Bought another motorbike: Yamaha FZ6 Fazer

During the last week or so, I spent a lot of time test riding a number of various motorbikes. Both real sports / supersports bikes, as well as 'sportive touring bikes'. I wasn't really sure if I should go for a true/real sports bike like the Suzuki GSX-R (750/1000) or start with something less 'extreme' first. One thing I learned, though, is if I went for a sports/supersports bike, I'd definitely have to keep my BMW F650ST around. Those racing bikes are just not useful for casual riding in city traffic. But I want both, fun at the motorway, as well as a useful bike for local travel inside Berlin.

Then I got a really irresistible offer for a two-year-old FZ6 Fazer (with ABS), and I had to buy it. So for now, it is this. It's probably reasonable to first go from the familiar 48bhp to 98bhp before reaching to the 160bhp range of the Suzuki GSX-R. So in the end, I can even claim that I'm being rational and reasonable here, going "only" to an (already-ridiculous) amount of power, than a beyond-ridiculous amount ;)

And please don't worry too much. I'm not suicidal, and I've been riding quite safely for more than 11 years now ;) This is not going to change!

Motorbike troubles again

It seems like I lost all my luck. Only a three weeks ago, the Yamaha TW-225 in Taipei had problems after my arrival. Now that I'm back to Berlin, my BMW F-650 had some serious trouble, too.

Starting the engine turned out to be really hard (started only on something like the 10th attempt, even though usually the first one is sufficient). Furthermore, pulling the gas handle only the tiniest little bit kills off the engine completely, independent of how far the choke is asserted.

So today I spent some five hours in disassembling almost the entire bike, removing the twin-carburetor, disassembling and cleaning it and putting the entire bike back together again. The engine is running fine again. I just wonder why I have this kind of carburetor problem already the second time in the last couple of years.

There's almost no visible dirt inside the carburetor, and all the fittings are fine, no signs of any leakage, no signs of any significant wear of any of the involved parts. Still, cleaning and re-assembling it clearly removes the problem.

Back from WGT

There are two fixed dates every year that I never miss: The annual Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin between Christmas and new years eve, and the Wave Gotik Treffen music festival in Leipzig.

This year I was camping at the event campsite again, following two lazy years in a hotel. I enjoyed it a lot, especially since the weather was perfect. Only sunshine, not a single drop of rain for the entire four days.

The festival itself was like always. Great. :) I think my personal favorites this year was the industrial (probably better: rhythmic noise) act NULLVEKTOR as well as INADE.

Back from the trip to Taiwan

It's been some time since my last blog post, mainly because I've been quite busy in Taiwan. First there was the conference, then there were a number of meetings with various companies to educate them about GPL licensing and how to interoperate with the FOSS community for better hardware/driver support.

The other part was actual spare time. I spent many months in Taipei during my work for OpenMoko, but I never really had much time to explore the city, or even other parts of the country.

This time I explored quite a bit of the Taipei nightlife, visiting places like Luxy, Lava, Room18, Barcode, ageha, and even the so-called "meat market" of Carnegies and Tavern.

I've also had time to try one of the many hot spa's of Taipei in Beitou, as well as a really great motorbike trip to the national forest in the Wulai mountain region.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great, so I had to postpone my plans to visit the northeastern and the eastern coast to some future trip.

And the most interesting part is: I actually made contact to Taiwanese people who are not at all in any way related to work :)

Further Taipei exploration brought me to the Wufenpu fashion wholesale area, as well as Ximending. Most impressive is also the "Taipei underworld", i.e. the various underground shopping malls near Taipei Main Station, such as the Taipei City Mall, Station Front Mall and ZhongShen Mall I and II. You can literally walk for many kilometers underground...

Now I am one day in Frankfurt, and tomorrow one day in Munich, Friday one half day at home, and then there will be four days of music festival at WGT 2008.

