Weekly Post 22

Table of Contents

Happy May the 4th!

About my break

I started this blog post as usual but I just couldn’t find the motivation to push this over the line. It takes quite a chunk of time after I wrote the texts to then add images + alt descriptions (ofc) and to translate it all to German, which is just boring manual labour after the fun part. So even though I did have a lot of time on my hands the last weeks, I always wanted to do something different and more fun. But I still very much like recapping my last week, at least for me. Lately I have been feeling a bit inspired by the way jwz.org does his blog posts, so I might just switch to that. Just very short posts about the important stuff in a week, and do more whenever I want to.

Recap 1

I started the week with a productive meeting making a good chunk of the presentation for AktiKo. Then I played a new computer game for 3.5 hours with a friend of mine. After that I put more stuff in IKEA boxes which is a new sorting we have here. Easier to clean :D On Tuesday I got back to my home town for the next eastern themed crafting day, which was a bit more relaxing and a lot of fun. On Wednesday I collected some wall plugs from my father and attached a curtain rod from IKEA when I went back to Hamburg. It was almost a full success, just one screw didn’t want to take but I bet it will be fine. I also started the fun bureaucratic process of getting unemployment benefit, mostly for pension reasons. That will have to continue next week though, because on Thursday my girlfriend and I started a small vacation to the Hansestadt Lübeck. We had a fun time getting there through a small train strike and on the train which actually got us to the central station a bridge broken and we had to wait for like 20 minutes. We still got there after all and enjoyed a really well done theater play: Cabaret (link to the production if you are interested). It was very appropriate for our time and was very well done. Friday we took a bus to the Niederegger outlet, then walked a lot through the old town. In the evening we stumbled upon the opening of the special exhibition of the museum for natur and environment, Bis auf die Knochen (like, down to the bones I guess?). It was a lot of fun, they had a two person band do a drum piece with bones and spoken text. On Saturday we went to the art museum Behnhaus Drägerhaus and walked around a bit, and then we fully imersed ourselves in the pub district we lodge in, which was a very nice evening. Sunday we went out to the Drägerpark.

A pigeon perched on an exterior railing outside a glass door for a small french balcony, framed by dark curtains, with brick buildings of the old town visible in bright daylight beyond. Cast members in varied stage costumes stand arm-in-arm across a theater stage during curtain call, with a stylized set backdrop of cylinders in which they played and audience silhouettes in the foreground. A bag of individually wrapped blue Niederegger Marzipan spilled onto a beige couch next to a box labeled “Niederegger Lübeck” vegan coconut macaroon chocolate.
Rooftop view of red-tiled buildings in sunlight, with church spires in the distance and a bright sun reflection on a roof window. Small event room with a projector screen showing a German presentation slide (“Bis auf die Knochen”), with microphones, music stands, speakers, and percussion instruments set up in front. A large sperm whale skeleton displayed behind a glass-and-metal framework in an outdoor courtyard beside a brick building.

Recap 2

On Monday we went to the town hall (German wiki only, sorry). We went to a couple second hand stores and we watched the stream of a friend who could now become an affiliated if it works out with their main job tax wise, congrats. And dipped our toe into a board game. There was a very tasty family run sourdough bakery visiting the market, and we went up to the St. Peter’s Church roof. On Tuesday we traveled back and the last iteration of the eastern themed crafting day happened. On Wednesday we had first meeting of The Week project, a group experience about the climate crisis. I had follow up meetings Friday and Sunday. I can fully recommend it, it is a great way to approach that topic. On Thursday I donated blood before going to IKEA to buy a missing piece for the curtain and later we went to a womans right demo. I did some cleaning on Sunday.

Ornate interior with dark brick Gothic arches, painted floral patterns, stained-glass windows, and large mural panels on the walls, lit by a chandelier. Low-angle view of an ornate dark-brick Gothic-style building with arched windows and two green spires against a clear blue sky. Cobblestone street lined with parked cars and narrow historic buildings, leading toward a large church with a spire under a cloudy sunset sky.
Large wodden wall display with illustrated panels and a central timeline featuring dates and ships, resembling a historical or museum exhibit. Low-angle view of the Marienkirche, a red-brick Gothic church with tall green copper spires and arched windows against a clear blue sky. Decorative metal sundial sculpture in a park, with grass, bare trees, and a brick building in the background.

