The road goes ever on and on...

The road goes ever on and on,
down from the door where it began...
Now far ahead the road has gone,
and I must follow, if I can.
-J.R.R. Tolkien

 
13 days. 13 days until I'm back home ! can't believe how quickly "the end" has approached now..

I'll report briefly again as there's plenty of other things on my to-do-list.


01/05 - 08/05/2015 SCOTLAND - cairngorm mountains

one week after the farewell party of rosi and zhanna (remember, end of the last blog entry :b) I went on my most exciting and definitely best trip during my year here. one week in the scottish highlands, alone, with backpack and tent.

what those mountains gave me I can't really put into words. it was cold, windy, stormy, warm and sunny, snowy, rainy, dry, I felt free, lonely, excited, exhausted, rich, bored, confused and calm. sounds very stupid what I write down here, I'll just add the pictures I already posted on facebook.

an lochan uaine

loch morlich seen from meall a' buachaille

river nethy

camp 1

bynack more

camp 2

20/05 - 24/05/2015 mid-term-training + london:

wednesday 20 and thursday 21 bianka, julie, kat, elisa, finn and I had our "mid-term"-training in london, together with about 10 other volunteers from london and surroundings. another great opportunity to meet interesting people, however the training itself wasn't too exciting for me.
after the training finished on thursday afternoon I just stayed in london for a couple of days to see my friends julian and lea, and also to visit two of my organization's volunteer managers, david and renalda - which would be the first tiny step of saying farewell.

julian again hosted me kindly and also our friend lea; was good fun going out with them in london by night once more.

28/05 - 31/05/15 with volunteering matters in nantes, FRANCE:

manu, julie and I were lucky enough to get the chance to accompany two staff of our organization volunteering matters to the lovely city of nantes in france for a youth seminar about european citizenship.
not only that the workshops and debates were in my opinion totally enjoyable, all the expenses were paid and we met a lot of great young people from england, italy, france, slovakia and the czech republic... I fell in love with nantes, france and its language, and I will surely go there again, perhaps even stay there for a while.

we all were hosted by french families by the way, who in my case were sooo kind and good to me (and my fellow project participant veronika). on the last day they even brought us along to a lovely family-and-friends-evening which I appriciated a lot as they showed us some nice places of the city and then took us to an amazing crepes-restaurant.

new goals after this enriching trip:
-picking up french again
-getting more involved in local politics/society
-aquiring more knowledge about everyday politics both globally and locally again
-living in france for a while

also would I like to see my lovely host family again, and the great french people we encountered in nantes.

local council

le chat noir - great night out

sort of a flash mob - good fun :D

agir en europe (ignore the no future^^) !

veronika, the slovakian girl I stayed at the host family with

05/06 - 08/06/15 marske-by-the-sea, northern england:

next fab weekend, this time east coast near middlesbrough, at lea and soraya's little "castle". julie and I were invited to stay at this fantastic place for a weekend, and had indeed a great time! the little break from the busy times that we bouth had been facing (mainly good things though) did us certainly good! I for my part loved marske's beach and felt very comfortable in the "castle" as I called the residental home lea and soraya are working and living (their flat is in the attic!) in.

kill bill is a brilliant movie btw.

the castle's tower - breakfast room

f.l.t.r. julie, lea and soraya

victorian family picture, f.l.t.r. soraya, julie, me and lea

11/06 -14/06/15 isle of wight festival:

having been at home only for two days between marske and the festival made it feel that we had only come home to refill tanks, wash clothes and spend a couple of hours in our own beds. anyway, thursday morning jesus, julie, bianka and I headed towards our next adventure, the well known (and fuc**** expensive) isle of wight festival, on that one amazing island near portsmouth. to be honest, the actual event didn't completely meet my expectations, have already had better festivals, but still the acts we saw were quite decent, and the mood on a festival is unique anyway. all in all it was certainly a good time. AND: my last big event before I go home..

yes, I'm serious, that's literally the only picture we have from those four days :D (R.I.P saruman)

well, that's it I suppose.. not much more to say or show to you, the next and final entry will be from austria..
these two last weeks will be filled with studying (still preparing for my entrance exam) and sorting out all the last bits that have to be done.

thanks for your interest,
see you soon,
matthias

time's flying !

a looot of time has passed.
only little time is left.
and still - so many plans, so many things I would like to do.

anyway, this'll rather be a list of trips I've done over the last few (yes I can actually say it) months than a great text, don't have much time. though I hope you enjoy flicking through the pictures; and of course I'll also spend a few words on the places I've been to.

