion in the sky and how many light years the Northern Star is away from us … ). In the evening one of the kids got baptized in the chapel. The priest then announced the whole group to be godparents and the boy came to me after the service and said “cool, then I can even call someone in Germany now if I need help and then you have to come to Sweden” I thought that was quite cute :)

The day ended quite late as the leaders wanted to send their kids on a night walk and scare them a bit, so I helped them and stayed up until 3 am. These kinds of activities are a bit useless in Sweden during the summer as it should be really dark if you want to scare them properly, but even I could still see quite a bit and when we were done it started to get light again already, but the kids had fun anyway.
It took a fair bit of motivation this morning to get up at 8 am but I somehow found the way to the dining hall and ate some breakfast without having a nap in my cereal bowl.


It was raining a lot today so I spent most of the time in the little room with the activity boxes to translate the instructions in them and helped a bit to decorate everything for the confirmation-celebration tomorrow (emphasis on “a bit” as I was slightly tired). Today the first parents of the kids arrived and it’s been nice to see how they enjoyed seeing their families again after 3 weeks and how excited they all are about tomorrow. It stirs up some nice memories, as the atmosphere here is reminding me a bit of our last weeks at school. Even if I have only known them for barely a week, I can see that the kids here have been growing together as a group really well during their stay and it will be sad to see them part tomorrow afternoon. In the end it is always hard to leave a group in which you have been so close with everyone, regardless if you have known each other for 3 weeks or 3 years, the feeling of not knowing when and if you will ever see the others again is still the same. And you know that even if you all come together once more one day, it will probably never be the same unique atmosphere again.

But, as Idus Scott Taylor once wrote: "Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone. And do not trouble about the future for it is yet to come. Live in the present and make it so beautiful, that it will be worth remembering."

With these words I say good night and wish everyone a happy 7-Eleven Day :) (if you missed it, don't worry it will come again on the 7th of november!)

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Here’s a little update again. The last two days have been quite good. My plan after my last post to do a bit more work instead of lying around in the sun worked out really well. I was asked if I wanted to help at the rock climbing wall and belay (control the rope of the one that’s climbing in case he falls or wants to come down) while my Danish friends were trying to get to the top of the wall. As I haven’t done that in a while and used different equipment then I pretty much just sat in the hall for about two hours and had a look how everything worked. As I am not the tallest person either I couldn’t really help as the boys were a slightly bit taller and heavier than me so that would have probably just swept me off my feet. But I managed to convince the youngest one in the group who didn’t want to climb in the beginning to give it a go so that I had something to do, too. After this quite relaxing morning one of the highlights of the day took place. I got to clear a path in the forest with a kind of mini-lawn mower that you carry around and that cuts everything down that’s in its way. So there I was; standing in the middle of the forest with a helmet and ear guards fighting my way through the bush… I must admit it felt pretty cool ;) The thing was running on a little fuel motor that I couldn’t start myself in the beginning which is why I had one of the other workers behind me looking out that I didn’t cut down a tree by accident (I’m sure I would have managed that with that little beast haha) and started the motor again when it died. This happened quite a lot, especially in the beginning because there were just so many plants and they all just seemed to be there to get stuck in the blades. After a while it went really well though which I regretted a bit after a few minutes because I then started to notice how strenuous the whole job really was and that I am still allergic to pollen and grass and everything. But with sweat running down my forehead and scratches all over my arms I kept on going ;) Was a cool experience but I then decided that that was enough physical work for the day and continued to translate some Swedish texts to English (interesting stuff, I now know how to find Orion in the sky and how many light years the Northern Star is away from us … ). In the evening one of the kids got baptized in the chapel. The priest then announced the whole group to be godparents and the boy came to me after the service and said “cool, then I can even call someone in Germany now if I need help and then you have to come to Sweden” I thought that was quite cute :)

The day ended quite late as the leaders wanted to send their kids on a night walk and scare them a bit, so I helped them and stayed up until 3 am. These kinds of activities are a bit useless in Sweden during the summer as it should be really dark if you want to scare them properly, but even I could still see quite a bit and when we were done it started to get light again already, but the kids had fun anyway.
It took a fair bit of motivation this morning to get up at 8 am but I somehow found the way to the dining hall and ate some breakfast without having a nap in my cereal bowl.


It was raining a lot today so I spent most of the time in the little room with the activity boxes to translate the instructions in them and helped a bit to decorate everything for the confirmation-celebration tomorrow (emphasis on “a bit” as I was slightly tired). Today the first parents of the kids arrived and it’s been nice to see how they enjoyed seeing their families again after 3 weeks and how excited they all are about tomorrow. It stirs up some nice memories, as the atmosphere here is reminding me a bit of our last weeks at school. Even if I have only known them for barely a week, I can see that the kids here have been growing together as a group really well during their stay and it will be sad to see them part tomorrow afternoon. In the end it is always hard to leave a group in which you have been so close with everyone, regardless if you have known each other for 3 weeks or 3 years, the feeling of not knowing when and if you will ever see the others again is still the same. And you know that even if you all come together once more one day, it will probably never be the same unique atmosphere again.

