Fresh Fruit On The Wall

Peu à peu we get the apartment done.
After doing late shift for a week Ingo was sick for a week. But then we shared ideas and now I even like that layer of tiling on the kitchen wall - they make these two glass-pics of strawberry and kiwi look classy, no?

A layer of newspaper helped btw :-)

And the Ox is back on the ceiling, too:

We´re no fans of Jack Daniel's, btw, in fact I never tried it (just as mix with Coke to get a can small enough for a so-called Beer-Can-Chicken) - it's just a cool 3-D-Poster.

On Sat Ingo´s parents and Grandmother will come to see the apartment for the first time btw.
I asked casually when approximately they wanna be here.
His Mother answered via yahoo messenger: "From 3-5".

Doesn´t sound anything spontaneous and not like fun at all! But maybe I just got it wrong. We´ll see.

Chemistry On The Grill

With sauce out of hells-kitchen we pretty much had a BBQ every day now!

We had yummy sausages like these cheese-chilli-ones:

And I totally fell in love with this Grilled Cheese:

Ingo keeps saying: If cheese was to be meant to go on the grill, we would´ve found some cave art showing it and that it´s pure chemistry.
What can I say? It makes squeaking sounds when you chew it. But, boy - it is yummy!
Easter Sunday Bro and Mum came over, we had some coffee with Tim-Tams:

Went on a walk...

Then sat down under the new sun-umbrella:

Ahhhh, the blue sky:

Had some Srörtebecker-Beer aka "the Beer of the righteous". It is said that Klaus Störtebeker was able to "empty the mug with one gulp". Well, sure the right thing for Bro ;-)

Sad thing little Niece and SIL didn´t come along, too. Public Holidays often just mean family-fight, gah, that´s life. But the four of us had some good fun, too.

Happy Easter

I just love it when you have both: The colors of Spring and the temps of Summer!

Please notice the green branch in front of the pink blossoms - beautiful, no?

Now get your empty eggs, paint em with these:

... and have a great Easter! :-)

Happy... Outch!

Any linguist around here?
"happy ostern"?!

Two suggestions:

a) Happy Easter
b) Frohe Ostern

Just what is this good for? I only say Weekendhäuser...

I´m getting oooold, I know.
Bet all this is supercool!

This is what I did today, btw:

Painted a booooring cupboard red. And then we put it in the "Green Chamber".

Arty Ingredients

These are the ingredient for my pickled eggs.

A tad arty, no? (After you clicked to enlarge)

My Drachenfels

Ages ago (in October last year!!!) I saw this and fell in love:

On Sat we went into the city by chance (our City-Day is Monday after all) - and went in the little shop.
Boy. I felt lost there - I´m the Daughter and Sister of Goldsmiths, I should´ve felt familiar! The woman was nice btw.
I tried on two King Frogs from Drachenfels-Design and slept over it.

And then...

Ingo wanted to buy it for me.
Nope.
Pay half?
Nope.
Mine, mine, mine.

Guess apart from the bike this was the first time I bought something just.for.me.

It´s a tad too large but they make it smaller for free (yah! I expect that, too!)

My hands look old?
Heck! I am old! ;-)

Ingo bought me all this loot afterwards:

Yes, yes, yes, I´m in love with this town!

Oh. Started the way with this backpack btw :-)

Can you decide which town is more lovely? Love em both and am home here :-)

Did you you ever buy some luxury just for yourself?

As Ingo said -and we both nearly had to live for real - you can die any sec. Love life, live life, right?

We Are Family

It´s getting green - inside and finally outside, too!

Just found this one - it´s the bill from our new swing and makes us a family :-)

We´re on holiday, btw and I am about to pay for a ring for the first time in my life (the joys of being a daughter and sister of Optometrists and Goldsmiths).
Whew... will I really do it?

I Was Seventeen

... or: Do You Live And Learn Local History?

Do you know Struwwelpeter?

17 Jahre war ich grade (I Was Seventeen) - Eckhard Schimpf - is a book about old songs and stories from and about my town, Braunschweig.

I learned some truly amazing stuff here! And wondered if kids here learn anything like this at school in this town?

How about your place - do kids learn local history? Did you? I didn´t...
If you didn´t, either... do you teach your kids some?

I just go through this in the order I read it, so... maybe the first ones isn´t that fantastic, but some facts are truly worth mentioning.

So... here are some interesting facts:

- Did you know that the "Braunschweiger March" and the "March Duke of Braunschweig" are still played by the German armed forces? (6 - I add where to find it in the book in case someone asks).

