I love to travel and see new places, meet new people. Two weeks ago, I spent a week in Egypt with a friend. It was the 6th time for her to go there but the first one for me and because of what I heard in the news of that country and read about it, I wasn't really sure if I wanna go there. But I'm glad she convinced me. It was an amazing week. It was warm, the sky was mostly cloudless, the Red Sea was crystal clear and perfect to swim and dive and see the impressive underwater world. Sometimes I thought I was at Sea Life. It was as clear as the water in the swimming pool, which was pretty amazing. In fact, there is nothing I could complain about. We were not near Kairo, where I'd probably not go to now, and so it was a quiet stay and a perfect vacation to just relax. We did not even watch any TV, listen to radio or used the internet much - the connection is very bad and it's very expensive too, but one complete week without internet at all was just not possible for me, so I was one hour online, only on Twitter and Google+. It was a bit strange and now I'm happy to have everything back and know again what's happening in the world, but for one week it was perfect to just switch off everything completely, don't worry about anything but only live for the day and focus and embrace the present. I think this was needed that I don't care about college or work or anything, and at least during the vacation this is the best my friend and I could do!!
So this week I was not only relaxing, having fun and reading an awesome book - Last to die by Tess Gerritsen is the best thriller I've read in years! I'm not a big Rizzoli and Isles fan, I watch the show only sometimes, I mean I like it but I watch so many other shows and often I forget when it's on, but that book is just great. I couldn't stop reading, so if you love thriller - you have to read Last to die!!!
If you wanna know what this book is about, watch the video below.
This one week in Hurghada/Egypt I was thinking a lot. Like places I'd love to go to. And because of a good friend who loves Doctor Who and we were talking about it lately, I asked myself: where would I go to if I had a TARDIS? Somewhere in the future? Meet someone in the past? Go to another planet? Or just meet my friends all over the world who I "met" on the internet? Well, maybe that would be one thing I'd love to do, for sure :).
Doctor Who's Time and Relative Dimension in Space pic by Louise .
But what I also love to is going back to see my grandma and talk to her again. She died in the year 2000, and I do have a video, so I can watch her, hear her voice and see her laughing, though she was already very sick then, but I'd love to talk to her. Just one more time. I also love to meet her husband who died one year before I was born. I think I'm not much interested in the future. It's like you read a taping report of a new episode of your fave show - when you watch it then and know exactly what happens, this takes all the fun from it. So if I knew what happens in my life, I think I will be less excited for it, coz not knowing what will happen is what encourages me to try something new. So instead of the future I'd love to go back and meet my ancestors, knowing where I come from, talking to these people and get to know more about their lives would be really interesting. So it's like my own episode of "Who do you think you are?".
Most people
think that Germans are anything else but geeky, or funny or crazy. I realized
that once more when I watched this week’s episode of Community, in which Jeff
and the study group fought against the “evil Germans”. I have to say I laughed
a lot about this, because mostly it is true. But Germans can be funny, they just often hide it. I can’t really say why. There are comedians in Germany and some
are very funny, like Anke Engelke. She is smart, can act, sing and is simply
hilarious. She’s also the German voice of Marge Simpsons. There might not be
many funny Germans on TV, there are no German sitcoms, at least I don’t know
one, and only one guy called Stefan Raab who’s having a late night talk show.
The “heute show” is a funny news show, which can be a slightly bit compared to
SNL. It’s just all about the news and politics, but very well made and very funny.
But Stefan
Raab is the man of German Comedy. Whatever he does, it becomes a success. Many
guys tried to do a late night show, but all of them failed. He does his show
named “TV total” since 1999, which can be compared to Craig Ferguson, Jimmy
Fallon or Conan O’Brien. But Raab also has many other shows right now, like the
Poker Nights, in which he plays poker with 4 other guys, or he combines boxing
matches with trivia. After each round of boxing, there comes a round of trivia,
so it’s not only about a man’s strength. In the show “Schlag den Raab” (Beat
the Raab) people can apply on the internet to be contestants of the show and
fight against Stefan Raab. If they compete against him and get more points than him,
which means they win more rounds, they win money. The largest amount someone
took home was 3.5 Mio € (about 4.5 Mio $). The games can be any kind of sports
like hockey or basketball, some games of skill like stacking cups, or answering
trivia questions.
