This week we visited the Imagine Film Festival with the house.

The purpose of the Imagine Film Festival is to empower, inspire and engage - not to mention celebrate our great community of people with developmental disabilities, their families, friends, colleagues and supporters. 

It's more than a film festival - it's an opportunity to raise and expand the visibility of the disability community by showcasing stories by, about and with people with developmental disabilities. The films celebrate inclusion, equality and the incredible contribution this community makes to our lives. Short films under 12 minutes that highlight the experiences or voices of people with developmental disabilities can be submitted. The aim is to increase the visibility of people with disabilities and bring about meaningful change through art.

The film festival was organized by Imagines Supported Living Services at the 418 Project Center. There were delicious cookies, cupcakes and pizza, which not only our residents were very happy about. After we had our refreshments, we watched numerous short films, some of which really moved me. People who don't regularly spend time with disabled people often see them as people with disabilities who need a lot of help to get through their everyday lives. But if you live with them for a long time, at some point you no longer see their disabilities. They are simply Peter or Maria, with their own personality, talents and challenges, just like I have my own strengths and weaknesses. The films have managed not to reduce people to their shortcomings, but to focus on their personalities. 

• Take Me Home

PBS SHORT FILMS FESTIVAL Winner

Center for Asian American Media

An adult woman with a cognitive disability asks her sister for help.

• Lorraine Avenue

Directed By: Futures Explored

• Knots

Directed By: Matthew Vaz

A young adult with neurocognitive dysfunction and autism has difficulty tying his shoes.

• King's Dragon

Directed By: Futures Explored

• Unleashed

Easterseals Disability Challenge

Cassidy thought all her problems would be solved once she got her new service dog.

• Hero's Duty

Directed By: Futures Explored

• The Present

Directed By: Jacob Frey

A mom decides to give her son a little surprise, which makes it hard for him to focus on video games.

• CARPS

Easterseals Disability Challenge

Jules and Max are best friends coping with life in an independent living program for young adults with disabilities. When their dedicated life coach pays a visit, an unfortunate series of events jeopardizes the survival of their entire program.

• Mind Your Own Beeswax

Directed By: Futures Explored

• Faith

Directed By: Nader Bahu

A disabled man confronts his loss of faith and fear of rejection by revisiting his past with a friend.

• Frances and Annie

Directed By: Genevieve Clay-Smith

When a young woman stops by to greet her new neighbors, her preconceptions about who is responsible for a terrible tragedy hinge on a face and a note.

My favorite movies are:

1. Take me Home

2. Unleashed 

3. The Present

4. Knots 

Take me Home really intrigued me because it focuses on a conflict that anyone who works with people with disabilities will have experienced. A young adult woman with disabilities faces increasing challenges in managing her medication. Her mother, who has been caring for her, has passed away, leaving her sister to support her. She is overwhelmed by the amount of medication and the chaos she finds at her sister's house. She helps with everyday life and wants to tidy up the cluttered apartment, so she packs many of her mother's belongings into boxes. The sister is furious, as the things belong to her deceased mother and she doesn't want them to simply be disposed of after her death. She shouts at her sister and tells her that she doesn't need her help. This makes her, who really only wants to help her sister, cry. This feeling that the other person needs my support but insists on their autonomy and freedom and reacts to the help offered with anger and rejection is a terrible feeling and really got to me. You can watch the 15-minute short film here:

https://www.pbs.org/video/take-me-home-fcci4s/

I was once again visiting the “Catalyst” in Santa Cruz. This time not for dancing, but for a concert. I've been listening to Action Bronson's music regularly since my school days. Arian Asllani was born in 1983 to an Albanian immigrant father and a Jewish New Yorker mother and grew up in Queens. He trained as a chef and still hosts online cooking shows today. He therefore often sings about food in his songs. With his red beard and corpulent appearance, he has a very striking appearance and is the father of three children. He released his debut mixtape in 2011, a year later he had a contract with Warner Bros. Records, but later switched to Vice Records. His music can be described as a blend of East Coast rap, jazz and blues. A nice mix, a likeable singer and music videos worth watching (especially Actin Crazy):

My videos from the concert:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCO_8cWP0Yk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Actin Crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=debIyWS6Byc&pp=ygUOYWN0aW9uIGJyb25zb24%3D

Musikvideo Easy Rider

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58RSC7HO9aU&pp=ygUOYWN0aW9uIGJyb25zb24%3D

Baby Blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVP_w1rQweE&pp=ygUOYWN0aW9uIGJyb25zb24%3D

The concert was a lot of fun, the audience was in their late 20s to late 30s and in a great mood. A great evening! The merchandise prices, however, at $40 for a bag and $250 for a jacket, are beyond reasonable limits. I don't even want to know how much merchandise costs for much more famous singers in the USA...

