everything's not lost.

and here are the final pix, i love this one, handheld of course:

but i’m also awesome in being superman, please don’t tell anyone. clark kent is just a decoy. thanks to Susi for taking the following two pictures:

and some more handheld madness:

equipment:
lomo fisheye 2
lomo submarine

check out the whole flickr set: Lomo Fisheye Submarine @ Wörthersee

»It happened, therefore it can
happen again. This is the core
of what we have to say.« Primo Levi

I’ve been to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in July 2008 when I was in Berlin and this was something that moved me like nothing else for quite some time. It doesn’t get any more real than that.

Berlin is a great place and I will be back for more! 2 days weren’t even remotely enough.

(out of the car on the way to Berlin)

(my couchsurfing guest Dirk when watching a game at the Neuer Platz, but we soon went over to the Claddagh because it was raining)

after the Couchsurfing guests from Germany left I immediately got new ones from Zagreb, Croatia: Lovro and Brum who were staying at my place for 3 nights and we had a great time hanging out for some games and beers. or beers and games, it’s a thin line. we spent most of the time at the Claddagh again and soon noticed that they obviously only have one CD, because for at least 3 evenings in a row we heard the same songs. but at least there was some Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys and other great stuff on it, so it was OK.

when the guys were here I got an SMS to my Couchsurfing-phone from Sascha from Graz who had no place to sleep because a friend or something just left town. so i called him back, met up and decided to take him for two nights. the rest of the time he will stay with another Couchsurfing host from Klagenfurt, we’re a tiny, but well organized crew by now :)

and when Sascha was here, i got another emergency request from Mariusz from Krakow, Poland who was staying at my place in February. Mariusz is a Euro-volunteer who was staying at the Fancamp or Camping or whatever but then he got robbed in Vienna and I took him in on last minute for one night.

now this morning i kicked everyone out all of the guys left and now everything is back to normal. so far, it’s been a great few days and I’m glad that I’ve taken a time-out from work to have the chance to do this. it never really felt like stress or anything having up to 4 people over at the same time, i just had to buy some more toilet paper :D

but I also got something out of it, besides having a great time of course, Dirk brought great salami, cheese and wine from Verona, Italy. the German guys brought cheep beer from Switzerland a flag of their local team Hertha BSC and the Croatians brought a scarf for the Croatian team, a scarf for the Zagreb team, a small Croatian flag and best of all some honey-schnaps which i have yet to try.

and i notice that all the couchsurfing hosts I had were connected with the Euro2008 - fans with tickets, fans without tickets, volunteers for their volunteer-interview… I wonder how Couchsurfing in Klagenfurt will continue after the Euro, i guess it’s not a very busy town, which is great, because that way you may invest some more time in the few guests you’re having.

(uhhhhh me like shiny flag)

(me, my cs guest Lovro, my cs guest Brum, my cs guest Sascha, fellow Klagenfurt couchsurfing host Bettina)

my couchsurfing guests with the mayor of Klagenfurt, Harald Scheucher, at 2 a.m.

Both guys are from Zagreb, but they exchanged shirts and stuff with Polish fans after the game! just like the German guys did with Croatian fans. I love that.

.

.

.

.

.

.

surprisingly, after a few boring (and even worse) days, the EURO2008 finally “kicked in” (badum-bish) on thursday with the game Germany - Croatia in Klagenfurt. the streets were flooded with people from Croatia and Germany and I think there were way more Croatians than Germans, everything was covered in red and white :)

i didn’t take much pictures the last days, mainly because of the weather and the fact that it was boring anyways, but yesterday was a bit different!

(in the end it didn’t help :)

i also head a few Couchsurfers over, starting with Chris from Poland (but lived long enough in the States to pass as an American..) during the weekend and Dirk from Germany (living in Italy) and Thomas from Hamburg with two of his friends. That picture might look scary, but they were mostly harmless :)

we watched the game outside the Claddagh (seriously, where else? :) and then went on to party after the game at the Pfarrplatz - am I glad i moved away from there half a year ago! damn it was loud. but such a great party, everyone had a great time!

and why am I the only one with a beer? usually it would be the other way round! really!

(me, Couchsurfing guest Dirk from Germany, Chris, Markus,
Couchsurfing host Uli with guest Lauryn from the USA)

another great group picture haha! see - i actually didn’t intend to drink the beer! tadaaa!

so far the performance of the Austrian team was almost as depressing and embarassing as i thought it would be, but i really love the team from Netherlands, how awesome is it to literally destroy reigning world-champion Italy and vice-world-champion France? :)

Monday will be another game in Klagenfurt, Poland - Croatia, looking forward to that at well. today I should get two Couchsurfers from Zagreb who will stay until Tuesday. on Wednesday, i have to work again, after that there are no more games in Klagenfurt.

much fun on thursday, but was it worth all the trouble and effort? there’s a lot of media coverage about how much money the caterers are loosing in the fan zones when it’s not a game-day, but there is no sympathy from my side because of those stupid regulations. Carlsberg beer 4.5 EUR in the official fan zone and they are very restrictive when letting people in. a few examples?

• on one day (not even a game day) i bought a 0.5L bottle of Coca-Cola and got it without the screw cap so i can’t use it as a projectile. nobody seems to mind if i throw it anyways without the screw cap on.
• i bought another 0.5L bottle of Coca-Cola yesterday at the Claddagh for 3 EUR (the price is OK!) and was refused entry in the official fanzone with the bottle. I had to down it and leave the bottle behind.
• the security stewards checking bags and everything are doing the worst job ever. i walk around with my backpack all the time and there is camera equipment and or a hoody and they just take a very short look at the content, beneath it all i could smuggle in worse things than just a 0.5L bottle i actually intended to drink. for example the backpack of markus has two halves and they only looked into the top half with the sweater, not the bottom half with the expensive camera equipment. “one time i even had a leather-man with me and got through”, he said.
  
• Uli was not let in to the fan zone because she had pepper-spray with her and she was not even allowed to leave it and get it back later, she had to give it up. and that after all the panic about women having to be careful.
• on Saturday, when it was raining just a tiny bit, the steward wouldn’t let me in at first because i had a compact umbrella - not the big one with a spike at the bottom, that i could understand, but the small one. even I could make more damage with my fist if I wanted to.
• on Thursday, the steward at the fan zone was very suspicious about my camera equipment in my backpack (Canon EOS 400D, 18-55, 70-300, Speedlite 430EX) stating it “looks like professional equipment” and that I needed an accreditation. i had to convince him that this is a hobby and i don’t have any profit out of being here. it’s always funny when people think a bigger camera than a point-and-shoot one is automatically the equipment of a professional :)

so you see, all in all a bit stupid, but hey, it’s been pretty safe so far, so i can live with it. at times, there were more police forces around than fans and so far they seem like doing a good job! and I say that even after my bike got stolen :D

(me and my “cousin” chris :D great pic by markus!)

Yesterday there was an article about Couchsurfing in the newspaper “Kleine Zeitung“, written by Georg who sort of interviewed me (and I even got a can of Red Bull Cola out of it :)

I already got positive feedback, which was a great relief as at first I wasn’t that comfortable with reading something about myself.

To sum up, what Couchsurfing is all about, you probably need an article twice that long, but why bother - just check it out for yourself and give it a try! www.couchsurfing.com

Click to see the full version on flickr or if you want you can even download the whole “Web-Spezial 11” on Georg’s blog!

Thanks Georg! :)