My nephew. He’s a real busy man. Why? Because even on vacation he’s always hard working. Like today. He thought he may start an attempt to dig across our planet. And he got pretty far, I must say. Too sad we had to say good-bye to France later in the day, or else who knows how much further he would have gotten. Busy little man, indeed!
Here, check this out: This is the proof of a bet I made with my nieces and nephew. As we were on our way to France yesterday (you may recall our little weekend trip), the threesome wholeheartedly insisted that they’d be able to set up camp within 15 min. (we’re talking about 2 large tents here). I had a hard time believing this, so we made a bet, and as soon as we were ready to unpack the tents I set the timer. And though I wasn’t surprised that it took them a bit longer than they’d predicted, I still was pretty impressed by these teenage kids that indeed within half an hour they’d finished setting up two 6-8 people tents. Not bad, not bad! And so, who cares about a lost bet? Well done, kids, I’d say! And to prove to you that we’re actually having a good time together, take a look at this …
It’s been just a tidbit over a year, but I’m back in France again. Nothing as exciting as Paris or Versailles (like last year), but it is France. (Although, I’d better keep silent about the fact that just looking across the river is looking back at Germany again.) You see, when my sister invited me on a little camping trip with her family to France, there was no way I’d say no. Not so much because camping excites me so. Fromage (that’s cheese in French, I learned as much on our trip to Paris last year) on the other hand does excite me. Especially when it’s fromage à la française! And of course, that was one of the first things we did after arriving and setting up … we went and got us some real fromage for the weekend! Well then, cheers!
Today was a happy day. No, not because I was able to go to IKEA (although that is a happy occasion for anyone who usually doesn’t have any store of like kind anywhere near her). It also wasn’t because we got various flowers and plants for my sister’s apartment – though flowers are always something to make someone happy – at least someone like me. Neither was having a late lunch at IKEA the sole reason for my happiness … (Though I did enjoy my salad well enough.) No, the reason for my happiness was … this young lady here:Why? Because the reason we went to IKEA, the reason we had IKEA salad, lots of happy flowers, pizza for dinner at a restaurant and a whole lot of other fun today was the fact that we celebrated this young lady’s birthday today. Happy b-day, dearest sister! I’m glad I was able to spend it with you together!
This is Lina: Like crazy Paul, she’s also a member of my sister’s household. And while she seems to be quite a bit more fragile than her big brother Paul, she’s actually every bit as cheeky as he is – and just as crazy (as far as cat is concerned). One of the favorite things Lina likes to do is: take a shower. Yes, you heard me: Shower! Actual, real water is flowing, all wet and everything shower. As soon as she hears water running in the bathroom, she comes sprinting, trying to get as much of the water fun as she can get. And after people used the shower, she makes sure to shake the hose with the shower head, so that even the last little rest of water comes dripping down on her. I don’t know how what my sister did, but she definitely managed to get two really rather crazy and funny cats.
Remember Paul? I told you about him the other day. Well, this is Paul: Or well, to be a bit more precise: it’s Paul’s nose. Because Paul has an affinity for boxes. Big boxes. The bigger the better! Fortunately, my brother-in-law just got himself a new office desk chair, and that came with a huge box. Ginormous, when speaking in cat’s dimensions. And so little Paul was more than happy to be locked up in his box, spending a good portion of the day trying to figure out how to get out of the box. And when he’d just succeeded, he was just as happy to start all over again. Who said crazy cat? Oh well, I guess that was me the other day …
“Plop” made the little wine-gum candy, and landed himself in a pool of cream cheese. What he was doing there, I wondered, but then, I guess, you can’t really blame him for having lost his way, and actually trying to make the best of his situation. It was us, after all, who’d dropped him at the dinner table (what’s candy gotta do at the dinner table anyway, right?). So, no later than now is the time to find out how well candy and cream cheese go together.
I love all things pretty. No wonder that I love stroll into any kind of store that sells interior design and decoration products. Esp. since where I live, decor products just aren’t on people’s agenda as much as in Germany. So, I love to look around in those kinds of stores, get inspired, start dreaming about what ifs … and then usually have a pretty rough awakening: too sad that luggage on airplanes is so limited. It means that I can’t buy any of the pretty beauties of any stores, because I simply can’t take these things with me. So, while I love to go look at things in stores like this, I’m usually just as happy to leave places like that as quickly as I can’t, because I can’t help dreaming …
Fire stations. They should actually be the safest places when it comes to protection from fire – not only are they crowded by lots of professionals, they also have all the equipment ready at hand. But look what happened today in the little town of Kandern, South Germany … Kandern, shortly after 12 pm: The sirens in town go off. I’m not paying much attention, since it’s common practice in Germany that every Saturday at 12 o’clock the sirens go off just to check their functionality. Except that today isn’t Saturday … Five minutes later: Someone from the upper floors of our building is yelling down to us that they can see smoke rising a couple of blocks down. Fire? Five minutes later: We have dinner plans for an Italian restaurant in town. We set out, but only two minutes after leaving, we’re approaching this scene: Smoke is wafting shortly ahead of us. We walk faster, and quickly approach the town’s fire station. That’s when it dawns on us: The fire station, …
Now, let me make things clear: In Germany we don’t celebrate the 4th of July on the 4th of July. As a matter of fact, we don’t actually celebrate the 4th of July at all in Germany, since it’s an American holiday. This year, however, was different. This year, we didn’t just remember that somewhere in the world people are happy about the 4th of July, this year we actually decided to make it a happy occasion for ourselves (of course, there were enough Americans around to have a good excuse for that, too). And so we had blue, red, and white ice-cream and a whole lot of fun.
