90 tons of garbage

I read in the newspaper today that the carnival parade in Wiesbaden produced 90 tons of garbage that people left on the streets or in the garbage bins (partly through confetti and all that stuff that gets thrown, partly through the people who eat and drink and leave that garbage as well). 50 cleaners had been on the road to get everything back to "normal".

It's great to see that many people being happy and celebrating but I hope we can find a better solution for this problem!

Last picture for Carnival

This is one of my favorite pictures from the parade yesterday. I have so many, but unfortunately I cannot post all of them (as I alreday said, check my Rheingau and Wiesbaden blogs for more).

Carnival parade in Kiedrich

I went to the "Rosenmontags- umzug" (carnival parade) in Kiedrich today. It's one of the biggest in the Rheingau - up to 61 groups participated. I took lots of pictures which I will share with you tomorrow (check my Rheingau and Wiesbaden daily photo blogs). The picture on the right is a little preview.

The funny thing was that we had all kinds of weathers. Some sunshine in between but mostly overcast and then it started snowing - it was as if the sky wanted to participate in all that confetti and candy throwing...

Winter Olympics 2006

Looks like Germany's been doing really well in this year's Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy - last time I checked we were number 1 in terms of medals. And today is the last day so I don't think there'll be any more big surprises. Congratulations to all the athletes! For more infos check out the official website.

Berliner or Kreppel

Carnival food! Well, to be honest, you can get those throughout the whole year nowadays but they are very typical for the carnival season: Kreppel, Berliner or Krapfen (they all mean the same; it only depends on the region). They are not that different from Donuts (as you can see with the two decorated donuts on the upper right), just without the hole in the middle. Some of them are filled with a teaspoon of jelly (mostly strawberry or apricot, depending on the bakery).

Watch out - you might be kissed today...

I just have to share this: I just saw an article in the newspaper that Lufthansa started to make special announcement at the airport in Bonn/Cologne because of the carnival season (Cologne is the "capitol of carnival" in Germany).

One of the announcements is: "Watch out - you might be kissed today" or another one says "Watch out for your ties - they might be cut off" (also check out my post on this on my daily photo blog). Since masked and costumed people do all kinds of funny/crazy things during carnival time, I guess they want to warn foreign visitors ahead of time so they don't get scared :-D.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog where I'd like to keep you updated what's going on in my life and share my thoughts.

I have been thinking about this for a while. And even if some of you might think that I do have too much free time ;-), I still want to dedicate some of my time to writing and posting for this blog. I used to write a lot more than I do nowadays - I worked as content developer, online journalist and instructional designer before I came into the web and graphic design world. I do enjoy working creatively a lot but I miss the writing part of it. When my friend Maya started her blog about opening here store SAYA in South of France, I got inspired, and so here I am.

I hope, you'll enjoy browsing through these pages as they grow and develop. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think. And come back from time to time to see what's new!

Besides this blog, I've also started a Rheingau & Wiesbaden Daily Photo Blog (inspired by my friend Karine in Buenos Aires). Come and visit me there, too.

Yours,

Nicola