Back to Taipei

After a break of almost six months, I'm back to Taipei. Obviously I now see everything from a quite different angle: I no longer work for OpenMoko, Inc., thus I actually have spare time here and can explore both the capital city as well as the country much better than before with that ever-growing OpenMoko workload.

However, the first day wasn't quite as relaxing as it should have been. First, the apartment key that was supposed to be with the guard of the apartment building accidentally was mixed up with some other key and got sent to the landlord.

A couple of hours later I discover that my Yamaha TW225 motorbike doesn't work anymore. First diagnosis: Battery is empty (not surprisingly). I try for like 15minutes to kickstart it, to no avail. Not even a single explosion in the engine. Then I tried to push it, and got it to a couple of explosions after which it died again. Further push-starting was prevented by the way-too-smooth floor of the parking garage, where the wheel just slides as soon as you release the clutch :(

Some disassembly revealed where the battery is (I don't know this bike at all, much opposed to my F650ST in Germany). The battery was severely short of acid/fluid, maybe somebody pushed the bike over and it leaked. Obtaining battery additive and refilling results in only 800mA charge current. I think it's dead. Now I'm in the process of ordering a new battery.

Let's hope the next couple of days are better than the start of this trip...

Back from holidays

I'm currently sitting at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, waiting for the last connection in my Recife - Sao Paulo - Amsterdam - Berlin return trip.

I'll be wading through the several thousand emails over much of the next couple of days, so please give me some time to get back to you.

Update from first week of holidays

For those of you who're curious: The first week of holidays went just fine, spending something three days in Sao Paulo and three days in Curitiba In Curitiba, I had a rental car and went to Vila Velha, as well as driving the serpentines of the Rua Graciosa through Morretes to the Beach. Oh, and obviously in Curitiba I had to go to Homem Pizza and Happy Burger, the two restaurants that I frequented the most while working at Conectiva 7 years ago.

The biggest problem so far was the malfunction of the in-room Save of the Hotel in Curitiba, resulting in not being able to access any of my cash reserves, credit/debit cards, passport or laptop for two days. They actually had to physically break the safe open since the lock mechanism was stalled/clogged in a way that it did no longer move.

Now I've just arrived in Recife, where after two days, the journey will continue towards Porto de Galinhas.

Almost offline for holidays

I'm hereby announcing that I'll be offline most of the time between March 3rd and March 26. This is the longest time that I've been offline for quite some time - and it's a much deserved holiday after the intense work of the last year.

I'll be doing quite a bit of travel in Brazil through those more than 3 weeks, meeting some old friends and ex-colleagues from my time in 2001 at Conectiva. I'll also be spending some time at the beach, plus exploring a bit of Parana and Pernambuco by [rental] car.

This also means that I'll likely end up being forced to use my horrible Brazilian Portuguese again. But well, at least for me, unless forced to speak a certain language, I won't speak it at all. So this must be a good thing, then.

Please don't expect any reaction to e-mails, snail mail, phone calls, faxes or any of the like during that period of time. I won't even have my German GSM phone online to avoid roaming charges killing me.

I now own two motorbikes

Besides my BMW F650ST in Berlin, I now (since 10 days ago) own a Yamaha TW200 in Taipei. To me, this is sort of a joke of a motorbike. A toy bike. 200cc feels like a bicycle with ancillary motor. No acceleration, no torque...

But then, Taiwan is an incredible strange country when it comes to motorbikes. And that TW is definitely better than one of those 2-stroke plastics scooters (I had one when I was 16: 3 jammed pistons in two years, plastics above the exhaust completely melted up to a point where I had to add custom-made aluminum pieces for it not to loose its structural integrity).

So it somehow fits the overall Taiwan experience: A never-ending compromise....

I'm single again

And this time actually looking forward to it. What kind of strange feeling.

Always in motion, the future is.

