Family and friends, yes, you fellow writers and readers:
I want to apologize for giving you such a long wait. I took the time this term to collect new material, so that I can present constant work examples and finished projects next year. This way I hope that the content will improve further and give you even more fun.
My New Year's resolution will be to produce one post each week. This will be published every Sunday, unless I have a striking reason to postpone the deadline. If that's the case, I will write the reason as a comment and you can be part in judging whether my reason was acceptable or not. In case you disagree I will carry the consequences which you can co-decide on. Same goes for not publishing any week.
Now a sneak preview: I will start the Year with great works that have been published nationally and internationally. There will also be an introduction to a few New Media projects that might invade the coming years due to new technological advances.
Be prepared! See you on Sunday the 9th of January.
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Arrival in Leicester: 15:20 - about 1700km
Impression:
Never been away (did the summer really happen or was it a dream)
Resume London:
Sleep, sleep, sleep
Traffic jam on the way out as usual
Trip:
Easy last ride, another 150km
Freezing a bit
Leicester:
Nobody is at the house
Straying in Leicester to find flatmates
Phone is dead, Laptop is dead
Student Union helps out - meeting flatmates at Pizza Hut
Long afternoon with loads of new interesting people
Got free pizza and a desk - not bad for the first hour
House: See Pictures Here!
Nice room - loads of space
Managed to destory the only power socket in my room
Setting up the new kitchen table - I knew I could be a handyman
Unpacked, settled and done with the trip. Fun time is over. Thanks for staying with me, though.
Almost there - really hard at the end
Trip:
Good - bad, and all in between See pictures here!
Start:
8am, cloudy and foggy, freezing for one hour
9am, sun came out, warming up in seconds, finally
10am, first of a series of small traffic jams, nice downhill rolling
Midday:
First rest after 260km
Another 250 km in one go to Bruge
Caught by speed cameras
Rain in Bruge :/
No petrol stations in Bruge
Problem getting petrol - managed to get some a few miles ahead (messed up the paying machine and might Have stolen 12 euro now)
Afternoon:
Ferry at 4pm
Rain in Dover
Rain stopped the minute I was done putting my rain suit on
Driving left went fine (on the motorway at least)
Evening:
Lost in London
Driving around for 2 hours
Looking for a hostel all night
Sleeping in St. Pancras Station
Next Morning:
Lost in London again
Trying to find a friends house - wrong direction from my phone - bad phone
Sleeping all day
Impression of London:
Rainy, vast, crowded, awful traffic
Last Trip:
to Leicester, sunny weather forecast
Last day in Frankfurt
People here are dull and serious. No sense for fun.
Like:
Went to the Taunus Therme in Bad Homburg today. Nice baths, hot steam sauna, unmotivated staff.
Wonderful candle light dinner with Hanna in a gay bar - cute and funny staff in Pulse & Piper Lounge
Not knowing wht gonna happen tomorrow.
Dislike:
Leaving.
Not having had more time with Hanna.
Getting lost three times today.
Trip:
1000 km, ferry 4pm. Start at 8am. Stops planned, Bruge and somewhere in between. Tight time schedule.
Frankfurt again: 60 extra kilometres
Relaxing today. Chilling so much it hurts to think straight.
Like:
Frankfurt subway have wall paintings that look real. See pictures here!
There was an icecream car in the town I'm staying.
You still get ice cream served in Frankfurt's cinemas.
There was a gay comercial in the cinema - promoting the use of condoms
Dislike:
I didn't enjoy the sun outside with a book. Computers are real drugs, beware!
My bike has strange lights popping up. Wonder if this is a serious problem or just something that just happens every once in a while.
Don't know what to look at tomorrow. There's nothing more in Frankfurt.
PS:
Forgot to mention yesterday - luck seems to be far from me on this trip.
4 Museums - one in Leipzig, three in Frankfurt - all very interesting, the only ones I wanted to see - the ones that would be interesting for my studies ------------------ all closed right now, reopening in 2011 !!!
