58!

I certainly look it (especially in the mornings), but I don't feel it. Lucky me!
I had a great birthday, starting with a very early breakfast with homemade brownies and coffee, my kids and Volker starring as birthday singers before I was allowed to open my parcels and admire the flowers. A brandnew camera by the kids (canon, Alex shot this photo with it), and delicious extraordinary chocolates on a silver tray by family in Düsseldorf.
Before 9, we were on our way to Metzingen outlet to get me a new spring outfit. They all accompanied me, even Alex. Nice guy!
Since I had lost weight a lot, and my figure is changing (like with every woman my age, but somehow I always thought I would escape it), my old trousers and dresses are way too big. Now I wanted something tight and special. Anna found some great silk/cotton trousers (size 2, unbelievable) and matching knit shirt for me at Ralph Lauren, and I snatched a wool knit shirt at Marco Polo, plus some fitness top in bright red by Stella McCartney at Adidas. Everything but the red in my favourite colour: black. So unlike spring, somehow, but great! I only missed the black dress I need so badly. Looks like I'll have to some more shopping soon.
We had to be back by 2 pm, Anna told me. And I soon found out why: to get the book they had ordered for me. It's on Greece! What a nice idea!
In the evening, we went to my all time favourite greek tavern "Odyssia" in Bohnenviertel, for a big fat greek dinner with family and friends, Bettina, Heike, and Andreas. Tina couldn't make it, her health wasn't up to it. Hope she'll be better soon.
More flowers, and books, music, and a few gadgets to brighten up my days, including a feel-good-tea. How well they know me, those dear friends of many, many years!
We had a great evening, eating and chatting for hours, and when we left shortly before midnight, the staff gave me a birthday present, too. A nice bottle of greek wine. How very nice!
What more can you ask for in a birthday!

28th March 2009 - a special day

All over Europe, friends are taking actions this Saturday. Hundreds of thousands will march and meet to show they want our governments to put people first, not the big money. Berlin, London, Rome, to name just a few.
On April 2nd, G 20 will meet in London for their summit on the global financial crisis. And we are to show them where we want them to go: Towards a better world, with jobs for everybody, a better climate, justice, a world for everybody to live in.
I will not join them, neither in Berlin nor in Frankfurt, since it's my birthday. I'll have a day off with family and friends instead. For once, I'll have different priorities.

News from Marx and Engels

News from my favourite philosophers. Bettina sent them on to me today (she had got them by her son Lion), and I'm proud to share them with you. There had been a reading of their private correspondence on March 23rd (for the first time ever, and there won't be a follow-up), quite shocking to a few old school admirers, but exactly what everybody else expected from those two great friends. They're only human, aren't they? And so much so.
Harry Rowohlt and Gregor Gysi were the appropriate readers, Random House will publish the event in May. Well worth the 15 Euros you'd have to pay for the cd "Marx & Engels intim". I'm a tick sorry I was in Stuttgart when they read in Berlin.
Enjoy the video here.
By the way, there's a huge revival of reading Marx lately. His books are almost sold out in Germany. No wonder, he's giving the right answers to questions about global crisis of capitalism.

Switch your lights off on Saturday evening

March 28th is not only my birthday: this year it's the Day of "Earth Hour", too. Everybody is called to switch their lights off for an hour at 20:30 h, and with the people of this world call for action against global warming.
2,848 cities, towns and municipalities in 84 countries have already committed to "Vote Earth". None in Germany, sigh. But still, we can participate, even if our government doesn't. Join us!