Dor

On my China Airways flight from Frankfurt to Taipeh, I have continued my tradition of watching the [usually] only Bollywood movie that the in-flight entertainment system offers. In this particular case, it was Dor

I had not yet heared/read anything about that movie, and not even the name sounded familiar. So I was a bit skeptically if this was one of those cheap superficial "B-class" movies that I try to avoid.

To the contrary. What seems like a low-budget production without any major actors [that I would recognize], is actually a masterpiece. Very unlike the cliche Bollyowood, it is not "overdone". Nothing is exaggerrated into self-irony. Everything feels real, down-to-earth. No princess-like costumes, no palaces and no super-rich Indians in their mega-cities. This impression is further substantiated by the somewhat simplistic editing. Scenes end abruptly, and the audio track does not spawn such 'hard cuts' smoothly either.

Dor is a sincere and honest movie about two women who have nothing in common, and come from completely different cultural backgrounds of Indias diversity. However, both of their husbands go abroad to work in Saudi Arabia very soon after marriage. A terrible accident involving those two Indian workers sets the stage for the remainder of the plot.

The whole movie is shot at various locations on the country side. The only remnescent of modern india is a cell phone with SIM card, and the mainstream bollywood songs that are sometimes playing on some squeaky radio.

It seems like this is the next DVD on my 'to-buy' list. Let's see if I manage to pick it up during my trip to Bangalore in early April.

Seen "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" in the cinema

Just by coincidence I noticed that yesterday was the only show of "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" anywhere near Berlin _at all_. So no matter that it was some 60km away, and I had to drive all the way to Potsdam, I had to go. And that decision was right. It definitely has become of my personal "all-time top ten" Hindi movies. It could have been a bit more serious, according to my taste. But apart from that: Great music, fabulous choreography, camera, costumes, acting, .... - everything!

So as soon as it becomes available here, I have to buy the DVD. Oh, and yes, I still have to buy that LCD projector for my home cinema, the one I intended to buy for several months now...

The new woman in my life: Sarah.

After more than half a year after my separation from Elisabeth, there is a new woman in my life, Sarah. The most amazing thing is, that I didn't actually have to look out / search for a new girlfriend, but she just happened to come into my life. There also wouldn't have been any other chance, since I actually have zero time to go out, and even less time to think about anything not related to paid or unpaid work.

She's intelligent, and probably the most geek-compatible type of woman you can imagine. Not that I would ever consider this an important factor (I'm not a typical geek either), but it definitely helps things a lot, if she just understands the way geeks talk, has lots of experience with geeks from previous relationships.

It's the kind of pleasant small surprises like learning that she's running Linux on her computer[s], and that she understands a lot about the net and the FOSS world, without having to start to explain your whole world from its very beginning. As indicated, those facts in themselves are not really important at all. But imagine: Everything else seems to match, and you get those details [right] in addition to the 'usual' partner compatibility :)

It's been a very intense three weeks, and I have to admit that I never happened to get to know somebody in that short period of time, at least not to that level. Actually, it makes you frightened a bit, if everything goes that fast... wondering whether this is real, whether it is sustainable.

Anyway, it has been extremely pleasant, and I'm very happy about that. I'll continue this "experiment", keeping up the pace of this relationship by taking her along to India for FOSS.in 2006 next week. Before meeting Sarah, I probably would never have considered such a step - taking somebody along a long distance trip, whom you barely know for a couple of weeks. But then, if you can hardly imagine being apart from her during that time, there's probably also a lot of egoistic reasons for taking her along, too ;)

No news is good news

You might have noticed that the posting frequency in this blog has decreased quite a bit recently. In this particular case, no news is good news. There's been a lot of progress in a number of work related projects.

QNTAL concert in Berlin

One of my favourite band for many years, QNTAL, have been playing tonight in Berlin. The concert was fantastic, and due to my recent high workload, I apparently actually missed their last album relase. They did very well with that latest release.

