A whole lot of rummage

Well, an eventful fortnight is over... but the best part is yet to come!


Anyways, let me recap... shortly.
In case you do NOT reside on this continent (or, to be correct, this small part of a huge continent), you might not be aware that we just had EU-wide elections for the European Parliament. Being the reliable citizen that I am AND knowing that I would be absent at election day, I made my way to cast my absentee vote at the city council. Trust me, I can fully understand now HOW anyone might be scared from voting by mere perceptual overload. The ballot for the EU elections listed several dozen parties, among them the usual suspects (christian democrats, social democrats, liberals, green party, left party, etc.). However, you would be amazed to see the OTHER parties courting for your vote! There are parties such as "The women" (well, I am one... should I vote for them just because of that??), "The Bavaria Party" (for a Germany sans Bavaria), several (more fundamental) Christian parties, several (a consequence of demographic change?) "master" parties (meaning "The Grey" and other senior citizen parties), the esoteric "Purple" party, the "Newropians", some right-wing conservative parties such as DVU, and even fun parties such as "The Pirates". The latter one a joke? I kid. You. Not. But I thought it was one when I first heard of them. However, I was proven wrong when first looking at my ballot. That is, after I had u-n-f-o-l-d-e-d the darn thing. It's big enought to serve as a wallpaper! Together with the ballot for the community elections, I could have redecorated our bathroom! Anyways, I managed to unfold them all in the tiny election stalls, made my choices, refolded them, stuffed them into the designated letters (I can SO relate why older people might experience a teeny bit of trouble with all of those green and red and grey and blue forms) and FREE they were. ;-)

a simple instruction on how to vote... easy, isn't it? ;-)

Just in case you were wondering, I did neither vote for the Pirates nor for any other "other" party. I am quite confident that some of the usual suspects will do a fine job... if I ever hear of them again (Reader, you might have noticed my discrete using of one of the most over-used stereotypes about the EU parliament - a thicket of bureaucracy and intransparency, but I still believe it's better to vote than not to. So what?).

So that was the election thing... then came the weekend and with that the Horizontale walk , of which I spent the last third in the rain. Naturally, cold and rainy weather make perfect ingredients for.... a profound cold! There you go, have The Snot, The Cough and The Throat a mere 5 days before an important competition! I was MAD at myself for foolishly participating... but well, it was a great hike and the cold is over now. So everything is fine again. ;-)

...even the bees get cold these days...

Btw, sunday was spent celebrating my goddaughter's First Communion and that was a great day as well.
I'd like to tell more, but pictures will have to do, since I need to get going and make it to my last pre-competition practice in time.
Last impressions here: the graduate academy summer festival in the inner courtyard of the university main building... Summer in the city! Yay!

Hanna