They’re called the Kaffeestuben (coffee parlors). And for a good reason, because in this café the guests can choose among a good number of snug little parlors to enjoy their afternoon tea in a quiet, vintage like environment. And that’s not even all that’s special about this place. When my friend ordered her tea, she got it in a rather strange looking tea pot as you can see for yourself. In fact, this thing looked so unusual to us that we had to examine it a little to figure out how exactly it works. It did work, however, and we ended up having a lovely afternoon with delicious cake, tea and hot chocolate, and a whole lot of good conversation.

My last week in Germany has begun. And of course, I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I can’t wait to return home and pick up my life where I left it. On the other hand, I’m sad to be parting from family and friends who are very dear to me. So, I have a number of choices:     Be sad, feel sad, and behave sad. Be happy, and ignore the sadness. Take every day as it is, enjoy life as much as I can, and make the most of every single day. … (you add your own perspective) I choose to go with number three, because it’ll help me enjoy my time here, and still look forward to what is to come. On that note: Carpe diem, or “Seize the day!”

It’s yet another weekend I get to spend away from home. This time, we went on a weekend retreat together with friends. And that means: all weekend we’ll get spoiled with good food, good company, and good entertainment. So, I could complain about being away every weekend for a full month, or I could consider myself a lucky person, who gets to experience so many great things in such a short time. I’ve decided: I’m choosing the latter perspective – at any rate, it’s the happier choice to be sure!

I’m so glad the wedding is over, because I finally get to rest a bit and recover from all the busyness this summer! That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not doing anything these days. In fact, I just created my own cell phone wall paper the other day, and today I’ll let you take a look at it: Isn’t it just a happy little background for my phone? It makes me smile with happy memories, every time I turn on the phone!

One of the pleasant things about this wedding was the fact that guests were able to stay over night, so the next morning we still had the chance of spending time with relative and friends before having to take leave of them. Of course, there also was a lot of work for those close to the newly wed couple, which included taking down all the wedding decoration we’d just put up two days ago. Time for a big huge jumble, but by three o’clock, we were able to utter a big sigh of relief, get into our cars and head home to normal, after wedding life! Yay, for finally being able to slow down a bit – the first time this summer!

Home  has been  turned into a wedding studio, as of late. Everyone lives, breathes, and moves only toward one goal: the big wedding which is approaching fast. And today, the real countdown began, as we left home to drive to the location where the wedding is going to take place. And after that, it was all about flowers, wedding cakes, ribbons, pearls, and whatever else my sister dreams of to turn her big day into a perfect wedding.

My baby sister got married today (civil ceremony), sigh! And I got to witness it. Of course, to us it was just a formality, since the real wedding is going to follow later this week. And formal the whole ceremony took place. Formal, and very fast. It seemed like the registrar was competing in a speed reading contest when she performed the ceremony and officially turned my sister from little Ms. into an honorable Mrs. At any rate, we were happy to have this formality over with, because a lot of work is waiting for us to get everything ready for my sister’s real big day.

These last couple of weeks have been all about a wedding, which is to come up in our family very soon. And if you’d like to know what I’ve been kept busy with, lately, I can show you. It’s called a “wedding paper,” something very typical for weddings in Germany. Friends and family members contribute to this paper with stories from the couple’s past and fun articles, and it was my job to put the whole thing together. Today, we finally managed to submit the paper for printing, and now, all we need to do is, hope that it’s going to arrive on time.