Weekend Shots

Pictures from the weekend.


I don't think I've ever seen a cherry tree before. So pretty.

Internationales Strassenfest Sindelfingen (International Street Festival in Sindelfingen, Germany)

We went to an International Street Festival in a nearby town today with food, music and dancing from lots of different countries. Yummy and fun. We heard and saw dancing and music from all over the world. Even Detroit. Lol. Really, though. Eminem and what must have been the German interpretation of hip hop dancing. It looked more like aerobics, but was quite fascinating.











Happy Father's Day!

das Colors

I'm trying something new here. I want to get more comfortable with color, especially combining different colors. It's really never been my strong suit. The Man can send me pillow covers he found at a street bazaar in Iraq and they will match perfectly in whatever room he says to put them in - a room that he hasn't seen in months. Me...? I can leave my living room, go straight to Ikea and come home with things that don't go at all. Mostly, I'm happy wearing 47 different shades of brown. So, here begins a new feature that I'll keep going...well, as long as I feel like it.

via

Still a lot of browns in there...baby steps, you guys.

Technorati tags: color, photography

Weekend Pics

We took a quick, three day trip up to Garmisch, Germany this weekend. It's a small ski town on the German/Austrian border, where the Alpine Ski World Cup 2011 just happened to be underway. It was a lovely little jaunt out of town and, though we didn't ski this time, we all had a blast. We wandered around the quaint little town, ate lots of delicious food, swam in the hotel pool, met up for dinner with a big group of friends one evening and walked around the beautiful and frozen Eibsee lake.

There are more pictures in my Flickr stream, but here are a few of my favorites.

Taking It Waaaay Back

A while back, I fell in love with and purchased an old Bilora Bella 66 medium format film camera. The body itself is so pretty and I love the retro look captured by the camera. Using brand new film and completely modern developing techniques, the pictures look like they were taken 50 years ago! Love that.

I took these pictures back in August. I know, I know. I scanned them in September! Not sure why it took another 5 months to post them but here we are.









I picked up some color medium format film and shot some pictures on our recent Sunday afternoon excursion. I'm hoping to drop those off for developing today!

Weekend Pics

We had such beautiful weather this weekend, that we had to get out and see something new. So, on Sunday, we took a short drive over to a cute little town called Rottenberg am Neckar, walked by the river, sat outside at a cafe, drank beer, ate cake and watched the kiddos play in the sunshine. It was lovely!

I took more pictures with my old Bilora Bella medium format film camera. (Can't wait to get those developed!) But, I snapped a few with the new school camera, too.



I'm not sure why the bunting was up, but I loved it.



It was such a beautiful day, the reflection in this small drainage creek was amazing.

Urlaub in Berlin, Tag Eins

^Holiday in Berlin, Day One

Last week El Niño had a swim meet in Berlin, which we used as an excuse to spend several days exploring. Berlin is newly minted as one of my favorite cities in the world. It has so much character and style and the oddest charm - kind of communist chic. So much of the old Soviet style is evident in the Eastern section, but modern sensibilities are taking over and making for a fantastically unique mix.

I need to warn you now that we did not visit Checkpoint Charlie or Das Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate) or see any remnants of the wall or any of the new memorials to opposition politicians or Holocaust victims. It's not that I'm not interested in history or Nazi sites. It's just that I'm that tourist. I will go to Paris and never see the Eiffel Tower. I only saw the Mall in D.C. briefly and because I tagged along with others for whom it was a priority. I have an interest in visiting a place like Auschwitz where I believe the experience in person will be completely different than what you get from a printed account. But, to stand in line to look at the outside of the building where a handful of nutjobs dreamed up The Final Solution? Or to scurry all the way across town to get a glimpse of a place where there used to be a wall? No, thanks.

I was more interested in exploring the fabulously hip Prenzlauer Berg district and Berlin's storied flea markets. The kids were far more interested in checking out the zoo. So, we did what we wanted to do and we had an absolutely lovely time. I took a pathetic number of pictures, but here they are:



The sheer amount of graffiti - particularly in East Berlin - was astounding. And the quality was fantastic. I loved the way the artistic youth have absolutely reclaimed their city. Without it, the whole place would still look a lot like this:



Some people seemed determined to keep their spaces art free, and they were lovely too. I can't imagine the battle it requires, though.



There were so many cute shops and little cafes and restaurants of all different world cuisines! I wish I was less self-conscious about taking pictures inside establishments but I have a thing, what can I say.

Suffice it to say that El Niño got his sushi fix, I got my adorable eclectic shop fix and Cheeseball got very tired. After that, we hopped over to the slightly more tony Hackescher Markt. There was a cool Japanese department store called Muji of which I again took no pictures, but we loved exploring all the stuff. Their selection was definitely of the modern, sleek stylish Japanese variety rather than the kawaii, colorful adorable Japanese variety. Less interesting for the kids, but I loved it.

We wandered by this gorgeous synagogue, guarded by three fully armed Polizei.



Then stumbled on this beautiful building on the river.





And that was day one!

Christmas time is near.

