If you have been putting off your trip to Africa because you are afraid of aggressive and large animals like elephants, lions, gnus, hippos or giraffes running you over, here’s a solution for you: Go in summer when the marula fruit is ripe. It knocks out the animals and you can wander through Africa without any of the animals running after you.
Monday morning.
The beginning of a new week. A fresh start.
Well-rested, with enough sleep and an empowering breakfast behind you, you get to the office. Your desk is still empty, as is the e-mail inbox. Slowly and with a relaxed pace, you start yet again from zero. Another week, with only 37 and a half hours of work to put in.
– – –
Not so for the self-employed and freelancers among us.
This is how my desk looked this Monday morning. A tangled mass of unfinished jobs. A to-do list from last weekend, hardly tackled at all. Notes which only make sense again after re-reading them several times. Thousands of unanswered e-mails. Reminders of past trips to write about and of future travel to be planned. And more and more issues pile up every day.
(If you have a boring, non-fulfilling job with an insurance company or in some kind of marketing department, you are welcome to use this image as your desktop background. – Zur deutschen Fassung.)
(Photographed in Kaunas, Lithuania.)
If a company advertises its services and products as “artistic and up to date” but uses the following display to do so, I doubt both parts of the statement.
Seen and photographed in Valletta, Malta.
Hiking through the forest behind the zoo in Targu Mures, Romania, I spotted this spooky bundle strapped to an innocent tree. It was hidden far from the path, as if some secret society did not want to scare the hiking public or wanted their mysterious rituals to remain undetected.
Fighting my way through layers of cobwebs, I got closer – and was shocked by what I saw: evil flowers, feathers of a black bird that had been sacrificed, and all of this tied together with a piece of cloth soaked in blood.
Does anyone know what the hell is going on here?
This little bird flew through the open door and made itself comfortable in my office while I was gone for a shower. When I returned to my desk, it didn’t want to move away and simply remained there, right next to me – until I finally took a photo of it; as if that had exactly been the purpose of the visit.
Three days ago in Targu Mures, Romania:
I was never one to get flowers for girls (or boys, for that matter). The non-recipients of flowers attributed this to my stinginess, my forgetfulness or my general ignorance of other people’s wishes or feelings.
But now I have proof that God has always been on my side:
For next Valentine’s Day, just send this video.
Ever since the Watergate scandal, the suffix -gate is used to denote scandals, cases of corruption and other complex illegal activities.
At this year’s EXPO in Milan, Italy, the planners or architects have already provided for the likelihood of corruption, bribery, waste and fraud which is usually involved in projects of such a large scale by naming it EXPOgate.
Very foresightful.
The Happy Hermit 