However, apparently day 15 of the tour (one concert every night) has already left quite some traces on Syrah's otherwise brilliant voice. It was still extremely good, but you could notice she's [again] having some problems :( What kind of torture must it be, to be an excellent singer with classical training, with a crystal clear voice - but then having chronical problems with your throat..

To my big surprise, the support band Unto Ashes was actually extremely good. I'm not saying this because I thought Unto Ashes was bad, but rather because support bands generally suck quite a lot. Maybe it's just me being unlucky, but this was actually the first concert with a great support band that I've been to.

All in all definitely a memorable evening. If it didn't eat that much productive time...

Bollywood Musical in Berlin

Tonight I've been to Bollywood - The Show, a Bollywood musical that is touring through (I guess among other countries) Germany for the next couple of months.

It was truly amazing. First, there is the irony of playing a story that is remotely based on a true story - probably an idealized form of the story of the musicians and choreographer family behind this musical: The Merchant family. Secondly, the number of dancers is actually quite limited, so they need to danca and dance and dance for hours. What is usually done in many takes (with breaks) when shooting the song sequences of a Bollywood movie - those musical dancers have to do it all in one row. One some days even two shows on one day. What an amazing talent and stamina.

It's too sad to learn that such musicals can only exist in the west, since their cost of production is just too expensive for India, plus apparently the lack of a musical culture there.. quite strange, isn't it? I bet a lot of Indian Bollywood fans are definitely sad to lack the opportunity to see this (or another upcoming one, such as the Bharati).

Bavaria's best gothic/dark wave/industrial/ebm club "Top Act" about to close

I'm sad to hear that the best club "close" (50km) from my old home city is about to close at the end of the year. This is extremely sad, and I suppose it will have quite an impact on the subculture there.

I can only hope that I'll find some spare time for a goodbye visit in November or December this year. A night at Goettertanz or La Nuit Obscure has always been a deeply touching, emotional and aesthetic event. No other club anywhere else has ever managed to make me feel anywhere close to how I felt at Top Act back then. Excellent DJ's, great choice of music, the right kind of people, 18+ limit for admittance, and a gothic dress code(!). Call that elite, if you want - I'll tell you: The result was spectaculous. People would travel 150+ km every weekend to get there.

Good bye Top Act. Thanks to Thomas Manegold and his crew, thanks for hosting that many memorable events. Thanks to Kodachi (didn't forget you!) for first recommending that location to me.

Bollywood / Hindi-pop Web-radio: Radio Teentaal

I've recently discovered Radio Teentaal, a web-radio dedicated to "100% Indian music" - being streamed live from Paris.

It's certainly no surprise to see the radio being shoutcasted from some western country, since [that kind of] bandwidth is still not really affordable in India. But it's surprising to me that it's not from UK, US, Canada or another English-speaking country with large NRI community.

Anyway, they seem to play the latest popular Bollywood beats, no commercials, no interruptions, not even one the otherwise omnipresent self-advertisement jingles. Just pure music, at 128kBps stereo mp3.

Retrospective on Shah Rukh Khan

The much-to-be-thanked Rapid Eye Movies cinema movie distributor for Asian cinema brings a retrospective on SRK into German cinemas. It includes the movies Baazigar, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil Se, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Swades and Pardes.

They start with showing those movies from July 20 (today!) to August 8th in the Babylon Theatre Berlin.

I've seen most of those movies before, but on DVD. And I'm definitely going to watch many of them in the cinema, since Bollywood movies are just too colorful and rich in detail to watch them on something as "low-res" and compression artefact encumbered as DVD...

So I'd expect some drop in productivity over the next two weeks, but I can't help myself...

Getting hooked once again by Techno

Just last weekend we've had (once again after two years break) the Love Parade, basically a huge open-air rave. Now fully commercialized (but that's a totally different story). I didn't attend it, but somehow the publicity surrounding that event prompted me to look into my 15GB archive (and corresponding CD collection) of early nineties Techno music.

