Blue... again

I don´t know what it is with the color blue since I moved to Brunswick.
Wherever I go I get items in blue and I don´t even like that color!

On Friday at Ingo´s place when we did our shopping we saw some cheap kitchen-timers. Since mine just broke down, I took one, opened the package and? Jep, how else, blue (Ingo bought a red one and we swapped :-) ...)

I need some comfortable shoes for our trip to Perth. Summer is over but the friendly staff at the outdoor-shop tried her best - I got the last pair of high-quality sandals that were available in my size. The last one - and - certainly in blue!



I finally put my profile online. One version with, the other without color. Though I love red the only color I thought fitted was... blue. I dunno, the rest looked too playful...
(I had it with a sunflower as a favicon but somehow gmx disabled it...) Comments on what´s good, what I can do better are welcome...

I remember the Magnifest (german), a festival in one part of town. There was a girl who carved rice graines. Ingo bought two for me, it was supposed to be a surprise, so I went on to some other stands. This is with what Ingo came up - he said to the woman it was for me, pointing at me and she thought the appropriate color was... blue.



The carpet in the first room I lived in here... blue.
The closet a colleague gave to me ... blue.
The first company car I got from another colleague ... blue.
Second ... blue.
Third ... blue.

I wonder if this stops if I moved to another town? I really don´t like that color!

Blue... is also how I feel today. Like all the other Mondays I am without my partner.

Maybe this is the reason and there is no such thing as coincidence here?

Vegemite

I never tried it but read about the rumour that the United States don´t import it anymore. At work we somehow got on that subject.
This morning my colleague said he googled a bit about the stuff and now is very "relieved" because he finally understands the line from Men at Work´s Song 'Down under': "I said, 'Do you speak my language?'. - He just smiled, and gave a vegemite sandwich." :-)
Frankly, I never stumbled over that line.
My colleague wants to get some vegemite at e-Bay; he can´t wait for me to bring it here in January, when I´m back from Perth. And he found this cute Vegemite-Song.

Hmmm. I´m curious how it tastes like. Rumours also say, tourists bring the stuff home only to shock the people in their home-country with it.

Hehe. We really look forward to get back to Perth. Ingo removed part of his old furniture, the new one hasn´t come yet. But I think I will feel good in his apartment anyhow - have a look, quite Aussie-like.

Happy Birthday!

I know my brother doesn´t read my blog, but anyhow, gotta say, I´m proud of my little brother - who even was ON TV (german) last year! He´s the one with the rifle.
My father built the rifle by himself. He and some friends founded the Sehusa Musketeers (german) 25 years ago, a very serious historical club. My brother is now second chairman, since our father passed away four years ago.

It´s a wonderful sunny and (for the season too) warm day. Indian summer, it´s so colorful, so beautiful. A nice day for a birthday!

Daylight Savings

This weekend we can sleep longer - we switch to winter-time. On TV people got interviewed and I nearly had to cry. "Nature does that". WHAT??? "Because the sun goes round the earth" - WHAT??? The interviewer even repeated that and the woman claimed, yes, that´s the reason and she had never heard the earth goes round the sun... And that´s been answers from grown-ups on the question of how it comes we can sleep one hour more. Apart from that heaps of people didn´t know if it´s one hour more or less. I only hope this wasn´t representative!
Good thing about winter: When the neighbours have gone to bed, I can sleep without ear protection - no birds in the yard anymore (though I´d prefer birds, ear-protection, warmth and long days full of sunlight...).

I won´t be in town and even if I was I probably wouldn´t go, but I think it´s a nice idea. PTB, our physical-technical Federal Institute on which the german time runs, invites to the long night of time (german) with events round the subject. They even got an award as "a place of ideas" *being proud* :-)

Shopping Tour

I "made" my Mom buy a DVD-recorder for my brothers´ birthday so he finally has one and I can buy him a ... well, DVD. "Shark Tale" it is (plus a subscription where he gets two DVDs each month via mail and can send them back, postage is included).
And then I got wild.
Jim Carrey in "Liarliar" (have only seen/heard the translated version) and "The Truman Show", Tom Hanks in "The Money Pit" - I just can laugh my head off and have never seen it in the original.
Queen: "Live in Japan 1985" and "Queen on Fire - Live at the bowl - 1982" - started that yesterday evening and nearly forgot to get to bed. A pity Freddie Mercury had to die so early. Really. He was so cute. Talking to the people, casually (with all the power he got!) sitting on the edge of the stage or playing the piano in such an enthusiastic way. What a genius! There are rare pictures and an interview as a bonus - can´t wait to see that.

And I bought some banana-curry- and some chili-chocolate. Expensive and small (hand-scooped and an "Organic and Fair"-product; they work together with FAIRTRADE, so the money is good invested), plus, I´m not a huge fan of choclate anyway, so the size is just right. The chili-one is really good! Hot! From zotter.

Nudely

Since two weeks, or two Mondays, we have a new ritual. Each takes a boiled egg to work. We always e-mail each other that we have arrived at work safely, but now we say on Mondays, ok let´s make the egg "nudely" and eat it. Both at the same time.
Somehow it makes the Monday less bad, it helps to know we are doing the same thing at the same time.

