But we’ve been doing good so far. 43 miles in 3 days, that certainly is something, and the statistics tell us, that 25 percent of all thru-hikers have already dropped out at Neel Gap, which we passed yesterday. But we are still on our way. Some people start the trail with 50 to 60 pounds backpacks, never hiked before, and then realize after a couple of miles, that it’s not what they expected. Some hurt their ankles or knees on the first day. We hear from a guy, who stopped only after half a mile, not even at the starting point, Mount Springer, put down his pack and said: “That’s it for me”. People had to help getting his pack back to the parking lot.

It’s not what we’ve expected either, that’s for sure, but at least we are ready for it, have trained for it, and took only the most important things with us. Our packs weigh about 32 pounds, water and food included. We are travelling lighter, because we counted every gram in our pack. That is how Gram Man got his trail name “Gram Man” – but I guess, this name could apply to many of us. “At the end, I got a little loose, took a couple of things with me I didn’t necessarily need, but all together, I got it down pretty nicely”, says Gram Man as we all sit at the camp fire now, eating Ramen noodles, freeze dried meals or other hiker food. There are some people on the trail with 20 to 25 pound packs, who use only light tarps for sleeping and use light trail runners as shoes. We chose to have a little more comfort, bigger sleeping packs, a second pair of socks, even a Kindle to read on. And we tend to take a little more water with us than we really need, because you never want to run out of water. That is how Gram Man’s hiker buddy Camel earned his trail name. When everyone else run out of water, he always had some left. But today, we all are good on water, are fed, and when we turn off our lights and head for our tents and the shelter, life is good in the middle of the wood.

We leave early around 8 am the next day, heading for Tray Mountain Shelter. From there, we plan to get to Hiawassee a day after that. Hiawassee is a little town 11 miles away from the trail. We plan to hitchhike there, to get some resupply, do our laundry, rest our feet, sleep in a real bed. We hike with Randy now, a really nice 30-some year old guy, who just got the same pace on the trail as we have. He only plans to hike for two more days, going back to work after that. He is a section hiker like me, and he wants to do the whole trail piece by piece, week by week, coming back every now and then.

We are only a couple of miles in, when Randy slows down. “It’s my knee”, he says. He didn’t have any problems the whole time, but now, suddenly, the knee aches. Some people have problems with blisters, some with the shoulders, but we will hear from many along the way, that it’s the knees that cause the most troubles. I give him my knee bandage, which I took with me just in case, since I had knee surgery last year, and he keeps on walking with that, slower, but keeping up with us. After another hour, it starts raining, and as we head for the next shelter for a little lunch break, we meet Camel and Gram Man again. “We are heading for Unicoi Gap, that’s where we leave the A.T.”, says Gram Man, “It’s just a mile from here”. At Unicoi Gap, Camel’s car is waiting for him, waiting for him to bring him to Helen, GA, a very German place in the Appalachians, filled with German Restaurants and Taverns. Great German beer, they say. Randy decides to go with them. He was only go one more day anyway, and the knee just hurts to much, he says. As they leave, we pack out our lunch and enjoy the view from the mountain top, as the rain stops and the clouds move further.

When we arrive down at Unicoi Gap an hour later, Camel, Gram Man and Randy are still there, and also Dan and Alex from Detroit. Camel hands us his last food supplies (“won’t need those dried-frozen meals in Helen”) and a cold beer out of his cooling box. When churches or former thru-hikers come up to the trail to feed the hungry hikers, or put up a BBQ along the way to Maine, people call that “Trail Magic”. Today, here at the parking lot, that cold beer and the extra food we get, that is “trail magic” to us. As we say our goodbyes to Camel, Gram Man and Randy, we all take a picture together and be on our way, heading for the Hiawassee. “We all think of you when we have a German beer in Helen”, shouts Gram Man, as my brother and me head back to the trail, to climb another pointless up and down.

(pic by ismh_)

If you want to know, what’s in your cup, check out that beautiful infographic about Tea Vs. Coffee the guys over at Submit Infographics have put together (via Lifehacker). Looks like my daily drugs right now, the great Sencha Green Tea from Lebensbaum and the Isis Green Tea with Peppermint, are a healthy choice after all.

If you want to know more, there is a Coffee, Tea and Cocoa exhibition in the Hannover Historical Museum ‘til May 8th 2011. You can also find quite some detailed information on how to brew the perfect espresso on episode 119 of Chaosradio Express (German). But be careful, getting the perfect coffee can be tricky, as CollegeHumor shows us:

Other links, that might float your boat and save the weekend:

• Boy scouts can get a robotics badge now (via Make)
• Don’t stop drinking, it could be a health risk ! (via The Register)
• Ham Solo sounds like a real weak joke, and it really is (via Geeks are sexy)
• Pixel Art meets Star Trek on a poster (via Boing Boing)

(Foto: Matthew Borgatti)

Matthew Borgatti put this together for a pillow fight flash mob in New York. On that note: Pillow fight flash mobs are the only flash mobs that make sense to me.

(via Make)

Cairo is loud, in many corners dirty, confusing, unsettled, turbulent, full of cars and full of people. Great! I really gotta say that Cairo was very different from what I expected. In many ways the city was more strange to me then I would have thought, but in many ways more familiar.

Egypt and especially Cairo is definitely steeped in the recent history and the revolution. Everyone from the cab driver to the hotel manager will gladly talk with you about the revolution, hear your opinion, discuss the future. At every square you will see military and tanks – the guards of the hope of democratic future during the transitional time. You will see the burnt out NDP headquarter, burnt out police stations and the name and image of Husni Mubarak erased from signs, buildings and walls. You can buy stickers of the revolution and pictures of all the people who died during the protests. But there is also a big shadow: Almost no tourists in March, most windows of the big hotels stay dark at night.

My first day was election day in Egypt – the people voted on a constitution change, seen as the first democratic election in many, many years. On our walk through Islamic Cairo we passed many crowded polling stations. Anne took this great picture of a woman, who had voted and therefore ink on her finger as a method to make sure that everyone only votes once.

But of course Cairo is not only a city of recent history, but one with footprints of all periods of times. The Egyptian museum, the Pyramids, the mosques in Islamic Cairo, the churches in Coptic Cairo, I definitely collected hundreds of new impressions of this old place. The best of them you will find in my flickr account. Since I was there with Anne I was lucky enough to also see those places you usually don’t visit when you come as a tourist, and to meet many young people who work and live in Cairo.

I also got the chance to see the Mediterranean harbour Alexandria as well as the south east of the Sinai – which feels like the most peaceful place, if you forget the military checkpoints and the history of the place. The Gulf of Aqaba seems like a huge coral aquarium with more salt than water, the stars are bright and the air is fresh in the Sinai mountains, and when the bedouins tell you old stories and legends at the campfire, you feel like maybe paradise could do without all the green grass and apple trees.

Which means, by the way: One more reason to love the pollen-free deserts!

I won’t tell you too much, but if you like films like Brazil, Total Recall and Vanilla Sky or books like Der Spiegel im Spiegel from Michael Ende, this is your film. And yes, Leonardo just keeps getting better with every film…

Also, if you saw the movie, check out this YouTube clip, deconstructing the score of the movie. It will only make sense once you’ve seen Inception …