-
Rennsteig Run 2024
For quite some time, Nathalie had planned to take on the half marathon at the Rennsteiglauf. The year before, she had “only” taken part in the relay race of the Rennsteiglauf, where she ran a stage of about 16 kilometers. This year, the half marathon with a little more than 21 kilometers was supposed to be conquered. The start of the half marathon was at the Lotto Thüringen Arena in Oberhof. We had already been to Oberhof once for skiing and knew how annoying it is to get there by public transport — especially that early in the day. In theory, there would have been a shuttle bus from Jena,…
-
Album “off” and “Out Of Office” concert by Alligatoah
After we went to two Alligatoah concerts in 2023 — in Leipzig and in Erfurt, for his album “Rotz und Wasser” — things didn’t stay quiet around him for very long, even though it initially seemed that way. As mentioned in the last blog post, 2023 was actually supposed to be Alligatoah’s final year — at least according to his own prediction in the 2013 song “Trauerfeier Lied.” All the content on his social media channels had also been deleted. But on December 3rd, 2023, he suddenly released a new single, “So raus,” which included hints about a new album AND a new tour. He produced the song together with…
-
Concert of ok.danke.tschüss in Erfurt
In 2023, we attended two Alligatoah concerts. At the second one, which took place in Erfurt, the opening band was ok.danke.tschüss, and we were so impressed by them that we immediately searched for tickets to their upcoming concerts. As luck would have it, the band had planned a concert in Erfurt in 2024 as well, which coincided with Nathalie’s birthday. This time, the venue was Kalif Storch—a somewhat smaller nightclub in a former railway station building in Erfurt, a place we had never been to before. The anticipation was high, but unfortunately, the concert was postponed to May due to illness. It was also rescheduled to a weekday instead of…
-
Alternative Bear Park Worbis
Nathalie’s father was in Weimar at the time, and we were looking for a nice excursion destination. That’s how we ended up at the Alternative Bear Park in Worbis. We had wanted to visit the park for a while but hadn’t gotten around to it until now. We learned about it through advertisements at the Wildcat Village in Hütscheroda. So, we rented a car and drove to the bear park, which is 1.5 hours away. Upon arrival, we noticed that there were containers with toilets next to the parking lot. These were actually quite clean, possibly due to the signs in the toilets. The signs mentioned that bears also clean…
-
Amusement Park Plohn
The weather in April (probably thanks to climate change) was already quite warm, so we planned a visit to Plohn Amusement Park for a Sunday. With around 18 degrees, it wasn’t too hot, and thanks to light cloud cover, the sun didn’t scorch us. Nathalie and I had already been there once in 2017 (and I a few times in my childhood), but the park is, of course, in a constant state of change, so there’s always something new to see. The amusement park is located in Saxony, about 25 minutes’ drive south of Greiz, my hometown. We’ve often passed by it when traveling towards the Ore Mountains. This time,…
-
Medieval spectacle in Kranichfeld
A Ride to the Medieval Spectacle in Kranichfeld In good weather, we decided to cycle to Kranichfeld once again – but this time, we aimed to attend the Medieval Spectacle. In our post about the falconry, we already described how the Ilmtal Cycle Path runs from Weimar to Kranichfeld. Nearly 30 kilometers and mostly uphill… (Note from Nathalie: It’s not that much uphill… sure, there are a few steeper sections, but overall it’s a very nice bike path) and so this ride also took over 2 hours. The challenging sections didn’t bother me as much, but how should I say… it was “boring.” The cycle path is mostly too narrow…
-
NieR: Orchestra Concert 12024 [the end of data] in Berlin
Nathalie, René, and I (along with many of our other friends) have played the “NieR” games with great joy – starting from “Drakengard” to “NieR: Automata.” Especially “Automata” from 2017, in my opinion, is one of the best video games, excelling in story, gameplay, and soundtrack. While I played Drakengard and Nathalie and I played “NieR: Automata” together, René also played the remake of “NieR Replicant Ver. 1.22474487139” (still on our to-do list). In 2023, a new NieR Orchestra Concert Tour for 2024 was announced, and we were eager to get tickets because this time it was going to be held in Berlin, whereas the concerts had previously only taken…
-
Photo Competition for Anime Figures
Here’s a somewhat different blog post. It’s about a photo contest with anime figures organized by Tsoto. In itself, the ‘staging of anime figures’ is nothing new to me. I’ve seen such photos for years in various forums and on other platforms. However, I never had the idea to take such photos and edit them with Photoshop myself. This was partly because I didn’t have many anime figures or simply didn’t have the inspiration to edit such photos. That changed with the competition, combined with the many large and small figures that have already accumulated in our apartment. Since photos in the apartment would be quite boring (and would also…
-
Tunisia (2023)
This travel report begins with a confession: Tunisia was rather towards the bottom of my imaginary list of countries to visit. In my mind, I always associated it with a typical destination for people who want to lock themselves up in an all-inclusive hotel for two weeks. Then suddenly came the email that changed everything. I had previously submitted a paper to the AfricaCrypt conference with my boss, and out of nowhere, there it was: the email announcing that our paper had been accepted for the conference. I ran jubilantly through the apartment; after all, this was a crucial milestone on the path to my promotion. The location for AfricaCrypt…
-
Saalfeld Fairy Grottoes
During the bridging days between Christmas and New Year, it was once again time to make a few small excursions. In addition to visiting relatives and ice skating, we also wanted to go to a new place we hadn’t been to before: the Fairy Grottoes in Saalfeld. We had already been to the Dragon’s Cave in Syrau, the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland, or the Turda Salt Mine in Romania – now we wanted to visit this nearby mine, although “near” is relative here. By car, it would have been about an hour’s drive to the south, but we traveled by train and bus via Jena Göschwitz, so the journey…
Reisen, Katzen und Essen… nicht zwangsläufig in dieser Reihenfolge.