I picked some very nice flowers in the garden. We have a very large selection in the garden and after 7 years of living without plants in my room, I'm starting to more and more decorating my room with plants.

On my day off, I went with colleagues to the Monarch Butterfly Natural Preserve. A wooden walkway leads through a forest in a ravine where thousands of monarch butterflies overwinter each year. This refuge offers the butterflies protection from the cool coastal winds, captures the warmth of the filtered sunlight and provides them with food. The migrating monarchs usually stay here in the fall and winter months. Monarch butterflies are known for their long migrations. These butterflies cannot survive the freezing winter weather and therefore travel long distances each fall to reach milder climates. Depending on which part of North America they are at home in, they can fly up to 3,000 miles. The monarchs we saw are the great-great grandchildren of the butterflies that were here last year. Migration allows the monarchs to survive the winter. Monarchs that overwinter here emerge from their pupae in the Pacific Northwest or on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, as far as milkweed grows there. In the fall, when the days get shorter, they fly here. This generation of monarchs lives between six and eight months. As the days get longer, these butterflies migrate north and east, looking for milkweed fields where they will lay their eggs. Each new generation spreads across the west, and when fall comes, the monarchs come to Santa Cruz again.

After the excursion, we went to the restaurant "Cafe Brazil" where my Brazilian colleague introduced us to his national cuisine. I ate Brazilian cuisine for the first time, very delicious!

I have had little experience with eurythmy so far. At Triform, I helped out in the eurythmy course 2-3 times as a substitute for coworkers in vacation, but mainly supported the residents in imitating the movements of the course leader. I hadn't learned much about eurythmy myself, so I was very excited about the eurythmy course at the academy.

What is eurythmy anyway?

In the early 20th century, Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers developed eurythmy as an anthoposophical art of movement. Eurythmy means something like “equality and balance in movement”. It has developed in three directions: as part of Waldorf education, as a stage art and, with the collaboration of Ita Wegman, as a therapeutic method. Mastering choreography is one of the aims of eurythmy training. My colleagues who attended a Waldorf school had eurythmy as a normal school subject from the first to the twelfth grade. Mental and spiritual content is represented through body movements and gestures (meaning, sound, sentence, sound and motif gestures). In our course, we did numerous exercises, such as walking in imaginary shapes, balancing the metal rod on our heads, walking towards each other in rows and throwing the metal rods to each other. At the end, we had a presentation where we showed our choreography to part of the community. Throwing the rods in an alternating rhythm (short short long - long short short - short long short...) in a circle with the other students was particularly difficult for me, as just a second's delay could cause our rods to meet in the air and throw us off rhythm. Even though not everything went as planned during the presentation, I still had fun during the course and am happy to have gotten to know eurythmy better. The 4th year students also had a performance “Color Light Eurythmy”. They hung up a sheet in our house library, behind which they performed eurythmy like in a shadow theater. There were colored foils in front of the windows, which they moved and exchanged so that the lighting mood changed during the eurythmy performance. A really great performance! 

I baked delicious cookies with a resident. We had a lot of fun and I'm slowly getting a taste for baking more in my free time. A resident borrowed a nice baking book from the library and I'd like to try out a recipe from it soon. 

I saw a banana slug for the first time. Banana slugs are very common here in the redwoods and are the mascot of the university in Santa Cruz and its sports team. Fun fact: in the final scenes of the movie “Pulp Fiction”, one of my favorite movies, John Travolta wears a banana slug shirt from UC Santa Cruz. The movie is one of my favorites, but I couldn't remember it.  In 1980, the university decided to make the sea lion the university's mascot. This resulted in a huge protest from the students, who were big fans of the Banana Slug. But why is it in the movie? Quentin Tarantino's girlfriend was studying at the university during this time. He was a frequent visitor to the campus, which I now know well through many events and new friends there. That's why he wanted John Travolta to wear the shirt in the movie. 

