“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.

I’m sure that most people agree that a graduation is a reason to celebrate. This year we’re celebrating my graduation (though I’m not even that close to finishing yet). Still, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t mind celebrating something with a good dinner, some good fellowship, and a lot of laughter and tears. And since my graduation is next in line, and since my graduation is a good excuse to celebrate, I did exactly that: have fun and enjoy myself!  

Yes, I’m back in Germany. And that means I get to enjoy some of the culinary treasures which are so very typical for Germany. Like Schupfnudeln and yes, Sauerkraut (though I’ll tell you a little secret – for those non-Germans among my readers: Germans don’t eat Sauerkraut all the time. As a matter of fact, in my family, Sauerkraut is a culinary rarity which only happens few times a year, if at all). And another little secret: the one cooking Sauerkraut this time wasn’t a German, just my very North American roommate who loves to eat Sauerkraut. Still, I’m happy about eating all these yummy dishes, and this time I’m not complaining that North Americans are so biased when it comes to Germans eating Sauerkraut.

Another year has passed, and for me that means I’m back in school again. That on the other hand means lots of homework, but it also means meeting new people (my classmates), meeting old people, learning much about different countries (as we all come from all over the world) and sharing my life with some of my closest friends. But now I’d better get going. I gotta get back to school, and back to my assignments …

The time has come again. The time for me to get back on the road. This summer I’ll literally be living in weekly increments, hopping around from place to place like a gypsy. It also means dealing with crowded highways (yes, they’re called Autobahn, but you can rarely go as fast as you want due to the traffic and other limitations), impatient drivers, long hours on the road, and the hope that I’ll get my car through inspection, or else I might be in deep trouble!

We have cherries! I assure you, we do. The problem is that for the last two years, I missed those cherries by an inch or so, or maybe it’s a little more accurate to say that I missed picking those cherries by just a couple of days. Too bad when you have to leave before the cherries get ripe. And now, I’ll have to see them on the pictures, yearn for them, and … maybe find a cherry-alternative in the supermarket.