Sonntag, 26. Mai 2013

Move in rain - again


This weekend the fifth vegan summer festival called “move” took place. I had never been there because I had never been in Graz when it took place. This year, however, I was there and it was great. It all goes down in “Stadtpark” on the “Passamtswiese”. Of course I wasn't there just for fun, I had to work but it was great anyways. The main idea of the festival is lots and lots of awesome vegan food. Everybody tries to eat as much food as possible, relaxes for some time and then gets something new to eat. That's not everything of course. There are live bands, workshops, a bouncy castle and lots of information desks. The move festival also has a tradition. Bad weather. This year it was the same. On Friday it just rained. On Saturday, however, it hailed. Very nice. Still, it didn't really matter for me because I was under the food tent anyway. There even were some people dancing in the rain and the band continued playing. When the rain finally decreased there was a huge lake on the lawn and most booths were gone because the water was everywhere. It was nice anyway, I had some great food and met lots of people. I still hope that the tradition will be broken next year. ;)

Montag, 20. Mai 2013

Save some rivers

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That's what it looks like now.
Some of you may know that I am active in the citizens' group “Rettet die Mur”. It is about preventing the hydroelectric power stations that “Energie Steiermark” wants to built in and around Graz. Most of you will probably think: “Wow, she's an idiot. Hydroelectric power is the best thing for our environment and she just wants to prohibit everything.” Well, Hydroelectric power is not good for our environment and I don't want to prohibit everything at all. It is just that these power plants in Graz would produce CO² and methane, would be very expensive compared to how much energy they produce and would destroy the habitat of dozens of animals and plants. In addition Graz would be a construction area for about 3 years and all the trees that give shade and fresh air in the middle of the city would be gone. Not that attractive for me.
Anyway, I didn't really want to write about the Mur but about the Sulm. There is a similar project going an at the river called “Schwarze Sulm” in a town called “Schwanberg”. A guy with too much money wants to built a hydroelectric power plant in the middle of a “Natura 2000” sanctuary. This should be forbidden but he somehow managed to get a yes for the project. Now he starts to built even though not all land owners of the land he needs agree. So the reaction of the townspeople was to start a protest. They set up a camp to prevent him from moving on. Yesterday I was there and it unbelievably beautiful. The river it crystal clear and freezing cold and everything else is a fresh green. This unique landscape really deserves being protected. I f you want to help you can come to the demonstration on Wednesday and go there any time. They are always happy to see helpful people. :)

More info here:
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Dienstag, 14. Mai 2013

Falling...falling...falling

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That's the bridge...
On Sunday I did one of the craziest things in my life so far. I jumped off a 96 meters high bridge.
If you now think that I am crazy: I am not. I just went bungee jumping. It wasn't my idea, however. On my last birthday I got it as a present and last Sunday, nearly one year after that I finally dared to to do it. My voucher was for the famous and very high bridge “Jauntalbrücke” so I went there with my sister and a friend of mine. It
That's the view from up there...
is Europe's highest railroad bridge with its 96 meters. Under the bridge the river “Drau” flows. The scenery there is beautiful, the green-blue water and forest everywhere! The scenery, however, was not enough to calm me down. When I got there, there were 4 people jumping before me. With every person jumping off the platform I got more nervous. I don't suffer from vertigo and I knew that nothing bad at all would happen. Still, the thought of having to jump was horrible. When it was my turn one of the trainers told me what to do and said I should take it easy. Haha. That's not that easy when you are standing on the edge of such an abyss. ;) With the instructions, however, it was not so bad because I could concentrate on what I had to do. So when the final word of the countdown (Jump!) was there I just jumped and tried to do what the guy told me to. At first I thought I have to throw up because of that horrible dropping feeling I got in my stomach. It felt like going down with an elevator but about a hundred times worse. After that it was just amazing! It was so much fun, I had to giggle all the time while spinning through the air. When my spinning got less, the guy in the rubber dinghy on the river grabbed my hand and pulled me in the boat and asked me if I was alright. I was very alright. :D After hiking all the 96 meters back up again to my friends I got a certificate that I am a woman for every case. ;) I can absolutely recommend bungee jumping to you, I would definitely do it again if it wasn't so expensive.

