Moving to Austria

Good day, dear readers!


This is just a short entry to keep you updated about the latest developments in my everyday life. Recently I'm quite busy with planning my semester abroad: Next year I will move to Graz in Austria from mid-February to the beginning of September.
Finally everything is confirmed: I received the letter of acceptance from the university a while ago, and this morning also my accommodation was booked. Now I have to fix the course of my studies as well as I need to prepare all term papers and exams for this semester just in time. Quite a busy time at the moment! But I have the good feeling I am progressing successfully.

I am really looking forward to move to another country and to live alone for the first time in my life. Although many people consider Austria, a "German speaking country", as "quite boring" I'm grateful that I have the possibility to start living on my own in small steps to get used to it. I still can move to an English speaking country later.
Moreover: Don't ever think you understand Austrian German instantly, even not as a native speaker - this also needs practise! And since I'm studying German studies it will be even more interesting to investigate in the differences between the dialects.


That was all by now - see you soon! And thank you for reading~
Junsui

One year ago

Good day, dear readers!


Today I shortly want to write about one special occasion that happened to me exactly one year ago: I got my driving license! ^___^
We often realize that time seems to pass quite quickly, for example when meeting people you haven't seen for a long while. That's also the reason why your grandparents all the time tell you "Oh, you have grown that fast - you're such a big child now!"
But in this special case it is exactly the other way around for me: As if time has not passed that quickly at all. Is it just one single year since then? For me it feels as if I have had the driving license all my life long. Or maybe it is just because driving a car makes you feel so much more adult...
Sorry for these confusing thoughts ^___^;


Have a nice evening though!~
Junsui

DTM race @Nürburgring, 27th September 2015

Good day, dear readers!~


As I've already mentioned in the last post, the following Sunday I visited the DTM race at the Nürburgring for the first time in my life! I never have been at a motorsports event at all, so I was an entire rookie... But my main conclusion is: It was great and I have taken many impressions with me~
My friend Werner was with me this day and helped me a lot with getting into the event: He explained several things to me, did know which platform has the best view for relatively cheap entry and so on. Thank you very much for your support and the great day! ^___^


The very first challenge was the world trip (at least it felt like this) to the Nürburgring itself: To drive around 100km over road streets I didn't know. Curving up and down wasn't the easiest way to get there... Especially because I still lack of driving experience. I was REALLY proud of myself when I finally reached the venue without having caused an accident or dying on the route because of nervousity >___<;
The parking fees are exorbitant there: 8€ is the highest price I remember to have paid for parking somewhere. At least we have been able to get a reduced ticket for me instead of a full adult one~

The view on the curve has been quite good and you can enjoy the view on the cars longer than on a straight part. It is impressing to see them braking and turning here! 


Luckily the weather has been great this day! But the Nürburgring is nothing compared to the Rheintal: It is very cold and windy here! Always take winter clothing with you, it's definitely ten degrees cooler than usually... >___<;

Unfortunately the sunlight blinds a bit here...

The qualifying for the main race later the day began at 11am and lasted for 20 minutes. I got a first impression of how the DTM worked and felt the "spirit" of the event myself. Seriously, it is something completely different to sit on the stone platform yourself and to see, hear and feel everything by yourself! The TV can't transport this at all...

The roaring of the engines makes your ears blast... You can hear the motor gearing when gaining speed again after the curve... You can hear the creak of the brakes and can smell the burned rubber of the tires... You can see it spalling from the tires... You can see the sparkles when the car rushes over the cobblestones... You can feel the vibration of the HPs in your back... You can feel the dust of the sandpit in your face... Motorsports is actually more vivid than I would have expected, I was surprised! And so I also can understand why so many people are fascinated about it - I also got after a while ^___^

The event was accompanied and filmed by two official helicopters. Now I also can understand why the tickets cost so much... Because all the effort is damned expensive!

Here we can observe a private helicopter landing on the roof of a luxury hotel on the "RingBoulevard".

A spectacular view in direction of where the heart of the event beats. When using binoculars you even could see the end of the start/finish area the cars rushed out of.

Whoops - my finger on the left xD

Here we can see the platform of Mercedes-Benz. It is the biggest one besides to the one of BMW. I don't want to know how expensive tickets for these are...

