Ciao, bella Italia!

And the beautiful countryside that is Mercatale.

I visited a good friend of mine in this lovely town (though apparently EXTREMELY lame, as said by a 40-year resident we met at the bus stop) in the countryside near Bologna, Italy.  Picturesque rolling hills dotted with vineyards, all in the bloom of spring.

There were also many seedlings in the air and covering the grass like summer snow.  They were so light and fluffy and at one point on our early evening walk we found ourselves enswarmed with these cotton-like seeds.  It was very surreal.  I took a short video as still photos couldn't quite capture the feeling...

Erste Mai

On May 1st, or "Erste Mai", it's custom in Germany to go out for a bit of a hike with your family or friends.  Last year the weather didn't heed for a long hike, but this year it was perfect!  Not too warm, not too cool, and just enough sun.  I partook in a short hike up to visit the "Burgruine" (castle ruins) in Waldkirch.

For a little castle it was quite busy!  The Waldkirch Fire Brigade was also there, selling cakes and beer and whatnot, as well as plenty of families out and about for the day.

The path to the ruins is winding and not too steep, but with a noticeable incline.  It is sporadically marked with wooden "Ritter" (knight) sculptures.  Each sculpture or carving has a small tablet next to it, describing a particular knight from the castle's heyday.  A few are the typical "good" knights, helping the poor and saving people, but the majority of the tablets spoke of vicious knights who would steal and set things on fire.

The view from the castle is very nice - you can see all the way to Freiburg on a clear day - but what peaked my interest more, however, was the presence of green liveliness that existed among the cold stone walls.  It was a lovely day!

Rainy April

April is almost over and I'm both happy and dismayed by this.

Happy because the rain has been non-stop.  Just when I thought the day would be sunny and warm, the clouds roll in and a downpour begins!  On the bright side, there haven't been nearly as many fat brown slugs as there usually are in the fall, and instead there has been an emergence of itty bitty snails.  My friend Kate was in town for the weekend, and this snail made me think of her and her old snail-ridden sub-garden-level apartment.  And it looked brilliant from afar, almost electric yellow.  Upon further investigation it is more of an opaque color I guess.

Dismayed because that just means it's been another month of me trying to find work.  There were some prospects that have fallen through, so I'm not completely disheartened, just dismayed.  I'm looking into internship possibilities now since I am pretty set on getting into the digital media field, and though there are opportunities, I feel that I don't have the "Ausbildung" or "Praktikum" they desire/require.

In other news, I will be posting my most recent video to my Vimeo page, the one I made in collaboration with some friends for this year's DocChallenge.  It turned out nicely, so be sure to look for that.  I am still continuing to work on my "Ausländer" video with Hannah Huddy, hoping to do some more filming this week and next.

Swiss Vending Machine

4 condoms = 5 CHF

1 "maybe baby" pregnancy test = 15 CHF

Your choice.

...or you can just live it up with some "Party sticks" for 3 CHF

Good Good Friday Dinner

Fresh trout - it was delicious!

Freiburg Marathon

This weekend Freiburg hosted it's annual marathon, half marathon, and s'cool run.

The route winded through the inner-city, but it began and ended at the Freiburg Messe, which is also where the Pope held mass when he came to visit last fall.

Fun with stop action

Did some stop action with my good friend Hannah Huddy.  It was my first attempt and it took AGES!  Hannah believes we probably have a good 16 seconds after our 3 hours of work.  Can't wait to see how it looks incorporated in the documentary we're working on together.

Who let the dogs out?

This Sunday marked the first ever (and perhaps soon to be annual) Gundelfingen Hundeschau!  There was quite the turn out.

Doc Challenge 2012

This past weekend I embarked once more down the path of the Documentary Challenge, this time with a team!  A handful of friends and friends of friends helped me put together and later pull off a short (6.30 minutes) "experimental" documentary with the given theme of "cycles".  It was a lot of fun and I think we were all pretty happy about the results.  Here is a peek behind the scenes:

I will post the video later, once the top 12 have been chosen.

Edit: Here's the link to the video: http://vimeo.com/reelculture/allweknow

SC Freiburg wins!

I went to see my first official European football match today in Freiburg, and they won!  Freiburg is no longer down at 16th place... I believe they've worked their way up to 13th.

This video clip is what I've been told to be typical Fußball behavior - the fan jump.