10 years anniversary!

Around these days, 10 years ago, I moved into my first living commune.

At this time I was an intern in the hospital and had to start working at 6 in the morning. The city was badly flooded (Jahrhundertflut 2002) and it was not really possible to stay at my parents and get to work at the same time.
So I moved into the kitchen of some friends flat. I was 17 and lived in the kitchen for 3 months until a room was free. In the first week my friends came back home from securing the walls of the city against the floods when I got up for work. Friends would come by introduce people they found on the street asking if they could stay with us for a night. We had dinners where everybody would bring food they had at home and just start huge cooking sessions, eating with a sheet on the floor.

Since then I lived
- in 10 different flats
- together with over 50 different people
- in small communes (2 people)
- and larger ones (6 people)
- with just girls, mixed or just boys and me
- with German, Danish, Spanish, Israelian, Polish, Italian, Albanian, Russian, Slowakian, Dutch, British, Persian, Japanese, French, American, Turkish nationals

these are just statistics, the stories are the best.

buying clothing

Lately the discussion often appeared about fair trade/ green/ clean clothing.
People often assume it´s still very difficult to find clothing which is produced with these standards. So I always give people lists with names where they can find what is needed and thought it could be useful to have it on my blog.

So besides using you own clothing as long as possible (with pimping and refashioning stuff) or buying 2nd hand this is a selection of shops I personally like and that can offer an alternative:

Avocado store- an online market in Germany where you can find all kinds of products for the green lifestyle
ThokkThokk - a label from Munich, selling basic and printed fair trade shirts for reasonable prices
Goodtruebeautiful-  onlineshop selling e.g. shoes from terra plana (made of recycled and natural materials) and fair trade jeans from kuyichi
Wear Aware- small online shop selling femme apparel
Grüne Erde - a company original from austria sells bedding, simple clothing with good cuts and materials as well as cosmetic on eco-quality
Schuhsign- online shops for eco-shoes
Glore - small online shop: clothing and shoes for all genders
ASOS- green room- ASOS is a huge online store selling all kinds of fashion, the green room offers for example products from the people tree or FIN Oslo
Sarenza- huge online shoe store from France, selling shoes from for your earth
Armed Angels - printed shirts and so on

Collective Summer Goodness 3

Lately we were visiting some friends and helped enlarging their house.

They use strawbales to build and put clay on it. Like in former times.

It was hard work but a lot of fun.

I love good drills. 

The cool thing about the whole story is:

- straw has a very good insulation function

- it´s ecological

- it´s a left over product

- it´s cheap

- makes avery good room climate

- you can build it together with friends

Collective Summer Goodness 2

My cousin is a shepherd.
In the mornings we get up, go to the horses and ride somewhere to meet friends or to look after the sheep.
We eat salad from the garden: Mint, carrots, red spinach, anything you can find.
What a hippiesque life.

Collective Summer Goodness 1

In may a few friends from study time met for some small holidays next to the french border.
We stayed in a small house people lovely renovated.
The system functions like this: You ask them if its possible to stay in the house at a given time.
They send you the keys. You just go there and have a nice time. You leave some money you can afford in the house.
After leaving, you send the keys back to them. It functions

We had great talks, walks and awesome food.
Tomatoes, zucchini, and mushrooms filled with feta cheese cream, merguez sausages and shrimps roasted with garlic.