But the egg I just had now made me feel very lonely.

Sawdust

We did our weekend-shopping on Friday at Wal-Mart. We wanted to do roulades from savoy cabbage and Ingo said, "we need some sawdust" - I even understood that he meant breadcrumbs! :-)
They were so yummy and I still have one left! We made them with the leaves inside out so they looked like aliens.



Unfortunatedly my hall now smells from the savoy cabbage - and my clothes therefore, too. I really look foreward to have a real bedroom one day!

Funny word II: Later on the weekend Ingo suggested to go to Microfox. Well :-)

It´s still way too warm for the season; the weather this year is really weird.
And I miss Ingo, my stomach hurts.

Design model

Jury makes Brunswick a design model for Germany

There is an urbanistic contest on an experimental project for better living. Out of 140 competitors Brunswick won! The experiences made here are to be overtaken by other towns in the future.

It´s good to live in a town where you can be proud of.

Hehe. This article (german only) suggests that Christoph Columbus would never have reached America without the Brunswick Mumme. There is no counterevidence he didn´t have heaps of it on his trip, like many other seafaring men had. It could be possible - it´s documentarily mentioned first in 1390. The Mumme was exported to the Carribean as well. This beer had a very high nutritional value and it was durable over a long time.
See also my post Our Lion.



Now we even get a 1. Brunswick Mumme Mile.

The "Aussies"

... or the english-speaking countries in general? I made a request at greenfleet - an organisation I found out about on Natalija´s blog. You can register your (australian) car at greenfleet and they plant native trees for you / the emissions your car produces. I asked if they know of a similar organisation in other countries (No). If I had made that request to a german organisation the answer would have started like this:

"Dear Mrs. $name$,
..."
(Sehr geehrte Frau $Name$,...)

Here it was simply "Hi Iris,...."

I remember 1999 in Perth in the Kingsway Caravan Park. I needed to ckeck if the cd-rom with my diploma made it through the heat of the outback and the manager said, hey, check Lee´s place, he´s got a computer in his cabin. I adressed him with "Mr. Lee" and he laughed his head off... certainly.

Same as an architect I looked for a job at. He introduced himself as Tony, handed me his business card on the run and said, "call me".
I thought I cannot call in and say, "hey, I´d like to talk to Tony" and his real Name was rather complicated for me (how do you pronounce "Rechichi" properly if you are from another country and never heard that name?) I went through the caravan park and asked others and got so many versions of the name. Tony himself kept introducing himself as Tony and had a long talk with me; even said he probably can offer me a job ("luckily" this was too far in the future and I ended up in the IT-business).

Well. All I wanted to state here: I think it´s refreshing to adress people with their first name, even if you don´t know them. Here it is often seen as unrespectful, but I think that´s an old-fashioned kind of view.

Frolic

To improve my english I use OWAD - One Word A Day. Today I got frolic which means "to behave in a playful way" which I sure could guess. What other meaning could this word have, being the name of a producer of dog-food? :-)

Own Show

Steve Irwin's Daughter Bindi Filming Own Show. How does she cope with her fathers´ death so quickly?

Everybody knows

We stayed at Ingo´s place last weekend, in the village.
That means at the place where everybody knows everybody (nearly).

We bought some rather expensive meat. At the cashpoint I added some candy.

Which we seldom do; we both don´t like candy too much. Which seems to be known.
(And btw it wasn´t really candy but Cough Drops)

The cashier pressed "enter" and the price was seen. Ingo put this last article in the bag and said with a look onto the price, "this weekend we really treat ourselves".

The cashier-girl looked up at me, very astonished and said - "the candy????"

;-)

Where are we going?

The news are disturbing.
Parents mishandling their children, even to death, newsclick.de talks of a "national catastrophe" (all links in german only).
One main reason is the increasing poverty in Germany.
Along with that comes violence through rightist extremists - increased over 20% in comparison to last year.
Unemployment, a bad public health system and "little" local weirdness like the bus driver who got attacked by a junkie with a needle are confronting us. The junkie had no money for the bus, so the driver didn´t take him in. The junkie waited for him, rushed in, hit a needle with some unknown fluid in the drivers´ arm and said "welcome to the club". Everything is fine, no HIV or anything. But it is alarming.
And all the politicans do is fight against each other.

A lot of money

... and fun! The "Who´s gotta be a millionaire"-show was on again - really funny! "On what kind of calendar is our system based?" "Victorian". (No joker taken yet) - "Why do you think so?" - "Dunno". The show master tried to help - finally gave - "quietly" the answer and said, "ok - if you don´t know the answer to the next question immediatly, you have to take a joker! ;-)". The player knew. Immediatly.
"!!!!... Ok. You have to give the answer before any suggestions are made by the computer!..." - AND HE DID!!!!
The question was some brazilian-based sports-question - not an easy one!
He finally went away with a good amount of money...

