There, and back again

LIFE IS SPEEDING

2009 : DONE.

What a year. It has gone so quickly. Like my last 28 years.
Why is life speeding us through life? Why not taking its time to give us the life we want to live for a long time? There should be some "slow down life!" signs and heavy fines for speeding. But who is gonna get the bills?
Whats 365 days? Nothing!
But I can tell you a part of my last ones.
Its been a huge 365 days for me.
I probably slept 2555 hours ( 100 days !! )off it, spent 2.5 days under water and approx. 30 days in transports.
I flew one time around the earth.
I become a Dive master, done over 100 dives this year. Every single one was breath taking.
Got an 7.3 earthquake, on my birthday.
And a Tsunami warning, I experienced the fear.
I discovered 5 new countries and started learning one new language.
Only got robbed once. Nearly twice. Actually, nearly 3 times.
Lost one beloved family member.

I enjoyed 2009. It was a good year. Every year should be great.
There is so much to do and to see in this amazing world, life is just to short!
You have to make the most out of it. It is so f****** worth it!
Because: you only live once - and it IS worth it - every single day.
Don’t waste your time – live your life!!!
Welcome 2010.

Home sweet home - Surprise Surprise!!

First I told my granny, told her to keep it a secret. You know how granny´s are, they have to gossip around.. she told my other granny. 3 month they wanted to keep it a secret, which is not easy for them. Then my sister knew, and my cousin, and my other cousin. . . Great, I thought.
I just wanted to see the faces of my parents when I am knocking at the door while they think I am still in Australia and celebrating xmas alone . . .
Air China : great. Ha! It took me 2 sleeping tablets to calm myself down. It must have been very amusing for my Pakistani neighbour to see me falling asleep DURING I was eating.. when I woke up everything was gone already. Born in a communist state I already forgot how crazy it must have been. But hey, we still have china to remember! Just wanted to change the planes and I felt they going to put me in prison for it. So annoyed I continued my flight to Germany, open-minded as I am I thought I should try the china breakfast. As I opened the aluminium box I thought somebody was chewing it the whole night for me and spit it back. Well, I still tried it. And spit it back. No wonder Chinese people spitting the whole day ( honestly, they spit like lamas ! ) when they get this breakfast I would spit a whole week.
38 hours I am finally knocking at my home door. My granny´s organised a little party so everybody was there but my parents had no idea that this party was for me. hihi. My mum opened the door and screamed like chinese when they put there foot into the ocean. Happy reuniting with all my family after one year of traveling.

We had a lovely time together for xmas and my mum´s 50. birthday. I am blessed with such a nice family!

Dive master Reuniting in Berlin.

The last time I saw my dive master friends ,we had 40° and we were on the other side of the earth, on a small island in Honduras. Such a good time we had and share so many memories and adventures together.. This time we had a great time in berlin!

And in the time in between, I catched up with my friends, had drinks and lots of fun in the snow.

NEW YEARS EVE 2009/2010 SNOWFLAKES AND ROCKETS.

This year, I spent NYE with my closest friends and family. It was great because there was a big snow storm and my friend and I stumbled through the snow from one place to the other.
OH WHAT A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here I am .. Where am I ??

Here I am, still floating, but not on a houseboat anymore. Floating around friends who offered me a shelter before I am going home for christmas.
My friend Marcus ( from the houseboat ) came to Sydney and we stayed in a friends place, togehter with 3 other Braziliens in a one bed room apartment. Had a good time together partying, swimming and BBQing before we moved to another place close to Palm Beach. A friend from work offered us a room for a couple of days in her parents house. A fantastic house on the ocean with a big garden and pool, a cat and her lovely parents.

The past weeks I slowly raised my sleeping standard from sleeping on the ground, to sleeping on couchpillows, to couches and finally in a real bed. It felt so good, I nearly forgot how comfortable sleeping can be.
I told myself not to fall asleep and to enjoy this beautiful moment of the real bed but the sound of the oceanwaves quickly lulled me to sleep ..
Thanks a lot to Tanja, Fernanda and Family Watson for all your help and your heartiness which I really appriciated!!

Gerald, the lillte Tiger Man.

Springbrook Nationalpark, Queensland

5 People in a 20 years old mercedes benz on the way to the Gold Coast Hinterland, the Springrook National Park. The winding and steep tracks were pushing the car to the limits that in the end we were driving the 20% steep ways with 5km/h…
Also we thought we could get some fuel up in the mountains, pretty stupid.

But instead of worrying about fuel we took a 3 km path in the wilderness – without a map. We had no idea if we are on the right way but again we didn’t worry. The path leaded through evergreen jungle forest with waterfalls and beautiful trees and views. We even found honey on one of the rocks!!

After a couple of hours we returned surprised to the car to realise that there s no bloody gas station and we have gas for 15 km left… so we had to beg some locals for fuel and the friendly – pretty weird people sold us some.

Rainbow Region, Nimbin , NSW

On the way back to surfers we took the way through the “Rainbow Region”, an area of green hills and mountains, winding streets and lots of farms. On one street we nearly drove over a stick lying on the street , well it was moving. A big Python crossed the street !

Our destination was Nimbin, a 352 people village in the middle of the evergreen. Also famous for the green stuff, but more the one you smoke ;) the small hippy community has got one street where you can buy everything , if I say everything, I mean everything! I think half of the town’s people job is to sell weed - and they are not shy about it. As you can see….