twinga

Summer, Sun and Soccer

The great thing about summer in Germany is that you soak up every minute of it. There is no sitting inside restaurants with A/C when the sun is out.

Yesterday for instance I started off the day by sitting on our balcony, reading the newspaper, then I went for a walk, met with a friend at a nice coffee shop and chatted in the shade of some trees, went home, relaxed for a bit and then had dinner outside in a nice restaurant followed by a chilled (alcoholfree these days ;-) ) beer on top of Sonnendeck to watch the game Uruguay:France. Life is good!

 

The next few days I should take the camera and take a few nice shots of my walking routes ... it's all so nice and green now. Thanks to the rain also...

The best friends ever... !!

I'm sitting here in my living room after a great birthday brunch with my siblings Julia and Basti, my better half Tobse, Tobse's brother Florian and my sister's boyfriend Stefan...

Brunch pictures

... and I just now recovered from crying after listening to the CD I got from my sister Julia and Stefan!! Out of joy of course. :-)

Stefan works at a local radio station and they put together these awesome birthday greetings from my close friends all over the world. This rocks!!! Best bday gift ever. Thank you so much!!!! Listen to it - it's so well done.

Shar, Partha, Maya, Navin, Wendy, Mama, Papa, ... (and Tillu, whose file couldn't be opened but I could listen to it right now. One of the sentences were "you are the best my brother ever brought home" ha ha) THANK YOU !!!!!! I'm very happy to have you in my life.

Happy_Birthday_Dani

Thanks friends :-)

Navin

Mum and Dad

Julia

Stefan

 

Wendy (and her cute little son Max, who is just a few days old on this pic)

Partha and Shar

Maya, Shar and Partha's daughter

The Residence Blues

the residence blues

grey skies, 

foggy breath,

we are cycling to the station.

cheap group ticket,

ukrainian friend,

is also heading to an embassy.

english garden,

u.s. consulate,

he is not my husband.

security checks,

all alone,

this feels very final.

completed form,

I-407,

the consul makes me sign.

stamp in passport, 

paper copies,

a fulfilled dream dumped so quickly.

think twice,

important choices,

they are hard to undo.

consolation,

permanent residence,

in our hearts it knows no forms, stamps, passports

September 16, 2008

Public Viewing EURO 2008

Yesterday after work we took our bicycles and rode to Kulper Hütte, a beautiful beergarden at the river Wertach. We actually went there to have some food, ended up eating a Steckerlfisch (smoked fish) and watched a EURO 2008 soccer match (Sweden vs. Netherlands, pretty lame match actually). Either way, the beergarden was super nice and the fish very tasty :)

Spießig

It's official: I'm becoming a German Spießer ... for the first time in my life I bought flowers today and decorated our balcony. I wonder what will be next? Any wild guesses? ;)

Almost crash at Hamburg airport...

On Saturday we had a big storm here in Germany, storm "Emma." One person must have decided to head out to Hamburg airport, hang out at the runway and wait whether something might happen... and it did. Some guy shot this video that by now has been viewed more than a million times:

The pilot and his 24-year old female co-pilot were able to save the 131 passengers. As you can see, one wing even touched the ground after a strong wind gust hit the aircraft from the right. Then they pulled through and were able to land after another 15 minutes. Phew... Honestly, I can't quite understand why they allowed the pilot to land at all.

T and I are flying to Costa Rica on Thursday, that is, if the airline personnel at the airport isn't going on strike. They are supposed to strike tomorrow (Wednesday), so I'm still hopeful... anyways. Stay tuned for pics from Costa Rica!

So, what matters most?

... so what matters most? To me, whenever I feel down, there are a few things that usually manage  to cheer me up: meaningful conversation, love, sunshine, music, photography, and random life situations. San Francisco is full of the latter, and it vibes really well with photography. So I grabbed my S50 and my poloaroid and ventured out on a sunny, extremely windy, SF day. Enjoy the pics!

And later at night I watched some fireworks at a friend's house

Tobseeeeee :-) ... and I

I haven't been blogging in forever, and the reasons are work, Tobse, climbing and sightseeing ... :-)

Here are a few pics -- stay tuned for more, we are going down to Joshua Tree next week. Can't wait!

Denim jeans and tamale - both is hot

A Zeitgeist Story.

On a sunny spring-like day, you sit at work, staring out of the window and all you can think is “Zeitgeist”, “friends at Zeitgeist”, “a beer at Zeitgeist”, “and Tamale” … “or a burger” … "maybe Bratwurst" ... then you loose yourself for a minute contemplating about food, and you walk into the kitchen and get yourself a snack before the impossible happens: Your friend sends you an email, asking if you want to meet at Zeitgeist after work.

That made your whole day. You walk back to your desk, whistling, thinking whether you can call anybody else and invite them to join the joy… and you do… and most of them never call back and you remember: right, I’m in California.

Anyways, you leave work on time and get to Zeitgeist as fast as you can. Your friends are already there. You sit down, drink your first pint, and then some time passes… time of

- Laughter
- Good conversation
- Drinking
- Tamale
- More drinking
- Magic
- Great conversation
- More laughter
- Some people start to believe they are a math professor
- Some just try to find Tamale pieces between their teeth
- The Tamale lady is leaving
- And some more magic later we say good bye, for now…

Kisses to my good friends, and special kisses for the special friends.

You walk home, and you also happen to carry something that you really want to unpack. And you come home and you manage to wash dishes (and you enjoy it), you unpack what you wanted to unpack, you find the suitable accessory and manage to deconstruct it, to fit the completed project, and you use a cheese knife instead of the screwdriver. There is no more screwdriver because your last love took it … and you still manage. Great. It’s up and on the wall and looks fantastic. Oh, and you also manage to open up those annoying Netflix envelopes, you clean the kitchen counter, make yourself a hot chocolate with three spoons of Feine Heisse Nestle Schokolode, you put the cup it in the microwave, take it out again and put one more spoon of schoki (just in case) … you know … and then it’s 25 minutes later. Only! It feels like it’s been 4 hours. And you have exactly 35 more minutes to write a story. And here it is… and I still have 25 minutes. Isn’t that fantastic????????

TF and JB, that’s for you. Thank you so much!!!! (Story end – unedited)

... and I'll see you at Walzwerk for the DENIM AND WHITE T-SHIRT PARTY!

Crooked Life

So many events, so little time...

In the past 4 days I went through:

... one awful day at work. Really really awful - hopefully won't happen so soon again, hopefully never
... one amazing dinner at Oola. Baby back ribs, scallops, breadpudding - must have
... one good dinner. Good conversation, good food - too expensive
... the new James Bond movie. Great one-liners - very hot girl
... a musikalischer brunch with my best friend. Klezmer music - hot drummer
... Landjaeger. Vorspeise fuer Germany - senfig gut!!!
... one great mix CD. TG - thanks!