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Amazing Vienna

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Although I’ve been living in Vienna for nearly 5 years now, there are still lots of places that I haven’t seen, or have only seen parts of. One of them is Kurpark Oberlaa and Wiener Internationale Gartenschau 1974 in the 10th district.

I found the place this spring when I was on one of my hikes. It included a lot of getting lost, as there are basically NO signs around that would indicate the trails I was looking for, and some standing around in awe. A couple of days ago, I decided to go visit the park, not only pass it by, and see if I could find any of the Geocaches in the area.

I actually spotted 2 of the 3 Geocaches I was looking for. The one I did see but could not log was a T4 (terrain 4 out of 5 stars), nestled into the branches of a big nice tree. Unfortunately, the lowest branch was at about 1.90 meters 🙁 The one I found was placed at a not-so-nice location (meaning that the area has obviously been used as a toilet), and the third one I couldn’t even spot – it should have been somewhere on an art installation consisting of red steel bars in the park’s center.

More pictures will follow, as I hope to go there again soon 🙂

Family, GeoCaching, Outdoors

Personal Best!

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Together with my sister in law and her son, but also on my own, I managed to find nearly 30 geocaches within one week 🙂

Here are some pictures:

On Wednesday, when my sister in law had the day off, we went to Füssen (Bavaria) to try and complete and trail of 18 geocaches in a small forest southwest of the city. We didn’t do the whole trail, though, because we had to be back for lunch 🙂 Still, I climbed 3 trees, nearly fell down one of them, scratched and bruised my arms and overall  had a great time.

Family, GeoCaching, Outdoors, The Big Hike

TBH, … again ;)

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I really wanted to finish my hike from last year. But due to University schedules, and incredibly hot summer, and weird working schedules, I haven’t been able to prepare as much as I wanted. Also, the BF, who wanted to come with me on this trip, won’t have the time to do so. So the new plan was to just go for a 2 day-hike with my Mom while I was back home for a week.

And with the assistance of my brother, his wife and son, TBH became WOAR: Whichever Outdoor Activity, Really. I just wanted to get outdoors and get some fresh air.

And really, that was what I got: 2 days hiking along river Lech with my Mom, one day with lots of rain, the other with cloudy weather, and 2 days of geocaching with my brothers’ family.

And, as pictures say it all, here’s a little gallery for you!

Other

Reconnecting …

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No posts from me in more than 5 months. This can mean only one thing: I’ve started playing the Discworld MUD again. Intensively.

Apart from attaining achievements, advancing lots of skills, meeting old friends and making new friends, I still had a life offline to tend to, with lots of studying to do, old friends to meet, new friends to make and, in general, stuff to do.

Again, a resolution for the future: I want to keep writing. It’s a great way of keeping track of things. Thinking about what happened in the last months, I realize how much I probably forgot just because I didn’t write it down immediately. But hey, fortunately I have my calender! It tells me that I …

  • attended my brother’s wedding
  • created a wedding book for him (well, it’s not quiet finished yet)
  • went skiing with Mum
  • attended Yoga classes on a weekly basis for some time
  • met some awesome women at #FemCamp13 and #FemCampLinz
  • tried for some weeks to find a job for the holidays, and succeeded at a hostel in the end
  • had some really awesome couchsurfers – Joji from India, Silvia from Graz, Artu from Serbia, Friso from the Netherlands, Lidia from Spain
  • went to a medieval market with one of the women I met at #FemCamp13
  • went to Berlin with the BF for a weekend
  • had an old friend and her boyfriend visit from Barcelona
  • had my parents visit for my birthday
  • got the coolest birthday present ever: miniature anatomy model!
  • started working at a hostel
  • quit work at the hostel because it’s far too chaotic IMO
  • found a new job (which will hopefully be awesome)

Also, I read the Hunger Games trilogy, started using Twitter, and finished most of the courses that I planned to do in the first attempt. I failed 2 exams, but will re-take them in Autumn. A 3rd lecture I had postponed to Autumn right from the start.

And yeah … there’s nothing about upcycling in that list. Because I didn’t do any more 🙁

Upcycling

Paying it forward, part 2

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With the bracelets, I had used up nearly all the pretty front part of my old, beloved tshirt. For some time, I kept wondering what I should do with all the fabric of the back part which was left over … and here’s what I did:

fabric necklace

It’s not quite a tshirt scarf, as I only used 3 strands of fabric (I didn’t have more of the purple, and did not want the pink to take over the whole thing), so it’s more a necklace. But yay, I did it!

