Aktion "Stolpersteine"

To read more about it, check out my Wiesbaden Daily Photo Blog!

New camera

After taking a while to make up my mind - thanks again for your helpful tips and suggestions!! - I finally decided on a Canon Ixus 750. Got a good deal on it (especially since I had a gift certificate as well) and am very happy with it so far. Just need to get used to it - it has a lot more options than my "old" camera. I guess, that's how I'm gonna spend my weekend... :-)

A nice surprise...

I walked out of the door this morning and someone has left this surprise in front of our door - branches with purple butterflies on them.

We haven't found out yet whose creation they are - my guess is that they are intended for my parents from a friend of my mum - I'm sure my mum already has an idea...

Thanks a lot to the unknown person! :-)

Guerrilla Gardening

While browsing through the Daily Photo Blog Family, I came accross Ham's London Daily Photo Blog where his picture for today is about "war - but not as we know it".

Apparently there is a group of people who go out at night and plant things at desolated places. There is even a Wikipedia article about it and there is also a website guerrillagardening.org.

From the photos on these website it doesn't look to me like they are really thinking about what they are planting - I noticed a lot of rosemary and palm trees, which are not really local plants. But hey, on the other side I love it that people take action and do something about these desolated areas and bring some color into it!

What do you think?

First lunch outside

I had my first lunch outside for this year today. It's been so nice and comfortable in the sun that I was sitting there in a T-Shirt. Oh, how I love Spring! Of course I had to extent my lunch break a bit because of that ;-).

Spring greetings for the weekend

These crocuses ("Krokusse" in german) are from my parent's garden - another step towards spring.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Aktion Mensch

I've never paid much attention to it before but since they're celebrating their 10th anniversary, they had a special campaign and I took a closer look:

Aktion Mensch is a "social lottery" supporting over 300 social projects targeting disabled and challenged people as well as kids and young adults. Out of their income from the tickets 30% go back as prizes, about 17% go to the state as taxes, 40% are dedicated for the social projects and the rest is used for marketing and administration.

I think that's quite a good concept. If you want to play the lottery why not doing something good as well at the same time!

www.aktion-mensch.de (unfortunately only in german)

Wind Wheel

My parent's last name (and my maiden name) is Pfau which means peacock in english. A while ago, my sister and I gave this wind wheel to my parents as a nice addition to their little peacock collection. It's now out there in the garden trying to keep up with the winter storms and all kinds of weathers.

Mysteriously, two of the "feathers" have dissapeared lately. I've already bought a substitute for the first one but now it's gone again. We already searched the whole garden (thought it got blown away) but still no sign. Right now we suspect the neighbor's cat... or maybe a bird (if you see a bird flying by with a feather like these, tell it to bring it back at once ;-D) ...

11th International Easter Egg Fair

Here are some more photos from the Easter Egg Fair in Kloster Eberbach:






The artists all worked with real eggs (no plastic or some other materials, unless they explained it somewhere). You can imagine how delicate some of the eggs were - especially the ones on the second photo where they used a dentist's drill to get those patterns or figures into the eggshell.

The woman on the third photo is working with different colored wax, heated on a little stove and applied with different sized needles. It was very interesting to see her doing it - she was very nice and allowed me to take a photo of her while she was doing her artwork.

At the fair was also a stand where you could also buy the raw (emptied but not processed any further) eggs from birds like quail (very small ones) to ostrich (quite large eggs) . It's been very interesting!

Related links:
More Easter Eggs from the fair (using a stitching technique)
Picture from the hall where the fair was held
Easter Eggs (Wikipedia)

High water in Rhine River

I've been already writing about it in my Rheingau Daily Photo Blog: the water in the Rhine went up since yesterday. There are several points where you can check the water level as the one in the photo (that is already in a flooded area). I just don't know what the measurement of this pole is (could it be feet??). Maybe you know...?

Anyways, it's usually not a big thing since it's quite a regular "spring happening". It just depends on how high the water will rise.

Luckily the house we live in is on a hill so we won't get the water in our basement. The problem is that the main road connecting all the villages of the Rheingau goes right along the Rhine river, so if the water climbs too high, the street might be flooded and all the traffic has to go through the wine yards which is usually quite chaotic. We'll see what happens...