But, as Idus Scott Taylor once wrote: "Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone. And do not trouble about the future for it is yet to come. Live in the present and make it so beautiful, that it will be worth remembering."

With these words I say good night and wish everyone a happy 7-Eleven Day :) (if you missed it, don't worry it will come again on the 7th of november!)

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Me again!!!
I thought as it might be a bit difficult to keep up with e-mailing or messaging on facebook or msn or icq or through the other million ways of communicating these days i will try to write a small update every other day or whenever I think I have something to say (.. ALL the time :D ).
Ok, so another day has gone by at paradise Ransberg ;) and i still like it a lot. (Ah by the way: the non-germans won, i'll write in english from now on, until someone complains, then I might switch to korean or ... my own special language that the people in nadino-mania speak :) ) However.. I met the other volunteer too, she'll leave tomorrow though, but she's nice and doesn't bite :) My fire-protection-security-how-not-to-burn-your-house-down-course went well I'd say. Instead of 5 hours I was done in 2 1/2 which is what I call "effective working" ;) The Danish scouts didn't seem to keen on talking to me, so I talked a bit more (which I had no problem with) and we were done quite fast. I then started to chat a bit with two workers (that have worked here for quite a long time) to ask for some "physical" work (My aim is to get to drive the big tractor here hehe ) so I ended up in the flowerbeds weeding. Not the coolest thing to do, but in my head I kept on picturing me driving a big red tractor so that kept me going!
At the moment there is a group of around 12 kids here. They have been here for 3 weeks now and are going to have their confirmation on Saturday. It's quite nice to see their little "traditions" they have every day, such as singing a grace before the meals and a short meditation / prayer / singing circle in the evenings too, where they all sit in a circle in the chapel (it's a scout chapel, so it's a nice and cozy one ;) ) with candles on the floor and repeat what has happened during the day or read a short story. I'm joining them most of the time, because it's a nice atmosphere . I was also supposed to help out a bit today when they went out on small floats that they built and follow them in a canoe in case something happened. But we then decided that they'd be fine on their own so instead I spent half the day lying in the grass and dozing a bit - I got the feeling I'm quite lucky with my voluntary "work" in Sweden ;)
Tomorrow I will actually do some "real" work though, as it's actually quite fun (ok, i've only been here for two days haha).
I'm also quite impressed by the kids as they iron their scoutshirts after washing them... well they probably have to but anyhow :)
Tonight we also had a match of "soap soccer" where you pretty much stand on a big plastic cover-thing covered in soap and water and then try to play soccer, which usually ends up in a big foam-party-kind-of-fight and is absolutely hilarious :)
So, quite a "busy" day today and looaddss of work...
I will go to bed now as I don't want to sleep through my alarm again (well it actually didn't go off at all because my phone died at some point last night).

Peace, love and soap for everyone ;)