- The famous song Heideröslein (German: sah ein Knab ein Röslein stehn) was written by Goethe - but composed by Heinrich Werner from Braunschweig!
Even I know that song (not that I like it). (13)

- Braunschweig was an independent Federal Land from the 1800 something into the 1900-something! Like Bavaria today. Even the author´s Mother - and he is still alive and kicking - had in her passport for "citizenship":

braunschweigisch

Wow, huh?! Impressive!
Bavarian guys have "deutsch" in there now. (21)

- The author´s Grandfather was Wilhelm Mast. That doesn´t ring a bell, no? Didn´t in my ear at last.
Well - he lived in Wolfenbüttel, 40 km from here - maybe that tells you something?
He was the founder of Mast-Jägermeister!
Not that I like that stuff, but it´s famous all over the world - a small world, huh? (29)

- Certainly a chapter on Frederick William, the Black Duke isn´t missing.
Local Brewery Wolters even named a dark beer after him, Schwarzer Herzog (35)

- I also learned that the railroad-century in our region started in this town (49).

- And the most popular illustrators of German Children´s Books are Ralf and Margret Rettich from this town! (51)

- And in the days of our Duke Henry the Lion - 1129/30-1195 - this town was one of the centres of European Politics - also quite impressive, I think. (61)

- The German national anthem is written by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. Fallerleben belongs to Wolfsburg and he was often in the much-much-more beautiful Braunschweig ;-)
He also wrote Struwwelpeter (81)

- Oh, and guess who brought the Christmas-Tree to Canada? Friedrich Adolf Riedesel, in 1781! (97)

- Also mentioned is Christian Friedrich Theodor Steinweg, probably better known as C.F. Theodore Steinway. He was born in my hometown, Seesen, and died in my now-hometown Braunschweig. He built pianos, as you may probably know (probably not).
I learned to play on an original "Steinweg". He had no success in Germany, went to the United States and made Millions of Dollars with Steinway-pianos there.
My hometown later dedicated memorials to him... (106)

_ Our Mumme, Brunswick Mum certainly is mentioned as well. The strong beer that was mentioned first in 1390 and was sold back then as far as to India. (107)

- And last not least... composer Norbert Schultze, best known for giving Lili Marleen the musical part. (147)

No. I wasn´t born here - but I choose this town as my home and live here for 10 years now.
Maybe I know more about Braunschweig than many a person who grew up here does. Cause they just take it all for granted (naturally) - I don´t!
(Heck, there are trillions of things I don´t know about my home-town).

Btw... when I was seventeen... I started to come to Braunschweig from time to time. My friend´s boyfriend lived here and we often went to the Jolly Joker... I´m too old for that now, though ;-)

Adjourned Until...

I´m in constant contact with Bro (and friends) these days, also due to the letter I wrote to my Mum.

Put it in the mailbox on Saturday, so first thing Monday morning it was supposed to make it´s way those 60 km to her.
She reads it on Tuesday, gets angry, sad, whatever - sleeps a night over it and on our regular Wednesday-chat she hopefully has calmed down, reread it and we can talk about it like adults.

Great plan, huh?

D'oh! Stupid letter arrived but today!!!

Called her none-the-less (after discussing options with said people) to ask her if we can talk tomorrow, wondering if she would pick up the phone at all.

She did. Is sick again (flu?) and acted as if nothing had happened!!! So typical, gah!
Bro had told me she had opened the letter.

Well.
No idea. She agreed to talk about it tomorrow, or, if she doesn´t feel better, some time later.
Seems (!) like she is not offended at least.
She even asked me how I´m doin´, how my eyes are (red on Monday - forgot to take the med (Cortison) - but actually eyes are officially healed! Do the eyes get "addicted" to the stuff?!)

Boy. She really has no idea how much thought and worry we put in all this.
I especially, Bro´s not that calm and understanding anymore!

Well. Let´s see.

The thing I feared most - the first contact after that letter - did go ok, I guess.

Seems like we slowly really switch roles in who cares for whom. And that frightens me. And makes me sad. After all she´s not even 70!

What We See

.. of each other this week is this:

Little notes left on the kitchen table.
Yah, I know, I´m a Drama Queen ;-)

Does it count in my favor that I had to work in a Horror-House all day?

Really, it was awful! When I start working it´s still dark and today I was the first to be there, too.
Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooo... By golly! All.Day.Long!
The joy of sitting in 5th floor...

Did I miss something, like, ummm... summer?! Is it autumn again?!!! Yikes! Noooooooooo!!

Also driving was a problem. Well, not a problem, really. But at times I had to fight sudden gusts of wind that tried to push me off the road.

