Role reversal

It was a nice party last Friday. Our Mom certainly also was invited. At first we were all standing around one table, later on we mixed with new people.

The music went louder and louder and I could see our Mom wasn´t enjoying that (me neither... why is it "cool" to yell at each other on a party? Ok... getting old here...).

Finally she said she wants to leave. I didn´t know how much wine she had had and went to my brother to ask if he had a clue. Nope.
We asked if we should get her a taxi but she claimed she wants to take the car.

We explained to her that it´s not about being drunk but that also a little amount of wine could lead to loosing the driving license. No, no, she wanted to drive herself. All right then.

15 minutes later my brother came running towards me, cellphone in hand, dragging me out, telling me that was our Mom on the phone, she is at the police station.

Great. I grabbed the phone and thought angrily "I told you before!", but then I asked carefully if she is alright, if I should get a taxi and come to see her.
She said she even has a blood test now and I offered again to catch a taxi and get over there.

That was when she started laughing her head off, telling me it was just a joke and she is home safely.
I told her this is nothing to make jokes about, but then I had to laugh, too, wondering when the role reversal took place...
Scary, somehow.

Typical for our Mom ;-)

Boy Groups and little brothers

Will you believe it, my "baby brother" turns 30 today!!!

He knew early what he wanted!!! :-))))
Dude, he wouldn´t take that helmet off that summer!



I am so glad he sold his fast Ninja-bike - he had some accidents and miraculously came out fine everytime.
But still he cannot let go of his dream and I am fine with this moped:



Time just so fast runs!!! He is now taller than me, those days are long gone:



Today we will celebrate!
Considering how very bad the year started for him I am the happiest person (nah, guess he is!) that he now feels like celebrating!

I dreamed of the party before.
It took place in my parent´s house, in the living room. My brother even had a Boy Group at the party! They all spoke american english - except one. This one said to me, unlike the others he would also visually be a bad double. He was quite offended because
a) I didn´t realize they are all just doubles and because
b) I didn´t know that Boy Group at all.

Then it turned out they are all jewish guys and start some jewish holiday and hence can´t eat any of the food my brother had to offer.

And I felt so terribly old because I didn´t know this darn Boy Group AT ALL.

I hate dreams that go so much in detail! And I don´t know what the jewish part should mean...
I do hope very much though, that he has no Boy Group at his party today!

First Halloween-Pumpkin

She is 88 years of age. We used to live in her house for some years and certainly keep on visiting.

This pumpkin was some days old already when we had the opportunity to see it.

Ingo´s grandma grows them and makes pumpkin-I-don´t-know-whats out of them. Ingo loves the stuff, I can´t get used to it, I grew up without.

Now she made this one!

You are never ever too old to start something new! Too cute! Really! A role model to me.

P.S.! Halloween is rather new in Germany - for a first-time she did just great, I think! Sadly, I never can make her be on a pic herself.

Funny carrots

Don´t they look just too cool? Sadly they are sweet. Good thing is: Ingo makes me take real healthy food to work, like these hungarian capsicum:



Though we´re heading to christmas you can buy colored eggs at this time as well, weird, isn´t it?



What does Christmas, Easter, even Halloween mean to the kids today? Months in advance they are confronted with the seasonal stuff. When the season finally arrives I can´t see the stuff no more.

Maybe I´m just getting old. At the gym today I felt like it. I was on the bike, reading a book with not so light content on evolution. All was good, I could concentrate.
Until some girls made their way to the bikes.
I thought there must be at least three of them since mostly I heard two high-pinched voices at the same time talking.
Nope. Just two. How do they manage talking and listening to each other at the same time?
Have I ever been like that?

Hopefully the healthy food provided keeps me young ;-)

Sweet home...

Braunschweig.




Ingo called me: We have a new apartment.

It has a bigger balcony than "mine", and to the south. Both rooms are of the same size and larger than the one we share so far.
The bedroom is a bit small, but that´s ok. The huge bed Ingo had is history due to the flood anyway.
The kitchen is really ugly. The wall paper is in some pink with yellow. We need to paint it white. Sadly the kitchen and the corridor (if I remember right) have flagstones, some ugly brown ones.

I get a red wall in the kitchen to make up, Ingo promised.