On a walk, I saw a residential building with huge antennas on its roof. The antennas are connected by cables with flags so that the house looks like a sailing ship. Strange, an amateur radio operator or someone who wants to receive international television? 

During the academy's lunch break, we often drive to a café where I get myself a mocha. Then we drive to Seacliff State Beach, where we spend the break together. Last time we saw a man using a metal detector to search for finds from the sea. The next time I see him, I'll ask him what his best finds have been so far. 

Part of my studies are three projects that I organize in the community.

1) Care & Community Practicum 

I am writing a running journal with a resident from my home to give him the opportunity to express himself artistically and improve his writing skills. Together we explore questions like, “How can I best prepare for sports?” and “How can I document and track my athletic development?”. He loves photography, so we will try to find suitable photo opportunities on our runs. He also wants to improve his computer skills, so he will do the journal on the computer with my support. We run almost every morning and have two bigger runs on the beach and in the park every week. We meet once a week to work on the journal together. 

2) Professional Practice Practicum  

I have been working with a resident in the garden, who does not live in my household. I want to help him achieve his goals of improving his communication and movement skills, conscious use of language, and increased awareness of his surroundings. The work leader reserves time for us every Friday so that we can work on our own project: our worm farm! We regularly collect suitable compost from the houses to feed the worms. My aim is to build up a relationship with the resident and gain his trust.

3) Social Therapy Project 

There is a resident in my house with whom I have hardly been able to build a relationship. We don't have any joint workshops in the morning or activities in the afternoon. I have the day off on excursion days, so we only really see each other at mealtimes. I often see her sitting on the couch sorting puzzle pieces from one side to the other. I would like to enable her to do something more meaningful and fun in her free time. To do this, I use our meeting each week to explore new hobbies and interests with her. This will involve reading books and fables together, writing postcards to friends and family, painting pictures, trying out card and board games, engaging with the plants in the garden and seeing what directions her interests take her. 

Are you interested in the progress of the projects or want to find out more? I present the projects in more detail on the academy subpage of my website:

https://www.damonruhlaender.de/academy

I wrote an article for the Camphill Academy website in which I look back on the first two months of my studies in California. Anyone interested in studying “Inclusive Social Development with a concentration in Social Therapy” can get a good insight into everyday study life here:

https://camphill.edu/exploring-purpose-and-community-at-camphill-communities-california/

Three students from a Waldorf school in Warsaw visited us for six weeks. They experienced all work areas and were very enthusiastic about Camphill life. We spent our free time with them and showed them Santa Cruz and San Francisco. One of the students lived in my house and built up a good relationship with our residents. After the six weeks, my colleague and I drove them to the airport in San Francisco. I wish all three of them every success in their final exams next year. At the moment they can't imagine volunteering at Camphill California, but perhaps they will be drawn to us in the future. I am a big fan of Warsaw, in 2018 I attended a seminar at the University of Warsaw. If you are interested in my experience report from the seminar, you can read it here:

https://ishaberlin.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/an-isha-experience-newbie-report/

As in Triform, we celebrated Thanksgiving together here. Most of the residents were with their families, so it was mostly employees, former employees and neighbors who came together. Everyone cooked and brought delicious food. I found a recipe of the Foot-Long Cookies from Subway and baked a giant cookie that I cut into small cookies for the celebration:

For 2 Persons:

½ c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans

¾ c. packed light brown sugar

¼ c. granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1½ c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. kosher salt

1 c. semisweet chocolate chips

2 loaf pans (3"-x-12")

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease loaf pans with butter. In a large bowl, using a handheld mixer on medium-high speed, beat sugars, and butter until creamy.

Add egg and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Reduce mixer speed to medium-low, and beat until just a few dry streaks remain. Add chips, and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Divide batter between prepared pans.

2. Bake cookies until edges are set and centers feel slightly soft, 20 to 23 minutes.

Let cool 10 minutes.

We sang songs and a neighbor played his saxophone. The fireplace was lit for the first time, which created a lovely atmosphere. In the SAGE group (“Aging in Wisdom” - pensioners' group) I painted a Tree of Gratitude. At the celebration, I invited everyone to write on a piece of paper what they were grateful for. They were then asked to stick the note to the Tree of Gratitude. When we focus not on what we want, but on what we already have, it creates a lot of appreciation. People were grateful for their colleagues, the wonderful food, the community, their families and much more. The Thanksgiving vacation was very relaxed, with only one resident in the house. We went on nice outings with him, read books and watched a movie about one of his favorite boxers Muhammed Ali. We also went to San Francisco with him for a day, but I'll write more about that in the next blog post. One day we hiked to Soquel Creek, which was really nice. 