Why now? Why all at the same time?
Frankfurt, City Centre: 60 extra kilometres added to 1500
Fun people and bad luck
Impression:
People go crazy. Funny costumes, happy musicians and humurous scultpures. (See pictures here!)
First sentence I hear: "Let's have a joint, guys."
Wonder:
5 McDonalds on one street - WHY?
There was a burning building - lots of fireman and even TV cameras. What happened? Does anyone know?
How can people stand being in suits all day? (90% of the people in Frankfurt are wearing suits, because every day, 4 million people travel to Frankfurt to work in the city.)
Nice mixture of old and new buildings: City: Like
Like:
Bönstadt near Frankfurt/Main: All the things come to an end
Impression:
Rural - plain fields, woods and dull nothingness. The world's end? Pictures here! (don't forget the captions as part of the story.)
NO restaurant is open before 17pm - after starving for 2 hours, food at the Aral petrol station, yummy. Schnitzel with potato salad and cheese-meat with eggs and french fries.
Fun:
Trip: Germany is awesome. I didn't know. So many hills and driving them up and down is amazing with 160km/h.
Old Knight's Castle - Ronneburg. I almost died, see here.
Sundown dance with Hanna in the fields and stealing sweet-sour apples - result: being chased by two dogs because they can smell bad behaviour, ouch.
Leipzig: Compelled to be Comfortable
Laughs:
First sentence I hear: "I won't get a place for therapy - I don't have the time to wait half a year." (he didn't look like he was working, so I doubt he doesn't have time for anything)
So that was an awkward first impression of the city right at the start. Apparently all the people are needy and psychologically disturbed. Great.
Like:
The buildings were amazing. Old, and new: a wonderful mix. See here! (Please read captions for more impressions, worthy, believe me.)
Suprise;
From psychologists to physiotherapist. I was compelled to feel comfortable - a treat that Leipzig offers generously.
A nice girl in an orange shirt walks up to the table, leans over and offers a massage. WOW! Lucky me.
And all you have to pay is whatever you feel is appropriate. (Bad deal: she should have gotten five times as much as I could pay her: but poor students on a roadtrip can't do miracles)
Well, she could. One miracle after another. I felt like God on holidays. Everybody was glaring at me, but I didn't care. It was just spektakular. I guess the picture above shows it all.
Thanks again to the "Body Angels", who go around towns and bars, offering massages and earning a little extra cash. This massage truly was one of the best. And good for my trip plans.
New, special, second year. This blog is back on track and will be updated regularly from now on again. Sommer is over. Back to Uni, that's how it works.
But I don't only want to post regular work. It's about the whole experience. So here's the deal. My summer has turned out so successful that I won't be going back to Leicester by plane. Instead, I am going to take a roundtrip through Europe. One week from Berlin to England. On the way, I will stop in Leipzig, Frankfurt/Main, BrĂŒgge, London, and who knows where else. It's gonna be as spontaneous as I like. And I do like spontaneity.
I want to invite everybody to follow this exciting trip. See what happens. Watch through my eyes. And be excited about whether I'll ever gonna make it. I'm riding my new bike, Yamaha FZ6 Fazer! It's dangerous, it's hard, and most of all, it's a hell lot of fun. Pictures will go online every day and a review about the experience as well. Follow me, if you're interested in cities, histories, adventure and myself (... ;-)
If you want to know how my summer went, keep reading:
After graduation in college I didn’t know where my way would lead me. I admire those who know, and even more those who thought that I knew, just because I had mentioned a plan once, a plan that I would not follow at all in the end. How do people know where that want to work for half the time of their lives? How do you decide where to be stuck after finishing your studies? Who the hell decided that I have to know?
...
man winkt, man spricht,
und dann
lĂŒgt sie mich an.
Lass sie rangeln,
mich stört‘s nicht.