Little of my blog readers will know me for that long time. Most of you will think, yeah it's that Goth guy, he listens to strange dark wave, industrial, ebm, music. Some of you also know that I enjoy a fair share of popular Hindi music.

But actually when I first started to actively listen to music, maybe at the age of 12 and up, I was a _huge_ fan of the then-popular electronic music in Germany: Techno. In a very short time this genre made it mainstream, creating a new youth culture in mainly Europe, but particularly Germany.

It was an euphoric time. German had just reunited. People were enthusiastically looking forward at the supposedly-bright future, now that the cold war was over. Everything was looking bright. People still mostly had job security, unemployment was low (compared to now), the negative effects of the neoliberal globalization did not yet affect the public at large.

At the same time, technology was en vogue. Home computers had started to become public in the second half of the eighties, the BBS scene existed, a small minority of people had access to Usenet, later the Internet. Music that used (mainly) synthesizers, samplers, sequencers and the like was very modern/futuristic.

So this was the kind of setting in which I spend my teens. Obviously I was too young (and shy) to attend any of the big raves at that time, but I was listening to music from Westbam, Marusha, DJ Dick, Hardfloor, PCP, Sven Vaeth, Sunbeam, RMB, Star Wash, Underworld, Cosmic Baby, Members of Mayday etc. I spent literally hundreds of Sunday nights recording the (in)famous "Techno Club" at the local radio station N1. God, how often did I watch the recordings / live shows of the cult "Mayday" raves.

So this was about 1991 to 1996. After that time, this kind of electronic music became less and less mainstream. I listened to Dutch "Rotterdam" hardcore for some time, but gave up on that very soon, too. Disappointed by the perceived in-availability of any good electronic music as I knew it, I resorted to classical music for a couple of years, until I got more and more into the "all etc. kinds of dark music" in which I still feel at home today. Music that is much more depressive/negative/destructive than the "happy partying" kind of Techno music. This sort-of resembles my change of mind-set during the same period of time. Reading up on world poverty, globalization issues, north/south conflict, environmental issues, the neoliberal model, increasing unemployment, increasing divide between rich and poor, the constant destruction of civil liberties, etc.

Anyway, so given that recent love parade revival, and me listening to "L.A. Style - James Brown is Dead" at some Industrial/Gabber/Minimal Electronics party last month, I decided to tune into that collection of old music once again.

I'm almost overwhelmed by the amount of feelings and memories this has triggered inside me. Basically it teleported me right back into how I felt 10-15 years ago. A life still in school, not knowing the [evil] world as I know it now, a life full of dreams, hope, happiness and the corresponding music.

This "trip back in history" is now basically going on for the better part of one week. It's going to end soon, and it will leave me longing for the corresponding sorrowlessness. Depressive reality will reclaim its terrain...

Shanghai Food

While on my business trip to Shanghai, my business partners have been extremely well taken care of me. This includes assisting me obtaining some rather unusual souvenirs that I wanted to bring back, taking care of the sight seeing programme, but found it's most explicit expression in food.

While I'm extremely fond of Indian and Thai food, I never really enjoyed Chinese food too much, at least not what is sold in the western world as Chinese food. To me it's ok, but nothing spectacular. Before getting to China, food was my biggest worry. Remembering all these documentaries about seafood (which is basically the only kind of food I refuse to eat), and all the snakes, frogs and various insects that the Chinese cuisine tends to have.

Anyway, so my hosts knew about this and took me out to eat twice every day (yes, I'm probably now back to my weight of the Brazil trip in March). The food was always very interesting (as in, interesting ingredients, interesting taste, interesting structure, mode of preparation, ...) and also enjoyable. I kept asking them about spicy food, keeping in mind my preference for Indian and Thai. They promised me to have some spicy food at some point, they themselves not being into it at all.

