Long time has passed ...

I feel deeply at peace.

Months have passed.
There was so much.
Challenges. Old and new people. And a new place.

There have been beautiful weekends, this one included.
People have come to visit me with whom I share a deep bond. I am very grateful that they are a part of my life.

On one of my first weekends here, I got to know the old mine from nearby. It was amazing to walk through these old mine shafts and breathe the gentle wind that is circulating 400 metres or more underground.

I took advantage of the last days of autumn and walked up the hill to the old castle. We enjoyed the view and the last coloured leaves.


On halloween, we cut pumpkins and I arranged them in front of our front door.

Not only I have been visited, I also took the train to see one of my dearest friends.

We walked through the city and talked for hours and hours.

While I'm writing this I'm listening to improvisations by Ólafur Arnalds. I'm just exploring his music.

This weekend has been a blessing.

 

A Birthday In The Mountains And A Happy Easter

Finally there is peace again.
I'm so happy to look into this new phase.

Spring has slowly arrived and the days are becoming longer and the air is full of new smells and sounds.

As our dear relative celebrated her birthday, she gathered her friends and family in a house in the Alps.

There were friendly guests, delicious food and nice conversations.
What more could you wish for a birthday?

After the weekend, we took a train to Munich.

We walked through the city near the Stachus and visited the Oberpollinger shopping centre.

The churches like the Bürgersaalkirche or St Michael charmed with their historical designs.

 There was an exhibition about art from the rococo era.

This sweet couple by Roman Anton Boos was part of the exhibition and symbolizes true love.

On one of our free days, we walked a tiny part of the Camino de Santiago.

Two lovely friends came with us. It was a beautiful hike through little towns and the forest.

 Around the Easter days, our family met in order to have brunch.

The table was full of breadrolls, cheese, tomatoes, olives, artichoke, eggs, tea and a lot more.





I also met good friends to watch a movie or to bake a paschal lamb.

There were so many stories to tell, so many tears of laughter to lose.

Days On A Small Island

I have spent my last days of 2014 on a small northern island with friends.
It was ice cold and there were harsh winds which rounded our winter trip up and made it perfect.

My friends had made roasted almonds with different tastes (orange, coconut, chocolate, coffee, ...) and shared them with us.
I liked this creative idea a lot.

On our first night, we went to the beach where the wind rushed across the sea and raised some of the sand.

It was beautiful - as well as the clear sky with its stars and its moon.

On the next day, I took time to sleep. It was very cozy and warm and relaxing.

In the afternoon, we walked to the end of the island: all in all 16 km.

We passed pastures with horses and sheep and small houses in the middle of this peaceful and lonely nowhere.

Before reaching the sea, we crossed a swampy area with tide-ways and muddy pits.

Eventually we had to jump across the tide-ways and sometimes one of us fell into the mud which made us laugh.

When we reached the end of the island, the sun had set.

We had to use our torches to write our names on the wooden hut.

The hut is covered with names and dates and every time the person or family comes back, another date is added.


On the evenings, we played games. And there were even three "big games": the "night's game", the "giving game" and the "music game".

The Music Game: Two groups compete. You have to guess names of songs by listening to the music or texts, sometimes the music is played backward or there are several songs at one time.

The Giving Game: Everyone gets a small piece of paper on which stands a name. Only you know what name you got. You have to "kill" the person by giving him/her something. Yes, I survived !!!

The Night's Game: Four groups compete. You walk through the forest and search for little lights in your color. Each light gives you a hint to the treasure. The group that finds the treasure wins.

On one afternoon, we visited the town and its nice little shops.

We found shelves full of comfortable slippers and tried some on.

They tell a story.

There was a woman that stood with a lamp at the shore each night and all ships that saw her capsized. The woman took what she could use.
Until her own son was on the boat and died.
Since then she haunts the beaches.

I wonder why they tell such stories. Maybe the cold makes you gather in the dark nights and tell each other spooky stories.

On New Year's Eve we drove to the light house on the other side of the island.

We climbed the steps up to the top when the sun set and the lights were turned on and started rotating for the ships.

It was symbolic in many ways. We stood up there, the wind stroking our skin and our view wide across the land and the sea while the night began: The transition to the new year.


I wish you a happy new year with all my heart.  I'm excited ... What will 2015 bring?

Christmas Holidays

It's a very quiet day today. My family keeps itself busy with reading and resting and the house is almost utterly silent.
I enjoy every second of this peace.

It began on christmas eve. We gathered our closest family to eat potato salad with eggs and cookies for dessert.
We also made children's punch, the recipe is easy and it tastes good:

 Children's punch

Make some tea out of hibiscus and red fruit.

Mix sugar and some christmas spices* into it and cook everything for about ten minutes.

We attended the evening service with a little choir on the gallery.

The priest had brought a light from the next cathedral. Every visitor got a candle and lit the candle next to him or her. It was beautiful and I liked the symbol very much.

 One of our presents was this delicious little house from Grimm's fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel".

I can't wait to nibble from it but I have to wait for the consent of all family members.








On the next day we met our bigger family and there was a feast of fondue and raclette with little bowls full of different kinds of groceries, salad, meat and cheese.
As a side dish we had potatoes and bread and as dessert tiramisu and cookies. It was the perfect combination to meet all different tastes and diets.

Before gift giving, we started singing christmas songs, some of them self-composed and it was pure joy to merge our voices into canons and part music.



* (rose hip, clove, star-anise, orange, cinnamon, currents, vanilla - or you can just use convenience blends)

Pre-christmas post

I know I won't be able to write for the next ten days and there has been so much. I'm not the kind of person that longs for these full and chaotic days but somehow the last two months were exactly that kind of days. I have had loads of wonderful and inspiring moments, conversations, time with friends and family.

There was the last Hobbit-movie on Thursday evening and although I usually hide my face when there are fights, I was totally okay with the dead orks. We were a fun group of people and I talked to a good friend of mine for a long time until it was at least 2 a.m. in the morning.

And I watched Interstellar on Friday night (after a long day and doing sports, wow, where did I get my energy from?).
I loved this film. Not only because of the immediate bond between Cooper and me of being an engineer, but also because of the high emotional parts. I wanted to call my family right during the movie. And at the end of the movie tears came into my eyes and I secretly wiped them away. This movie was an artwork.
Of course the depiction of several dimensions and some other physical relations can be questioned, but this was just a perfect piece of art.

And then I went christmas shopping.
I'm really inspired to do something creative this year and I was overwhelmed by the ideas on the internet. I got to know that those little jars and fairy lights aren't expensive and I can turn them into personal little presents which means it's not only fun to give them to your friends or family but also to create them.

In the evening, I made christmas cookies with a good friend of mine, and we put a lot of effort and love into it, and decorated them with chocolate, sugar icing, nuts and little sugar beads.

Today I attended the evening service. My choir sang and some of my close family and friends came to listen, I was very grateful to see them there.

How do you spend your last days before the christmas holidays begin?

A world full of amazing ...

… people! It has taken some time until I opened my mind to this very overwhelming and cool part of our world.

I do not think of any stars and great personalities that the media or books cherish. I mean those people that you meet in everyday life and that do great jobs, that give you a smile and a good feeling.

I originally planned to start a list but the more I thought about it, the more people came to my mind: Never forget that you are one.

My mother definitely is also one of them.
That's what we gave her as a birthday present. This little sculpture has been created by someone living in a home for disabled people and it depicts a reader. I knew it would make my mother smile.

Who do you think of first as an amazing person?