The bathroom is small, but has a bathtub. In 70´s colors!

The Landlord lives right in the apartment underneath and they seem to like to chat. I actually don´t. We´ll see.

I still feel a bit sad. Maybe because the apartment we now live in is my very first "own" apartment.
I´ll miss "my" street. Is that crazy or normal?

The new apartment is in the area I lived in before. Not so good memories of the apartment-sharing community...
But then. It´s in the easterly ring. This is where I wanted to stay.

We saw another apartment yesterday. Soooooo beautiful, also with balcony, great view, nearly in "my" street, 380 euros.
... Plus 200 euro additional charges, plus heating. I just hate it when people don´t give full information right away!

Well. I´ll discharge the apartment we now live in.
We have to put laminate in two rooms in the new one.
Buy a bed, go to IKEA! :-)
I want the red sideboard, I`m gonna find room for that!

We´ll pack stuff and move.
Move on to a new chapter in life.

Sweet home...

Alabama...
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you...
(by Lynyrd Skynyrd)

(oh I wish I was coming home...)



Alabama... I´ve never been to the US so far. But I was in my Alabama today, for some four minutes.

We were on the way to Ingo´s old apartment and the radio gave me those precious moments.
I turned it LOUD, because in my Alabama it was played SO LOUD you couldn´t talk to each other.

We sat on the verandah, there was a jukebox, filled with CD´s and you could choose by the cover of the CD.
We had just ordered bucket chips. BUCKET CHIPS!! They are served with ketchup and.... drumrolls... salt and vinegar.

YICKES???

We now LOOOOVE it.

A young man went to the jukebox, chose the CD from "Forrest Gump" and here he chose "Sweet Home Alabama".

There I sit. Ingo is driving on the Autobahn to Rhueden. And I close my eyes. I see the solar showers, the palm trees. I sit on the verandah and can nearly taste the bucket chips with vinegar. My throat hurts of sweet memories.

Darn it! I never took a pic, because back then digital cameras were way too expensive. I hope the pic in my brain stays forever or 'til I come back.

My Alabama is Mataranka. What a sweet place.

For a sec or two I was in Sun Pictures in Broome, where we saw Forrest Gump the first time (and twice then there).

BEAMING, please, will someone invent that now, pleeease?

We bought chips. And vinegar. For the first time in seven years we had some SALT AND VINEGAR BUCKET CHIPS - just without the bucket ;-) And home-made chips for the first time. Essig is vinegar, certainly, the combination is totally unknown here.

(Not) meant to be?

Some days ago we had an appointment at Siegfriedstrasse 85 - directly with the man who still lives in the apartment. Ingo did hurry, we were there in time. We rang the bell - nothing. We waited, long story short, I called him on the phone. The oldtimer (in your saying, I still have a car in my mind!) had been working in the garden all day and suffered from a slipped disk.

He couldn´t let us in.

I called the agent and she said, no worries, I have one in Siegfriedstrasse 87, let´s meet on Friday 6:15 p.m.

Today 6:20 I called her - she was on the way to the hospital, her daughter got caught in an accident. I wished them all the best and asked if we might meet Monday - there she´ll be on holidays.

You know the pic that commenced this post? Maybe you have seen this beauty for real?

The story goes like this:

First attempt. We come to Alice - and it´s kinda hot even! Next morning freezing cold. The tourist office said, the weather will stay like this for some time.
No worries, Alice is right in the middle, we´ll come by here again anyhow.

Second try: Oodnadatta Road House, I get some batteries to deliver to Alison who lives on the way to Finke (the postie would have come only next week). We deliver, head on, I find a good place to stay overnight. Next morning I start the car - red light burning - oh-ohh! Back to Alison!

It was the fine, red dust (can´t call it dirt!) that cut the motor off from air. With a big hammer we solved the problem after a phone call to the mechanic at Oodnadatta. He recommended we come back for a look - some 350 km there is nothing on the way to the next Roadhouse. Car was ok.

Third act: From Oodnadatta via Alison to the next overnight-stop. We get out of the car: Pffffft - Flat tyre! On sand!

For the reason I´ll explain some time later we had only one spare tyre and hence headed straight via Finke not to Chambers Pillar, but to the next Roadhouse.