Two days ago it finally became true. We've been to one of these "hot spot" places, where you have a boiling pot in the middle of the table. The boiling pot contains all kinds of spices, and you put raw ingredients such as tofu, meat, mushrooms into it. Pretty much like a Chinese version of the "Fondue".

However, that pot was split (2 thirds/one third), and one side would be exclusively for me. My side was ordered to be "medium spiced", and it had something like at least 12 red chili peppers in it :) I took a photograph of it in its initial state. The chilies basically disintegrated into tiny little pieces while they were boiling with the remaining food.

God, was that good. The best food I had since my last trip to India. It really was "medium spiced" in a way that there was no pain whatsoever, and it was just extremely strong-tasting, but not just spicy for the purpose of being spicy (if you know what I mean).

Since my business plans will include some more travel to Shanghai during the next couple of months, I _have_ to go back to that place, multiple times :)

Krrish

Yes, apparently it's Bollywood season in Berlin, thanks to rapideyemovies.de who has brought Krrish at least for one week into one of Berlin's smaller cinemas.

I definitely enjoyed the movie quite a lot. I believe it would be a good example for a "masala movie". Love, Romance, Action, Eastern, Sci-Fi, Thriller: all-in-one. And that with the most excellent dancer and "India's Schwarzenegger" Hrithik Roshan and former Miss India Priyanka Chopra as the two lead actors. And despite all the action scenes, the film actually is still cheesy enough to fulfill the Bollywood cliche :)

I also think it marks a new milestone in the area of special effects for Bollywood cinema. As a sequel to "Koi Mil Gaya", it definitely goes way beyond its prequel.

Rang De Basanti

It doesn't happen very often that one of the many Berlin cinemas shows Bollywood movies. Last Thursday, even two of them started simultaneously. So yesterday I had no chance but to watch Rang De Basanti. I had to go, even though I had seen that movie in Bangalore before. Obviously at that point without any subtitles, so there certainly was a lot of the plot that I didn't realize yet.

The movie was as good as the first time. There are very few movies that don't get overly pathetic when it comes to telling/interpreting a story about [past] heroes. But in this one, everything feels real. The strong emotions, the incredible pain, hate...

Definitely one of the top Indian movies that I have seen, even though it isn't not a very typical cliche Bollywood movie at all ;)

On Monday, I'll be watching Krrish. Let's see how Hrtik Roshan plays Krishna ;)

KRISH in German cinemas

Thanks to rapideyemovies.de, the follow-up to the Bollywood sci-fi "koi mil gaya" called "krish" will be shown soon in cinemas all over Germany (well, at least in all major cities).

I'll certainly make use of it, especially since I'll be missing the Bollywood night at Filmmuseum Potsdam because of my trip to the GPLv3 conference in Barcelona.

Motorbike fixed

Since people have already seen me using my motorbike again and almost complaining about my blog still stating that I have problems repairing it: It's all fixed now. Seems like indeed it only was the anker of the starter engine plus the battery. must have been one hell of a short-circuit to first fry the magnet wire and then the battery.

During my repairs I misplaced a washer which led to the blocking of one axis (which in turn prevented the starter engine to do its job). Luckily somebody else did the same mistake before and documented it in some F650 related web forum.

More problems with my Motorbike

As it seems, the anker of the starter motor was not the only thing that is broken with my F650ST. The battery is OK, the starter motor running fine if it's running freely, the engine can be started by towing the bike. At least while the generator cover is removed, I can also manually put the gearwheels and all other parts in motion without too much effort.

So what am I missing? No, the brushes and the case of the starter engine don't have a short-circuit, and yes I already bridged the starter relay to make sure it's not faulty.

Now the only idea left I have is that something is mechanically blocking the starter engine, once all parts are mounted together. Will give it a (risky!) try to run it with open generator case.

Returned from WGT 2006

I've just returned from the 2006 incarnation of Wave-Gotik-Treffen, the worlds largest festival on all styles of dark music.