The first person to receive their gift was Tanja, a friend from University. She got to choose one of the two bracelets I made last time and enjoyed it big time 🙂

I’m not sure if I’ll give away this necklace/scarf, or if I’ll make another one to make a gift.

Upcycling

Paying it forward, part 1

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One of the things I’ll use for the PIF for SURE are fabric bracelets. The original idea I found on the internet was to use waterbottles, and lots of duct tape to make the ring stable and then wrap fabric around and fix it with a glue gun. I really don’t like the idea of using loads of tape just to make a bracelet, so I decided to use a certain kind of chips wrapper (yeah, the tubes) instead. They are pretty stable on their own and have the perfect cirumference.

My first try took about 15 minutes, including tearing apart an old tshirt that I loved big time. Wearing it often, though, made it pretty used up under the arms, and with those stains, not even a 2nd hand shop could have used it. Of course, I did not take a picture of the original tshirt … sorry for that.

Anyhow, here’s what came of a 14×48 cm piece of that tshirt:

fabric bracelet

The folds and draping were not 100% intended, but I really like how it worked out 🙂

And only a little later, there were two of them:

two bracelets

Upcycling

Pay it forward 2013

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Some day, I guess around mid-January, this posting appeard on my facebook newsfeed:

Pay it Forward 2013 I promise to make something handmade for the first 5 people that comment on this post AND repost it on their own status. I promise to make (and send) something handmade by the end of 2013. It doesn’t matter what it is so long as it is handmade (e.g cake/cupcakes, arts, crafts, etc.) Let’s spread the crafting love !!!

I liked it on the second person’s page I saw it on, and posted it on my own. Four people actually liked it on my page, so now I’m kind of struggling with plans on what to do for them. My upcycling/craft skills are still pretty low, so it will have to be easy things.

The Big Hike

The Big Hike – continued and extended

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After quitting [more info here] on the go last summer, it was clear of course that I would finish The Big Hike. Talking about this with my Mum around Christmas, she said she’d love to join me on a 2- or 3-day hike – so I decided to do more than only finish TBH this coming summer.

Here’s the plan: as part of preparations I will this summer hike the “Rundumadum” hike, a 120 km route around the circumfence of Vienna. This should be done within 4-5 days of real hiking (as in 7 hours of walking per day). I hope to start as early as April or May already, so I can do the 2-3 day hike with my Mum in Tirol in Summer.

And then, in September, I will finish the hike I had planned for last year. But instead of walking from Mariazell to Graz, I’ll go from Graz to Mariazell. As the pilgrimage’s destination is Mariazell, all the signs and other information are set up in that direction, too. It will be easier to follow the path that way 😉

Again, I’m planning on leaving behind my smartphone (on both hikes) and try to shut out facebook and other stuff for some time. It was really relaxing last year, so I’m kind of looking forward to it already 🙂  Also, I want to continue geocaching on the way. One cache per day would be nice, and I know that there are a lot to be found along the route.

Upcycling

New Ing: Upcycling!

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I started to try some easy upcycling methods just before Christmas. Having seen some interesting and lovely pieces of handicraft, I decided to try sewing a grocery bag out of an old tshirt, fixed a small hole in a knitted sweater, and even managed to sew two small doggies out of an unused scarf.

But this Monday, everything got a bit bigger: I bought a sewing machine. The offer (100 euros for a Singer machine) came right at the perfect time, so I took the opportunity … and at some point this weekend I’ll go raid IKEAs textiles department!!

Enjoying Vienna

Finally: Tatort Public Viewing

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I finally managed to go and watch an episode of “Tatort” at Top Kino [older blog entry here].

The episode titled “Ausgelöscht” (“extinguished”) was quite okay, with some pretty funny scenes and the somewhat obvious intruding bad guy disguised as helping agent from another country. Well.

But: it was really cool watching the episode on the big screen, with some dozen other people. The reactions to the different emotional scenes were of course way stronger than when you’re only watching the film at home with a couple of friends.

I guess this is going to be a weekly thing now 🙂