Time flies by...

Just wanted to give you a quick update of what 's going on since I haven't posted anything here since Wednesday.

I went to a Color Pre Press Workshop on Thursday which was very interesting - since I studied and started working in the US, it's been quite a change for me coming back to Germany. Getting used to different measurements, colors and color schemes (e.g. Pantone colors aren't really used that often over here), styles, etc. I already participated in a more detailed workshop last year but refreshments are good from time to time...

Besides that I'm mostly busy with projects; I've also started to work on my portfolio again, and am taking photos for my two Daily Photo Blogs (Rheingau and Wiesbaden).

What are you up to lately?? Love to hear from you!

Prepare for my 12000th birthday!

Looks like I've just missed my 11000th birthday... Oh dear... Well, mark you calendar for August 30, 2008- at least I won't miss my 12000th birthday, now that I know.

Curious what I'm talking about? Check this out:

1000 Day Birthday Calculator
We don't get enough birthdays, and the ones that we do get are always inconveniently at the same time of year. This little toy tells you when your next 1000 day birthday falls. Any excuse for a party …

International Tourist Guides about Germany

A German radio station has put together a little collection of how Germany is described in international travel guides. They also present it on their website (it's in German though). Here are some of the myths translated:

1) "Don't ever whisper in Germany - it makes Germans suspicious" [China]

2) "Avoid ordering milk in Germany - Germans think of milk on a breakfast table as impertinence" [China]

3) "Germans drink a 'tasteless coffee broth'" [Italy]

4) "In a bar you better don't order your beer with the index finger - you might end up getting two beer. Remember: Germans start counting with the thumb!" [UK]

5) "Always be punctual and always bring a present when invited" (that's a really nice one - I'd like that with the presents ;-D) [Netherlands]

There were more but these are my favorites. Well, now you're prepared... ;-D

Song stuck in your head?

Do you have a song stuck in your head, and you don't know the name of it? No worries, there's help in sight:

The Song Tapper

You just try tapping the rhythm of the song on your space bar while humming the tune and it gives you several results then. I tried it with "Obladi" from the Beatles and it worked.
(Got this pointer from the radio station I'm listening to this morning and had to try it out...)


P.S. In case you're wondering, I've added the picture later since I just found it in one of my photo folders (it's taken from a shop window). Thought it'll fit quite well here... ;-D.

New camera - any suggestions?

Since I'm taking a lot of photos lately, I'm determined to get myself a new camera that is smaller, faster, and handier than the camera I have now. So far, I've been looking into Canon Ixus or a Canon PowerShot, but I haven't really gone into it yet, so I don't know much about the advantages and disadvantages. Any ideas, tips, recommendations?

Btw, you can post comments without subscribing, so "fire away"! :-)

snow, snow, snow... and some tulips

I woke up this morning and everything was covered in white and it was still snowing.... and kept snowing... and even more snow.... nonstop till the evening. Unfortunately, it was my turn to keep the sidewalk clear for pedestrians. Alltogether I went three times to clear it - it was really frustrating since once I was done, I already saw that it started to be covered again...

As a reward for myself, I got some tulips to get at least a little bit of Spring feeling.

Once upon a time...

One upon a time... there was a little fishermen's town at the baltic see. One day, a mermaid appeared on one of the rocks along the sea, made completely out of bronze. All the inhabitant were quite surprised, since noone knew where it came from. They couldn't find it out, but nevertheless decided that apparantly it was supposed to be theirs. So they started selling postcards, T-Shirts, bags and even little replica of it. And then, all of a sudden, one year later, the little mermaid disappeared again...

This sounds like a fairy tale but it really happened (found this story on SPIEGEL ONLINE).

Morning Tea

I'm a tea drinker, especially at home and especially during my morning routine. I drink coffee as well, but never at home; mostly when I meet with friends. My favorite tea at the moment is this Roibos-Vanille. They gave it an extra name, "Ovambo" (no idea why) and it has the label "lieblich mild" (lovely mild). There is also another one by the same brand - Roibos Caramel - my second favorite :-).