David Grajal

Recently I bought the cheapest DSLR camera in the market, a Nikon D40. I wanted to learn basic photography and the only way to do so is to actually go out and take lots of pictures. You can learn photographic composition with the camera integrated in your cellphone, but to actually play with the light you need the correct gear.

These are some test pictures I took on my first week. There is such a massive improvement over my crappy compact camera that I wonder how come I didn’t bought a DSLR before. Now and I have the basic gear and I only need to improve so I ask for tips and tricks to every photographer I met!

Wide lenses test

Macro test

Sunset light test

Night photography test (yep, I'm still missing a small tripod)

Most people have an strong set of core beliefs and some goals in life and fight to achieve them. The people around me pursue finish their studies, get a job, locate a partner and raise a family.

In comparison I’m in such stage on life I don’t have any consistent objetive in my life. My beliefs and goals change faster than my environment. I’m curious about everything, there are tons of interesting skills to have or topics to learn about.

Is this a problem?

It’s really easy to influence me to change my beliefs and life goals. When I read something that seems logical I accept what is written for granted without further thinking. The consequence: what I think about a topic today can be totally different tomorrow.

My mind is extremely open minded and lazy. It’s easier to accept what others think than work to have a personal opinion. Not only I have very bad memory but sometimes I have extremely simple thoughts. Most of the time my thoughts are similar to Homer Simpson’s than Goethe’s.

In consequence I don’t have strong personal opinions about anything. I’m a son of Internet, suffering an information overload, reading too much and not spending enough time to ask myself what is my real opinion about what I’m reading.

Do you have the same problem?

I visited Spain for a couple of days after living abroad for almost half a year, and obviously I was eager to see again my family and friends. It was also good to taste again my grandmother Spanish food. After eating huge amounts of rice in Asia and a combination of beer, pretzels and sausages in Germany, It was so good to eat the kind of food my body is better adjusted to. Jamón and Paella.  Is it there food more Spanish?

Paella!

What was interesting was my reaction to be exposed again to the language. I was completely used to live in countries where I didn’t understand the language. In this time I discovered I really like to be able to completely disconnect from what surrounds me when I’m in public spaces.

In contrast, in Spain my brain was constantly working, catching conversations I should not pay attention to. I got tired of understand everything. I was in the streets sneaking into other people conversations. I shared complete conversations on buses and trains. I got completely frustrated. I could’t switch off my brain and It was exhausting.

Another interesting thing was realizing that doesn’t matter what you do, the world change but only if you want to accept the changes. I changed a lot in this last year. I’ve been traveling and I had the opportunity to become influenced. I become a lot more open minded sharing pieces of my life with interesting, silly and funny people from all around the world. I’ve living immerse in a completely different culture and I’ve questioned lots of things that I usually gave for granted. All in all I realize we are small persons in a big world and each one of us have different dreams. Each one pursue they dreams in a different way and all of them are valid because there is always a reason behind. Looking back to how I was one year ago, I can easily see that I changed a lot. However all my friends continue being the same way. Of course this is not bad but I didn’t realize how much I really have change until I returned to my hometown.

In conclusion, I really like to be living in a place where I don’t really belong. Yes, you lose contact with your family and friends but It make you more conscious. It’s easier to question why the things are like they are. You become more critical about what it is around you. And I feel more positive and comfortable with myself.

Finally on Würzburg!

Würzburg from the fortress

The first thing I notice once I arrived here was the COLD. I was used to hot and humid nights and the fresh COLD air was a surprise to me. I was freezing but the people was just wearing light clothes!. Another big difference I notice instantly, it was absolutely dark around 20:00!

After a couple of days visiting the city, I’m really surprised because I was expecting a small and boring city but this is a very beautiful and romantic city. It’s also very green, there are lots of trees and vegetation everywhere and most of the people appear to use bikes, and there are no cars in downtown. The buildings are short and the streets are narrow and clean. Everything looks… nice, which is a good contrast with Seoul. I was tired of the crappy saturated Korean streets.

Postcard-like picture of the city

The city is surrounded by hills. The main one has a huge castle. From there, you can see the entire city.I really like this mini city. It’s extremely romantic and cute,you can walk all over the city, there is no traffic and the air is incredible clear.

Jumping on Würzburg Residence (UNESCO)

I’ve been living in Seoul for the last 4 months. Soon after arriving here, I started to look for a job in the city. I was relaxed but I spent two months searching without luck. The problem was that I didn’t have a work Visa, neither I had a lot of demonstrable experience or completely focused skills and I didn’t know any Korean.

Once I realized that looking for a job in Korea was not easy for me, I relaxed the bar and I restarted the job hunt. I started looking only in Asia but at the end I opened the circle until searching all over the world. The last stage was Europe because in Europe I didn’t need a working visa and I knew it was going to be way easier to find a job if the company didn’t needed to sponsor me. Soon after start looking in Europe a German company sent me an offer and I accepted it.

After coming back from Japan I had only had one week to say goodbye to Seoul and return to Europe. I spent the time walking around the city, sightseeing the important places in the city that I couldn’t visit yet and trying to store the streets, the lights and the smell of the city in my head.

I visited the main palace of the city, Gyeongbok-gung(경복궁,景福宮) palace. It was nice, but I was suffering Palace-fatigue. After living here for a while all the Korean palaces look exactly the same! Actually it happens the same problem with the churches in Europe. I went to the two main Korean Markets several times and I also visited the Seodaemun , created by the Japanese people the last time they invaded Korea at the beginning of the XX century. In this museum they have very creepy expositions in the real place where the prisoners were held.

I also visited once of the most representative buildings in Seoul. The 63 building. You can visit the top floor and enjoy a nice view of the city. Personally I thought it was more interesting the Hello Kittie Exposition that was in there than the sights. They are way better in the Seoul Tower. Actually we come back to the Seoul tower in my last night in Seoul to have a fantastic dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Seoul tower.

And after those magic moments in the last week, I got the plain and returned to Europe. My new house is in Würzburg, located between Frankfurt and Nürnberg in Franconia, Baviera.

And you will be always welcome here!