The Winter Fair was a big event. We advertised the event everywhere and there was even a sign on the main street inviting neighbors and interested people to visit our community. In addition to our workshops (weaving, candle making, paper making, herbal workshop), there were also exhibitors from friendly businesses who offered their organic and homemade products (dolls, books, jewelry, postcards, soap, body lotion, tonics, extracts from the neighboring Blossoms Farm). We also all baked diligently to raise funds for our Camphill with a cake and cookie sale. Macarons, my Subway cookies, cakes, baklava, meat pies and brownies. Some of us also spent the night diligently weaving Christmas wreaths. Visitors were able to find out more about our Camphill and talk to our residents, coworkers and employees at a stand. Our workshops presented their work, such as how a loom works. There was also live singing and piano music as well as a choir performance with coworkers and residents. There was a Giving Tree at the entrance where people could donate money and stick the donated amount on the tree. 

We always have a movie night on Friday evenings. At 17:30 the residents watch a movie of their choice. We coworkers bake the homemade pizza and serve it to our residents. But this time we faced a big problem. Only one of the two ovens could be opened after the pizza had been baked! So we were able to serve our residents pizza, who would otherwise have made a fuss, but we couldn't get to the pizza for the staff. We tried everything possible to open the door, called the janitor and the technical manager. We even contacted the former householders, who now live in a different house. They had the same problem two years ago, but just switched off the power to open the door. We tried that too, but it didn't help. It wasn't until a day later that a technically skilled householder was able to open the oven door. For us, this meant that we could only eat toast that evening instead of a delicious pizza....

I discovered one of my favorite childhood sweets in the supermarket: “Toffifee”. Except that the chocolates here are called “Toffifay”. One of our residents was celebrating his birthday and we bought an Oreo chocolate ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. It was super tasty! On Wednesday, we students always go to Seacliff Beach for coffee during our lunch break. I'm not a big coffee fan and used to get a mocha. Now I've discovered that there's a bubble tea store not far from the café. While my fellow students queue for coffee at “Companion”, I often get a delicious bubble tea at “Mr Z's Crêpes & Teas” for refreshment. The same store also has a Nutella Mocha, but it's far too sweet even for me. 

For one of my projects (see academy subpage), I sit down together 1-2 times a week to explore new interests and activities together. This time we painted together, which was a lot of fun. I started with mandalas, but quickly realized that she didn't see the patterns as a help, but as a restriction. So we started to paint freely. We ended up with some really great pictures, two of which we hung up in her room. We put the other pictures in letters that she will give to friends and family at home at Christmas. 

One day, we took the house to the cinema in Capitola to see the movie “Wicked”. It is a movie adaptation of the musical “Wicked - The Witches of Oz”. The movie tells how the characters became the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North. The first half was a typical high school or college movie. A new student (Elphaba played by Cynthia Erivo) arrives at a school. No one thought she had the talent for it, but then she is discovered by a teacher who motivates her to try. As the “ugly duckling”, however, she is shunned by the other students. Her pretty fellow student (Glinda played by Ariana Grande) doesn't like her at first, but then they become friends and she is respected by her fellow students. A typical high school movie, only with magicians. When she gets on a train and we thought the movie was over, it suddenly continues. The second half of the movie changes completely in tone. Jeff Goldblum, an actor I greatly admire, appears as the Wizard of Oz and invites the two of them to his castle. This is followed by fights with soldiers, aggressive monkeys flying through windows, collapsing buildings and numerous action sequences that couldn't be more different in tone from the first half of the movie. The movie doesn't seem to want to end either, in total it went on for 2 hours and 40 minutes! What really annoyed me was that even the 2 hours and 40 minutes were not enough to give the movie an proper ending. Because in the middle of the showdown, the movie ends and refers to the sequel. Sorry, but this isn't a TV show where we only have to wait a week for the next episode. In my opinion, a movie needs to have a satisfying ending and is welcome to continue, but ending with a cliffhanger and then making people wait a full year doesn't meet my expectations of a good movie. The movie is only showing the first act of the musical. The residents had a lot of fun, but my colleagues and I were very disappointed despite the good music and some funny scenes. So it's better to go to the musical and see the whole thing live instead of watching half a musical in the movie theater.