Welcome at the so-called "RingBoulevard"! This is the public sector with lots of merchandise and food sellers where you can spend your spare time. Everything has been quite modern and of course crowded, but also very impressing.

It is not visible here that well, but on the right side has been a parking space for special guests etc. It was crowded there and I wondered why... There haven't been any VIPs arriving nor special cool cars parking. One day later I read in the newspaper that an accident happened here: This parking space lies directly next to the luxury hotel the helicopter landed on. And while doing so some tiles cracked from the roof and fell down on the cars, causing damage. Luckily nobody was injured!

And this is the "ring°racer". Already some years ago the Nürburgring planned to open a rollercoaster as an additional attraction. During construction it was the fastest rollercoaster in the world; it should reach 160km/h in less than 2 seconds via pneumatic catapult start. Unfortunately several test drives went wrong and the coaster was only opened for the publicfor a short time... It is not working at all anymore.
What a pity... I would have loved to take a ride with it - it just looks so amazing!~

Also when you get inside the indoor area of the "RingBoulevard" you can see the rails of the coaster on the ceiling. It would have been such an awesome event to witness it in action... But I guess it will never be opened.

Here we can see the pit stop area from a shop in the "RingBoulevard". It is damned expensive if you want to get in there for a walkthrough... Nevertheless it was quite crowded there. In the meantime between the races there also have been taxi drives on the road for pessengers who paid a LOT for it...

Cleaning the road for the next race ^___^

And now the main race started! One full hour of tension and highest concentration followed. I was especially fascinated of how close the cars drive next to and behind each other... It's a miracle that almost never something happens. Of course sometimes a car rushes out of the track, but luckily this day no severe accidents happened at all. In the end three participants didn't manage to finish the race, if I remember right... But the pilots are masters in their area, especially when you take into consideration that they handle much more HPs than every normal driver.

Of course the entire race is filmed and commented for the TV and the internet live stream, and the program is also projected on a huge video screen at the platforms. Unfortunately you can't understand much of the talk because of the noise of the spectacle itself...

Whoops! This one has miscalculated its speed and the curve...

...and needed to get back on the main track. Lost some precious time...

...but in the end it worked without causing an accident~

After the main race had finished there have been two other competitions: The Porsche Carrera-Cup as well as the Audi TT-Cup. We stayed there for both and saw some other great cars in action~ Luckily these ones weren't that noisy since they don't have that many HPs. Besides to "normal" drivers especially youngsters and junior drivers practise for their later career here quite well!

Quite close to each other... Impressing!

Sandpit in full action ^___^

When we left it already became quite empty since most of the visitors have left before. It was a miracle that we didn't get into any traffic jam around the Nürburgring itself! But only because Werner knows a clever way to drive around the main street - thank you for your experience! ^___~
I was quite tired after this long day and didn't want to drive home anymore... But I did though and in the end we nevertheless ended up in a terrible traffic jam. (Never believe that nobody is around on the streets on Sunday evening...)
It was hell to start up several times in gradient... I almost crashed into my followers, and after a while they realized it would be better to keep some safety distance from me xD It definitely would have happened if Werner wouldn't have helped me with the handbrake from time to time - thank you very much again!~
After a hair ruffling search for the central station of Bonn we ended up in Bad Godesberg instead, and that was were the common day ended. We bid each other farewell and hope we will be able to visit the Nürburgring together one day again! I can't say it often enough, thank you very much for this great day full of amazing experiences!~

And here is what I got from this day: The entrance ticket, the bill for the parking area and the pocket guide with the program of the event.








...So, thank you very much for reading! See you again~
Junsui

"Dreigipfelsturm"

Good evening, dear readers!~


Against my promise to write about my day at the DTM next, I have to insert another short report here. Because today I managed with a very hard, but just awesome issue: I broke my personal record in jogging once again!

Some of you may know that I have become a passionate jogger during the last four years. Today the weather conditions have just been great, and it would have been a sacrilege not to seize the day for an extended tour. So I changed clothes and just started running.

And I wouldn't have expected I would come up with the following results:
26,890km
02:53:10h
06:26:28min average per km
9,6 km/h average speed
886m up / 917m down

...Okay, I wasn't that fast at all - but when you take into consideration that I mainly ran up gradients and steep paths it is a different thing.
I literary climbed up three "mountains" of our forests - a thing I never tried out before. But today I felt quite motivated and just did so, and I was successful! To be honest, I'm quite proud of myself... (self-praise stinks... xD)

Well, I just wanted to keep this in memory for myself as well as I wanted to share this awesome (at least for me) result with you.