Chambers Pillar didn´t want us - and it seems Siegfriedstrasse doesn´t want us, either. This is with what Ingo came up spontaneously... It´s a nice area but kinda far away from the city.

Now I need some 7 minutes on the push-bike to the city - that wouldn´t be possible no more. And actually I don´t want to give this up!

Guess: Bye-bye Siegfriedviertel!

Hopefully there are apartments in the newspaper this weekend! Online I found nothing suitable!

64 000 Euro-question

...at "Who´s gonna be a millionaire" was this:



Otto von Guericke (link in german only available) is the inventor of...

(Two answers had been zeroed out by the 50-50 joker)

a) air-pump or
c) internal gear hub

It was certainly a) and we tend to buy in the Otto von Guericke-street :-)



So, not directly, but somehow, my town was just on TV :-)

You can´t be a winner always

... Ingo said.

The estate agent had a three-room-apartment to offer. Near the Botanical Gardens and with balcony, price ok.

I was soooooooooooooo hoping it´s all good and that we get it.

Today I got the address. I asked anyway, hoping to get a no for "right on top of the 'restaurant' El Mundo?"

Yep. (Not) Too good..... I had to write that post on September 10, 2007.

Always, not "always" a winner??? It´s time to get some luck after all!

We have an appointment for an apartment tomorrow, but it´s not really were I wanna live. But near enough to be acceptable (and we would save the agent's commission).

Sunny Sunday

And a happy one, too :-)

Fishes are home

Saturday we started clearing out Ingo´s apartment. YUCK! I took the kitchen - brown, muddy water was in all the pans, pots and dishes in the floor cupboard. It did smell real bad and I had only cold water to clean that up.

We have to go next Saturday to finish it up and then bye-bye dark, smelly apartment!

I found all the fishes and now both sets are here in Brunswick:



Here you can see how one of those little guys tried to cling to his home...




This is where I bought them in 1999:



They made it all the way to Rhueden and survived 60 cm flood with forces so strong the wardrobe was moved away from the wall - strong guys! :-)
The clean set was bought here some years later. To have one to look at at both places...

I said, do you ...

...speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich (turn on the sound):



I can´t truly label this "yummy", though ;-)

My brother´s Shadow

I can´t hide behind his Shadow, but she is beautiful and has a nice Sound ;-):


You can click to enlarge the pics... see how perfectly the helmet fits to the Shadow?


He took me for a ride today and it was a lot of fun - my second tour this year only, due to the bad "summer"...

Sure, it´s not a Harley, not as loud... but comfortable! When we pass rails on the Harley, I have to stand up. `Cause she is actually not build for taking a pillion rider and I would hit the wheel if I kept seated.

Ohhh, today we passed many rails (trams) and I just sat and enjoyed. When the motor went dead, no problem, simply push the e-starter.

The Harley has a kick-starter only, which means in the case of dropping dead, I have to get off, lift the footrest and Ingo has to try to get her running again - which can take some time...

But, well. She is "our" Moped and I love to go for a ride with her!

We went to a Bike-Shop and I bought some leather-trousers! I wanted to that for years now, and here I am - just 29 Euros! It´s autumn, season is over and hence they kick the stuff out for good :-) My brother took them with him, though. His girlfriend needs one, too, and wants to try them.

He certainly didn´t leave without giving piggy-bank it´s goodies:



Was a strange day today... I got up early, went to work, had breakfast, got dizzy, got sick, drove home, got the stuff out and was fine again. I really thank my father for these stomach-genes!


Addendum: Last time I got on a bike behind my brother it was a Ninja and he just came from a private race on the Nuerburgring. He was still so excited and he said afterwards he didn´t "feel" me... and sped at around 200 km/h to the next garage, where he had to stop to reduce the pressure in the tyres.

Man! I clinged on to him and closed my eyes! I thought if I let the muscle in my nec loose for a sec, I break my nec! (a rhyme! ;-)...)

Darn it! I´m used to a Harley!!! To 80 km/h!

Am I happy he has such a Moped now!
He had an accident with the Ninja - a tyre did burst at top speed. On a public road. He survived with just a bad ankle. Third bike-accident and he has a guardian angel, LUCKILY!!!