On December 14, Santa Cruz County was hit by a natural disaster. A tornado with a wind speed of 90 miles per hour injured five people and overturned numerous cars in Scotts Valley. Scotts Valley is 9.6 miles or 15 minutes by car from our Camphill. This resulted in fallen trees and power poles, trees cleared of branches, numerous overturned vehicles and damaged road signs. 5000 people were temporarily without power. Fortunately, worse was prevented as the National Weather Service issued a storm warning an hour before the tornado hit. The scary thing is that the tornado passed within a few meters of a female employee. She tells Press Banner in an interview:

"Jen Ryder was even closer. She was stuck in that Starbucks line with her husband and two small daughters.

“All of a sudden, it got really gusty and we were like, ‘Whoa, this is weird,'” she said. “I honestly thought we were all going to die. I was so scared. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

While her two-year-old didn’t seem to register what was happening. Her five-year-old was scared, and called out for her.

Debris smashed into the side of their vehicle.

“Our car’s getting rocked around,” Ryder recalled. “And then there’s nothing you can do.”

At first, she couldn’t help but think, Why did I have to come to Scotts Valley to get that Facebook Marketplace item right now?

But then, she realized, had the Starbucks employees been able to make drinks at a slightly faster rate, she—and her family—would’ve been in the direct path of the actual tornado (because exiting traffic has to take a right and make a U-turn to head back towards Santa Cruz).

She says, maybe someone was looking out for them.

“Our car was unharmed,” she said. “We were all unharmed.”"

(Source: https://pressbanner.com/several-people-injured-in-reported-tornado/ ) 

Reading this sends shivers down my spine. 

On December 11, there was an attempted bank robbery at the nearby bank. The incident occurred around 1:28 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Bank on River Street. A woman allegedly handed a teller a note that said she was armed with a gun and demanded cash. She was unsuccessful in obtaining money and left the scene. She was identified from a description of the woman. A bank employee also identified her as the suspected bank robber. The perpetrator, whose full name is mentioned in the American media, was found in possession of evidence related to the crime and was taken to the Santa Cruz County jail. I was surprised by the name, as the names of offenders are usually abbreviated in the media and police reports (Michael M.) so that the offenders have the chance of a fresh start after their rehabilitation. So this woman will always be haunted by her crime and, regardless of her progress, will always have difficulties finding housing and work. 

I was really looking forward to the holiday of Santa Lucia on December 13. This day is the feast day of St. Lucia, which was the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) in Sweden for a century before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1752. It is a custom that can be traced back to a saint's feast and is widespread in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. There are traces of celebrations at this time as early as the Middle Ages, when the end of pre-Christmas agricultural work and the beginning of the Christmas fast were celebrated. We also celebrate this beautiful festival at Camphill. When I lived in Triform, a group of carol singers came to visit in the evening, bringing baked bread and singing for us. This time I was part of the singing group, made up of coworkers and residents. We rehearsed the song “Santa Lucia” together, put on white robes, wreaths on our heads and went from house to house. One resident even had lighted candles in the wreath, which we lit before each performance. Our arrival was announced, so the residents were all waiting in their living rooms without lights. We came in, lit up the room with our candles, sang for them and presented each house with a gift of baked bread for the Bible evening. You can get an impression of our song and performance in this video:

https://youtu.be/vl6o4mG25Ec?si=3eHFihgcFNrmUwH8

We had a seminar on non-violent communication at the Academy. It was really fun and I would like to share with you how you can resolve conflicts with other people in everyday life. If you would like to learn more about this, please visit my academy subpage. We started reading the book “Theosophy : An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos” by Rudolf Steiner from 1904. 

Theosophy is a key work for gaining a solid footing in spiritual reality as described by Rudolf Steiner. It is organized into four parts. First, Steiner builds a comprehensive understanding of human nature: physical bodily nature; soul qualities; spirit being, or I-being; and the higher spiritual aspects. This leads us to Steiner’s description of the human being as sevenfold:

-Material, physical body

- Ether body, or body of life force

- Sentient soul body

- Mind soul

- Spirit-filled consciousness soul

- Life spirit

- Spirit body

In the next section, Steiner offers an extraordinary overview of the laws of reincarnation and the principles of karma, as we pass from one life to the next. This prepares us for the third section, in which he shows the various ways in which we live—during life on earth and after death and in the three worlds of body, soul, and spirit.

