today, the first flakes of snow came floating down in a first attempt to paint the landscape white. a failed one, though, as it’s still too warm. but it is so beautiful to see the flakes, slowly swaying downwards. in particular, in the evening, while strolling through the streets, watching the flakes in the street lights, next to the trees. such a gorgeous, adorable view.

sunday, i decided to visit the pilatus, a 2100 m mountain next to lucerne. the weather was pretty foggy, and so was the trip up, at least in the beginning:

after traveling some time in such a gondola, i managed to escape the fog, and got a fantastic view on the sea of fog:

some panoramas:

some more impressions:

and some more panoramas:

finally, i left the mountain using the steepest cogwheel train:

today i tried the golden pass panoramics tour, going from zürich to lucerne to interlaken ost to zweisimmen to montreux. here are some impressions:

this friday, metallica held the release party for their newest album, death magnetic, in berlin. the concert was completely paid by metallica; the entrance fee, which was just 10 euros, was completely donated to the german heart center berlin. well, giving money to charity, listening to a good concert, meeting a friend and visiting berlin is always a good idea, so i was there ;-) the party took place in the new-built o₂ world arena, next to the ostbahnhof:

after waiting for a long time outside, we were let inside. we weren’t able to get tickets for the standing area, only seat tickets, but who says you have to stay seated during the concert? here’s a view on the stage including the technical equipment including the speakers, hanging from the top of the hall:

first, the hall seemed quite empty, but as it got later, it filled up. the concert started at 21:30, even though it said 20:00 on the tickets… and i’ve never heard music played soooo loud before the concert, you basically had to scream at each other to make yourself understood. that was a bit annoying. anyway. then the show began, with lots of light effects (though no pyro stuff), loud and heavy music; after some absence (on the album side), back to good old thrash metal.
the setlist was as follows:

1. that was just your life;
2. end of the line;
3. the thing that should not be;
4. of wolf of man;
5. one;
6. broken, beat, and scarred;
7. cyanide;
8. frantic;
9. until it sleeps;
10. wherever i may roam;
11. for whom the bells tolls;
12. the day that never comes;
13. master of puppets;
14. blackened.
    encore:
15. blitzkrieg;
16. jump in the fire;
17. seek and destroy.

my personal favorite from the new tracks is cyanide, as its best suited for head banging :) a cool part was when they released nets, installed at the roof, which contained big air-filled black balls with metallica written on them, which bounced around in the standing area on the hands of the fans. well, until they were more and more captured by some fans and tried to shrink, to make them easier to transport. well, here are some visual impressions:

on saturday, i visited the rock 2008, a one-day festival held on königstein fortress, located in the beautiful landscape of the saxon switzerland, together with a friend. here are some pictures from the fortress:

after strolling around the fortress interior a bit, we walked near to the stage to watch the first band, krieger, a german hard rock band. usually, the first band(s) playing on a festival have the ungrateful job of killing some time, while most of the crowd hopes they’ll stop soon. often, they aren’t exactly experienced or aren’t too good. but not krieger; they played a pretty solid kind of hard rock, maybe not exactly my style, but it was good and we enjoyed it. some photos:

after krieger, a short break took place when the stage was prepared for lacrimas profundere, a german gothic metal band. the break went on pretty fast, and the band entered the stage. i haven’t heard them before, just their name. i think i have to listen to some of their albums before i can give a better judgement, but they sounded pretty good. a photo:

a very noticeable thing about this festival was that all stage reconstructions were done very fast, and the sound quality was really good all the time. i haven’t seen this combination ever before; often, it seems that the reconstruction times were eternal and the sound quality still really bad.
another admireable thing was the strict adheration of the time table. the first two bands had like 30 minutes, and the whole festival was planned to be over by around 23 o’clock, and so they managed to do. even though the doors opened a few minutes later than planned. (well, please admit it, have you ever experienced some festival or concert without any delay?)
anyway, the third band was schandmaul, a german medieval metal band. i know a bunch of people who like them a lot, but this doesn’t change the fact that i managed to not know a lot of them except a few songs, maybe. schandmaul did a very nice show. they managed to get the last bits of the party rocking and rolling. definitely a very good live band. some photos:

then, finally, it was time for the big stars of the evening, the finnish cello rockers apocalyptica. i’ve already seen them last november in zürich, and they were one of the main reasons why i travelled so far for this festival. the stage design was as usual: four large metal chairs, formed like skulls, with a huge drumkit in the middle:

their performance was, as usual, excellent. it’s always amazing how eicca and perttu manage to combine heavy head banging with playing their cellos perfectly. unfortunately, antero wasn’t playing with a burning cello this time, though. besides that, they managed to let the crowd freak out, and played lots of great songs, including some of my very favorites like prologue (apprehension) from reflections and the norwegian black metal classichall of the mountain king from cult, featuring paavo stomping around the stage while playing the mountain king. simply great. here are some photos:

after maybe one and a half hour, everything was over. we took a peek at the merchandizing booth, where the guys from lacrimas profundere were waiting for their fans to talk, being photographed, autographing and talking. then, we took the bus down to the city of königstein and walked back to our hostel, where its owner, lutz, was waiting for the concert attendees at a nice bonfire.
well, i think this concert/festival qualifies for being one of the best i’ll attend this year. the technical stuff was marvellous, the timing good (except that at least lacrimas profundere should have played a bit longer and, well, apocalyptica could have played the whole day anyway :-) ). all four bands were ranging from good to excellent, and in particular the last two made the crowd go crazy. (even though i still don’t get it why on earth one wants to have a mosh pit while a gothic metal band is playing. but then, hell, kiddies aren’t exactly predictable…)

just made some photos of today’s lunar eclipse, after missing the last one. here are some of them:

note that the last one had a shutter speed of 70 seconds. the moon moved a lot during that, as you can see. two more pictures of the night:

today, i did another trip onto the üetliberg, enjoying the sunny day. here are some photos.

this weekend was rather busy. on friday, i got a visitor from bremen, and we did another boattrip on the zürich lake:

after that, we continued to lake constance to attend a friend’s birthday party. during that, we spend some time at the lake:

maybe the following photo summarizes the whole weekend in the best way:

yet another fantastic weekend, unfortunately being over by now.

today was a sunny, beautiful day, even though pretty hot. it resulted in another trip on the zürisee:

after that, it resulted in a photo featuring me and two soccer players:

simply beautiful, filling me with happiness.

another thing making me happy are two small presents, one being already a few weeks old, the other being new:

thank you, i really like them a lot!

on thursday, we made an excursion to the open air museum ballenberg, which shows old buildings from all over switzerland, from centuries ago, together with animals, lifestyle and lots of traditions, including making of cheese and chocolate. this resulted in a lot of pictures, some of which can be seen here.
anyway. it was a really great one-day vacation. thanks a lot!