i took part in another botanical excursion today - we went to jamtal valley.
it’s one of the last valleys of tyrol that (nearly) haven’t been influenced by mankind, so we found many protected and rare plants and an almost pristine flora.

jamtal valley is declared a nature reserve - there’s only 3 buildings in an 11km (7 mile) valley, all of which are alpine huts.
we even needed a special permission to drive in some miles…

once again it got obvious how focussed i am on butterflies (and their developmental stages) - i photographed a bunch of cool ones up there!
see for yourself!

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so despite that “kinda-bad” feeling i had all day, this trip to bad haering got really nice.
(we, the sms-quartet, were asked to play some instrumental songs at a choir concert in bad haering.)

sitting there and listening to the songs of the choir called “chor des gymnasiums der franziskaner” really made me miss my borg time…
i wish i had one more year to spend there with all my friends, although it’s hard to imagine (only the getting-up so early seems unthinkable now).
and i’ve come to think about our own choir-trips and little concerts… going to krems, singing in that church in salurn, and so on.

i really miss singing in a choir. i think it’s one of the best things to do - a group of people, coming together and singing and making that great sound nobody could just make alone…

and, still sitting there, i realized what kind of choir i really want to be in: a very small male vocal ensemble of singers that are all better than me.
where i really need to practice hard to be at the musical level they are…
just 4 or 5 guys, singing original zulu songs, and gospel (”IIIrd tyme out - swing low”, for instance), and gregorian chorals, and maybe some clasical stuff (bach chorals, especially).
and those great 30’s / 40’s acapella-songs (”ok4 - delta dawn”) where you gotta listen twice to note that there’s actually no instrumental music in the background, but it sounds so full and cool anyway…
and songs like “sinead o’connor - in this heart”

so you see, there’s so many great songs to sing, i just need the perfect choir (see above) to sing them.

once again, my own “pickyness” beats me.

and there’s something more i learned today: i’m already one of “the old ones”. i had felt it all the time, but today it got obvious again…
not so long ago i was sitting in the back of the bus with my friends, wondering why “those old ones” were still coming back and going on trips with our choir.
i wish i’d have made the right decision last week, i wish i would’ve gone to zell am see with my old choir…
guess i’ll finally have to take the risk and do what i want instead of doing what i should do.

by the way: we need to finally get a *real* name for our quartet. sms-quartet just is stupid - especially when stated that the “sms” stands for “special music school”.

today my father and i went up the mountains in rum to a stone formation called ‘rumer nadel’.

there, we unexpectedly saw a chamois family, including two cubs!
they seemed surprised to see us too, and were standing there making strange whistling noises…

furthermore we found some protected plants

i got some good shots up there, especially the inn-valley panoramic and the photo of a ‘globe daisy’!
see for yourself!

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i just returned from an excursion arranged by a club called blattform (link). it’s an open association of biologists and biology students.

we met at 6 am (and it’s sunday, just to remind you) to go to schmirntal valley on a 90-minute ride.
first, there was rainy weather, but by the time (and the height), it got sunshiny and warm.
we soar up about 700 meters (2300 ft) in height - from 1500 to 2300 meters (4900 to 7550 ft) - looking for specific auricle-hybrids.

i had a great time, being with a whole bunch of nice and knowing people - although i was the only second semester freshman…
anyway, i learned a lot of facts and details worth knowing, and i’m looking forward to the next excursion i can take part in.

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