The usual IT babble
Posts tagged Vacation
Winter on Spiekeroog
May 4th
Well, as I wrote last year, I spent some time with my brother on Spiekeroog (that’s where he’s currently living and working). As I left on December 4th, it started snowing like crazy ..
If you read the old article, you might remember that I mentioned Spiekeroog is 100% free of fossil fueled vehicles. That being said, let’s continue with the story I’m about to tell.
Anyway, my brother was walking me back to the hotel boat and we waited a bit in the harbour since we were a bit early. Now, every item is delivered by ship to the island, since there’s no other way (besides by air, which is kinda expensive ..). Anyway, them dockworkers ain’t stupid. They needed some snow-free space, and they started clearing the snow. But how ?
Well, again, them ain’t stupid … You take a forklift and a euro-pallet and you got what ? Exactly, a snow plow!
Spiekeroog'ish snow plow
Spiekeroog'ish snow plow
I know, the images are kinda grainy, sadly I only had my cell phone to take the photo (left the digital camera at home). C’est la vie ..
Short vacation
Dec 3rd
Well, Arne recently (not really recently though .. 
) complained about my blog being waaay to technical, so I ended up writing this lil’ anecdote.
I’m finally on my long awaited, the remaining year lasting vacation. Last week was interrupted by a short job interview in Nuremberg, and also by the flu (not “again“, I still got it in me, haven’t been able to shake it now for about three months).
Today I’m spending the night on Spiekeroog, which is a smallish island in the middle of the North Sea. It’s a real neat island, and if I would have the choice of deciding whether or not to move here for the same salary, I’d probably do it. Spiekeroog certainly does have a certain amount of flair, which I ain’t gonna deny. But it also does have it’s drawbacks.
One thing “neat” about Spiekeroog is, that it’s completely isolated from the CO² pollution. There is not a single car on the island (well, besides emergency services like police and fire/rescue) – only electric cars.
It’s located in the North Sea, so it’s exposed to the raw Atlantic weather of which I got a good taste today. When I was planning the trip a few weeks back, I allotted about 8 hours for the 400km’ish trip to Neuharlingersiel. Due to my driving “skills” ( 
others would say I do have a rather heavy foot – 170km/h or 105.6331 mph for those not able to deal with the metric system 
), I was there about two hours early. So I went eating some crab soup (which was really delicious) and then went down to the harbour, where the hotel boat was gonna pick me up. And then it started raining (as in pouring), with only about 2°C air temperature. So basically I was freezing my bollocks off.
Anyway, after eating dinner worth fifty bucks in the restaurant (well, don’t forget the expensive rose wine – which was a bit sour actually, as well as the three bucks of delicious tea) I’m now all cosy within my bed and all tucked in.
Cheerio for now!