I allowed myself a 4-day short vacation in Switzerland this year. While my parents, my younger brother and my sister were already on vacation there I joined them on wednesday last week.
On thursday my brother and I decided to have a ride in his Prius this day. First we tried a road close to the village were we stayed (Albinen). We drove as high as possible and finished just ahead of a melking station at 2330m. The car of my brother was dirty as hell after that because of all that cow doo around After that we drove to the Mattmark reservoir to have a hike around it. One tunnel around that lake gives one a near-death experience because one only sees the end of the tunnel ahead while the tunnel itself isn’t lighted. I had the feeling walking throuhg a giant dark hall. Amazing!
On friday I wanted to hike to the Geisspfadsee area in the Binn valley. My brother decided to join me. The climb is really heavy at the beginning but gets flatter in the middle section. The last 400 height meters are quite hard again but the view is amazing from up there. At the height of 2550m we were climbing and hopping from one block to the next each of them several meters in diameter. Heavy work when you’re not born at the top of the Kilimanjaro But it was fun.
Although the hike on friday was really strenuous I couldn’t lie around on Saturday and started to a pass tour. My sister decided to accompany me. We drove above the Nufenenpass, the Gotthardpass and with a detour to the Göscheneralp lake over the Furkapass later that day. Although the distances in Switzerland are not that big one needs hours for several kilometers.
On my last day in Switzerland almost the whole family (my brother met his girl friend at the station in Freiburg/Breisgau on saturday) without my sister started for the Aare chasm. The micro climate in this amazing geological formation is great. Wet and cool. I could live there if there wouldn’t be so many tourists

Actually I love to listen to Windir’s “Journey to the end”. It’s quite an epic song with so much to discover every time I listen to it. The original version sounds like this:

And there are – of course – some good covers out there.

One I really like is from Tordenskrall:

I think especially the technoid background gives it a special kick

And there is a piano cover I just discovered. Very amazing although it’s too short

Everytime I listen to this song I imagine myself somewhere in the Norwegian wilderness walking some place I will live in peace without the disturbances of the modern civilization. Thanks Valfar for this wonderful peace of music!

4 days of vacation is far from being enough but anyway it’s better than nothing. The way there and the way back took me about 10h each. Which is strenuous because of the enormous traffic.
On Friday we went to Chamonix in France because my mother wanted to buy postcards with the Mont Blanc. But this village is awful. Tourists everywhere. They are rude and loud and run into you if you don’t step aside. We had pretty good weather and the Mont Blanc was visible in full. It’s always amazing how big this mountain is. I wish I wasn’t so unfit
The next stop my mother had in mind was Aosta in Italy. Compared to Chamonix Aosta is very silent. But it’s Italy and that means: crazy car drivers everywhere. Nevertheless we found a very nice ristorante/pizzeria called Caesar there. The pizza was just excellent… hmmmm. We then went back to Switzerland via the Pass Grand St. Bernard.

Last week I went for four days to Switzerland to visit my family who had a three week holiday there. Because I wanted to not use the autobahn, I decided to buy a navigation system which had to lead me through Switzerland. At first I wanted to buy a Navigon but they are quite expensive and so I took a Falk M6. I wanted to have one where I could put in geographic coordinates and with most of the maps in Europe.
The operation of the navi is pretty easy. All steps are simple and logical. At least for me it is The route is calculated very fast and if you miss a turn the navi has calculated a detour instantly. The announcements are easily understandable and spoken enough in advance.
But there is not only light. The navi crashed two times and only a hard reset (switching a slider on the back of the navi) would do the trick. Of course the route had to be set up again after the reset but that’s not that hard
Especially in areas with lots of streets the navi gets confused and in serpentines it sometimes thinks you are on the back. And like all navis it has it’s suicidal tendencies. Announcing to turn left or right on mountain passes or suggest to turn around at the center of a bridge. Not always are the suggestion useful. And the driver has to think carefully when guided.
Nevertheless it is a good navigation system. It is fast, the touch display is very good and the three dimensional view gives a good idea of the route to come.

This year the holidays lie quite confusing. Weekend – holiday – weekend – holiday… I got mixed up with all the days. I had to look on a calendar to be sure which day it was.

Of course during X-mas I gained weight. But fortunately I lost the same amount over the change of the year And as almost everybody I have some resolutions for 2009. I will definitely loose weight in large. To achieve this I will do more sports than in 2008 (less sport than in 2008 is quite impossible) and eat healthier. No sweets for the first quarter of the year.

I discovered something very interesting for me. When I get up very early (e.g. for work), I am very hungry all the day. The more tired I start in the day, the hungrier I am. When I sleep past 10 or even 11 AM I am almost not hungry all the day. Fortunately I am self-employed and I can plan my starting time for my work myself 8 AM is definitely too early. I hope 9 AM will do better. In 4 weeks I will summarize my position and decide to let it be or start even one hour later.

I am very curious how long I hang on my resolutions

P.S.: Happy New Year to you all. Good luck and much success!

I really love to have a look at this webcam in Tromsø, Norway, showing the Storgata almost every day:

To produce better pictures especially in twilight when the sun is already down or not risen I need a blue filter to reduce the annoying blue cast. When there is snow the blue cast is extreme as can be seen on this picture. And to reduce reflections on water surfaces I’ll need an polarization filter. And to prevent the lenses from being damaged by (salt) water I’ll use a UV-Filter in front of them. A better set of lenses would be great but I’ve to say that the set I have is ok. A telephoto lens is hard to hold still in darker surroundings. Using a telephoto would result in using a tripod as well. That’s for the camera/picture part.

What I missed most was some kind of fitness. Although it is quite difficult to camp in a tent in fall it is great fun in the snow. But to do this and to visit far-off sites a better fitness is required. I already started jogging and bought a Zen Stone. Listening to Amorphis, Arcturus, Keep of Kalessin, Moonsorrow etc while jogging proves to be more fun than without it