- blog, fahrradreise, bicycle travel - 

Foreword: At some point, I started writing a story for my wife at the time to give her as a birthday present. I don't think she ever read it, as I still don't have my art materials here with me, but I wanted to be creative, so I continued writing. It's that simple. Enjoy the first 13 (unedited) chapters. 1 Life in the village went on as it always did. It was summer, midday, and hot; there was little to do. Arl, the miller’s son, lay in the shade of a tree, chewing on a blade

And then you have four days off over Christmas, and thoughts start creeping in.I actually wanted to take my bike onto the Brisbane Rail Trail, 170 km through nowhere, bush, gravel, from Ipswich to Yarraman. I bought water bladders, packed my gear, checked the weather and decided that in my current condition it would border on suicide. This humidity is still hitting me hard. I’m constantly dehydrated. I drink too little, and when I do, it’s often the wrong thing. Too much outd

And suddenly she is no longer there, no longer traceable. It had been coming; I always knew it, that one day she would delete her account, switch to private, ghost, and no longer be reachable. But it still makes me sad that it has now come to this. Will she, like most people, come back? And how long will it take?Until then, I miss her. I didn’t know how much. It is terrible how one can miss a person one has never met, never spoken to on the phone. Who is she?Nora. From Nort

I came home, truly (?) home, at midnight. Entry was no problem, an Uber dropped me off at the door, and I was determined to go to work the next day. I woke up early, made myself a coffee, and suddenly felt that strange pull in my stomach. Moments later it was clear: work was not going to happen. Stomach flu. Bad. Sitting on the toilet with a bucket in your lap, that’s an experience no one really wants. For two days I was down. In the dark. On top of the stomach flu came jet l

Even the longest working holiday eventually comes to an end, and I return home, supposedly full of joy. Supposedly.There is, however, something that makes me sit here in the Tempelhof airport lounge, smiling with quiet melancholy. It is not the weather that makes me wistful, I am flying into summer, after all, but some things, even I don’t write on the internet. What a trip it has been: Rome, Genoa, Nice, Barcelona, Paris, Stuttgart, and Berlin. It sounds like a lot, and it w

Or is it another escape?So many thoughts are running through my head, and I’m not sure I can write as fast as they’re spinning around. Too many impressions, too many parallel processes — I fear much of it will need time to settle. To digest, as they say. To let the important separate from the unimportant, to sort through it all, to keep what’s good, and let go of what’s bad.What’s really worth fighting for? The train ride from Barcelona to Paris passed uneventfully. In Paris,

Portofino was still on my mind when I was about to board the train. My phone rang, my ex-wife wanted to talk, and it was my best friend...

I thought my train would leave at 8 a.m., but in reality, it was at 6:50. I only realized this around 6:25. The night before, after my...

Back in the Eternal City, and yes, it’s called that for a reason. Not much has changed since my last visit, or the ones before, and...

All the work doesn’t make much sense if you don’t treat yourself now and then, so over the last few weeks I’ve been exploring the greater...

You can run away from everything except yourself. How true. But at least you can try, right? Or to put it another way, you can change. So...

A few years too late for me, but I finally made it to Sin City - New Orleans! It's always been a dream of mine to spend a few days in the...

Vacation on vacation. I get up in the morning, cycle 14 km to work, work for 10 hours, then cycle home again and it still doesn't feel...

And you could have known right away that you would feel lonely in a new country with a new language. And I was aware of that too,...

New country, completely new customs. As usual, I was warned that finding accommodation here was complicated. Just like in Essen, when a...

No, I'm not waiting for the old man, what's he doing here in Australia? He hasn't traveled his whole life and why should I bring him...

I don't have much to write about, after all I'm in Australia for work and not for cycling. My good bike is still on its way, has been...

Justice of the Peace? And trouble with the judiciary again? As I was accused of weeks ago when I posted a picture of the entrance to the...

"Bahnhof" should actually be the name of the next entry. "bahnhof" because it's the only thing I understand, unfortunately that's not...

It still feels a bit like a vacation, a bit is an understatement. That will disappear as soon as I've been to work today. At the moment...