In transition period

We´re still adjusting to our new life. At first I got up with Ingo around 06:20. But then the streets are full, traffic creeps it´s way to work and I have the same on my way back. And the gym is very full as well then.

Now I tried to be as quiet as that is possible in a one-room-apartment and got up at 05:40 again.

I left Ingo a "note" with a ballpen, just a heart and the word lieb, which means beloved.

When I came back, the note was still there but looked different:



Now it says "I love you too!", the new words written with a pencil (and no, I don´t interpret anything in there apart from pointing me to the note due to the different colors).

It got a place on the fridge. Live is good.

Dream-mark!

"Dream-mark! Brunswick people love their town!" says this article (german).

97% of Brunswick people like living here very much and feel comfortable. The interviewees gave a 1,9 (1 being best, 6 being worst, like in the school system here). The governing mayor said he isn´t surprised.

It´s well known that many are brunswick people with passion and identify strongly with their town.

(He also adds he thinks the castle made a big point, too, and I bet 50% disagree here!!)

Awww, yes. My Braunschweig :-) Home, sweet home!

Microwaves for planes

I just stumbled over this: The DLR Braunschweig, the German Aerospace Center, invented a new way to build planes, they are called black planes. Instead of metall they use carbon fiber syntheticals, this article (german) says. Those are black, hence the name. The weight of a plane can be reduced by 1/3 that way and so it doesn´t need as much fuel no more. The cost of manufacture could get reduced to 40%.

The structures needed are "baked" in autoclaves and here they invented a technology based on the principle of microwaves which again will reduce time and costs. Together with Airbus they now test serial production. How it is done is seen in the pic. The article says:

"High Tech from Braunschweig" and a huge international interest :-)

Too busy to be sad

On Friday already I had my annual ritual. The bad one. Hopefully for the last time.

I have little space and have either summer or winter clothes available.

I packed my summer clothes away.

Usually a day I am very sad and angry. Angry that I can´t afford to live in a warm place. I just HATE cold times!

But with Ingo being here every day... I was too busy and to happy to be sad (what a sentence...).

Anyway. Summer-stuff is packed away. Winter may come....

Penitentiary

Rennelbergstrasse - do I want to live there????! And it´s a one-way street, too!

Ingo had the idea to peek first were the apartments are. This one sounded not bad, apartment with balcony to the south. Blue balconies... I should have gotten a clue. Free view to the clink.

Nah. Nahhh... forget it. One night Ingo isn´t home (or worse, late!!!), I´d crack up.

Near a main road as well and hence loud.

Blue balcony. Nah.

Cheddar

Not half as strong or good as Coon... but at least I found and got some!!!

You get cheddar cheese seldom here... all kinds of cheese, like Gouda, cheese with pumpkin, nettle, caraway,... Harzer Käse (german), Camembert..., and the one I just bought (really yummy), called "Alpenblumen", "flowers from the Alpes" - sounds nice, hmmm? I asked Ingo if he just farted. No. he just opened the fridge. Flowers from the Alpes, sure! ;-)...

But cheddar? Seldom.

Defended... again

Obviously it was a biiiiig party. No news so far awailable. But we know: The Braunschweig Lions are the German Bowl Defender again!!! For the sixth time - YAY!

Missing....

(pic borrowed here.)

Dragon & Lion

... that makes a lovely creature... did you see the movie "Dragonheart"? I just looooved it! :-) Too cute!

Here the people have no respect of dragons, either, see:



Dragon in this case means kite. But the weather was way too good for kites to go into the sky! The brunswick people had fun non the less (and we belong to that bunch as well - now really the two of us!) :-)



Certainly we also visited Henry - the woman behind us in the queue said she lives here now for over 20 years and never had the opportunity to get in the castle Dankwarderode.



Amazing, isn´t it?

The local newspaper advertised and had crowns as a give-away. Actually for kids. But I went over whilst waiting and said, hey, my name is emperor (Kaiser, and yes, it really is!), can I have one, too, please?



My castle ;-)

And here is the real Henry the Lion ( the copy is outside):



Somehow my camera made this pic... spooky, isn´t it?
(ok... flash-light wasn´t allowed and I couldn´t keep my hands still...)