Ach deine Laune
wundert mich.
Gestern, wie schön,
da ging alles doch,
heute gibt‘s Streit,
wer erinnert sich noch?
Einigkeit vergeht,
steigt einsam auf,
verfliegt in Dunst und Wolkenstaub,
verweht in alle LĂ€nder.
...
After creeping further down the steps, I sneak into my dim-lit basement.
One marmalade jar, just something to mix watercolours in - can’t be too hard to find down here? “If you’re watching, Mom, you’ll see that this stuff is useful after all.”
Rushed, I fumble around, finding ugly glass vases, old Power Ranger action figures, a rustling bag with electronic wires…
A flicker and the grim room disappears in blackness.
I revolve and throw my back against the shelf, a fierce grip on the board. Next, an ear shattering glass strikes the nauseating stillness.
What’s happening?
...
Normally, you receive these kinds of things from your boyfriend or your girlfriend, but sometimes, only ever so often, does a friend, a very close friend, feel obliged to do you a similar favour. When I look at this photograph, I can’t help but visualize the smile that is hidden behind the paper heart my friend is holding up.
I still remember the thoughts that I had when I received these pictures. First, I wanted to know what weird occasion had triggered this idea. For months I haven’t heard from her, for I was abroad for a while. Then, suddenly, she sends me this lovely series of pictures. The second thought was about how typical this way of communicating is for her. Everybody knows that she is arty and likes to step out of the normal boundaries as often as she can. Instead of saying she misses me, she holds up papers which express how she misses me. The odd thing about that is, it is much more effective, just because it’s so individual and embodies everything she is.
...
Jack brought his glass from the kitchen into the living room and squeezed through the space between two chairs to sit down on his seat. He took a sip from his glass, his fifth coke that evening, and leaned forward to place it on the table. Thinking, he held on in midair and decided to keep it in his hands. He’d probably take another sip any minute. There wasn’t much else he could do.
Family meetings were always quite hard. He had wondered so often why that is, but his mind wouldn’t come up with a plausible answer. Was it because he had a boring family? He actually didn’t think so. In fact, he looked forward to seeing his family whenever they haven’t done so in a while. When they all met, his parents, his aunts, his cousins, his grand-aunts and their children and last but not least his grandma, he enjoyed their company for a bit; they were funny, had interesting topics and never really sat in silence.
...
Dana ran into her door and bounced back with a strange look on her face. Oh, the key, right. She seemed to have locked the door when she left without even noticing. That was probably due to the clashing thoughts that fought for attention in her mind. There was just too much going on in her life, she wished God would give her some rest every once in a while.
Once the door was unlocked, she pushed hard against the heavy wood and unscrewed the bottle of water that she had just gotten from the kitchen. Her hair was greasy and small sweat peals ran down her forehead. She did not like it, but there were more important things to care about right now.
As the water ran down the hot desert in her throat, she sat down on the chair and breathed in deeply for a few times. She just wanted a few seconds until she headed off again. It took her some more seconds in the silence of her small room than she expected, but finally she straightened her back and screwed the bottle. “Let’s get started”, she said to herself.
...
5. Define a ‘blockbuster,’ and outline the economic logic which has encouraged the emergence of the blockbuster trend. In your answer, please use one recent film as a central example.
2012 (Roland Emmerich, 2009) is a contemporary Hollywood “blockbuster”, a term originating from large-scale World War II bombs and since the 1950s coining major film hits (Steve Neale: 47). Blockbusters emerged in America in the 1950s to 1970s as part of the New Hollywood and by using 2012 as a central example, this essay explains their historical development and defines blockbusters.
The major studio’s oligopoly in the USA ended with the Paramount anti-trust suit in 1949, overturning the vertical integration system where exhibition was secured due to the studio’s own first-run cinemas. “Consent decrees” gave cinemas independence and led to new competition (Jill Nelmes: 35).