Thank you for reading and see you soon!
Junsui~

IAA 2015

Good day, dear readers!~


On Wednesday I visited the IAA in Frankfurt! Since I recently have become very fascinated and enthusiastic about cars in general I decided to go to this exhibition by myself for the first time. My Dad had recommended it to me, and so I planned a daily trip to Frankfurt.

I booked a place in the so-called Postbus, a German long travel company for buses. It was very cheap, I only paid 10€ for both ways! Moreover these buses are quite fast: I only needed around two hours to get there - I also wouldn't have been faster with my own car.
Although the bus was ten minutes belated, we arrived in time in Frankfurt. Luckily it was also no problem for me to find my way to the area.

Welcome at Frankfurt fair!

I have not been to many fairs around, only to the Caravan in Düsseldorf. I already have been impressed by the hugeness of this fair - but believe me, compared to Frankfurt it is a joke! I was overwhelmed by the format of the IAA; I never have been at such an event! I only picked out some of the halls with the brands I was interested in since it would have been impossible to visit all halls in one day...
But seriously, you have to follow the ways for half an hour until you see the first cars at all xD

I was quite flashed when entering Hall 3 at first: Darkness, bright light screens and lots of people again... Moreover this day was school class day and there have been so many pupils around. The cliché of young nerds fascinated about big and fast cars was absolutely fulfilled here xD
At first I watched some awesome sports cars from Lambhorgini and Bugatti, then I went to the Porsche sector. Unfortunately it was so overcrowded here, I just had to escape after a while before getting insane... That was also the reason why I skipped the Volkswagen area - but VW is also not my preferred brand at all.

Just look at this Lambhorgini! Absolute dream car *___*

A very stylish sports Bugatti~

A Porsche 918 Spyder

A Porsche 911 Carrera S - to be honest, these ones are driving me insane in the traffic since most of the drivers are over-convinced from themselves... Like "I am driving a Porsche, out of my way!"

And of course Porsche is investigating a lot in the e-revolution. This is a hybrid car, fueled half with gas and half with electricity. In general e-mobility has been an important topic at the IAA and concerned many brands.




I have been very interested in the models of Tesla, the pioneer of e-cars on the market. I instantly fell in love with one model I had the possibility to sit in... But unfortunately you only could register for a test drive when you're aged 25 or older T___T

Now welcome at Land Rover and Range Rover! Since I have had the possibility to drive with a Land Rover Defender no long time ago I am also very enthusiastic about these sturdy roadsters.

The best thing was that you could register for a test drive as a pessenger with one of these models - on a steep terrain that had been prepared especially for the fair at the outdoor area. The car managed to climb up a hill with 85% gradient as well as it easily managed to drive and to brake in 35% gradient. It heavily shook inside, but it was an awesome experience! (of course I had to try this out ^___^)

To be honest I forgot when I took this picture... xD

In following I entered the hall of BMW. As well as Mercedes-Benz and Audi they have had an own hall for their products (as usual for the most influential brands). And they even had a test track and show-drove the cars sometimes what left great impressions on the visitors! I also sat down for a while and just let myself impress by cars like these~

OMG, this was so awesome: This is a Smart transformed to a driving stereo unit! You can't believe how loud the music was it produced...
Just look into it: The light effects changed, you could see and feel the vibration of the boxes... Imagine your favourite song played on it!~

Oh yes, this was another very cool thing you could try out: Maneuvering this small Smart Fortwo through a quite narrow parcours! Of course I could not withstand to do so myself and registered. And this was the very first time in my life I tried out an automatic - they are so much easier to drive than gearers! I managed with this track quite well after two tries, it made so much fun ^___^  I would always try it out again and drive an automatic in general~


After taking a short break I gathered myself together and entered the most crowded hall, the one from Audi. You had to queue for around ten minutes and I was sceptical whether it would pay off the effort - but yes, it absolutely did!~

At first you take an escalator into a black entrance on the first or second floor. When walking along a blackened corridor you already can take a look into the hall down on the right. But the most impressing thing: Digital images have been projected into the glass screen like in a spaceshuttle! It looked very futuristic and impressed me quite much~

Here we can see this effect of the digital screen again on the right. The other very amazing effect they created was to pin cars on light screens. The animations projected coloured streets of light on the space, and the wheels of the cars simultaneously turned - so it appeared as if the car was rushing along the coloured moving streets! I could have watched this for hours like a little child ^___^

Pinned at the light screens~

Very stylish!