It's been cold here in Germany. Very cold. Sehr sehr kalt. (Which I can't say without being corrected by Cheeseball. She still understands a lot more German than she speaks, but what she speaks sounds like actual German. Versus my French-y American German. And El niño's El Deutsch.)


I'm going to pretend I think this spider froze to death and fell off its web instead of the more likely migration INTO MY HOUSE.

Around this time of year, Christmas Markets spring up all over the country. These are heavy with warm, mulled wine (glühwein), potatos fried in various and sundry ways, beautifully carved ornaments & wreaths and the usual tourist junk that accumulates in any fair type setting. This past weekend, we caught the train up to Stuttgart for the Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt. It was full of people, cold and crisp, smelled wonderful and was so much fun. I can't wait to visit other markets in different towns!

I never promised you a rose garden.

Do you remember that song? It was one of my mom's favorites when I was a child. Just humming it in my head takes me to a happy place!

I'm not usually a rose person, but these bright yellow girls just begged to be brought home.

Let's Call It Brinner. Or Dinfast.

Some days you just don't much feel like cooking. On those days, I try to resist the siren call of the frozen lasagna (and that call is sooooo good) by whipping up something easy and fun. Sometimes it seems all you have to do to muster up a little enthusiasm is take a little side road off your beaten path.

Days like that we come up with new things like Bacon and Eggs Spaghetti. Or It's-ah Breakfast-ah eh-Spaghetti. Or Noodle Eggs and Ham. Or Noodles Cooked By One Who Is Easily Sidetracked.

Anyway.

The kickoff point was a recipe posted long ago by my friend Lea of Smörgåsbord. I vaguely remembered her cooking some sort of noodle dish that she cracked an egg into, letting the heat from the noodles cook the egg.

I'm not that adventurous.

In fact, a very popular Japanese dish consists of cracking a raw egg into hot rice and mixing in a little soy sauce. It's called tamago. I scramble the eggs first and call it egg rice.

So, I scrambled the eggs, chopped and cooked the bacon, cooked the noodles and mixed it all together, letting the bacon grease coat and flavor the noodles. Less adventurous, still darn good.



And a bonus shot of the outdoor seating at a little cafe we came across as we wandered downtown Stuttgart the other day. Just because I really liked it.

Schloss Ludwigsburg

Just a few pictures I snapped when we visited Schloss Ludwigsburg. I took a bunch inside as well. Going back through them, I really only find myself drawn to the outside shots that also catch the old car show on display that day.

France, Part Fini

I'm dragging out the last of the pictures from our little trip to France. Going back through it all is making me yearn for more travel in the near future!

A former hotel neighbor told me about Germanwings airline recently and their insanely cool Blind Booking feature. You choose from categories like "Culture" or "Nature and Hiking", enter your dates, pay €19.99 and SURPRISE! you're off to some place of their choosing... The Man asked €19.99!? Do they crash a lot!?. I haven't heard of a ton of commuter flight crashes in Europe, so I figure we're good and I can't wait to check it out! Yay for summer and school being out!

For now, back to France...

The family we stayed with took us walking around the neighboring town of Pau.

An even more amazing view of the Pyrenees, beautiful architecture, a Sephora and a castle with ties to Napoleon, Marie Antoinette and Henry IV kept my head spinning for most of the morning.











Doesn't this look like it launched straight out of Mary Poppins!?

A Twinkle Toes Is Born

Cheeseball started ballet today. As with most things, the outfit and accessories were her hook.

Thrilled to wear her ballet accoutrement with purpose, she couldn't believe her luck once surrounded by little girls (!), who spoke English (!) and a giant mirror that she was encouraged to watch herself in (!).

Really, I don't think it gets much better than this.

Two things growing and making me happy.

Two other things.


In the garden.


I think maybe those are peonies...? I'm really not sure - I'm much better at killing plants than identifying them.


On the terrace.

A small bit of nature reclaiming the tree, long since cut down and formed into my bench.

A Photo Cliche, a Cliche and A Commandment

Mom has a penchant for photo clichés.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Thou shalt not leave Cheeseball out of pictures.

The view from Das Sushi

Just sharing a few pictures today.

This castle (although it’s not really what I picture in my head when I think castle) is very close to our house. The kids love the swans and the moats and I love how the whole building is leaning forward like it’s really trying to catch what you’re saying.



I haven’t checked out the inside yet, but now that everything is organized and the government paperwork (SO MUCH GOVERNMENT PAPERWORK) is mostly in order, it’s very high on my list of things to do.

During the couple of weeks of beautiful weather, we were all over the place on the bike. It’s been raining and raining and raining for the past few weeks, so less biking but it sure feels like home. The first time Cheeseball and I tried to find our way to post from home, we got severely lost. It added a little more than an hour to the trip, a giant mountain of a climb and I’m not sure how many miles, but it meant we got to see beautiful things like this.





It all worked out in the end and now I know the way and can spend less time saying “chilly goo!” to unsuspecting passersby and more time hauling two thirds of my body weight in the form of Cheeseball and a giant trailer like an ant.