...
Peter Kramer, senior lecturer in Film Studies, had news for his audience at the Cultural Exchanges event (4/3/10): Hollywood is not really American; it’s rather a global network.
Who would have thought that?
Hollywood steals resources from all over the world. German directors, British novel adoptions, African culture or Canadian cities like Vancouver, used to resemble New York, just to name a few. Only two things are still American about the production – the monitoring body in Los Angeles, CA, and American scriptwriters.
This relates to the Europeanization of Hollywood that occurred in the 40s – 50s. Why? Because the global audience grew. Nowadays, ¾ of the revenue comes from outside of America, mainly Europe.
I never thought before about how Hollywood projects global concerns into its most successful films, which often deal with alien invasions and the global destruction.
Kramer hints that the American setting of so many films, which I always reasoned as pure egoism and self-praise of the US, is in fact supposed to represent all of humanity. In other terms, when we see America fight and win in films, America stands less for itself, but for the whole world.
This can be seen in the victory of human kind against aliens (Independence Day), against nature (2012) or itself in form of the Nazis in Indiana Jones. I enjoyed Kramer’s propositions a lot and I think it helped all visitors, not only the many attending Film Studies students, to see Hollywood from a different perspective.
Germaine Greer asked a question at the Cultural eXchanges festival that I have thought about many times and the answer isn’t easy to define. “What is one’s ancestry?”
If you would get a survey - like the Australian population– that wants you to enter a one-adjective answer, what would you say?
In the survey, 13% claimed to be Australian, although they are clearly immigrants. Aren’t the Aborigines the real Australians? What’s worse, the cultural value of such hunter-gatherer lifestyle is almost lost due to the invasion of Western civilization. Instead, the Aborigines are treated like dogs to play ball with.
I always consider myself as German, but what does that even mean? Both my parents are Germans and their parents as well. The question is, is that enough? Actually, I can follow back my roots to a small town in Slovakia. Also, I am from East Germany and there is a huge difference to the West side; for example, I feel more bound to the Prussian ancestry.
Germans sometimes have racist thoughts, punishing especially Turkish immigrants for taking “our” jobs and causing the high unemployment. Who has the right to demand jobs for themselves, anyway? They should rather look at their own family tree and think about where their branch sticks out.
T
he Australian cultural problem was definitely thought-provoking and I hereby give the official permission not to be a racist. Everybody has mixed blood in some way and it is a shame that people forget that.
Second day at the Cultural eXchanges week (2/3/10) at DeMontfort University in Leicester and a controversial African film on the agenda: Badou Boy (1970) by Djibril Diop Mambéty.
accompanied by a rhythmical African sound and observes the paradoxes of Dakar’s (Senegal) everyday street life.For me as a Film Studies student, the techniques and hidden implications were extremely interesting. After a long discussion with my friends, who despised the film, I have to admit that the film cannot fulfill the one and only goal: to entertain its audience.
The strange thing about infamous quality crafts: people familiar with the rules of particular artworks acknowledge the use of unique methods more willingly. In Badou Boy, rapid cuts, jumpy camera work and a superimposed sound rather than live recordings confuse most viewers.
I moreove
r tried to analyze the visual and oral signals such as the recurring motif of the plump and rude police man with his bike - that he never rides - and find out what message is conveyed: here a negative critic of Senegal’s post-colonial governing body.I wonder if we should concentrate primarily on entertaining readers or viewers?
In the end, we all want our work to be read or seen. Therefore, it is important to take the “entertainment-factor” into consideration.
Nevertheless, most accredited pieces only succeeded because someone pushed the boundaries. I liked MambĂ©ty’s film, although mainly for academic reasons. So this event was a good exchange for normal lectures.
See for yourself here!
When curator Michael McMillan confronted his audience on Monday (01/03/10) at Leicester’s Cultural eXchanges event with the idea that the front room reflects the respectability of house owners, I thought that is exactly what should be on the agenda of De Montfort University’s services.
