Saarstein Gebirge - Trekking in Austria

Splash

Nothing feels better than diving into the fresh water of austrian mountain lakes after a long drive!

Similaun Trekking

Yes, wild animals still exist in the alps!
Trekking towards the place where few years ago a 5300 year old Mummy was found - after being hidden for thousands of years under the ice of the - unfortunately melting - glaciers of this mountain range

Hut at 3000 meters - nice that there ARE huts at this altitudes, but to be frank, the prices took away all my appetite for a warm apple strudel
View over Schnals Tal

Similaun Glacier. How must it feel to be buried under these ice shields for thousands of years???

British Columbia (just pics, text to follow soon....)

some text to follow...

New York Impressions

impressions from a recent stop over in New York, on the way to Vancouver. Picture on top shows construction progress on ground Zero. Standing there after one year in Afghanistan and two years in Somaliland made me think over the importance of this place...

interview

Hey, there is an interview with me on stol.it, a online newspaper from my region. Unfortunately its in german.... And its also VERY LONG (keeping it short has never really been one of my strenghts...) . Anyway, in case you have too much time, or it is a rainy day, or you are simply interested in finding out more about what exactly I am doing in Afghanistan, feel free to look it up! Congrats to all those who actually manage to read it all (it really is LONG!)

on and on

I guess I have never travelled as many miles as I did over the past few weeks. From Kabul I went to New York, after a couple of days there I went on to Vancouver and from there straight to Kamloops (isn't that an amusing name for a town?), from Kamloops I travelled with my friend Kate by road through the canadian Rockies, discovering plenty of similarities between Taliban and Bears, eventually back to Vancouver, and from there via Toronto back to Milan and then train to Suedtirol, where I am now enjoying time with family and friends. I guess I dont have to mention the reasons for all these travels. The time in North America can best be described as bitter-sweet and sad. Seeing the part of British Columbia where Shirley comes from, made me partly realize why she is such an amazing and inspiring person, during her lifetime and beyond. It's difficult to find words for the beauty of that region. Same as it is still difficult to find the right words to write about happened over the past weeks and to talk about my friends who lost their lifes.

Since I haven't much access to internet currently, I will not be able to add much words and pictures on my blog, until I get back to Kabul by the end of next week. so, don't bother looking for updates every day :) But I promise, by the 14th, you will have plenty of new pics and stuff to look at