2.5 years ago, my friend lisa and a few of her friends copied the infamous free-hug-video from australia and offered free hugs in innsbruck.
back then, i had just planned to stop by and take some pictures for her, but ended up joining in when i saw the sincere reactions of the passing pedestrians.
this happened far too long ago, and today, we did a rerun of the project.
lisa and members of her registered club made signs that said “gratis umarmungen” (free hugs), and some of the members came along to hug. barbara and i came along, too, and this year i was both hugging and taking pictures.

just when we came together, the drizzle (that had been going on all day) stopped and the sun came out.
we decided go to maria-theresien-strasse in the center of town, just like last time. unfortunately, this year, more than half of the pedestrian area is one big construction site, but that circumstance also helped “channel” the pedestrians a bit.
about halfway through the event, two friendly punks happened to walk by, and decided to join in, too. :)

as before, the reactions were stunning: cute elderly ladies giving a wholehearted smile, younger folk stopping their bikes fur a hug, and pedestrians walking towards us with open arms from 10 meters away. there was an incredible amount of positive energy..
 

less than 20 minutes after we stopped, it started to rain again.

[view photos: free hugs in innsbruck]

meet alfred the book scorpion (also: house scorpion):

book scorpion (chelifer cancroides)

i noticed this little guy crawl up from behind a shelf in my room.
pseudoscorpions (they resemble scorpions, but lack the long abdomen and stinger of “real” scorpions) usually hunt for small insects like psocoptera (booklice, barklice), so i think he’ll be allowed to stay in my room.

i named him alfred, after batman’s butler.

over at somethingcrawlinginmyhair.com, there’s an article about book scorpions and the challenge of identification by tim eisele.

friends of ours have recently started to excavate parts of their frontyard in order to make space for a private parking area. in the process, they found a bunch of bones, about 1.5 meters below the original ground level.
archaeologists were called to the place, and they started digging a little deeper.
they found the remains of several individuals, including one child.

knowing that i’m always interested in that kind of stuff, martina called me and invited me to “come have a look”.
i went there last week, and chatted with her and the archaeologists, who told me that they hadn’t found any artefacts to clearly date the site, but it might have been as old as 600 years.

in the meantime, they found a little more: a stonewalled vault of a 10-year-old girl complete with grave goods such as bronze ear rings, a necklace and a glass bead bracelet. these artefacts date back to the 6th or 7th century a.d.
the newspaper stated that “this discovery is also a highlight in the archaeologists’ careers.”

i was there, and took some pictures (what else). :)

[view photos: archaeological excavation in the frontyard]

continute reading for the newspaper article (german): [more...]

over the past weeks, i’ve had two little microbat guests:
i’ve been asked to take care of a female and male nathusius pipistrelle (pipistrellus nathusii), both foundlings from the neighbourhood.
with the rising temperatures, there should be enough food (winged insects) in the air, so they were released last night.

to get an idea of these two grown-up bats, take a look at the following pictures (and click to enlarge):

nathusius’ pipistrelle (pipistrellus nathusii) sitting on my thumb

[more...]

i first read about californian singer/songwriter vienna teng on eric cheng’s blog, in the long-long-ago.
there was a link to her website with a few sound samples, and i instantly became a fan.

since then, her beautiful music and powerful lyrics accompanied me everywhere i went.
in fact, i think there’s been at least one of her songs on my mp3-player at all times.
 

one week ago, she held a concert in innsbruck, so after more than 8 years of listening to her music, i had a chance to hear her perform live.
i was blasted away, and so were my friends and the rest of the audience. the ovations wouldn’t stop even after two encores, so they played a third one. :)

vienna teng, ward williams and alex wong in concert

if you’ve never heard of her, i recommend going to her website and listening to a few of her songs online. i don’t think you’ll regret it.

recommended reading: there are posts about the european tour on vienna teng’s and ward williams’ blogs (he’s got a very …creative way of storytelling). nothing on austria yet, though.

[view photos: vienna teng concert in innsbruck]

the next stop on our route was hallstatt [G], a town that sits in the 40 meters between a lakeshore and a rock face that goes up 300 meters.
up to the end of the 19th century, hallstatt was only reachable by boat or narrow paths. i think the only reason that the village was established there in the first place, lies in the rich deposits of salt, which have been mined since approx. 5.000 b.c.
parts of that history can be seen in the salzwelten (salt worlds), a mining museum which offers guided tours into the mines.

internationally, hallstatt is probably best known for the beinhaus: since there’s hardly any space at all available in hallstatt, the dead remained buried for about 10 years, after which time the bones were be removed from the cemetary. they were then painted and decorated elaborately, and placed in the beinhaus (ossuary).

last time we were in the region, we only had a few hours in hallstatt, which is why we stayed overnight this time. bräu-gasthof lobisser is located in the narrow part of hallstatt with views of the lake, and has comfortable rooms with typical austrian furniture.
(i recommend to reconfirm your reservation before you arrive in hallstatt.)

[view photos: hallstatt, austria]

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