Finally, we are given a succinct description of the path of knowledge, along which each person can begin to understand the marvelous and harmonious complexity of the psycho-spiritual worlds in their fullness.

After six years of studying history and philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin, I am used to difficult texts. But here I find it difficult to follow Rudolf Steiner. Especially the discussions about soul, spirit, karma and reincarnation often lack the possibility for me to follow the arguments and to verify or falsify the premises and theses. Instead, we must first assume that these things exist in order to discuss Rudolf Steiner's thoughts on this basis and find a link to our practical work in everyday life.

On a walk along Pleasure Point, we passed a beautiful villa. While most villas look very modern and have large glass fronts, this villa could just as easily be in Tuscany. Between all these modern glass buildings, this villa looks like a cozy oasis from times when life was still tranquil...

I saw a Hummer on a walk. Not the animal, but the make of car. Based on the Humvee of the US military, this was introduced 33 years ago as a civilian off-road vehicle. As a child, I always enjoyed playing the game “Need for Speed Underground 2” on the Nintendo Gamecube console with my cousin Leon. We rarely raced, but mainly used the opportunity to tune the cars. My cousin mostly assembled green sports cars, while I loved my white Hummer H2 with blue underbody lighting. The game had a fantastic soundtrack with songs like “Snoop Dogg & The Doors - Riders On The Storm (Fredwreck Remix)”, “Terror Squad ft Fat Joe - Lean Back”, “Sly Boogy - That'z My Name”, “Queens Of The Stone Age - In My Head”, which are etched in my memory and still on my playlists to this day. I loved this game and miss the times when I spent a lot of time with my cousin on vacation as a child. Now he lives in Dresden, I live in Santa Cruz, and we rarely see each other. This car on the side of the road brought back so many fond memories of my childhood.

During the vacations, we took a day trip to San Francisco. Apart from a record store where we went to a concert and the airport, I hadn't seen anything of the city yet. In addition to our resident and another colleague from my house, two colleagues and a resident from another house came along. First of all, we really enjoyed the trip to San Francisco, giving the residents the choice of music. Our resident loves opera, especially Pavarotti, and the soundtrack from Rocky 3 and the A-Team. After a while, we asked the other resident for music preferences. It turns out that we both have the same taste in music! Because we both love rock music from the 60s like “Fortunate son”, “Run through the jungle” and “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, “For what its worth” by Buffalo Springfield, “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, “California Dreamin” by The Mama's and the Papa's, ‘We gotta get out of this place’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals and, of course, my favorite song by The Roling Stones alongside ‘Sympathy of the Devil’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’: “Paint it Black”. 

We listened to these wonderful songs and drove from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the first time in my life that I had ever driven over the bridge! My resident had requested the soundtrack from “The A-Team” shortly beforehand, so we drove over the bridge with the intro melody from the series. An unforgettable moment! Afterwards, we made a stop at Moore Rd Pier, from where I called my mom and grandma to show them the Golden Gate Bridge in a video call. My grandma loves the song “San Francisco” by Scott Mckenzie, so this was also a special moment for her. From the pier, we also saw the famous prison island “Alcatraz”, which I really want to visit one day. From 1934 to 1963, it was one of the most famous high-security prisons in the USA, where Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelley, among others, were imprisoned. 

The South San Francisco City Hall on the way looked very familiar to me, I read on a plaque that this building is modeled on Independence Hall in Philadelphia. If you're interested in this and more about my trip through historic Philadelphia, you can read about it on my “Philadelphia Highlights” subpage. 

The city is very hilly, you are constantly driving up or down a hill. On the way, we drove past one of the famous cable cars, which was decorated for Christmas. We also saw not just one, but numerous self-driving cars from the Jaguar brand. In Germany, we do have some test projects with self-driving cars, but we always have people behind the wheel so that they can intervene in an emergency. There really was no one behind the wheel here! And it gets even crazier: the self-driving cars drive people from A to B as WAYMO cabs! Sometimes someone really is sitting in the back seat and has to trust that their driverless cab will find its destination. It really is very futuristic, but it seems to be a popular means of transportation here.