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I just wanted to post a quick note that I got to Ransberg safely (I had my doubts about it on the way haha). Ransberg is the scoutbase I will be working at for a month. Really nice place (www.ransberg.se) and eventhough it was raining nearly all day long I love it. The bus ride took (as i wrote in my previous post) about 4 hours and started at 7.45 this morning. Lazy as I am I told myself yesterday that I can get up earlier in the morning to finish my packing and all the other little things that need to be done (putting up the couch, buying breakfast on the way to the bus) well that worked out pretty fine actually, getting up at 6.45 is not one of my favourite things to do, but I managed to get the bus in time and some breakfast, too. And I only forgot... well a few things, like the fruit I wanted to eat on the bus - well I always wanted to know what they'd look like after beeing in the fridge for a month :) (anyone that wants to break in to my apartment: there's no money but yummy green apples ;) ). And I also learned that it can be helpful to have a look outside the window before you leave. Just because some people say it is summer this doesn't have to mean that it's actually warm outside. And the fact that it didn't rain the day before also doesn't mean that it won't rain today either. Well however, I got to the bus, in time (and slightly.. wet... soaked would also be appropriate I guess). Oh, and yes, I did consider taking out my jacket out of my backpack, but that would have meant that I had to take everything out of my bag, then put everything in again, and still be able to close the bloody thing as my jacket was somewhere down at the bottom - of course where else should it be!? Well the bus was heated so, no worries. I only had some concerns about the approximate hour I'd have to spend at the busstation in Karlstad. But this turned out to be no problem at all as our bus broke down on the way going there so we were first standing in the middle of nowwhere for what seemed like for ever and then had to get out and change into another bus (which I only noticed by accident when I opened my eyes having fallen asleep)The other bus got us to Karlstad exactly 5 minutes before my next bus was leaving. Good stuff, so I got here on time and in a T-shirt with a guitar in a cardboard box (yes it was still a cardboard box then, eventhoug a rather soggy one). I could have thought about buying a Gig bag a bit earlier than Saturday night when all stores were closed, that's true.
After getting here I met the other volunteer that was already working here for 5 weeks. We had lunch and then we already said goodbye again as he was heading back home a week earlier than planned. Now me and another girl are the only volunteers working here. I haven't met this girl yet though as she was at a Spa all day. Don't worry, my day wasn't at the top of all craziness at the point when I was told where she was, it got even better!
The person in charge of me didn't really have anything to do or didn't know what was going on today as he also had a bit of a tough day today. So I wandered about a bit and explored the "activity boxes" they have here for everyone. There is a room full of these boxes and in each one of them is an activity and everything you need for it that will keep you busy for a few hours or a whole day. Some of them had descriptions in English too, but only some so I seized my chance and will now be translating the other ones. I then helped a bit in the kitchen, preparing dinner and afterwards doing the dishes (using these industrial dish washers - weely cool! ) . At dinner I was also asked if I could maybe run one of these activities with a Danish group that arrived today. They wanted to do the one on "fire protection" tomorrow MORNING but didn't really know how to run it themselves and asked for help. not that I knew what you had to do there either but instead of saying that I just heard the words "sure I'll run the activity for them" coming out of my mouth. A bit later I thought about asking how long they planned to do that activity which is basically just a workshop on how to act if there is a fire and how to prevent your home of turning into a giant fire place. "Oh we were thinking of doing that the whole day" the nice Danish leader of the group said. It then occured to me that I should maybe prepare the whole thing a bit more than "aah I'll look through the material and see what happens".So the rest of my evening I spent over the book "elden och du" - "The fire and you" and tried to become what is described in the book as "a children and youth leader with sufficient knowledge of fire protection requirements ". And tomorrow I will run a full day course on that and will hopefully not set anyone on fire :)
So much for now, sorry that this is only in English now but I couldn't really be bothered to write everything twice now.

hope you're all well out there!
stor kram or a big hug

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Asche auf mein Haupt, ich weiß ich weiß. In den letzten Zwei Monaten, die seit meines letzen Posts vergangen sind, ist einiges passiert. So viel eigentlich, dass ich auch schon die Hälfte fast wieder vergessen habe. Aber Ich habe mich hingesetzt und ein bisschen an einem Video gebastelt. Und ohne viel drumrumgelaber: Hier ist es! Ein paar Teile sind mit englischen Untertiteln, ich bin mit der Übersetzung nicht ganz so konsequent gewesen, aber es gibt nach wie vor noch einige nicht-deutsch-sprechende Menschen auf der Welt (schwer vorstellbar, ich weiß) und die dürfen sich dann auch mal ein paar Minuten freuen, dass sie was verstehen! Die Videos sind leider etwas verzogen, das ist beim umwandeln in ein Movie-Maker-freundliches Programm passiert.

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I know it's been a while now and I can't really say that there wasn't anything going on in the past two months while i didn't update my blog. Infact, there's been so much that I probably already forgot at least half of it. Anyhow here's a little video that's trying to catch up with a few "events" that took place. Some parts have English subtitles, but not everything (sorry i'm a bit lazy ) - well, you'll see ;) [Or just learn German :) ] I'm afraid the videos are a bit stretched that happened when I converted them to a Movie-Maker-friendly format...



Ich bin jetzt also wieder zurück vom "Camp Adventure" und habe mich auch wieder einigermaßen erholt. Ich war sogar im Tierpark in Stockholm (Skansen), was gleichzeitig auch eine Art Freilichtmuseum ist und habe dort folgende bahnbrechene Entdeckung gemacht:



I'm back from the "Camp Adventure" and have recovered (sort of). I even went to a kind of zoo / open air museum in Stockholm (called Skansen) where I've seen the first elk! I called it Egon and it will be my special swedish friend from now on :)

