New Zealand Weekly Update #41

Last updated on August 21, 2023

01st of August until 06th of August 2023

Approximate reading time: 5 minutes

Lets get it started

Back again, sunday time, blog time. This time not too late, since I said to myself to keep it a little easy and a little more relaxed. The last two weeks have been pretty busy. Lots of people. Lots of kilometers on the road (more than 2000km…). Less sleep. A lot of drinks. And good talks. But if you keep going a fast pace all the time, you’ll face your limits soon. So do I at the moment. Tired. Sick. And with a head full of memories and people. So I tried to sleep a lot, relax a little more and not to rush from appointment to appointment back to back. Some medication. Tee. And some time.
In two days, I will be part of the wedding of my best friend and I try to write down a little speech, which is quite difficult from time to time. I would love to say so many things, to explain so many emotions, to talk about so many adventures and memories I have with this guy. But time is limited. And in the end, it is not necessary what you say. It is important that you say something and show them how important they are to us. And that you show up. That you spend the most important thing with them – time.

Face the past

Monday morning, I woke up in the middle of the mountains. A little freezing. But happy. Landscape all aorund me. And ready for a day full of adventure. My friends Daniel and Fabi went down the mountains paragliding while I had to walk down all the way for 90 minutes, slippery and muddy ground.

Ready for the day, ready for the first canyoning trip. Kobelache. The canyon where I slipped in 2020 and fell down 14 meters. Fortunatelly, I just had some bruisers and some „what the fuck just happened“ moments. No longterm issues. We went into the canyon with some customers of Daniel, who has his own canyoning company in Allgäu. Canyoning Erleben. It was a funny day with really brave kids, good water level and a view back into the past for me and the opportunity to face the section where I had my accident. Pretty high. I was pretty lucky. And this time, I did not slip at all 🙂

Back at the car at 5pm – time for a rush through another canyon – Rudach. A narrow one, pretty spicy water level and a 65m abseil section at the end of the canyon – leckomio! What an experience, way down we go! Back at base, time for BBQ with some friends by the river. It was supposed to be a easy peasy BBQ with some talks and some drinks. We ended up sitting by the fire until 4am. And I decided to just stay outside and sleep for some hours be the fire. Not as cold as on the mountains, but definitly not an option to get enough sleep and some energy 🙂

On the road again

Tuesday morning, back on the road again. All the way to the area of Aschaffenburg. To a really good friend of mine who got married last year and who has a little baby now. Maria. We know each other from our time in Jena. We both studied in Jena and became good friends a couple of years ago. Had heaps of Kebabs together. Heaps of drinks. Talks. And this time I have met her little girl as well. She is an all time smiling baby. We had lots of fun together, she was really trustworthy from the first moment on. And we just went out for some walking and shopping since the weather was pretty bad – but it was a really realxing and comforting time. With some Limoncello as well 🙂

Thursday, back to the car, all the way to the area of Magdeburg to my best friend abd his future wife. And what to do when being with your best friend who is still working on his house, pool and the area around? Being part of it and having some romantics on the construction site again. Setting up some logs for a little pool house, some trash talk in between and some drinks in the evening outside of his house. And just being grateful for the time together and talking about memories and old adventures. During our talks, I realised how much I miss my friends and my best friend. How much I miss the time together, the adventures, the shared experiences and things, that make a friendship even stronger and more important. And I realised, that you have to pay a pretty high price when being far away from friends and family. That this price means you will miss a lot of the stories of your friends. You miss a lot of time spending with them. That there are less new adventures ahead than things you have already experienced with them. And that time, even though it has been already very important, becomes even more important. True friendship is not about being inseparable, but being apart without anything changing.

What else to say?

Time is limited. Something I am aware of every day at the moment. Spending time together is the most important thing you can do with your friends and family. It is the best you can give and share.
And time is running again. I will leave Germany in five days and everything is just rushing at the moment. And I am looking forward being part of the wedding and part of this special event. And I am grateful of being invited.
I will keep you updated next week about this special day and about my way back to New Zealand.
Have a great week, a great time and spend it with your favourite people 🙂

Your DingyInternational
Felix