Apparently, the Caribbean immigrants of the 50s and 60s had to sell themselves to the outside world to gain acceptance. From my experience, some students do not even remotely understand what that means.
Front ro
oms are the only public spaces in the privacy of our homes. Caribbean immigrants used fancy photos, religious paintings such as the last supper or expensive new acquirements to express their morality and decency. Student’s homes that I have seen in Leicester or in various other places around the world do not explicitly earn that respectability.
As a German international student, it is awkward at first to see British streets with identical terraced houses – I can absolutely relate to the impression those immigrants had. At least they made the inside representational of their individuality.
Students, on the other hand, often leave their rooms completely unattended – no matter whether that concerns cleanness, inventory or elegancy. They all resemble each other.
I think a proper introduction in “the front room - my soul, my sin” at Universities could help. For my house next year, I will keep McMillan’s advice in mind: “If you and your front room look good, you will be respected.”
More about-> The Front Room
4. In what ways was Les Quatre Cents Coups / The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) a representative film of the French New Wave?
The period of the French New Wave, 1959-1963 (Annette Kuhn: 202), centred on innovation and experimentation in the filmmaking business, in a time when audience numbers declined because of new leisure opportunities and when sexual liberation came with a change in morality. Government subsidiaries and new talent support encouraged an industrial change. The prize winning The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) represents the characteristics of this European art cinema in particular which will be further explored in this essay (James Russel: New Waves).
...
3. How did the outbreak of World War II affect the content of British film in the early 1940s?
After the Hollywood influenced period in the 1930s (Newi.ac.uk) with films lacking political and social critique and a dominant working-class theme (Jill Nelmes: 314), British cinema changed with the beginning of World War II as the isolated Britain feared invasion (Robert Murphy) and political awareness became a major issue. Following a short closing of cinemas, suspecting raids at the outbreak of the war (British Film Resource: World War II), a new inward-look appeared, using the crisis to abandon old divisions and grudges (Jill Nelmes: 314-315).
Few victories first resulted in rare ideas, but early the need for escapism - with cinema as the biggest entertainment sector (James Chapman: 196) - nurtured absurd comedies and comedy-thrillers of the “phoney-war” period (Robert Murphy). In 1939-40, optimistic films such as Gasbags (Walter Forde and Marcel Varnel, 1940) used humour to make times endurable, offering a way to switch-off (Robert Murphy).
...
2. How did the adoption of synchronised sound in the late 1920s transform cinema as a visual medium, and as an institution.
Since the beginning of cinema, experiments were made with sound, leading to Harold Arnold’s electrical recording technology that Western Electrics and Bell Labs used for sound-on-disc inventions, demonstrating the first talking picture in Yale in 1922 The Audion. Warner Bros., the only interested studio, for the film economy went well and had no needs, bought the Vitascope system and with Western Electric, Bell Labs and their Vitaphone Corporation made the first successful commercial sound-effect film Don Juan (Alan Crosland) in 1926 (Sandiego.edu).
After further big successes like the first spoken language film, The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927), elevating Warner Bros. to a major studio, the other big studios, like MGM and Paramount, adopted sound technologies, allying with Western Electronics (James Chapman: 90-92), who combined the Fox Film Corporation’s sound-on-film, Movietone, with their amplification system in 1931 (Virginia.edu). This photoelectric cell became standard, lasting longer than the 24-play-discs and being more synchronous (Sandiego.edu).
...
1. Who could be said to have ‘invented’ cinema, and how did their device improve upon other emergent film technologies?
At the end of the nineteenth century, many inventors were fascinated with the moving picture. While the Zoetrope and the Praxinoscope set the principles by giving “the impression of movement”, Etienne-Jules Marey and Augustin-Louis Le Prince presented machines to only photograph, not project, moving images (James Chapman: 53). George Eastman perfected and standardized celluloid film rolls by 1890, essential for filming and projecting, but still others lead the way to the spectacle of cinema (Filmreference).
