breaking the ice

If you like Christmas you got to celebrate it. After Climo made me listen to “Merry Christmas everyone” approximately 17 times, we were in a Christmas mood. The flat was full of candles and smell of mulled wine, cinnamon and almonds. We baked ginger bread, mainly ginger bread teddies and decorated them with sugar stuff, chocolate and lots of creativity. My favourite still being “measles bear”. The flat smells now more like beer and cigarettes, but yesterday, yes yesterday it smelled very much like Christmas.

I had a very interesting folkloristic experience yesterday. I was invited by the Autrian National Youth Council to their Christmas Party. They decided to show the richness of their member organisations, which in practical terms meant that the rural youth made a show. And if I say show I truly mean show. The “Aufriss plattler” appeared in Lederhosen and accompanied by women in Dirndl to dance for us “Schuh Plattler”. Although I grew up on the countryside I have never seen such an act live. I was seriously overwhelmed. I made little videos with my mobile phone. Who ever is interested in finding out more about Austrian folklore dancing, just write me an e-mail and I will gladly send the videos to you!

Ok- here is my confession. I LOOOOOOVE Christmas. I am well aware of the fact that Christmas songs 24/7 are a bit annoying, but I know their lyrics, their melodies and can any time sing along, which is kinda cheerful. I like buying presents for people that I care about. Most of all I like spending time with people I care about; and by the end of the year I always take time for my family, that most of them make excellent cookies is indeed an additional motivation. The good thing about my family at Christmas is, usually they are spread all over the country, but for Christmas we all meet at my Grannies. This means it is way less complicated to manage to see them all. But also now, I am a few days in Vienna and catching up with friends, talking things over, going to Christmas markets, drinking plenty of mulled wine, having fun and party but also time for myself. Just sorting things in my life and calming down a bit. Surely there are always people who I would like to have with me and spend time with but I do not manage. That is partly the theme of my life, it happens less during Christmas, but it does. There are people who I miss. Most important and despite everything - I love Christmas time, I really do.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with string,

Cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudel,
Door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings,

Girls in white dresses and blue satin sashes,
Snow-flakes that stay on my nose and eye-lashes,
Silver white win-ters that melt into spring,
These are a few of my favorite things,

When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel, so bad.

I am happy!

Part of the visit to Medellín was site visits to local empowerment projects. We passed by Moravia, the highest populated area in Medellín with 42 000 inhabitants and only 0,37 square meters of space per person. It is an illegal settlement built on top of a dumpster. Moravia is now one of the main development priorities of the municipality; the main investment is made for reallocation of 4426 homes, entrepreneurship and the quality enhancement of education.
We also went with a gondola to Santo Domingo, a beautiful but poor area in Medellín, where we met young girls involved in a leadership development project which uses art to reach out to as many young people as possible. In the framework of the “Library Park Project” Santo Domingo is getting one of 5 great knowledge centres, devoted to culture and civic encounter.
It is fascinating to get to know the city a bit, to have the opportunity to learn about concrete local projects and how the municipality together with NGOs is trying to combat poverty and violence. One more note about the breakfast, the group moved hotel, and now the breakfast pergola is next to a river and in the middle of tropical greenery. There is just an awesome fresh fruit selection every day; I love countries where “5 a day” can be done already by breakfast.

And as I was asked, why I have this unique opportunity to be in Columbian sun and rain whilst half of Europe is undoubtedly heading towards winter. I am here for the International Coordination Meeting of Youth Organisations (ICMYO), which was established in 2004 as an initiative of the major global youth NGOs and regional youth platform to strengthen and develop global and regional youth cooperation.
And a special thanks needs to be made public to our translators, who had a very tuff job throughout the meeting, first and foremost Pablo, but also Paola and Arturo. Thank you.

I am finally after a long long journey in Medellin, Columbia. Traveling today is not so nice, because one is not really seen as a Human being, not to talk about treated like a paying customer, no, every one of us is mainly an alleged terrorist. This makes traveling much less fun then it anyways ever was. So after traveling 23 hours, spending half of the time in planes and the other one in queues for security, passport and customs checks, I finally arrived with the boys in Medellin.
Medellin is Colombias’s second largest city with approximately 3 million inhabitants. It is nestled in the Aburrá valley, between two Andean mountain ranges. So we drove down in the dark, from one of these mountains seeing the whole town with all its lights shining below us. So my first impression of Medellin was very impressive. The city is called the place of eternal spring, because it has a very mild climate and everything is very green here. Medellin is also know for “el Metro” the only subway system in Columbia, its stunning mountain views and the warmth of its population of “paisas”.
Thanks to the eternal spring here I just had the best breakfast that I can possibly imagine. Those of you who traveled or stayed with me somewhere the last years must be painfully aware how much my mood depends on breakfast. If someone wants to sell me a dry facial peeling mask as bread, they not see me smile (staying often in France, where they have no breakfast culture what so ever, no choices of bread and basically eat chocolate on cotton wool made me often grumpy) . So the quality of a breakfast depends on a number of things, number of different bread types, number of ways that you can have your egg prepared, variety of cereals and fresh fruit. And the 2nd of December 2006 will go into my diary as the day where I had the best fresh pineapples ever in my life! Thank you eternal spring of Medellin.