A touring car~

In following and as a last "challenge" of the day I entered the hall of Mercedes-Benz. There you also had to queue for a while until you got at the third floor via escalators and needed to follow an one way-street down to the ground again. They "only" had a stage for presenting their cars, no own track like BMW - nevertheless they have shown some interesing models during the shows I saw from time to time.


But: At the moment I am not such an experienced driver that I would dare to drive one of these big cars by myself... I would be too afraid to damage them in any way, especially because they cost so much...
The car with the most HP I tried out was a BMW3, and I still was a learner in driving school these days - that scared the shit out of me... at least concerning driving cars with much power by myself. Now I'm practising eagerly to get better in driving so that I can dare to move models with many HP one day, too!~

...Seriously: I can become enthusiastic about too many models, but this one I considered as absolutely ugly >___< It was a hybrid car and expensive as hell, but I would never ever buy such one...

While I was around in the Mercedes-Benz hall they greeted a prominent guest: Mr Sigmar Gabriel paid a visit to the IAA! I'm not interested in our politicians that much since they are all only changing faces, but this one is quite influential at the moment and I even recognized him! (But only because he was surrounded by lots of security staff and other important consultants xD Moreover I had no idea what he was doing there at all...)

Oh yes, and there has been a very funny moment at the information desk: Everywhere flyers lay around, and you could decide whether you wanted to grab some by yourself or whether you ask an employee to pack them into a merch bag for you and to give you some advices or recomendations. When I stood there for a moment, a young and motivated guy started talking to me: "Good day! One time 'awesome" for you?" And without waiting longer he packed all brochures of the most awesome looking (sports) models in a bag and handed it to me, together with a poster. I was a bit confused at first, but then joined in and was laughing about the enthusiasm you can feel for cars ^___^ (I guess he has infected me a bit with this~)


This was mainly how the day at the IAA ended - I was surprised how fast time had run out. To get back to the bus station in time I hurried a bit - just to get to know that the bus was belated for an entire hour...! So I seized the rest of the time with walking around Frankfurt central station for a while, and finally in the bus I slept for a while since I was quite k.o. after the day. Nevertheless I managed to get home safely in the evening although it got later than expected...


The next day I had to look through all the flyers and materials I brought with me - and became enthusiastic again because of all these stylish cars *___* xD two posters of a BMW7 and a Mercedes-Benz AMG GT S are decorating my room now~

My little yield - everything for free~

To put it in a nutshell: I have to confess, it was a great trip! I am really happy that I've done it, and I will definitely visit this exhibition again one day. You just have to get enthusiastic about cars when you are there, even if you are generally not that big fan... But after a while the little boy in all of us breaks out and you automatically start admiring these cool models!~



Thank you for reading and see you at the next report: Look forward to the report about the DTM race at the Nürburgring on Sunday, the 27th of September!~

Junsui ^___^

..., dass einem das Lachen im Halse stecken bleibt

Guten Tag allseits! ^__^


Heute schreibe ich ausnahmsweise mal auf Deutsch! Was der Tatsache geschuldet ist, dass ich ein Dokument gefunden habe, welches zu schwer zu übersetzen wäre...
Ich bin just über den Entwurf meines Testamentes gestolpert. Kaum dass ich die Volljährigkeit erreicht hatte, habe ich einen letzten Willen verfasst. Aber was da drin steht ist teilweise ziemlich kurios... Ich kann mich selbst schon nicht mehr daran erinnern, das geschrieben zu haben.


