This (long-awaited) episode presents the story of Paul Hemmerth, a Saxon born and raised in Romania during Ceausescu’s regime, who emigrated to Germany with his family at the age of fourteen, and who came back, drawn inexplicably by the land of his birth, to spend as much time as he can, each year, in the Romanian countryside.
Paul has a website called SlowlyPlanet, where he promotes slow tourism — travel at a leisurely pace, where you can take in all that you see. We filmed the episode at Casa Noah, his B&B in Richis (Reichesdorf), a village near Medias in Southern Transilvania.
Various occurrences (some of which couldn’t be helped) delayed the release of this episode. The hard drive on my editing computer died, and the repairs took almost a week. We also had some scheduled travel abroad, and that delayed us by another week. Further shooting for the episode introduced an extra day or so to the workflow, and the extra editing time introduced by the show’s new format added another three full days to the schedule.
I really do hope you’ll enjoy the new format. It’s a lot more work for me during the filming and especially during the editing, because of the two-camera setup, but it makes the show more engaging. Just to give you a quick idea of the data behind the show, the raw footage comes to about 44 GB of 1080p video. The final version of the episode is 4.3 GB of 720p video, and it’s about 55 minutes long.
There’s an official Facebook page for the show, so head on over and give it a Like if you want to be kept up to date with day-to-day details about the filming of RTTE. There’s also an official website for the show. Also don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, where the show’s episodes are posted, along with other interesting videos I create.
If you’ve never tasted fresh organic peas, or you can’t remember the last time you tried it, now’s the time to do it, because they’re in season. If you live in the northern hemisphere, in a temperate climate, go get some right now and try them out! Don’t cook them. Just open the pods and eat the peas raw. They’re delicious, and highly nutritious!
If you’re eating mature peas, their taste will be a little floury. If you’re lucky, you’ll stumble upon some maturing peas, which are smaller in size. Their taste is unbelievable. It’s sweet and crunchy and even though they taste like candy, they’re really good for you.
I put together a short video demonstration of our water ionizer, as a quick introduction to the idea of ionized water and its main benefits. A few months ago, I laughed at the idea of ionized water. I thought it was a foolish concept. After all, the acid-base chemistry of our body would cancel any ionized water. I thought it wouldn’t have any effect, and who knows, it might even be harmful. But my mother had bought a machine, and she went on and on about its benefits. She said we should get one as well, and once Ligia and I tried it and saw its effects on our body, we’d be sold.
Well, I am sold on ionized water now. We drink alkaline water daily, and wash our faces with acid water. Our bodies went through a process of detoxification, and from time to time, we still feel the effects of eliminating toxins (headaches and slight nausea). Most of the time though, we feel great, much better than we did before. Our complexion has improved as well. My face is much smoother. Ligia says the same about hers, and I agree, although she’s always had great skin.
If you’re a skeptic, I understand, having been one myself. The only thing that will convince you is to try drinking alkaline water for yourself and see the difference on your own body. You don’t have to buy a machine. See if there’s a health store in your area that has a water ionizer and is willing to sell it to you, and drink it for a few weeks. Keep a daily journal of what’s going on with you, and make up your mind afterward.
A lot of people prefer to get bottled water, thinking it’s pure. There’s been plenty of research on this, so you don’t have to take my word for it — purity is a foreign concept to bottled water, which contains more impurities than tap water. Given the way it’s kept in plastic bottles, whose chemicals leech into the water over time, and the harsh conditions in which it’s kept (cold or hot, depending on the weather), it’s also possible that it’s harmful to the body, its chemical make-up having been altered. Water isn’t just water. Simple as its chemical formula is, it just isn’t as simple as H2O. Water is basic to all of the chemical reactions in our bodies, so it’s a reactive substance. Water also needs to have minerals in it, in order to be properly absorbed by our body, and to benefit it. Do you think that a reactive substance like water does well when kept in toxic plastic containers over long periods of time, and subjected to cold or hot conditions — temperatures which facilitate various chemical reactions?
Ionized water isn’t a recent discovery. It’s been around since the 50s, and it’s regularly consumed in countries like Korea and Japan. If it’s been around that long, surely that in itself lends it a bit of credibility. A hoax usually doesn’t stick around for 60 years or more.
You can, of course, remain a skeptic. You’ll be in good company, since the folks at Wikipedia have done so. You can also be skeptical of the skeptics, like this man. Or you can choose to believe the testimonials of those who’ve tried the water, folks like me or like the ones in this video (with whom I am not affiliated in any way, shape or form):
The thing is, even if you choose not to believe anything about ionized water, surely you can use logic to reason the following out: alkaline cancels out acid, right? Then it stands to reason that at the very least, alkaline water should help in those situations where the stomach is overly acidic (ulcers, acid reflux, upset stomach, etc.) So if you’ve got one of those conditions, the logical thing to do is to drink alkaline water instead of taking antacid tablets, and see how you feel. You may just discover that it will make a bunch of other pre-existing conditions go away, and that’s not a bad deal, is it?
Here are a few photos of the particular model we have, the Chanson VS-70. I’m not saying it’s superior to other models and that you should get it above others. It’s a good model from a good brand, which we liked because it’s an under-the-counter unit, and it has seven electrolysis plates, coated with platinum. Other models are counter-top units and have fewer plates. Price-wise, the Chanson brand is also less expensive than other brands on the market, so they’re a good deal.
We published the seventeenth episode of Ligia’s Kitchen tonight. It’s an already popular recipe of Ligia’s, loved by all who try it at her culinary demonstrations. It’s already been featured on national TV in Romania, several times, so we thought it was high time to film it for the show. It’s raw spaghetti, made from zuchinni, though any member of the squash family will do. Naturally, the spaghetti sauce is also raw.
Bon appetit!
LK-017-RO-HD with English subtitles
Released 5/22/11
Interesting Places is a playlist I put together for my travel and nature videos. It contains 52 videos at the moment, with more to come in the future. Here are just a few of the videos you’ll see in it:
Raoul Pop 