A travelers problems

Finally I made my way to the airport with the bus, after pulling my 2 large suitcases up the hill in Whitaker place and down to Queen street. The Problems began in the line in front of the check in counter. Me, totally prepaired, online checked in and aware of what I need and how heavy my luggage is had a lot of fun observing all theese typical tourists. Some recognised they where in the wrong line, some had to rearrange there luggage and some where just funny looking. So because of the online check in it didn't take me too long to get my luggage checked in and to achieve my boarding passes. Now the easier part. Find a starbucks and have a coffee before making my way through the security control. Auckland isn't a big airport and I think 6pm isn't rush hour neither. So the queue at the security gate was very short.... what, I should know this, must not mean it wont take long! Now the "tourist" gets up to his highest level in beeing slow and my mood is getting even worse. It is so easy: Put your notebook in a single box, empty your pockets, remove your belt, jacket in another box, pass the gate... no problem at all. But they manage to enlarge this cycle up to 15min per person. I had patience and waited until it was my turn, I passed the gate, got my stuff reorganised and all that in 1 min. My mood went better after a little shopping tour throug the duty free and another coffe (what else to do all theese hours). I was really looking foreward to a quiet night flight, a (for aircraft conditions) good meal and some movies. But it seemed like there was no luck for me today. I had an aisle seat, which I prefer, but right next to me a mother with two little childs. Damn! I thought it was worse, but after the little boy fall asleep on my armrest and his sister found a good disney movie they where silent for the rest of the flight. On the contrary to the two babies three rows in front of me. Of course its not their fault, but who understands theese parents, which take their babies on a 20 hour flight. I think in that times they were not hungry or their swaddling bads had to be changed they cried because of the changing air pressure in the cabin. So they where noisy for nearby 16 hours of 20. The problems wont end. On our short stop in Brisbane we had to leave the aircraft and wait in the gate. Of course a second security control and again the babies in front of me. Also later in Dubai. I was awake for 36 hours now and felt a little like sleepwalking during I bought some souvenirs and food at the airport. Even the flight to Frankfurt was better as the two others but I got used to it and arrived duly at 12:45 pm at Terminal 2. Nearby 48 hours awake and not sure if Im tired or not I enjoyed the ride through the winter. In accord to my flight to Auckland that journey was terrible, but I survived and maybe the next trip is better. Good luck for you guys!

Help!

Thats not fair.......

My long weekend !

My weekend started on friday and if anything had gone it's normal way it had been finished on saturday afternoon on a lonely leather seat at Auckland Aiport .... but... anything changed after a few short phonecalls! First the reception to ask for another week, that was no problem at all so I continued. Second call my mum, to tell her that I stay another week! And after she told me that we had 20cm new snow in my hometown I felt very motivated to call Emirates. After 5 minutes in the line I finally reached some human and it took me 5 more minutes to defer my flight to friday. Yeah thats it, so now my weekend could start.I checked out the Seafood festival on Saturday and had some great food over there. Also the bands I saw, have been very nice. I started my sunday very early to catch the ferry to Rangitoto island. I love hiking and I searched for a good place since 3 weeks. Ok thats not real hiking, the highest point is about 260meters, but it was fun. I walked about 5 hours, had some lunch and went back to the Auckland Harbour. In the evening I went to the movies and saw Avatar 3D. I love that movie and can't wait for the blue ray to be published. Puhh... what a day! On Monday, the last day of the festival, I went to the harbour again to see the Regatta. It was ok but the weather was really bad. In the afternoon I visited the Auckland Art Gallery and saw the Red Bull Airshow at the festival.
Finally I can say that it was totally worth it to extend my stay here in Auckland. I enjoy my, now really, last week and Im looking forward to go back to Hamburg.

Bad weather in Germany

Hi guys! Flight deferred, flight cancelled etc. that's the situation on the most european airports. Again lots of snow in Germany and temperaturs below -15° C. The airline cant ensure that my connection to Hamburg Airport is possible. For that reason I decided to defer my flight to next friday. I better stay one more week here in New Zealand than in Dubai or Sunday night at Frankfurt airport. See you for a coffee next week :-)

Bungy!

Lets talk about Bungy.... Don't talk about! DO IT! It was my last day in Auckland and I joined the free Auckland day trip, which I can recommend to everyone! We started with a harbour bridge walk to the bungy platform and I dont knwo why, but I didn't felt scared at all. The Jump was awsome and I'll do it again! Have a nice time here in Auckland and of course a good trip home! Nice to meet all of you!

Taste, Smell and Feel

Today we went in the park with our class to discover different learning environments.
We divided into three groups and did different experients to discover our senses. Our group startet with a feel test. We had three different objects which the clients had to figure out. Most of them got all three, exept of the sawing kit, which was a little tricky. Then the other groups started and I got blindfolded. Smelling was easy exept of the Oregano, which I knew, but I couldn't figure it out that fast. The taste test really challenged me. I don't know why but I just had one correct answer, of course the taste of cheese is very easy to get. I didn't thought that the taste of cucumber could be so difficult to catch when your blindfolded. Maybe because cucumber is one of the few foods I don't like very much. Finally to say we had a great day and lots of new experiences.

Mind and Body

I'd like to write a short paragraph about an old latin saying. "Mens sana in corpore sano". That means a healthy mind in a healthy body and is in my opinion 100% correct. I experienced that during my studies in Hamburg. I recognised that im very focused and motivated in school when I go swimming and running. Otherwise is my motivation and my attention nearby zero when I don't do sports and have party every weekend. What about your experiences about that topic? For my life I found a good way in between!

Crosscultural communication

I traveled into english speaking countries a lot of times now and I never had real problems to understand the locals or the other travelers. But there are two exceptions:
I spent three weeks in the english school in Tarrytown NY and met people from nearby all other countries in the world. During my time there I recogniced a huge difference between spanish speakers from spain and spanish speakers from other spanish speaking countries. The guys from Venezuela eg. had one of the best pronounciation I heard over there, whereupon the people from spain were hardly to understand even by native speakers. This spanish accent is very hard to get when they try to speak a little bit faster then spelling. I can't imagine wherefrom this huge difference comes. Maybe the education system is better in Venezuela and in other latin america countries than i spain, or they start earlier with learning english in elementary school. I dont know! I'd be happy to get some comments to that topic.
I had another communication problem during my last weekend trip to Birmingham GB. I'd been in London before and I had no problem understanding the locals there, but this "Birmingham accent" was really terrible. Especially in Wolverhampton, a small city nearby, where I stayed for the weekend visiting a good friend of mine. The airline lost my luggage but they promised me to deliver it the same evening. I wont stay in the accomondation the whole evening to wait for it, because I had just 3 days and I wanted to enjoy my trip. So I decided to ask at the reception of the accomondation if they could recive my luggage like they do with the students parcel-post. I asked the old, angry looking man in the office several times to repeat his answer to my request but me and my friend where both unable to understand one word. After several attempts we finally gave up and went to a pub waiting for the airline to call us when the luggage is gonne be arriving. I don't know if he doesn't want us to understand or if he did not recognice that we weren't able to understand him. Anyway, I enjoyed my weekend there even without my luggage. To complete the story I have to say that I bought a douvet and a tooth-brush in a 24/7 store nearby to survive my first night. The luggage finally arrived on the next afternoon just in time to take it home again!

Welcome

Hey guys, welcome to my first blog. As everbody knows I'm addicted to travel and in this blog I'll inform you about where I am and what I'm doing. We also use this blog in our english lessons so don't care about my first posts too much.