Okay, das Meiste ist noch recht gewöhnlich:

"Der Verbleib meines gesamten Eigentums fällt meinen Eltern zu." 
- Bräuchte man aber nicht separat reinschreiben, da die gesetzliche Erbfolge das sowieso vorsieht. (= Schwachsinn Nummer eins)

"Ich wünsche bei meiner Beerdigung ausdrücklich keine Trauer und triste Stimmung." 
- Kann ich leider nicht kontrollieren und würde bestimmt nicht der Fall sein, da immer jemand anfängt zu weinen. (= Schwachsinn Nummer zwei)


Aber jetzt geht es los:

"Sofern sich mein Körper in entsprechender Verfassung befindet wünsche ich eine Erdbestattung in meinem Alice and the Pirates 'Scent of Rapunzel' OP."
- Selbstverständlich nur das Beste für mich: Die teuerste und edelste Form der Bestattung soll es sein. Die armen Angehörigen, die das finanzieren müssen... Und dann auch noch Ansprüche stellen, was ich angezogen haben und wie ich aussehen möchte wenn ich in die Tiefen der Erde hinabgelassen werde, wo es sowieso niemanden mehr interessiert. Darüber hinaus wird das schöne Outfit dann von Würmern zerfressen... ( = Schwachsinn Nummer drei)

"Sollte ich verstümmelt oder nur noch Teile von mir erhalten sein wünsche ich eine Einäscherung und Urnenbestattung."
- Sehr appetitlicher Gedanke, in Stücke zerlegt zu werden... Mit denen kann man wirklich nichts besseres  anstellen als sie in Flammen zu stecken. Passt auch ganz gut zu meinem Sternzeichen und Aszendenten, die beide im Element Feuer stehen. Ausnahmsweise mal kein Schwachsinn! Aber trotzdem kurios zu lesen...

"Sollte ich nicht auffindbar und nichts von mir erhalten sein, hat sich das Thema erledigt."
- Klare Ansage, aber eigentlich auch logisch, oder? ( = Schwachsinn Nummer vier)


Diesen Entwurf würde kein Notar unterzeichnen und er wäre bei Weitem nicht rechtsgültig. Ich denke, es ist das Beste, diesen Zettel einfach zu archivieren (aus reiner Nostalgie, bloß nicht vernichten! Zukünftige Lachanfälle vorprogrammiert) und darauf zu vertrauen, dass die Angehörigen im Todesfalle in deinem Sinne handeln würden. Zumindest so lange du über keine größeren Besitztümer verfügst, die jemand Besonderem zufallen sollen.

Und vor allem sollte man keine Angst vor dem Tod haben. Wenn er dann eines Tages vor der Tür steht und dich anweist, dir zu folgen; dann lade ihn einfach auf ein Glas Ouzo ein, fülle ihn mit zwei ganzen Flaschen ab, und sobald er eingeschlafen ist fesselst und knebelst du ihn und wirfst ihn in die finsterste Ecke deines Kellers. Das hat zumindest Sisyphus getan und sich damit einige Jahre länger über Wasser gehalten... xD (Y)


Beste Grüße! ^___^
Junsui~

Word association test

Good day, dear readers!


Recently I am working on my term papers for my English studies: One in the literature class about Shakespeare (what else? ^___^), another one in a linguistic course concerning a relatively new branch of research called Psycholinguistics. It concerns how language is stored and processed in the so-called "mental lexicon", the human word store.

Now I have a request: I need YOU for an experiment. It is a very simple and totally harmless survey with which I can examine certain processings in the human word store. Please follow this link:

https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/QGXJLK8

The way how it works is explained in the survey itself.
You would really help me with your participation! Please also feel free to share the link since I need as many informants as possible.

Thank you very much for your help in advance!~


Junsui~

Much to do...

Good day, dear readers!

Recently I don't have much time for social networking and writing blogs etc... So many things are going on at the moment, it's hard for me to organize everything and sometimes I'm loosing the overview >___<

Just some short information what kept and keeps me busy:

- On 25th May I visited HIZAKIs "Crimson Rose" concert in Cologne and even had the possibility to interview him! One of my biggest dreams came true this evening although I just had ten minutes because time became too short... Nevertheless I won't forget this in a lifetime! It's just one of the greatest feelings in the world when you get such a chance~ If I would have known about this five years ago when I came in contact with his music for the first time, I would have died every day again and again, anxietly waiting for even this very special day... He has been one of my biggest idols since then, and he will stay forever~

- Of course the results should be published later: I'm working for the German internet page animePRO and had to put the answers in a formulated interview version as well as I wrote a report about the concert itself. Here are the links to the report, an E-Mail-interview I was allowed to lead before the European tour and the original interview shortly before the show~

English translations will follow as soon as possible ^___^

- Just two days after the concert I spontaneously flew to Austria for spending four free days there~ It was very strange and also a bit difficult to calm down from 200% to -10% in such a short time xD But nevertheless I enjoyed my (too) short stay~ I would have loved to spend some more time there, but university was calling at the beginning of the next week and I had to return fastly...

