2016-05-13 48 8

Location

The hash is in the cemetery of Forchheim, a district of Rheinstetten, about 10 km from Karlsruhe. I have no idea if and when the cemetry is open/closed.

Participants

elimik31

Plans

Forchheim is not very far from me and I know the way, cycled there last week and a cemetry seems interesting, so I would really like to visit that geohash. I am not sure about the time yet. Thought about cycling there after training and making it some kind of midnight geohash, but I am not sure if the cemetry is still accessible then. Going before training means that I would need to hurry, than I would get there about 6 pm.

Expedition

Everything went according to plan. I cycled to the hashpoint in the two-hour interval between lessons and training, with a heavy sports bag on me. The cemetery was open, it looked quite charming and there were two elderly women laying out flowers. One of them was doing some gardening work at on of the graves right next to the hashpoint. I did a couple of pictures, but I avoided including the people in them. I did not want to do a selfie at a cemetery, it seemed disrespectful to me. Because of the three meter accuracy of my GPS device, I was unable to determine which grave exactly corresponded to the geohash location. There was a drizzling rain, adding to the atmosphere of the cemetery.

Some ("philosophical") thoughts inspired by the geohash: I must admit that I am young, many relatives live abroad and because of this I wasn't much confronted with death yet, so I haven't been to cemeteries often. Yet, I believe that in order to live a fulfilling life, one must accept that our time on this world is very limited. We live and we die, this is what makes life all the more beautiful. That is why a visit to the cemetery was like a good reminder, because even I tend to delude myself and act as if I and all my family and friends will live forever. When I think about it, a cemetery is just another garden, often quite a beautiful one. A place where dead things turn into new life. Somehow, I preferred the graves with flowers and wooden crosses to the ones with heavy stone plates and tombstones. The heavy tombstones are meant to make it look like they will last forever, but that is a delusion, even they will parish. Just as a warning, my views on life and death rely mostly on Terry Pratchett novels.