Recap 3 - 7

My life got rather busy with me. We did move rooms in my girlfriends home, and also repainted the walls. Then there was ofc eastern, which I traditionally spend with my family and my grandparents at their house. This time my brother also got there which is always great fun. We used that opportunity to make a short family trip to a friend in Wolfenbüttel, where we enjoyed his home theater and he wanted to sell his old motorcycle which my brother gladly took.

A blank cinema screen framed by red curtains in a dark theater, with blue accent lighting along the floor. A cozy home media room with a large shelf of DVDs/Blu-rays lit by green LED lighting, movie posters on the walls and door, and a colorful “Cinema” popcorn-themed poster on a nearby door. Looks like a curving hallway wall painted with bold orange, and white spiral stripes (a shadow appears with yellow effects) that create an optical-illusion effect of a curve since that is a flat wall.

We also went to a play of The City of Dreaming Books from the Schauspielhaus. I don’t know if his books are well known outside of Germany, but it has a Wikipedia article, so… The play was very well done, they put so much effort and love into the scenery, big fun. I met up with a friend of mine who I haven’t seen for a bit which was nice, we had a look at the Philip Montgomery - American Cycles exhibition, he is amazing. Then I had a advisory board meeting for my sport club, I was able to buys some concert tickets for Die Ärzte. I attended the AktiKo and the long night of museums. I planned some actions for my youth work.

I had the pleasure of attending/organizing a bachelor party of a good friend of mine. It was very relaxed. Then I had the first planning meeting for the Summer Sweden Camp. It will be a bit different then the last years because we are even less youth leaders, so we have to be a bit more restrictive with what we plan. I expect this to switch around next year when a lot of good candidates are old enough to be that then. And I did a new application for a small company a friend works at, so I hope that pans out :D. I also got my bachelor certificate out of the university.

Culinary highlight

We visited a very cute little cafe called Freundlich in Lübeck a couple times who made really yummy chocolate croissants, which weren’t too sweet, you know. Like perfectly tasty. And hot chocolate with actual chocolate. And self made ice, and waffles. The whole deal.

And we made some really nice chicken rolls, which is a huge childhood memory for me. My mother found an amazing vegan recipe, which is awesome to have a way to get it back.

Small round café table set with pastries and drinks, including a pretzel sandwich on a patterned plate, a choco-croissant and pastry in the background, and a cup of coffee + hot chocolate. Overhead view of an open seeded tortilla wrap on a plate, filled with cucumber sticks, sliced red onion, and crumbled spiced filling, with a TV remote beside the plate.

Song of the week

I do have to link to a „Cabaret“ song here ofc this week. There are a lot of great ones, but I guess Money takes it because I knew the sing song Money makes the world go round, world go round, world go round without ever seeing this before. Maybe because my parents played it? Idk.

Currently watching/reading/listening

We found time to finish Agathe all along. The finale disappointed us a bit, but the whole show gets a thumb up from us. I also finished my rewatch of What if and the final season, which was very well done. I finished Bastille, such a great way to end this book series. We are now into Skyward, so that we are fully done with everything Brandon has ever written. For now. And after finishing The Mentalist, I sucked myself into a new crimi series, Lucifer. I did watch it until at least Season 3 already, maybe 4? Now I intend to go all the way through. And I started rereading the Rivers of London series which I got the last book on Christmas for.

Games

A very fun game we discovered was Voll auf die 18, which is a cooperative game where you need to get to a certain IQ number that a Nazi has to convince them to make the world better. Its against a timer with an actual okay app integration. The new computer game was Slay the Spire 2, which was a lot of fun. I am not that much into deck builders like that but I enjoyed it. And I started a bit of another Anno 1800 play-through, so time well spend. It is an even more complex game then the previous ones and I am getting to the bit frustrating phase. I am very much pondering streaming a bit of Tiny Bookshop

Projects

I made a webcam to watch some robins nest. I might come around to make a proper post about it.

A red plastic bucket filled with dry leaves and twigs, with a small green scoop and a black tool resting inside, set against a wooden wall in a shed-like space. Inside a small shed is a camera made out of a plastic shell around a raspberry pi with the pi camera taped to it. It is mounted to the end of a selfie stick attached to a wooden beam.

As always, make the best out of your day!