The Next Level
My trip around Australia in a camper van, enjoying good wines and food, working on my photography skills, doing sports and planning the next steps in my work life. Eine Reise um Australien in einem Wohnmobil
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
a brief trip to Italy to SIGEP and San Marino
Been to Italy last week to visit SIGEP the international trade show in Rimini for icecream, chocolate, pastry, coffee and a lot more. It was a fantastic trip and the size of the venue was incredible - over 1000 exhibitors were present - way too many to take everything in.
The Italian Barista Championship took place, the Gelato World Cup and many more exciting events. Unbelievable how much creativity and diversity could be seen there. The Italians truly know 'la dolce vita', but there were also many companies from other countries present. We spent quite a while at the Valrhona booth, a premium chocolate maker from France, which chocolates we use for some of our products.
We had the chance to visit San Marino one late afternoon, and the weather and light made for amazing photo opportunities. The Republic of San Marino is an enclaved micro state (only 61.2 km2, 32 000 inhabitants) sourrounded by Italy and situated very close to Rimini. The old town and citadell is situated on a rock, nicely elevated and conveniently reached by cable car.
Wonderfull and full of culture!
The Italian Barista Championship took place, the Gelato World Cup and many more exciting events. Unbelievable how much creativity and diversity could be seen there. The Italians truly know 'la dolce vita', but there were also many companies from other countries present. We spent quite a while at the Valrhona booth, a premium chocolate maker from France, which chocolates we use for some of our products.
We had the chance to visit San Marino one late afternoon, and the weather and light made for amazing photo opportunities. The Republic of San Marino is an enclaved micro state (only 61.2 km2, 32 000 inhabitants) sourrounded by Italy and situated very close to Rimini. The old town and citadell is situated on a rock, nicely elevated and conveniently reached by cable car.
Wonderfull and full of culture!
Looking down from San Marino |
It wouldn't be authentic without a crane in the photo |
Monday, November 9, 2015
Opening of our Chocolate Shop in Knittelfeld, Austria
Finally!
After weeks of preparation, we celebrated the opening of our chocolate shop in Knittelfeld last Saturday. It was a lovely event with a good crowd of people who are interested in our products and the good stuff from our suppliers.
Josiah, the master coffee roaster from Jamila Coffee a local roastery, was present as well to hand out coffee. Michael and Gregor Regner (world champion pastry chef) were there to inform about their delicious ginger bread and filled Lebkuchen (Sekauer Lebkuchen). And, with a brief delay, Gerhard Frewein joined us to present his products made from and with our famous local pine tree called 'Zirben'.
I've started a new blog to represent the chocolate shop. Although it is in German, I've posted heaps of photos there:
Check it out at:
http://konfiserie.blogspot.co.at/2015/11/willkommen-in-unserem-schokoladegeschaft.html
And we made it onto Facebook, thanks to Heimo from Regionaljournal.at
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1262802853745195.1073742568.108960055796153&type=3
So for all you people on Facebook - feel free to like us!
I'm quite pleased with how the shop turned out. Now we need to get going!
The busy Christmas season is upon us and the days at work get longer and longer.
After weeks of preparation, we celebrated the opening of our chocolate shop in Knittelfeld last Saturday. It was a lovely event with a good crowd of people who are interested in our products and the good stuff from our suppliers.
Josiah, the master coffee roaster from Jamila Coffee a local roastery, was present as well to hand out coffee. Michael and Gregor Regner (world champion pastry chef) were there to inform about their delicious ginger bread and filled Lebkuchen (Sekauer Lebkuchen). And, with a brief delay, Gerhard Frewein joined us to present his products made from and with our famous local pine tree called 'Zirben'.
I've started a new blog to represent the chocolate shop. Although it is in German, I've posted heaps of photos there:
Check it out at:
http://konfiserie.blogspot.co.at/2015/11/willkommen-in-unserem-schokoladegeschaft.html
And we made it onto Facebook, thanks to Heimo from Regionaljournal.at
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1262802853745195.1073742568.108960055796153&type=3
So for all you people on Facebook - feel free to like us!
I'm quite pleased with how the shop turned out. Now we need to get going!
The busy Christmas season is upon us and the days at work get longer and longer.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Autumn in Austria
Another few weeks have gone by and it
feels that we've made progress on many fronts. The opening date for
the chocolate shop creeps closer and closer, but so does the
completion. I'm supposed to get the keys to my apartment in
Knittelfeld this week, my wooden crate with the things from Australia
has finally arrived and I feel very much welcomed by pretty much
everybody I know. It's fun to train karate again and play in the
table tennis club.