In 1891, the American Thomas Edison (1847-1931) and his assistant W.K.L. Dickson invented the Kinetoscope viewing box and shortly after the heavy Kinetograph camera, enabling one person peepshows of less than thirty seconds. Two of their attributes became standard in the following years: a “stop-motion device to regulate intermittent motion of film strip” and two-rowed holes in the film to pull synchronous and effectively through the machine (Filmreference). Commercial use launched in 1894, using the first film studio, the Black Maria, in West Orange, New Jersey; consequently, various Kinetoscope parlours emerged in the USA and Europe, but they lacked the cinema-feature of collective viewing (James Chapman: 53).
...
The following short essays are part of my Film Studies degree and might be interesting to anyone, who wants to know more about the History of film.
The entries use references from the following list, so further reading should be fairly easy. Concerning any questions or suggestions, I would be happy to answer on comments.
...
Did you ever think about seeing lists as art, as poetry, as a piece of writing that can have a greater meaning?
Japanese Sei Shonagon definitely sees that in list. In The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon she uses 164 lists, showing contrahents and expressing whatever she wanted to. For her, as a writer one can include whatever one wants. Good to know!
Titles of her lists include: Things that cannot be compared, Things that lost their power, People who seem to suffer, Things that gain by being painted, Things that loose by being painted...
Now I wrote some on my own:
...
Watching two White Dogs
There he flits through oiled daylight,
across black hills, deep down raw paths.
He roams his veil of linen cloth,
then stops, surveys to sniff
her out.
His eyes dropped - striving down towards
where once his purple collared wife
had rested, waiting foolishly,
in hope their paint will bleed.
Sunset haunts her traveller,
his piercing rips exert themselves
and make his paws proceed.
His hanging ears are not deceived!
The husband strands,
I see him grieve.
They hang apart:
express their calm
belief.
...
There are only five places in the world, where he less wanted to be than amongst all these screaming bastards on rollercoasters. His assignment was clear, though. Spend the day as casual as possible in there and keep an eye open.
Steven Harrison was 34 years old and lived for his job. He didn’t stop having girlfriends, of course, but being an agent required a lot of dedication. He never before took his girlfriend with him onto an assigned trip; this time he had changed his mind for two reasons: to please Anastasia and to find a cover-up. He didn’t expect it to turn out as an adventurous task.
She was hanging at his shoulder as they were walking down River Drive, next to the Swan Lake. His girlfriend pulled on his arm. “Could you bear with me for just one second, please? I want to ride a swan boat with you.”
“What?” He was watching a black haired man who just came out of a toilet stall, zipping his pants up.
“See, that is exactly what I mean.”
“Honey, you know I’m not here for pleasure. If I wanted to ride a boat with you, then I would take you to the Virgin Islands and not to Disney World in Orlando.” The guy walked to a crossing path and disappeared.
“So you don’t want me here. Why didn’t you take one of your colleagues then?”
“I told you about a hundred times. I thought you might like Disney World, although I honestly can’t see how that could be.”
“Oh, shut up. If Marian hadn’t been called to Turkey for some mysterious reason, then you would have never asked me.”
His lip twitched. “Go on, ride your Swan. I’ll meet you at the Duck’s Donut on the other side.” He pulled his wallet and gave her five dollars.
Probably every other week, people ask me how University in England is like and what I am doing in my course.
Therefore, I'm going to explain it in detail now, so I can send people with that question to my blog. Makes it easier, doesn't it.
The application process is much easier and less strict than for example in Germany. The deadline for submission is normally in the beginning of the year, January 15th for this year. Some courses differ a little bit, because they go through a more detailed process, for example art or medical studies.
Crazy me, I applied at the end of May. That worked because Universities accept later applications until June if places are not filled already.
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.