I was very happy with the music, and in fact discovered a number of very interesting projects, such as Dark Sanctuary, Protagonist, Maschinenkrieger KR52 vs. Disraptor, S.K.E.T., and last but not least Omnia.

The weather though was an embarrassment. We had something like six degrees centigrade during the night at the camp site, definitely much colder than anybody would expect from June in Germany. Seems like the climate changes really become visible :((

As many of you will be asking: Did you take pictures? No, I was forbidden to. It seems this year they were only allowing non-SLR cameras for people who are not accredited press. This usually only was the case at concert stages, but now they extended this to all of the festival area. Since I don't own any non-SLR (either chemical or digital), I didn't take pictures. Need to check whether I can get accredited next year (*sigh*).

First Motorbike defect in ten years

I've always had a BMW F650ST ever since turning 18. It never let me down so far, apart from one minor problem two years ago, when the carburetor was stuck and the bike was leaking fuel.

Yesterday, the starter motor apparently broke. Waiting for the replacement parts right now. Let's hope this is a one-time defect and not an indication that I should get rid of the bike before a long series of "bike is getting old" repairs.

Swades

I've had the chance to watch Swades at the home cinema of a friend. Swades is a quite impressive film, and definitely [for me] one of the best recent Bollywood films.

I think the most interesting aspect is the way how they display the transformation process of an initially extremely alienated NRI (officially "Non Resident Indian", in the movie jokingly referred-to as "Non Returning Indian") back ti a "true Indian".

Back from Brazil

Yes, I survived. Now I need to address that backlog of real world issues and emails...

More of Curitiba and surroundings

The last two days I had a rental car. First I visited "Vila Velha"

Vila Velha really is both beatufil and impressive. Took lots of pictures of those unique rock formations dating back from the ice age.

On the next day (after some OpenEZX hacking) I first drove to Santa Felicidade to visit the cemetery there. Took a couple of pictures, since it is quite unique in that it is a very urban cemetery. Multiple storeys (!) and all concrete floors. Obviously, people can only put urns there, no dead bodies...

Next I drove to the Graciosa road, which I still remembered from my trip to Morretes five years ago. The Graciosa road is the old connection between Curitiba and the harbour. It leads through the few 3% of remaining "mata atlantica", south Brazils version of the rain forest. It's a small, extremely curvy road with lots of viewpoints to the surrounding mountains. Also did a short walk into the forest, tried to take a couple of pictures of an amazing ant trail which must have been multiple hundreds of meter long.

Travelling by bus to Curitiba

Tomorrow I'll be on a 11 hour bus ride from Porto Alegre to Curitiba. I'm voluntarily using the bus rather than the plane. Since everybody thinks I must be crazy for doing so: First, I don't really have any idea how the landscape/countryside in that area looks like. Second, I haven't really spent all too much time outside of the big Brazilian cities yet. Third, I have the time to do it (and two laptop batteries). Fourth, it's more friendly to the environment... my intercontinental flights consume way too much kerosine anyway.

O pizza doce numa pizzaria com sistema rodizio

One of the things that I've always missed the most, ever since leaving Brasil in 2001: "pizza doce" (sweet pizza). You can have it with chocolate, coconut, banana/cinnamon, caramel, ice cream, etc.

Yesterday I just had to make use of the opportunity and have lots of it in one of the nice all-you-can-eat pizza places that are common in Brazil. There also was the opportunity to introduce some of the other foreign speakers to this Brazilian interpretation of Italian food :)

Back to Brazil after 4.5 years

So finally it's happening: I'm currently sitting in an airplane, already deep into .br airspace. Ever since I left Conectiva/Curitiba/Brazil in quite a hurry in late summer of 2001, I intended to come back. My original plan then was to take Elisabeth with me and show her what I've experienced in those six months of Brazil. Also, due to my way-earlier-than-planned departure from this fascinating country, I missed many of the things I had planned originally - such as travelling to the northeast and the amazon region.