Autumn is a wonderful time in Austria,
very colorful with a crisp blue sky (when the fog lifts and the
clouds are gone). Took some photos yesterday when we were hiking
along Ingering See, a small lake in one of the mountain ranges close
by.
Ingering See |
I met Will, a former colleague from
Sandvik in Perth, who is from New Zealand, last week for lunch. He
and his colleagues had the final exams for Sandvik Mining School in
Leoben. Was great to catch up, and I'm still very happy that I made
the change in my career.
Finished reading Irvin D. Yalom's"Staring at the sun: Overcoming the terror of death" and
Milan Kundera's "Die unerträgliche Leichtigkeit des Seins"
("The unbearable lightness of being").
Both of them are great books from my
perspective. Yalom, a psychiatrist with many decades of experience,
works through the fear of death – appartenly one of the major
drives of us humans. Very insightful and well written.
Milan Kundera's book is an
excellent read, a novel, written in an interesting form, where
situations are looked upon from different perspectives. Proably one
of the very best novels I've ever read.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Another busy and very diverse week
11/10/2015
Another busy and very
diverse week – I guess that is the pleasure of working in a small
company.
From delivering
chocolates, to designing and printing new labels for an awesome
chocolate with Jamila coffee, from having tradesmen in the new shop
to fix things, from planning the interior design of the shop to
offering products for Christmas to companies in which I know people.
Apart from that I did two short training courses, one about food labeling
(all these rules from the EU!) and one on hygiene in regards to food.
Both of them were conducted by a state food and hygiene inspector.
Some of this stuff is quite onerous. Also joined the annual meeting
of the Meisterwelten, a marketing cooperation of many different
companies with master tradesmen. Quite interesting to talk to other
entrepreneurs – met some great people there.
I've finished reading
Daniele Bolelli's - On the warriors path. Great book which I can
totally recommend to anybody interested in pursuing growth and
perfection in their own life and people interested in martial arts. I
intend to give it to Gunther next week to read, he is a second degree
black belt in karate and the trainer at our local karate school. I
also read a translation of the short book called 'The book of fiverings (Go Rin No Sho)' by Miyamoto Musashi, written around 1645.
Quite interesting to read too, very much of a 'no-nonsense' approach
to martial arts, both in duels and battles. Miyamoto was probably one
of the most dangerous and efficient swordsman in his times, killing
over 60 master swordsmen in duels with this two bladed technique.
Again, very interesting book which is still being studied today, even
by management.
Started to get back into
sports again – rejoining my old table tennis sports club (and
straight away beating some of the people playing there despite me not
playing much for 6 years), going for runs (hell it hurts when you
start again after a long break!) and did a karate training in my home
town only to find out how stiff and slow I got by not doing any
martial arts in 10 months. All of them were great and I was sore
every morning after the training – a good sign! The latest run
today was the first one in cold rain since ages. Luckily Christine
pushed to go running despite the rain – I'm not sure if I would
have gone on my own. As that was the third run in the last 8 days, I
could see my form improve already a bit.
We visited a small wool
manufacturing farm yesterday as part of mum's birthday present. Quite
interesting to see how sheep wool is manually being made into various
items. As part of the little tour we made a key ring pendant using a felting technique.
.
There are more than 54000 sheep held in my state in Austria, ranging from wool sheep to meat sheep, from sheep that like flat lands to the ones that can be up in the mountains (in summer!) |
Felted lamp shades |
The name of the place is 'Wollgenuss' - roughly translated into 'wool pleasure/enjoyment' |
Little Lisa |
My sister and grandma spinning some sheep yarn |
Colorful sheep wool, which we used for the felting |
Afterwards the whole
family went for lunch at a typical rural village restaurant and
afterwards we ate a super tasty birthday cake, professionally made by
dad, because of my sisters birthday earlier this week. Great to spend
some time with all of them, including the two little ones!
I love dad's handwriting, especially in chocolate on a cake! |
Lorenz and the birthday cake |
During this week I got
confirmation that the apartment that I intend to rent which is
currently being renovated should be completed by beginning of
November. Fingers crossed!