Reports will follow as soon as possible, too (but it might take longer than I would want to... >___<)

- Finally returned home, everyday life caught me up entirely again. I realized that I had much more to do now than I had expected... So I'm still busy with re-working older contents and handling the new ones at the same time. Moreover some presentations are calling soon, and so on...

- I also have to plan and organize my intended semester abroad. I got some interesting information about free ERASMUS places for the next summer term, and I need to write some applications soon. It's more work than you think it is... >___<

- And finally, to finance this stay abroad I need to earn some money, of course. So I searched for a job and finally got hired as a cashier in a supermarket!~ Yesterday I went there for test-working, and today I'll have my first official day! I need to get into everything new and have to learn many things, so my mind is also occupied with this issue... But it seems as if it's not impossible and even makes fun!~

So, as you can see, I'm just quite busy with some things at the moment. It's not exhaustingly stressy, but just a lot of new impressions. Nevertheless I'm glad that things are going on that fast: It supports my personal development and offers me many new experiences~ It is important to always stay in motion and to never stop - I definitely won't in the next time! ^___^

Okay, thank you for reading and hopefully see you soon!~

Junsui

Hot Air Ballooning

Good day, my dear readers!


Two days ago I had a very interesting new experience: I did a tour with a hot air balloon!
Although I was a bit sceptic before I must say it was just great! I won't forget this for a lifetime, I guess~

Well, let me share some impressions with you. One was allowed to take photos, and of course I did so ^___^

Let us start with the balloon itself. The skin is made of tent material, about 30 metres long when rolling it out, measures about more than 1500m² and has the capacity to hold the amount of 8500 cubic metres of gas. It is an incredible size, but I thought the balloon would look even bigger in the end... ^___^;

This is the basket, lying on the side. This is important for the procedure when pumping up the balloon which is a quite complicated and even a bit dangerous issue... Let me explain it further:
The basket holds twelve people plus the pilot in the middle, under the gas supporter. Six people hold the basket at its hooks you can see here, the other six have to hold two ropes which are not visible here. These ropes are laid besides to the balloon skin, serve for aerodynamic purposes for the start and landing and have to be hold straight while the balloon gets heated.
Well, at first the balloon gets pumped up with cold air from the two ventilators you can see here. The more air gets in, the harder holding the ropes become... I was in the "rope holding team" and stood at the top end of the balloon. It was really hard to hold the skin when it almost was blown up entirely...
The next step was a risky one: Of course the balloon wants to lift off when hot air gets in, and what to do when half of the people is still standing at the top end and not in the basket at all? So everybody had to get in quickly: Bit by bit we had to let go off the rope, run the 30 metres to the basket and to get in as fast as possible. Luckily I was in the pole position and I am a good runner, so I was at and in the basket quite fast - absolutely unproblematic.
The lift off happened faster than I had expected: When everybody got in the balloon already wanted to drift away, but it was hold by a rope that was loosened in the end. And finally we left the ground and won height very quickly! I thought a balloon would be slower... Well, we weren't very fast with normal speed in the air: 7 km/h is as fast as a relaxed jogging tempo ^___^ It's like walking through the air~






















This is from where we started: The Rheinaue, Bonns big park. We will head to the Siebengebirge over there, in direction of my home~

A view back on Bonn~
The weather conditions were quite good, it almost was a bit less windy and we "only" drove nine kilometres in the end. But that doesn't matter, it was a really enjoyable tour~
Oh, and it is really not cold up there: I was able to wear my normal clothes. Around 900 feet altitude the air isn't colder than on the ground at all, I was surprised!