February. February.. rather calm month for me, apart from studying (for all those who I haven't told yet, I'm preparing for my uni entrance exam now so that I hopefully can start my medicine studies in october), rugby and a dafna party (3.0) there wasn't much happening.

then in march, life slowly got more exciting again.

13-03-15 volunteers day in london:
lovely day with a lot of new volunteers, our nice volunteer managers anna, david and renalda, games, bring-and-share-lunch and bowling; camden and pub afterwards.


at midnight kat, julie and me took the megabus to plymouth, south west england where we'd stay for a few days at a friend's place and enjoy cornwall:

14-03 - 17-03-15 cornwall:
after a rather tough night on the coach we arrived in plymouth early morning (6:00). luckily we found a costa (<3) which opened at 7. breakfast there, followed by a nice train ride to st. ives, a marvellous little town at the coast. wonderful beaches, interesting shops, and everywhere the smell of cornish pasties.

typical travel picture

f.l.t.r. julie, me & kat

wonderful st. ives

in the evening we eventually arrived at nadine's place, a volunteer from tirol, austria, who we had met in october on our on-arrival-training. nadine was (by now she's back home) a volunteer at mount edgcumbe, a big garden project near plymouth. to get there and to her place we had to take a small ferry, cute somehow.
nadine was a great host, we felt really comfortable at her house.
sunday she showed us her project, monday penzance, tuesday plymouth itself and eventually back home in the evening. all in all a fantastic trip, if I may give some advice - go to cornwall!

@mount edgcumbe

kat, nadine, julie & me

st. michael's mount

march also brought us guys at dafna a very spontaneous (and awesome) party, very enjoyable!


03-04 - 06-04-15 belfast:

over the easter weekend kat and I stayed at yet another volunteer's place, anton from sweden was our host in belfast. again a great weekend, particularly the trip to the giant's causeway left a strong impression.
but also the city of belfast is very interesting, a place with intense history, coined by a conflict which is definitely not processed entirely yet. we saw the impressive docks, where by the way a couple of decades ago the titanic had been constructed, the "peace wall", city centre, botanic gardens, ulster museum and a few other places.

"I'll tell me ma.." - peace wall

giant's causeway

between my belfast weekend and the next one which I spent in london, four of my austrian friends stayed here at dafna for two days, quality time, really relaxed!

10-04 - 12-04-15 london:

boys weekend in london. together with jesus I stayed at julian's place near newington green. perfectly laidback, walking through nice streets, markets and parks on the days, exploring the neighbourhood in the nights.

f.l.t.r. jesus, me & julian

18-04 - 20-04-15 liverpool & manchester:
frankly, one of my favourite places here in the uk - liverpool. since I had seen it for the first time in august 2014 (we went with a coach from there to creamfields festival) I had been buzzing to go back there, to the beatles' home, I'll remember it as the place with that wonderful library in front of the st. john's gardens, a tiny but for me special spot.

library of liverpool

the guys -f.l.t.r. manu, finn, kat, elisa, nuno

in liverpool I also met sophie and her service user nadia, who I spent some nice hours with, walking around the centre, seeing the immensively huge cathedral and the docks. hope I can see them again before I leave!

24-04 - 26-04-15 hemel hempsted:

4th weekend in a row not at home - this time due to rosi and zhanna's farewell party. celebrating with a small but nice group made friday eve a rememberable one, had a lot of fun! saturday zhanna showed lea and me around the radio station she's been working at for the duration of her EVS project, really cool! we even were on air for about 30 minutes, exciting :D
delicious pancakes then started a great harry potter night (which we had to interrupt after the second part - fatigue is a pain :D). before lea and me had to leave then on sunday we at least continued with the third one^^ though - to be continued.

me, zhanna, lea & rosi

serious conversations

at radio dacorum with zhanna

there's not much left to say, at the moment I'm preparing for my next trip which will start this friday - scottish highlands for 6 days! I'm totally excited now, hiking on my own in the uk's highest mountains with backpack and tent!
will try to report as soon as I'm back home (:

until then, enjoy yourselves,
see you soon!