2025 A Look Back in Images and Text – December 31, 2025 Journal Thread

Ein Thread aus 12 föderierten Posts, älteste zuerst.

• Dec 31, 06:56 2025-a-look-back-in-images-and-text 3 3
• Dec 31, 07:03 january-2025 1 8 1
• Dec 31, 07:13 february-to-medicine-and-beyond 2 1
• Dec 31, 07:21 march-the-north-calls 1 1
• Dec 31, 07:35 april-recovery 4 2
• Dec 31, 07:40 june-1200km-spain 1 1
• Dec 31, 07:46 dusk-alpine-825 2 1
• Dec 31, 07:52 august-return-to-sender 4 1
• Dec 31, 07:57 september-iphone-and-nothing-else-of-note 4 1
• Dec 31, 08:01 october-the-north-again-not-that-northern-though 3 1
• Dec 31, 08:15 november-home-body 3 1
• Dec 31, 08:24 december-hule-and-innsbruck-again 6 1

I have been doing this since 2018, and it’s time again for it: a look back in images and texts. Like every year, I’ll do this as a thread in the Fediverse, because that’s where it belongs.

Last year, I also collected others’ Looks Back. This year, there doesn’t seem to have been as much interest in #lookbackfed but, alas. So, without further ado…

January saw me finally move fully into my new house in the outskirts of Munich, and with it a renewed interest in home automation. After spending way too much money on smart bulbs and thermostats, I decided to spend even more money on autonomous power and ordered solar panels.

I also hiked Saxon Switzerland, which isn’t in Switzerland, for those who don’t know, but Saxony, Germany. 409 kilometers through some of the most breathtaking rock and hill formations one can find, climbing, abseiling, and all that in icy cold and rainy weather. It was a hoot and set a tone for 2025.

After starting the month on the trails of Erasmus von Rotterdam (Humanist) and Theophastus von Hohenheim (“Paracelsus”, Medicine) in Basel, I decided to do an alpine winter loop (503 km) and ascend the tallest mountain (Zugspitze, 2,962 m) in Germany before descending into Austria and from there across lower peaks. A massive snow storm stopped us in our tracks, so we “had” to spend two days in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which was probably the highlight of the whole trip.

February was also the birthday of Hule (then called Bullhorn), and Mungga the Marmot became its mascot. Mungga has since started a family you’ll see in December.

In March I flew to Norway to see Røros in the snow, ride a snowscooter in Sweden, and talk with people about differences between the Norwegian and German health care systems and our unique challenges.

I also spent a few amazing days at the Myskoxcentrum i Härjedalen seeing and experiencing up close the Muskox reintroduction project.

April was a calmer month, with small recovery hikes in Franconia, visiting Bayreuth, Kulmbach (where I spent a day and a half learning about the health care impact, the Hohenzollern family had on the area and in general), and got to see the “Astronomicum Caesareum”, one of the masterworks of printing (1540) written by astronomer and sky cartographer Klaus Peter Aspian (1495-1552).

But the absolute highlight of that trip was a visit (a very long one, they kicked me out three days in a row because I didn’t want to leave) to the medical historical collection and museum in Ingolstadt.

Not to be outdone, I took a train to England, where we visited (of course) the Broad Street Pump, my infectious disease Mecca (here, during the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak, John Snow devised a simple way to identify sources of the infection. Against common claims, he did not “invent” epidemiology, he was already a member of the Royal Epidemiological Society, but he brought its use to the attention of the King and with that more money into the Society’s coffers).

After an amazing night train to Inverness, we trailed the greats of medicine (Lister, Liston, Knock, but also Burke and Hare, the body snatchers) across town and museums and private collections. It was truly here, that medicine entered the modern era.

June I flew to Spain, and we started our 1200km hike from the mountains to the beach. We crossed the Pyrenees and spent some time learning about the Knights Hospitaller (Order of Malta), before heading into the Meseta’s warm embrace.

July we continued the Meseta, celebrated my birthday in a hot tub with Belgian party girls on a five day outing to Burgos, crossed O Cebreiro, and finally made it to the beach on the 17th, when (this ALWAYS happens to me), the weather switched from hot to rainy. For weeks in the Meseta I’d dreamed of jumping into the ocean, and the day we arrived, temperatures dropped and the surf became unsafe.

August, I spent a few days relaxing near Einsideln in Switzerland, hiking the beautiful landscape around that area and back to Lake Zurich, before … returning to Spain to walk another 900 kilometers, meet new friends, and reconnect with old ones along the way.

October I traveled to Hamburg and Travemünde for a few days to relax and do some work on Hule.

Aside from a quick 160 km hike in the Innsbruck/Telfs area and climbing a few smaller hills, I finally finished the Home Automation setup at home, rediscovered my love for molecular gastronomy and cuisine, and slept more than I had for months.

I worked on Hule and traveled back to Innsbruck to do one more hike, up the Nordkette to 2400m.

And Mungga got a family. In Innsbruck I met two Hule fans who gifted me baby Munggas, so now we’re a nice nuclear code-marmot family.

2025 was amazing. Lots of traveling, seeing things, 4600 km hiked, nine mountains climbed, 12 peak logbooks signed, great food, the best friends one could wish for, perfect evenings, many old books read and medical history experts plied with whiskey. I was inducted into the Ordren de Malta, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, and I finally got my home heating system to talk to my Home Automation system. What else could I ask for?