Ten years ago

Today, I went to Vaihingen town hall to get my new identity card. This is my old one. I had to hand it in, so it might be destroyed. Sigh. I looked so much younger then. ;)

Sunday pleasures

After trying for months to watch french movie "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" in Berlin, I finally managed to in Vaihingen. The original version was shown at Corso theatre yesterday afternoon, so I was happy to go and enjoy it. A wonderful movie, the story was fun (even though on the serious topics of prejudice and stereotypes), and the actors and director Dany Boon had lots of fun, too. You can feel he loves his home region Nord-Pas-De-Calais, the country of the Ch'tis, where people have a different life and different language from the rest of France. No wonder it was a blockbuster in France. Have a glimpse here.
It's a lot better in french than any translation could be - you can't translate the dialect, can you. Hein, biloute?
That was a nice break from the tax work I had to do, and spent all afternoon and evening doing with the new software Alex had bought. But it seems it was well worth all the effort: the software calculated I had paid too much, and will get back almost 5000 Euros. Not bad at all. Now what to spend it on, hein?
P.S. Seems I turned into a ch'ti, as well. Hein, biloute?
P.P.S. Did you notice I wrote "hein" last Friday, two days before I even watched the movie? Dis donc!

Spring is here!

Flowers are blossoming in Berlin, birds are chirping, sun is shining early in the morning, waking me up by 6 am (and I don't even mind), and everybody in the streets is happy. The cafes on Berlin sidewalks are crowded with smiling people, soaking up the sun. Have a wonderful day, too!
Emil and I will be going to Stuttgart today, crossing the spring time landscape in the bright sun. How beautiful!
Oh, and "Happy Newroz"! Another day to say: Happy New Year, this time in Iran f.e.

Friday

The day to wear the bracelet I bought this week. I found it at Pia Fischer's showroom, Eisenacher Straße, when looking for a birthday present for Helen. I liked it that much, I got it for myself. And found something totally different for her.
More about Pia Fischer, the swiss designer living in Berlin, you'll find here. What a weird and wonderful idea to work with fashion waste to build fashion art. Great stuff, hein!

Evening out with friends

Seàn and Daphne are back from their vacations, travelling around Europe for a month to visit lots of Couchsurfing friends (Daphne) resp to the States to see family (Seàn). We decided to meet for an evening out to catch up on each other. First for a lovely dinner at Pinelli, a very special restaurant situated in S-train station Schöneberg, then on to "Slumdog Millionaire" at Odeon close by.
It was a wonderful evening!
You should go and watch the award winning movie, too. Even though critics disagree on its value (you'll find anything from best movie of the year to annoying and stupid), it's a movie that will soak you into its pictures and story. We all loved it!
No wonder, with Danny Boyle ("Trainspotting") the director and Simon Beaufoy ("The Full Monty") the writer!
Despite my cold, we had a close threesome goodbye hug, wished each other a very happy birthday (Daphne this Sunday, me next Saturday), and will meet again in April. For another evening out.

Pierre Loti and cats

It's been just over two years now that I first heard about french author Pierre Loti. My friends and hosts in Istanbul told me about him and visited his favourite place overlooking the Bosporus with me. Only this weekend did I by chance discover one of his books, "Jerusalem", which I finished reading yesterday.
Pierre Loti was a famous traveller and author of the fin-de-siecle, with lots of tristesse and chagrin, but well loved especially in France. I don't like his works much, but it was interesting to read his book on his seemingly endless travels in search for the meaning of life and true faith.
Today I found this painting of him done by Rousseau. He loved cats! That made me like him a lot better. Apropos cats: Anna sent me a video of her beloved cats Theo and Julchen, living with another family now. We're happy to see they're fine at their new home.

Can you guess?

Here's a painting showing a street in the country I'll be visiting this October. With Peter, my friend, and seven more, artists mostly. We'll enjoy the landscapes, beautiful beaches, the (but Gibraltar) southernmost cape in Europe, old temples, historic places, meet artists, trade unionists and politicians, feast on delicious food and wines in small taverns with the most lovely views onto the sun setting over the bright blue sea.
Now where would that be? If you don't know by now, check here for more details.

