Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Summertime is back in town

Last night I finished work at half past eleven. It was still 29 degrees outside. That's astonishing and not usual for Zuich. Today it will be 34 degrees! Hell, I don't want to sit in the office, I want to go to the sea! (Actually here it's the lake but it doesn't matter.)
There is one good thing about work in summer: The house where my office is has walls with a calibre of 1 meter, so it's constantly 22 degrees in here.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Almost like holidays

Once a year all our leaders from scout move to the top of Zurich. We spend one week there, enjoy the sun and our swimming pool and live together. And thanks to my overtime I don't have to come down from the mountain everyday. At 6.15 am when the first alarm clock rings I can turn around and sleep for another few hours. The first train parts at 6. 58 am and it's about half an hour to walk from our house to the train station. 30 quiet minutes with only birds. No traffic rumor, no noisy persons talking nonsense in the morning and nobody to disturb you. There is only you and the forest. Great! See you next week back to civil life.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Somehow different :-?

Last week I attended three days classes in a hotel next to the Bodensee, bordering Switzerland an Germany. It was interesting, although very special and incredible for those who know me.
The subject was spirituality and mysticism. The first thing we had to do was remembering our childhood and try to draw a picture of our life. It had to contain the most important spiritual happenings of our lives. As I was (as usual) the youngest my painting was done very quickly.


My way (actually the picture from my mate)

Then we had to explain our work of art. After dinner we had another short session about our pictures and then we had the evening off. We went to the park and played cards, sang some songs and enjoyed the warm weather. This was the sunset we saw:



The next day was special. We had to meditate. We had to stand still for about 20 minutes, listening to what the teacher told us: "Feel your feet, your knees, your legs, your ... up to the head, the lungs, the heart." Finally finished I thought, but no, not yet. "Can you feel the skewer leading from your inner middle to the middle of the earth? After it reached the center of our planet it longs out to the universe." I felt like a pig, roasting on a spit... That was too much for me. Standing quietly without doing anything else then breathing for about 20 minutes. I was very thankfully when it was over. But it came worse: "Sit on your chair, try to find a decent position, and then close your eyes and stay quite for the next half an hour." Aaaaaargggh! I can't do that! Thanks God one of my mates fell asleep after five minutes and fell to the floor, so the teacher aborted this exercise.
It can't get worse? Ha, you are wrong! "Go to the park and find yourselves a decent tree. Sit down in front of the tree, concentrate on it and introduce yourself. Then listen to what the tree wants to tell you." Luckily I had my mobile phone with me and called a friend of mine. I was really sorry, but the tree didn't want to tell me about his life so I had to find someone else to talk to. Strange, don't you think so? There was a 800-years-old tree in front of the hotel. Our teacher sat down there and after FIVE(!) hours he got up, saying that this was an interesting discussion. Hello?!?!? Crazy guy. That was not really my subject, and I don't know if I'll ever meditate again. Talking to a tree. Ridiculous in my opinion, but everybody is free to do as he or she is pleased.

In the evening we lit a fire in the park and sang some nice old songs. After a few hours we saw some lightening and after a few minutes some thunderbolts. It was gorgeous to see the thunderstorm approaching our side of the lake.



The three days were very, very special but I don't want to miss them. Our class was great, we had a lot of fun and the sun was shining a lot. And I had the most beautiful room of the hotel, a former castle. The only room with see view.


The view from my room