This blue marble

– and yet it spins

Monthly Archives: December 2014


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The chocolate factory that made no chocolate

ghirardelli-1 On the edge of fog city stands a chocolate factory. Built out of red brick and with shining blinking lamps, it is just like Charlie’s chocolate factory. Amidst the ice cream and chocolate fountains and heaps of chocolate bars one blissfully forgets that the buildings are only a charming but thin shell. No chocolate has been made at Ghirardelli’s for years, and after extensive googling I still am no wiser as to where the chocolate comes from.

Perhaps I must heat myself a cup of mint cocoa and consider the possibility that Ghirardelli’s chocolate is shipped from outer space – and is literally heavenly.

ghirardelli-2(Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco, California, USA; December 2014)


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Perfect weather to fly

IMG_3137.JPGAt 36,000 feet the world is a true blue marble, curving over a hazy horizon. Great cities like Seattle disappear into the shade of the great Cascades range.

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Floating over the world the Atlas we know from school comes to life. Somehow this river has found a way across the vast land to the Great Slave Lake.

IMG_3136.JPGAnd Kamloops really exists and looks like this, which is more than the dot in my Atlas. Look, there are quite many houses! But how terribly cold it must be down there?

(Canada; December 2014)


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The secret minds of sea lions

IMG_3196.JPGSea lion group cuddle? Hardly: life as a sea lion is all about who is the most competitive, rowdy, and sizey.

That wonderful moment when there is just enough space for a stretch and just enough cuddle for warmth? Someone will push you into the chilly water. That moment when you have proclaimed yourself as the king of the bachelor pontoon? A seagull will bomb you.

And yet there are those huge, mature individuals who find a spot, carefully balance their heavy heads vertically over their necks, point the muzzles toward the sky and never mind the world that turns.

And as I stood by the Pier 39 I realized that zen finds sea lions when they feel secure about their place in the world. Oh how wonderful it would be to dive into the minds of these characters of extreme.

(Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco; December 2014)


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Sky on fire

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Never mind that fast track security was slow track. Never mind that breakfast never happened. Never mind Heathrow terminal 5 was a mess and many missed their connections. Because I made it. Because it was one of those crisp winter mornings when the sky is on icy fire.

(Above the Baltic Sea; December 2014)