Last Friday a Sandstorm hit the east part of Germany, over 80 cars ended in a horror-crash. A Sandstorm, in Germany! What´s with the weather, huh?

Note to weather: Spring, come back now!

Spring Is Really Here

Isn´t that just beautiful?
Makes me even more sad we can´t go to the city today with Ingo working til 11 pm...

So I was in no hurry going home anyways and stopped at a store. This fella makes me happy :-)

Saturday we went to the Hardware Store and I just had to take this one:

Whilst I carried him through the store, I heard one kid saying, "Look what a cute frog she has!!" - dang, sadly I´m not good in interacting with kids (or people in general), so I didn´t say anything, just smiled.

Instead of sitting here, having a documentary on death penalty on, I now grab plastic and waste paper and take the route through the park.

Call Me Jekyll

Boy did I have a bad night.
Why? My brain is a sucker! And now my head hurts (a wee bit).

Ingo greeted me yesterday after work with: We won´t see each other much next week!

Oh, great! Now that he is no longer "temporarily" working for that company but really hired, he is a slave even more!
1 1/2 years he worked from 6-2 and next week from 2-10pm!!!!

Gah! I hate that! (I start 6:15 am)

Plus... after we struggle so long now with our Mum without success, I came up with the (hopefully not dumbest) idea (ever) to write her a letter.

Sat down, wrote down my concerns and what we can or need to do about it. Didn´t accuse her or anything, told her that we do this cause we love her and all that.
Let it check via e-mail by Bro and then yesterday night I sat down.

White paper with a paper with lines underneath, the Mont Blanc fountain pen my Mum gave me in hand.
She bought this pen long ago - or was it a pressie once? She used it herself, it´s high quality and well known in Germany.

This rather short e-mail filled 4 pages hand-written! Boy-oh-boy!
When have you written a letter by hand the last time?
So not comphy!
Hope it makes her understand how important the subject is for us "kids".

Or will she get angry? I asked her not to, but who knows?
It was the toughest letter ever for me. Plus I feel like cheating on her.
On Wednesdays we talk on the phone, as we did this one, chatting along bout this and that and then I dare to write a letter like that?! And call her next Wednesday. I get sick by the thought of it, feels like being Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Maybe she won´t even talk to me...

So, naturally, my dumb brain wandered off tonight.

I´m a bad sleeper in general. I can sleep anyplace, though, as long as Ingo is there. Put me in a hotel alone, as my company does (very seldom luckily) and I have a very hard time to fall asleep and to sleep through. Or put me in Bro´s house, same thing...

So. I was in my Bro´s house, or was it my family´s house? Everything looked different and there was a naughty walk-in-wardrobe in the room I was supposed to sleep in (- alone. Cause Ingo wasn´t there).
SIL came to check for me if someone was in there and said it´s empty.

Didn´t see him, but my Dad, who passed away eight years ago, was there, too, alive and kicking and having a girl-friend, Mum was not there in my dream at all.

Just why does my brain do this?! The situation is bad enough, let me dream something funny, you squishy mass in that ole head of mine!

You Need Toilet Paper?

Australian Journey XI

Fraser Island, 1995. With last power we made it to the camping site at Lake Mc Kenzie (see last entry on this one):

Do I have to mention? It was waaay to cold to go in for a swim, too sad!

This is Lake Wabby, btw:

Isn´t it weird I still know all those names after all those years, over 15? Pic was named "fraserIsland02"! Anyways:

Signs everywhere to keep your stuff inside cause of these fellas:

Crappy pic, I know! I was a total beginner - and that was no digi-cam!

There was the "unusual couple". An Asian man, very, very tall and a beautiful blonde.
Obviously they had worries there might not be enough toilet-paper?
They left a whole stack outside their tent. It was found all over the place next morning - and since they were gathering it all you knew who wasn´t able to read the signs ;-)

The last ride was one of the most frightening things ever. 3 men came from a fishing-trip. They let us hop in in the open back of the Pick-Up.
They were drunk and driving full speed. Twice I nearly fell out! Thick roots everywhere in the sand. Not funny...

Fraser Island in itself is beautiful, though, certainly and I love thinking of the place. Why else would I still know by heart the name of the lakes I saw? Wake me in the middle of the night and I can give them! :-)

First BBQ 2011

Especially Sat was just great! Sunny and warm!

Finally some green is back!
People crowded the parks:

OK, the trees are still naked (in April! Gah!) - but none-the-less... we´re getting there, no?

Got the BBQ out of the cellar and had the first sausages with potatoe-salad. Chili-Sausages, btw, yum :-)

The Chef:

Since Monday it´s rainy and cold again. But, well...