Furthermore I sold my camper van in Australia, thanks to
Lucille's help by showing it to a nice couple from Albany. Great to
see it go to a couple that will enjoy traveling with it too and
despite having to drop the price, I'm relieved to have it sold and
hence off my books.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Another full on week – getting started
4/10/2015
Lots of things needed doing this week –
we moved the packaging from our basement to the new facility in
Knittelfeld, dad and I drove to Ulm, Germany, to attend a one day
chocolate seminar, the new computer was delivered which I had to set
up and return to the shop as we have some hardware issues, hundreds
of small tasks had to be done, meetings with bank, tax advisor,
bookkeeper, looking for
and applying for an apartment in Knittelfeld and besides all that,
the normal day to day business involving thousands of pieces of
chocolates and pralines. This is how we roll! :-)
The one day course in Ulm
was fantastic – Pascal Brunstein, a chocolate and pastry genius
from France (first Meilleur Ouvrir France Chocolatier from 1991, and
1993 World champion pastry chef) did some amazing chocolates,
truffles, pralines and chocolate bars. I brought back heaps of
outrageously great chocolates! Long drive but definitely worth it!
Ulm, the German town where the course was held, is quite beautiful
too. My dad was great - he took it upon him to cut up the two
interpretations of a “Sachertorte” by another world class pastry
chef and hand it out to all the participants of the course. The only
difference of these cakes was that one made with highest quality
Domori chocolate, the other one just normal chocolate. I was able to
taste and tell the difference and so were several other people there.
The master at work - the French tricolore on his collar is for him being Meilleur Ouvrir France Chocolatier |
Interesting presentation of chocolates |
Dad cutting cakes |
Interesting interpretation of a Sacher torte - totally different than the original, but very tasty (and better than the one that I had in Hotel Sacher in Innsbruck by a million light-years) |
A sculpture made of sugar - unbelievable |
Some of the stuff Pascal made over the course of the day |
Some of the stuff Pascal made over the course of the day |
Downton Ulm - an Apollo camper (and I've seen a large number on them on my trip around Australia) on display! |
The Ulmer Muenster - the highest church in the world, stunning 161.5 meters! |
Found an apartment in
Knittelfeld about a kilometer away from our shop, nice and sunny and
currently being renovated. Should be able to move in by 1 November
2015. Yeah.
The great thing about my
current occupation, beside a super steep learning curve, is that I
can interact with so many positive people that are appreciative of
the good and tasty things in life. Some of our clients sell many
different specialties from the region – organic produce from
farmers nearby, cured game meats, awesome cheeses, and a lot more.
One of them, Hofladen Herk, have free range chicken eggs that are
just amazing. The chicken have huge pastures, enjoy the sunshine,
grass, fresh earthworms and whatever else they find out there – and
the eggs they produce are just delicious.
A vending machine outside the actual shop so that you can get free range eggs and organic milk 24/7 |
On top of all that,
harvesting fresh produce from our own garden is just a blast. The
salad, tomatoes, capsicum, raspberries and all the other vegetables
have so much taste, my taste buds are loving it! This is what I have
missed for many years!
Fresh from our garden! |
Many more things to do
though, and we're getting on a critical time-line to open punctually
beginning of November, getting business processes in order to survive
the onslaught called Christmas season.
St. Nikolaus is coming soon to the people - already arrived in our basement though! |
Roasted pumpkin seeds |
Chocolates with cranberries, dark chocolate crisps and goji berries |
One of my favorites - dark chocolate with cranberries |
All 9 types - the bottom one with roasted pumpkin seeds dodged the photo |
On the reading front I've
started and finished Jesse Berings book 'Perv – The sexual deviantin all of us' on the train rides in Germany – a very insightful
book about human sexuality, different orientations and a review of
academic literature. Besides a lot of information and the most
interesting perversions that you couldn't believe exist, it is nicely
written, entertaining and flows really well. Was hard to put the book
down at times to change trains.
I've also continued
reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography – great read and it shows
how much the English spelling and the use of words have changed over
the last 250 years. English school teachers would have crunched
through many red pens to bring that one up the current spelling
rules!
I've also started with
Daniele Bolelli's – On the warriors path. Daniele Bolelli is an
Italian-born writer, martial artist, university professor, and
podcaster whom I've already mentioned a couple of times on the blog.
The first few chapters were awesome, looking forward to continue
reading it. Deeply philosophical but on an understandable level for
people with an open mind, awareness and martial artists. Like his
podcast, it the book is entertaining, thought provoking and inspiring
at the same time.
Daniele - an awesome teacher who even answered my emails |
Last weekend we had a family reunion celebrating my return to Austria. I finally met little Lisa, my brothers cute little girl, who was born just after me returning to Australia middle of the year. We met up at a local Buschenschank - that's how the locals eat, only the best made fresh on the premises surrounded by vineyards. Have a good one!
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