Memories of Andalucia

I found a most wonderful calendar last week and put it above the couch in my bedroom. First thing I see when getting into my flat. March is showing the Plaza de Toros in Puerto de Santa Maria. Ahhh, only three years ago I had been there! I remember it well! For now, it's memories only.
I can't even dream of travelling right now. Three more days, and then I'm allowed to work again, my doctor told me today. No after work theatre evening either, of course. I had been looking forward to Kaminski on air with my collegues at Deutsches Theater this Tuesday. Yeah, well, sigh.
Instead, after shopping food and lemons to last me a week, and in between hot steam baths and infrared lamps, I enjoy a good book (the Berlin-Istanbul-Trilogy by Emine Sevgi Özdamar), and start thinking of travelling again. Later this year.
Andalucia would be great to go to. But no, not this time. I was invited to join a trip to another corner of the world. Tomorrow I'll tell you where to...

Couch potatoe

Oh dear, another week has gone, and my cold took over on Thursday, again. So I stayed, not in bed, but at home, on my couch, wrapped up in blankets, with a purring cat on top.
When my headaches got better, and the throat aches were taken care of by sucking on sugar-free candies all the time, I truely enjoyed watching tv. They showed my favourite movie ever today: "Bringing up baby", starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. (Done in 1938, can you believe it?!) Just the right thing to watch on a grey Berlin not-yet-spring sunday afternoon.

Waiting for the new museum

Everybody seems to have been there today, queuing up to peep inside. The museum was open for the weekend to show off the great work they had done in restoration, and will close again until Ocotber, when it will reopen in all its splendour with Nofrete and more wonderful exhibitions. Read more about it here.
The pic only shows the end of the queue, which was five times as long as you can see here. It was freezing cold, and a light drizzle didn't help much. I was one of the crowd for more than an hour, and then gave up. Too late, though: I caught a cold. Again. Chicken soup with lemon is boiling already, I'm sipping hot peppermint tea, and restarted my anti-cold program from last month. Ah well!
Plus it's Women's Day today, and no carnation this year from nobody. Sigh.

Emil the blogger

Lazy week, this week. Lots of work at ver.di, of course, but in the evenings I stayed at home reading or watching tv. No galleries, no movies, no concerts, no pubs.
Emil loves it, and no surprise. But he does not like me to sit at the table with my laptop too much. He tries to meeow me off to the couch in the livingroom, so he can cuddle up beside me (or on my lap).
If looking at me from the floor besides the table doesn't help, he jumps onto the table to find out what keeps me at this weird tv. Finally today, he decided to try for himself. He jumped onto my lap, watched carefully, and then started typing. He finished by switching off the wlan. (Took me hours to find that out.)
I wonder what he meant to tell me - or us.

Another birthday

Happy birthday, Volker!
He's having a wonderful time in Allgäu, he told me. Anna and he changed plans, and instead of going to busy London, they chose lovely Hotel Eggensberger in the southgerman countryside close to Austria, all ecological food, great wellness opportunities, situated between a lake and the mountains. Just right to relax. They loved it!
I'm pondering about going there some time as well.
My gift? A very special calendar. As you can see for yourself in the pic!

50 today!

Congratulations and a very happy birthday, Thomy!
My brother-in-law is celebrating tonight, as per usual nobody was invited, and most probably more than 50 of his friends will come. Open house in Eller, like every year. Such a pity, we can't join them.
We sent a parcel with some books, of course, and as a very special gift we had created a cd with all the number 1 hits of the year in Germany since 1959. It's running most of the time at the party now, Thomy told me when I called him. They especially liked the hit from 1981: Ententanz. ;)

Soul Food

Black History Month Final-Party at Badenscher Hof yesterday. Great jazz, blues, and soul. I had to go and join the fun. Good girl: right decision.
I wonder why I have never been here before, though it's not even two miles and ten minutes by bus from my flat. A place to be more often, with nice people to meet and chat with, too.
And delicious food at moderate prizes as well. Mostly suebian (!), Maultaschen and the like. I had some lamb and green bean soup. Definitely soul food they offer you here. :)
During the day, I enjoyed the spring sun and walked for hours around my favourite streets and places. Shopping was quite successful, too: Apples and tulips from my favourite sellers, and some very low budget bargains at "Evelyn Brandt", a black tight skirt, rather sexy, and a black and brown striped shirt, 60 Euro for the two instead of 250. Not bad at all! I feel rather fit for fun now!