We now approach my home village ^___^ I even could see our house, it's somewhere at the very left of this photo - left to the small orange one in the upper row of the houses with the black roofs~

A view down. At the beginning I wasn't in "flight mode" and a bit afraid of the altitude, but quickly I got used to the feeling again and wasn't scared anymore. After that looking down was no problem at all, especially because we were moving that slowly. I would even have appreciated the basket's floor being made of glass, that would have been even more impressing ^____^

You can also see our ferry there~

And this is where we moved in the end: Bonn Wachtberg. At the beginning it seemed as if we would cross the Rhine and land somewhere behind the hills of the Siebengebirge, but the wind direction changed when driving along the riverside and we stayed on the left side. Even the pilot was surprised ^___^

The rapeseed fields looked so beautiful~

Over there you can see the village where I went to school. There are two small islands in the Rhine, Grafenwerth and Nonnenwerth island.

These are the gas suppliers, the only "motor" a balloon has. They are important for regulating the altitude, but you of course can't control the direction of where one is driving - that's the reason why one drives with a balloon instead of flying. A balloon is always and only dependent on the winds~
The power of these suppliers is gigantic: 3500 kilowatt hours - put your barbecue sausages and steaks over them, they're scorched in the twinkle of an eye xD
When you stand directly besides and under them, they're loud and hot as hell - I was afraid of my hair being burned all the time, but of course nothing happened~

A glance into the balloon. It doesn't look that huge from the inside of the basket... I realized it later when I saw exterior photos from it.

Blast!~ It's impressing to see the fluid gas igniting to such a flame!

Don't you think these houses look like toys? I could imagine very well to rearrange and to move them! I felt like a child again when I had a playmat with streets, houses and cars printed on it ^___^

Well, a bit blurred... But there we have the rest of our team again! The first car is a Land Rover Defender with a trailer for the basket and the balloon, the second one a Sprinter for transporting a part of the passengers back to our starting point. We were shortly before the landing, and they already waited for us there~
It was quite funny to drive over the houses slowly and already sinking again - the poeple down there waved and cheered, and somebody even blew a vuvuzela xD

Right before the landing! The pilot chose this field because nothing but weed was growing there and we wouldn't annoy the land owner, he guessed. We were lucky: We landed just before the gooseberries which you can see there.

Start of deconstructing the balloon. At first the hot air had to leak out, and it needed over ten minutes untilthe skin laid down there (and became infested by snails immediately xD).

There we have our Land Rover with the trailer again~ This car is just great for driving through terrain and soil!

A last glance inside. The next evening everything needed to be build up again for the next tour - what an effort for one hour of driving!

The basket without the balloon. Can you imagine that only the construction costs 70.000€ and needs to be insured for 4.000€ a year? Not the cheapest transportation...

Finally the balloon was wrapped up in a complicated matter and pulled into the big blue bag you can see here. It was really not easy to push it into the trailer again: The whole balloon skin weighs 320kg!

The next issue was to push the basket back into the trailer. In general no big problem, but this time the Land Rover wasn't able to properly park in front of it. The wheels spinned in a downspout in the ground and the car couldn't move backwards. In the end the team decided to push the basket into the trailer from the other side - not the prefered way because the terrain was steep and we had to push it up instead of down the slope... This was a bit more complicated because the basket weighs half a ton in total.
We all had to help pushing on command, and it was way easier to move the basket inside the trailer than to carry the bag...

But in the end we were successful and everything was deconstructed properly~


Well, after the hard work we of course got a reward! Hot air ballooning has a special tradition after the tour which was much fun.
At first everybody got some water to drink, after that the champagne was flowing ^___^ While standing together, talking and having an enjoyable evening every new balloon passenger got an "air baptism" and was levied to aristoracy what is based on the history of air ballooning. So also nowadays it is a tradition to be ennobled after one's first tour:
You have to fall on your knees (like being ennobled in the Middle Ages) and a strand of your hair is burned (what stands for the fire that is needed to reheat the balloon).
I got the title Baroness~

The last stage of our trip was the drive back to the Rheinaue where we started and where the event officially also ended. It was already after 10pm when we arrived there again.
It's a pity that the Land Rover Defender isn't produced anymore... I loved driving with this car! (please ignore my focus on cars although it should be laid on the balloon here xD)



Well, that's how a wonderful evening ended. I just can recommend doing a hot air balloon tour to everybody who wants to get to know an unknown way of transportation and to have some action and adventure at the same time. I would definitely do it again ^___^



See you next time~
Junsui