Donnerstag, 9. Mai 2013

New Addiction

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I think we all know the problem of sitting in front of the computer, having to study and doing nothing for university at all. The distractions I use most often are stupid computer games and youtube videos. I play computer games when I am supposed to study even if in general I don't like playing computer games at all. I always think it is a waste of time. Obviously not when I should study. ;) Still, youtube is even worse. I open it because I want to listen to a specific song while studying and I never close it again. My latest youtube addiction are Dan and Phil. I don't know if you know them or not. They are two British guys who basically make youtube videos. They started in 2009 and are still going. They don't even do crazy stuff or especially amusing things, they just talk. They talk about things they like or don't like, about embarrassing things that happened to them or they play truth or dare. They got quite famous via youtube and now have their own radio show on BBC radio one. One thing I use as an excuse for spending so much time watching them is that they also do some videos on different English accents. For example, they did one video called “How To Speak Northern” in which a friend of theirs from Northern England tests Dan on Northern vocabulary. They also did one video where they tried to do an American accent. The other excuse I use is that watching English videos counts as listening practice. ;) I don't know why but I just can't stop watching their stuff. If you also want to waste some of your time I give you the links to their channels here:

Sonntag, 21. April 2013

Ice Cream!!!!


I love ice cream. Who doesn't? ;) As I am vegan I can not eat any kind of ice cream but since this spring my choice of shops in Graz is very big. I always thought that every ship offers some vegan type of ice cream. I was so wrong. About one week ago I fried to buy vegan ice cream at Temmel and the sales girl told me that they put milk in EVERY type of ice cream!!! I was incredibly shocked and will gladly never visit Temmel again. Some vegan friends of mine always told me that at least lemon ice cream is vegan everywhere. They were wrong obviously. Well anyway, I have lots of other ice cream shops I can go to. There is a great shop in “Sackstraße” which offers some great tropical vegan ice cream. My favorite place for ice cream, however, is “Sporgasse”. There are three shops I really like. The first one is Amorino which is a bit expensive but their banana ice cream is just delicious! The second one is Sax. They have some great vegan fruit ice creams and they even offer soy chocolate! :) Last but not least is the Eisgreissler! This one is very new but very, very awesome! Eisgreissler sells organic ice cream with mostly local ingredients. My two sisters both work there and they offer vegan chocolate, coffee, strawberry, raspberry, mango, pear, apricot and some other great stuff that I unfortunately forgot. ;) I f I was you I would totally check it out!
Great design, isn't it?

Dienstag, 26. März 2013

Lord of the Rings

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I guess everyone of you knows the famous movie “The Lord of the Rings”. As we all know it already I am not going to write about the story of the film or book but about the film crew. There were many knows actors involved in the movie, for example Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Sean Bean, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom and Cate Blanchett. As the filming was very intense and sometimes in very remote places, the actors got to know and like each other very well and formed a little family. I watched some videos lately which showed how emotional the end of the filming was for them. I also found out that Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn got very attached to his horse “Brego” and bought it afterwards because it was his best friend. He sometimes even slept in the stables . He did even more: He brought a member of the stunt crew a horse because she could not afford it but enough of horses now. That the fellowship actors got very attached to each other is very visible in this video:

It is a fake interview in which Dominic Monaghan (Merry) poses as a German interviewer and asks Elijah Wood (Frodo) all kinds of stupid questions. In my opinion it is one of the funniest things ever! :D

If you want to find out some more about Viggo:

Oh and by the way, there are some pictures which combine Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. I find them all incredibly funny: :D

















I guess that made clear how much I like Game of Thrones, too. ;)

Sonntag, 17. März 2013

Kill your meat yourself!


Would you eat that?
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Margi Clark said: "I think if you want to eat more meat you should kill it yourself and eat it raw." I totally agree with her. People say it is natural for us to eat animals. They say that we have always eaten animals, that we were great hunters and that we only got a such a huge brain because of the protein in meat. That is all very well but it does not matter now. We were not only hunters but also gatherers which brought us protein from nuts and plants. We surely are no hunters now, most of us can't even walk noiselessly in a forest or kill anything with our bare hands. I, for my part, would not be able to kill a deer, pig, dog or any other mammal. Do you think you would stand a chance against a grown cow? I really doubt it. If someone tells me that they would go into the forest and bring out a dead animal, that is alright. However, I really doubt that anybody would really do that, even our laws forbid it. The other question is: Who would eat a raw dead animal? I wouldn't.

How cowardly is that?