Whilst I am doing this, my cute man made me something to eat... it´s not Coon (sadly not available here - rescue packages would be welcomed! ;-)...) but at least cheddar, together with greek olives.

YUM.


Lala, our radio, gives us Queen´s "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon"... ohhh !

Danger

Where do we go first? Dragon or Lion?

Haaah... Ok, you call the dragon that flies in the sky a "kite". Not so funny anymore...

I´m german and here you call that thing "Drachen", dragon. Fly high, dear one, we go and cheer you up! :-)
We can also visit the depths of Henry´s home. And see the real lion, the golden one!!! The one that was saved. Saved mainly from some stupid little man born in Austria. "The biggest asshole in the world", Ingo just added....

Ahoy, have some Labskaus

Or "Show and tell part II" :-)...)

No apartment was suitable today either. Too big (the bathroom had the size of my main room!!!), hence way too expensive, or right beside a main road. No parking lots and high up like fourth floor and LOUD.

So we went home and cooked Labskaus nearly like we got in Husum:

First step is to cook potatoes - we cooked them with the exact brunswick-timing. No, this time not with the accuracy of the atomic clock of the PTB - but with the egg timer saying "kitchen of ideas Brunswick":



No... Ingo didn´t puke in there ;-) Mashed potatoes with Corned Beef is what you see here, the bay leafes are out already.



With the dish you serve fried eggs - don´t forget to add salt and pepper there. Yep. It´s Home Brand from Woolworths :-)



Oh, and certainly a gherkin* belongs to this dish as well :-)



Decorate with some beetroot and here you go, YUMM:



You find the recipe at Ingo´s place.

* Nooo.... not even in former East Germany people are running around like this anymore - it´s just show, turn on the sound ;-)

Next apartment

Need I say something?
Small, dark !!!, (ugly, yucky) carpet - laminate not allowed. The balkony is another joke, even more ugly.

I can only talk for myself, since Ingo was in his place, dumping all the rubbish from the last incident. So I didn´t say no, I just said I call back if we want to have another look. And ear - the street car is right beside, the trucks aren´t silent either.

Oh. And with access balkony. Eeeek.

Awww, man. Need some luck.
Though so far we´re doin´ fine living here together.

Everydays´ feast

Actually I wanted to send the following pics to a friend in the US, but then I remembered... as much as I love Australia, I missed this special item of daily food very much on my journeys there.

I´m talking about the ordinary good ole bread. You won´t find sandwich-bread here in the bakery. Maybe so-called white bread. It has a golden crust, but maybe we were too late that day.
In the pic you can see wholemeal-bread, sunflower-seeds-bread, fitnessbread (with heaps of different seeds), pumpkin-seed-bread, potatoe-crust-bread, onionbread, rhy-crust-bread, spelt-bread - you can click to enlarge:



Here are some ... you call them bread-rolls. I found the Aussie-ones are very soft.
Ours are crusty on the outside and fluffy inside. I once found them in the Atherton Tablelands, they must have had a french baker, they were called petit pain (little bread), yummmmmm! We stayed an extra day to have some more.
You see the common poppy- and sesame-seed and others with different seeds and from different sorts of flour:



Maybe I could make a living as a baker over there?
Or where did you hide those bakeries??

(haaaaah, me a baker... the one who´s afraid of getting burned so much that the biggest thing I get out of my oven is a pizza [ok, I have to reach high above my head for the oven])

Krauts

... thats what we are, right? Every once in a while (third time in thirteen years?) Ingo makes Sauerkraut. Like right now.

That´s what we do. And sit and look at each other and try to accept that we live together now. In a one-room-apartment.
Trying to forget the smell of mud. Smelling Sauerkraut now.

The four of us, Ingo, my brother, his girlfriend and me, were working together on Sunday, cleaning up after the flood. I was the one who brought the mud out. Hence only me was the one... breathing fresh air and going back into the stinking apartment all the time.

The highest flood since recording, the news said.

Ingo now has to pack clothes. Bring them here, wash them. I have to make room for that.
Sure. I´m happy we live together. Don´t have to be afraid of bad dreams at night anymore.
Don´t have freedom on the other hand, neither has Ingo.

He owns two TFT monitors and a TV. Maybe a computer. Some clothes. A camera.
Why do I feel so sad???