But the
first thing he did beside “TV total” was the WOK WM. Since 2003 this championship (= Weltmeisterschaft in German, or short "WM") is a big TV event and every year it gets bigger. I guess you know that a WOK is
an Asian pan. But Raab doesn’t cook with it, so it might sound that is a
cooking competition, but it is not. He sits in the WOK and uses it as a sleigh.
If that’s not geeky, I don’t know what is, or at least it’s some kinda crazy.
But it works. People from 11 different countries start this year. There’s a
single and a team competition, every team consists of 4 people. So they sit in
their WOKs, and glide down the ice track which is normally for real
sleighs. Stefan Raab proves very well that Germans can be funny, too, if only
they want to.
I’m gonna
watch the WOK WM tonight, it’s always fun to watch, and in my mind the best
event of the year on German TV. That you can understand better what I am
talking about, I found a video on youtube showing a man who works for a German radio station and did such a "WOK ride":
Do you like
sleigh riding, and have you ever considered using a WOK to do that? Would you
like to sit in one and do a “WOK ride”?
"Stop thinking about fun, have it." - Homer Simpson
Vacation. What a wonderful word. What a wonderful thing to think about. Spending some time somewhere else and forget your everyday problems, the stress that you have in your job. When you don’t have to think about anything, just relax and live for the day. You can do whatever you want, you feel happy and you want that this will be forever.
When someone comes to you, telling that you have to enjoy your stay because soon everything will be again as usual, you get into some kinda panic. Don’t think about it, you say to yourself. You notice that not only you feel happy, that your whole family is happier than ever. You want no change. You don’t want to go back. This cruise, this trip should never end. You might try to convince yourself that there is a chance to let this last forever.
But soon you have to realize that you can’t hold on time. That this can’t last forever. It’s not that you say: this is the only time I had some fun and therefore it’s supposed to be forever, because afterwards you'll have all the stress and worries back. It’s that you appreciate the few happy moments in your life. You wouldn’t be able to do that, if you would only have such pleasant moments. You have to have all the stress as well, that you recognize how wonderful and special the good times are.
Do not think about when you had fun the last time, or think about how great was it back then and how tough it is now. Live every single moment, take any chance of fun. Bart had to realise that in the last Simpsons episode and I like that, because I can understand him. You want to be happy and you want your family to be happy, too. And you do everything that this will remain. But Homer was also right showing him that fun can be everywhere, you just have to be aware of it.
This episode also reminded me of one of my absolute fave songs: Little wonders by Rob Thomas. It describes that you have to appreciate these special, pleasant moments in your life, these little wonders it has to offer you.
It makes fun. Everyone who ever did it knows that. Maybe some had to struggle with themselves until they did it and some did it without thinking. But both of them are proud of themselves afterwards. Some are screaming, some are smiling. Some love the speed of it, that it goes up and down so fast. It is fascinating and most guys want to take a second ride after the first and another and another.
But what about the ride we got for free? What about our own life? It goes up and down all the time. We can’t get out, we can’t go back, we go forward, always. But we are our own engine. We have to find the strength for getting up after we fell. Some are exhausted, and when it goes down and down and down like a free fall, some might have lost this strength.
But keep in mind, when you wanna go up, you have to go down first. It is like a bird who wants to fly: first it falls, but then it goes up flying. Some might see you falling, others see you flying. Like always: it’s the perspective. You can’t go up all the time. If the down wouldn’t exist, the up wouldn’t, too. So everything would just be a straight road. No curves, no acclivities, no slopes. Just a straight road. And now think about such a rollercoaster ride. Wouldn’t it be less fun?
Of course it can be hard, when you feel like being stuck in a deep hole. But you have to find the right tools, and take all our strength and will, and maybe you fail the first time or the second, but you will find your way out. And then you will be happy that you did it. But if you give up, it’s like leaving the rollercoaster in the middle of the ride and you want to enjoy the full ride, won’t you?