This is an online service, where you register and pay about 20 £, so you can send in five applications. Most Universities prefer this service, but some would also accept hard copies per mail.
You type in all your details and upload your files of your records and recommendations.
This is what's needed:
- Personal details
- Additional information (UK applicants only)
- Choices - what and where to apply
- Education
- Employment
- Personal statement - reason for choosing your course
- Reference - from a person you worked with/for (teacher)
- Pay and send
Prolog
Das dumpfe MotorengerÀusch vibrierte in ihren Gliedern. Die Stirn an der Bordwand liegend, betrachtete sie das Lichtermeer am Boden. Dann wurde es grau vor ihren Augen und jegliches Schimmern wurde von der Wand aus Wasserdampf verschlungen.
AllmĂ€hlich richtete sich das Flugzeug auf und das leuchtende Zeichen ĂŒber den Köpfen der Passagiere erlosch mit dem ĂŒblichen GerĂ€usch. Hannah löste ihren Sitzgurt nicht, sondern starrte weiterhin auf die graue Welt auĂerhalb der Kabine. Sie flog zwar nicht zum ersten Mal, aber abgesehen vom Hinflug konnte sie sich kaum noch an das letzte Mal erinnern. Und selbst der Hinflug schien ihr ein Jahrhundert zurĂŒckzuliegen. Der Besuch in Ningbo war nur ein Kurztrip, eine Reise ans andere Ende der Welt um mal ein anderes Weihnachtsfest zu erleben. Und ein anderes Weihnachtsfest hatte sie erlebt, nur ging das „anders“ in eine völlig andere Richtung als sie zuerst gedacht hatte. Neben dem Flair einer chinesischen Provinz, der Zhejiang Provinz am ostchinesischen Meer, war ihr auĂerdem ein Zauber begegnet, den sie in einer so weihnachtsfernen Umgebung nicht im Geringsten erwartet hĂ€tte.
1.
Aber war das ĂŒberhaupt ein Zauber? Sie konnte es sich kaum anders erklĂ€ren, so unwirklich es auch schien. In ihrer Hand glitt sie erneut ĂŒber das feine StĂŒck Holz, das sie seit Tagen nicht unbeaufsichtigt gelassen hatte. Ihre Augen drehten sich zu dem dunklen, mit roten Pigmenten ĂŒbersĂ€ten BruchstĂŒck. In diesem Holz steckt auf jeden Fall etwas Magisches, aber warum komme gerade ich dazu? Eine Frage, die sie wieder und wieder stellte.
Ihr Blick streifte weiter ĂŒber ihre Sitzreihe. Sam, ihre beste Freundin, trĂ€umte mit glasigen Augen in der Welt ihrer Musik. Ihre dunkelbraunen Haare hingen ihr bis zu den BrustansĂ€tzen und verdeckten einen GroĂteil ihres konturreichen Gesichts. Nick hatte seine Augen geschlossen, den Kopf in einer unbequemen Position auf seiner linken Schulter hĂ€ngend. Seine dunkelblonden, mittellangen Haare versteckten sich unter einem Basecap. Ihm hatte sie die ganze Reise zu verdanken und all die Wunder, die dieses Weihnachten passiert waren. WĂ€rme stieg in ihr auf, wobei sie das Holz mit gekreuzten Armen umschlungen an ihre Brust presste. Das Ziehen an ihren langen blonden Haaren ignorierte sie trĂ€umerisch.
Sie glitt zurĂŒck in ihren Sitz und lehnte ihren Kopf erneut gegen die kalte Bordwand. Das Rauschen in der Kabine wiegte sie langsam in einen Halbschlaf, der sie jedoch nicht davon abhielt, ihr Geschenk fest zu umklammern. Dann verschwand sie aus der Nacht und fiel zurĂŒck in die vorweihnachtliche Vorfreude und aufgeregte Stimmung in den StraĂen von Ningbo.