But just like that never worked out the way it was planned, I now find myself in an accidental symmetry: I left Brazil to live with Elisabeth - and just after that has ended now, I get back to Brazil. No, not moving back - but at least two weeks of visiting ex-colleagues, (ex-?)friends and places I have known and loved.

At a time of such fundamental change in my life, I feel excited about any kind of new adventures, possibilities, etc.

Due to time restrictions, this is unfortunately not the time when I will be doing all the travel that I originally intended. I'm really too much involved with my many non-profit projects, and besides that I somehow have to earn a bit of money, too ;)

But I'm quite sure that at some point I'll come back. Talvez um pouco mais preparado, depois de ter aulas de portugues. Acho que e muito dificil no Brasil sem falar a lingua nativa.

The most relaxing flight of my life

The day started early for me. Taking the local train to the airport at 4:09am. Then some annoying KLM ground staff who told me to only bring one piece of hand luggage next time. If you know me, then you certainly know that I find nothing more annoying than people with large carry-on luggage. All I had was a laptop bag and a very small camera bag. No backpack, no trolley. I started a discussion with that staff member, indicating to him that he should read his own regulations before trying to lecture me. Neither laptops nor cameras are allowed in the checked-in baggage, and usually they do not even count as 'piece of hand baggage' but are allowed in addition to that piece. I'll make sure to re-check with KLMs current regulations and file a complaint with KLM. Given my last trouble with the KLM flight to Bangalore last December, I have good contacts to their customer care department now.

Anyway, the situation drastically improved in the Amsterdam - Sao Paulo flight. A Boeing 777-200 with the latest in-flight entertainment system: 111 full-length cinema movies, lots of TV shows (not that I care about them) plus individual music playlists.

It comes even better: I had a whole three seat row for my own. After watching "Memoirs of a Geisha" (I already knew the two Bollywood movies they had), I had a very comfortable sleep. Next time I woke up was already in Brazilian airspace. The only time I had that much space was when going to Israel, but that flight was short enough to not care about that extra comfort.

So in the end it wasn't of much use that I just bought a second battery for my notebook computer ;) Anyway, I'm sure my next, less relaxing long-haul flight will not be too distant.

I'm single again

Those of you who know me one a more personal level will find it hard to believe that I'm actually a single again. Especially following up the engagement some two years ago.

After knowing Elisabeth for nine years, having lived together about half that time, it actually feels more like a divorce than 'just' a normal separation / split-up.

I will not make the mistake to state any reasons publicly in this weblog, sorry ;) Let just be said that we both feel very sad, and it was certainly not a lighthearted decision.

There's going to be some rough time ahead, and I'm certainly not in the mood for any kind of serious relationship anytime soon.

Always in motion, the future is.

Returned from vacation in India

Just got back from the airport. Everyone who emailed me: Please keep patient, as I've got some thousands of mails to wade through. Sorry for any inconvenience. I should be back and fully running no later than end of the week.

Offline / Holidays

As announced before, I'm offline till March 21st.

Family - Ties of Blood

Tonight I enjoyed the rare opportunity to watch a Bollywood movie in Berlin, almost at the same time the movie is released in India. We usually only get a hand full of Indian movies every year, to very small cinemas, and about one to two years after they ran in India.

I personally enjoyed the film quite a lot, even though the critics in India seem to be disappointed by it. But well, what do I care about those critics ;)

One advantage of watching Bollywood movies in Germany is that you don't need a ticket reservation, since very few people are interested in those movies anyway. Second, you can actually enjoy a film without some 20 to 30something minutes of advertisements and anti-screener propaganda.

Holidays in India

For the third year Elisabeth and me have been planning to take holidays in India, unfortunately with no success so far.

But now it's fixed: We've booked our flight tickets for March 2006 just two days ago. We'll be starting in Bangalore, and do some travelling in Karnataka and Kerala.

So please don't expect me to get any productive work done during March this year...