What a friendly welcome of the local Swing dancing community in San Francisco! I’m saying thank you and recommend the following to my fellows in London – should you ever visit San Francisco, then Lindy in the Park is a place to go to.

A journey through valleys, villages and across mountain passes, through sunshine, rain, and thunderstorm: in this year’s mountain bike trip, we crossed the Alps from Oberstdorf in Germany to Lake Garda in Italy.

What started as a joke turned into reality on a bank holiday weekend: A bicycle ride from London to Paris. Well, to be exact, we skipped the part from London to the channel and started in Dieppe.

It was my second time in France. After exploring the countryside in the Auvergne a decade ago, this time I visited the capital over a weekend while travelling from London to Munich by train and by bus. A mixed story about discovering Paris by foot.

It was my first four-day hiking trip in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada in the Sequoia National Park (California). This is a recount of my experiences and a descriptions of the lessons I learnt while carrying my backpack with food and shelter over segments of the High Sierra Trail.

Mountain View in California is a place where cars are the primary means of transport. But I was told that biking is an option, too. So, I tested getting around with a bike. Here is a short review.

The name says it: Harbour Cone is a cone-shaped hill on the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand. While most tourists pay for a tour to see penguins and albatroses, I opted for the cheap variant using a regular bus and regular hiking boots.

Just when reaching the summit, a gap in the clouds allowed for a stunning view from Roys Peak in New Zealand: blue lakes, green vegetation, snowy mountains. A report from a moderate hike with an above-the-average return.

Fantastic view over the Alps from Halserspitze on the border between Austria and Germany. The mountain is only for the experienced and surefooted. Wildbad Kreuth at the foot of the mountain can be comfortably reached from Munich by train and bus.

Roundtrip: Tegernsee – Kreuth – Hirschberg – Bad Wiessee – Tegernsee. This mountainbike trip was different from previous ones. With the weather conditions permitting, we planned our route just in time. The roundtrip went astonishingly well.

A hike with phenomenal company lead from Amden to the top of the Speer mountain in Switzerland. Up there, thick clouds were hanging on one side of the long mountain ridge like an attempt to illustrate the Nothing from The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. A bath in Lake Walen topped off the hike.

Interesting weekend trip from Munich to Zurich. Hitchhiked with a bus. And got an unexpected ferry ride over Lake Constance.

Lesson for a TUM student: a good Bavarian bite and drink at Hörsaal 13 on TUM campus Weihenstephan. “Hörsaal 13” translates to “Lecture Hall 13” but is in fact a pub with an attached beer garden – German sense of humor? Anyway, I conclude: definitely one of the better beer gardens.

Recommendable hike close to the German-Austrian border. Starting at Musteralm at Plansee, remembering old times, then hiking up to two summits called Geierköpfe, crossing the rather exposed ridge from the western summit to the eastern summit. Enjoyable view on Zugspitze. Back the same way.

Das Interview für abi.de ist nun schon ein paar Wochen alt, aber erst jetzt ist mir aufgefallen, wie die Überschrift und der erste Satz im Zusammenhang klingen. Frei nach: in der Welt zuhause, in Bayern daheim.

Thirteen years passed before I returned to Denmark for a couple of days. In short: good friends, interesting history, and delicious food.

The public parks in Shanghai attract lots of people, especially on Sundays. As described in a previous article, these parks offer plenty of opportunities for a variety of leisure activities. Actually, the People’s Park on People’s Square features the most curious of all the Sunday activities I have seen so far.

The city proper of Shanghai is home to 20 million inhabitants (see here and here). Unsurprisingly, despite of its density, the urban area goes on and on. Nevertheless, if people want to enjoy nearby green areas in their spare time, they have at least the public parks.

Taking the train is a common way of travelling in China and popular amongst locals and foreigners. Westerners might find some surprising facts about travelling in China by train.

Traffic in China follows other rules than in Germany. Also the assortment of vehicles in China is much more diverse; featuring trucks, buses, taxis, private cars, electric scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, three-wheeled cars and pedestrians all sharing the same space.