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Momentan bin ich damit beschäftigt zu packen (bzw werde ich damit beschäftigt sein wenn ich mal anfangen würde), denn aber morgen geht es für mich nach Ransberg, ein altes Landgut, das jetzt von Pfadfindern betrieben wird. Dort gibt es eine Jugendherberge und diverse Aktivitätsmöglichkeiten wie Klettern und Kanufahren und dort werde ich für einen Monat als Volontär aushelfen. (Betten machen, Reiseführer spielen, Rasen mähen etc) In der letzten Woche findet dann dort ein Zeltlager mit 1000 Jugendlichen aus ganz Europa statt, aber darüber erzähle ich mehr, wenn ich da bin. Die Fahrt dorthin wird jedenfalls 4 Stunden dauern, im Bus, und ich freue mich schon wahnsinnig drauf (was gibt es auch schöneres als durch die schwedische Einöde zu zuckeln ;) )
Danach folgt noch ein größeres Lager im August, auf dem mich dann auch meine Rovergruppe aus Deutschland besuchen wird (stark vertreten mit 2 Personen :)) und am 1. September geht es dann wieder endgültig "nach Hause".
Bis dahin werde ich dann hoffentlich wissen ob und an welcher Uni ich studieren werde, die Bewerbungen sind auf jeden Fall weggeschickt. Ich werde mich dann in den Wohnungssuchdschungel werfen und meine frisch ausgepackten Sachen so langsam wieder in Kisten packen werde um, dieses Mal etwas "endgültiger", das traute Heim zu verlassen und mich woanders "einzunisten". Ich sehe dem ganzen sehr positiv entgegen und freue mich bald ein weiterer von Deutschlands abertausenden Studenten zu sein. Bedenken und Befürchtungen gibt es natürlich immer, aber ich denke die letzten Jahre haben einen guten Dienst getan, mich darauf vorzubereiten auf eigenen Beinen zu stehen und die Fäden selbst in die Hand zu nehmen. Ich bin jedoch trotzdem froh zu wissen, dass ich jemanden haben werde, der mir etwas Rückendeckung in dem ganzen Chaos geben kann (abgesehen von Freunden und Familie, die das bisher schon sehr gut gemacht haben ;) ). Am 8. September kommt nämlich Ben nach Deutschland für einen bisher unbestimmten Zeitraum zwischen 0 und 3 Jahren. Für die, die nicht wissen wer Ben ist: Ein etwas chaotischer, surfender Australier, der, wenn er nicht gerade damit beschäftigt ist halb-australische Touristen zu ertränken oder sie zu Rover Parties zu fahren, eigentlich ein ganz netter Kerl ist. Wie gesagt, Australier eben, da ist immer ein gewisses Maß an Verrücktheit dabei, sozusagen von Geburt an. Anders würde man wohl auch kaum erklären können, wie jemand sonst in ein Flugzeug steigen könnte, bereit eine neue Sprache zu lernen und einen Job zu suchen um mit einem Nadino (wie wir wissen eine der seltsamsten Kreaturen auf diesem Planeten) eine Wohnung zu teilen. Naja, wir werden sehen wie es danach weitergeht im spannenden Leben der Nadine K aus D ;)

Jetzt habe ich aber erstmal genug geschrieben. Hier ist noch ein Video, dass ich gefunden habe. Wir hatten Mitarbeitertreffen vor ein paar Wochen und haben dort auch eine Schlossbesichtigung gemacht (die war jetzt eher weniger spannend aber egal)...




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At the moment I am busy packing (or I will be if I'd just get started), because tomorrow I'll be heading off to Ransber, an old manor that is now run by the scouts. There's a youth hostel and you can do activities like rock climbing or canoeing and I will be working as a volunteer there for a month (making beds, play tourguide, mow the lawn, etc). In the last week there will be a big camp with about 1000 participants from all over Europe. But I will say a bit more about that place when I get there. Going there takes 4 hours, on a bus, so i'm really looking forward to it already.
After that there is another big camp in August where my Rover crew from Germany will come and visit me (ok 2 of them) and on the 1st of September I will be - finally - heading "home".
I will hopefully know by then if and at what uni I am going to study at, the applications are sent out at least. Then the fight through the getting-an-apartment-jungle can start and my newly unpacked clothes will have to be packed in boxes again for a more definate move out of home this time. It is quite a big step, beginning a new life in a new city (that I don't even know at this point) but I am quite glad about it and looking forward to beeing another one of Germany's thousands and thousands of students. Of course there are always doubts and fears but I think the past years have done a good job in preparing me for what will come and to carry my life in my own hands. But nevertheless I am quite glad to know that I won't be going through all of this on my own and that there will be someone covering my back a little (apart from friends and family who have been really good at this so far) because Ben is coming to Germany on the 8th of September and will be staying for an indefinate period between 0 and 3 years. For those of you who don't know who Ben is: he's a slightly chaotic, surfing Aussie that, if not busy with drowning half Australian tourists or giving them rides to Rover events, can actually be quite a nice bloke. As I said - Aussie, they always have a certain degree of crazyness in them otherwise you probably couldn't explain how someone could just get on a plane, willing to learn a new language and to get a new job to live together with a Nadino (being said, as you know, to be one of the strangest living creatures on earth). Well, we'll see what happens next in the exciting life of Nadine K ;)

Ok, I think I've written enough now. The video above is from our last staff-meeting wherer we went on a guided tour through a castle. After the tour we were kidding around a bit and in the video Sandra (we work together) gives us some information about our new "office building".

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