The next stop was the record store “Amoeba Music”. The biggest record store I've ever seen and a paradise for our resident, who loves listening to records. We went to the opera section together, where he looked at the many beautifully designed record covers. The others went for a walk through Golden Gate Park with the resident of the other house and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Afterwards, we were all quite hungry and went to the Wharf, where we got delicious burgers at “In-N-Out Burger”. This is a very popular burger chain that was first established in California in 1948 and has slowly expanded to neighboring states in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, as well as opening its first branches in Texas. The quality is very good, the meat is only chilled and not frozen, it has to be delivered within 24 hours from the company's own butchery. The potatoes for the fries are freshly peeled and cut in front of the customers, the salad is freshly washed and plucked. In contrast to other fast food chains, the menu is very limited: there are only three burgers, fries, milkshakes and sodas. But there is a secret menu, for example you can order the burger and fries “animal style”.  Here, the burger is prepared with a special sauce reminiscent of Thousand Island sauce, grilled onions, mustard-glazed buns and gherkins. The fries are served “animal style” with cheese sauce and grilled onions. Very tasty and also very cheap: a hamburger combo with fries and Coke costs just 8.89 dollars. 

After that, we headed back to Santa Cruz. On the way back, we took the highway that runs right along the ocean. What a great view! On the way, we passed the “Devil's Bunker”. Devil's Slide was the location of a military triangulation station and observation site (known as Devil’s Bunker) used during World War II as part of the harbor defense of San Francisco. Prior to the advent of radar, military personnel used binoculars and compasses to search for ships at sea and relay their coordinates to a central post. By combining information from multiple observation posts, a ship's precise location could be determined by triangulation. There were six military structures at the Devil's Slide: three concrete and steel observation pill-boxes, two concrete-and-earth bunkers, and a reinforced steel observation tower. The pill-boxes were used as hardened observation posts, and one of the bunkers was used as a communications and command post.

One day, I went back to the Pono restaurant in Santa Cruz with my Hungarian colleague. My colleague played music on stage and I recorded the concert for our community so that everyone can watch it. Anyone interested in the recording is welcome to contact me! I ate delicious fried chicken with rice.

One evening, I went with colleagues to Pleasure Point, where we took the stairs down to the beach. It was low tide that evening, so we were able to go for a walk where the sea normally covers the sand. Among other things, we saw a large crab that ran away from us. A lovely night walk with a beautiful view of the lights of Capitola and the numerous beaches and settlements along Monterey Bay.  After the hike, we went to eat at “Charlie Hong Kong”, where I ate a delicious bowl of rice and chicken in peanut sauce. I love peanut sauce and would like to make this for our residents next time we cook. We have a vegetarian in the house, so when she's not eating with us, I always take the opportunity to make bacon, sausages and meat. We usually eat less meat here, but more vegetables, tofu, soups and quinoa. I weighed myself and currently weigh 177.6 pounds, or 80 kg. I weighed 94 kg in Germany in the summer of 2023 and 76 kg in Triform in the summer of 2024. I'm very happy with 80kg, considering that I do less physical work here in the garden than on the farm, we tend to eat less healthily here and also eat out more often after work.

On our day off, we went to the flea market in San Jose. I wanted to buy a California flag and look out for American military clothing. My colleague wanted to buy a big cowboy hat to protect himself from the sun while working in the garden. Unfortunately, we didn't find what we were looking for. I found a pair of US Navy trousers (NWU Type 1 Trousers), which looked very nice but unfortunately didn't fit.

I found a signed autograph card from President Ronald Reagan in the room of the resident I look after for the most part. There were also other autograph cards, for example from Hulk Hogan and numerous opera singers. As it turns out, his father was a very successful insurance broker in Los Angeles and worked with numerous famous people, so my resident keeps many signatures in his room and has certainly met some of them in person. In January, he will travel to Los Angeles with two of my colleagues to visit his father in hospital. He often asks about his father and is already looking forward to the visit.

Our community took part in the “Adapt a Family” project and sponsored two families. We collected numerous gifts and donations, which we handed over to the families in need. We collected a huge amount of toys, household items and necessities, which the families are sure to be delighted with. We also donated to the homeless charity in Santa Cruz, where one of our employees helps out on a voluntary basis.