Dream world

In the night ... ok - morning last Saturday (Ingo got up early but I stayed in bed) I dreamed very vividly. I was in Spain, with my Mom, at the sea. Suddenly there was lightning - 5 times a flash went into the woods. Though far away the fire came quickly towards us. A lift was involved, letters I couldn´t identify to use the lift (I knew them but couldn´t read them/make a sense) and I finally woke up, sitting straight in bed.
The air smelled burned.
In Germany you are allowed to burn garden-stuff on certain days and this obviously was one of them....

I remember once I dreamed of dead people - outside garbage was stinking...

The next night I was in Fremantle. Ingo dreamed he was in Perth and must have said something about it in his sleep. I took the theme, obviously.
Dream world is a strange place...

100

I saw this on Rodney´s blog, who is back from his holidays and I thought I join in. I did the red stuff and wondered about the green stuff. The pic is from stock.xchng - I searched for "100".



01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins - Monkey Mia - I stood in the sea watching them
03. Climbed a mountain - Flinders Ranges - was too knocked out even to eat afterwards
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid - I rode a camel instead!!! I was too young
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said "I love you" and meant it!
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game - if the German Bowl counts
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars - for 5 months
20. Changed a baby’s nappy
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope - My dad had one; it belongs to my mom now
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster - looong time ago
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day - Hamburg
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment - still do! :-)
39. Visited all 7 states and territories in Australia
40. Taken care of someone who was drunk
41. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
42. Watched wild whales
43. Stolen a sign
44. Backpacked in Europe
45. Taken a road-trip
46. Gone rock climbing
48. Midnight walk on the beach
49. Gone sky diving
50. Taken a train through Europe
51. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
52. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table, and had a meal with them
53. Milked a cow
54. Alphabetized your CDs
55. Sung karaoke
56. Lounged around in bed all day
57. Gone scuba diving
58. Kissed in the rain
59. Gone to a drive-in theatre
60. Started a business
61. Taken a martial arts class
62. Been in a movie
63. Crashed a party
64. Gone without food for 5 days
65. Gotten a tattoo
66. Got flowers for no reason
67. Performed on stage
68. Been to Las Vegas
69. Recorded music
70. Eaten shark
71. Buried one/both of your parents - My father
72. Been on a cruise ship
73. Spoken more than one language fluently
74. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
75. Walked the Sydney Harbour Bridge
76. Had plastic surgery
77. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived - my brother did - not just once! Scares me still
78. Wrote articles for a large publication
77. Lost over 50 kilo's
79. Piloted an airplane
80. Petted a stingray
81. Broken someone’s heart
82. Broken a bone
83. Eaten sushi - never again
84. Had your picture in the newspaper - as a kid
85. Parasailed
86. Skipped all your school reunions
87. Shaved your head
88. Caused a car accident
89. Pretended to be "sick" - again, as a kid
90.Surfed in the ocean
91. Saved someone's life Bro´s. He said without my help he´d very likely comitted suicide :-(
92. Fainted
93. Been in the room while someone is giving birth
94. Hitchhiked - On Fraser Island
95. Adopted a child
96. Been caught daydreaming
97. Been to Ayers Rock - just walking around it
98. Called off a wedding engagement
99. Donated your blood - easiest way to help
100. Become a follower of Jesus Christ

Freedom for Bubba!

What a cute story on Happy News!
A girl won a lobster in a grocery store. "Bubba" was doomed to death, but she helped to set him free at the Atlantic coast!



In fact that was the reason she took part in the raffle.

Traffic jam

As suddenly as Christmas pops into our lifes every year, the end of the year pops into the public authorities. "Dammit - we forgot to look if we should have repaired our roads! We didn´t spend money on that. If we don´t catch up, we don´t get the money next year." Something like that must go on in their heads - in all the towns.

Otherwise I can´t explain why there are construction sites everywhere now. At the same point of time. And for parts of roads that are in a good condition!



I was on the road this morning really early (06:15) and on the highway a traffic jam was already forming. So I need to find ways on rural roads.
Yeah. If they did this in summer it would be difficult enough. But you could at least see!

It´s completedly dark now in the morning. Plus: Very foggy. You hardly see where you are going on the route you know, you drive every working day! How am I supposed to read my notes, read the signs and see that I stick to the road in conditions like that??? And on rural roads the white side-strip that should help you find your way are often mostly grey from usage.

I took another route on Tuesday and ended up in a little village - via a recommended detour! - like heaps and heaps of others who tried the same. The main road was for about a kilometer a construction site, just one lane. Heaps and heaps (I´m working in my customers´ place, the not so small company Volkswagen!) want to get southwards and just few in the northerly direction. The traffic light-phases were exactly the same. How can that be??? It took me 45 minutes, just this little part!

40km one way and no possibility to take the train.

Constructions will be finished by the end of November (Probably. If not, I don´t care. I took December off, on the 4th we´re on the way to Perth :-) - I´m just sorry for my colleagues...).

Taunted

We are getting a sales tax next year of 3%. Oh, are we? In the news they showed us we already pay the higher tax if we don´t have a real close look on the products.
They even showed examples. Pringles, for example, usually comes in 200g-boxes. Now: Same size (!!!), same price, only 170g in there! So that´s 2% more right now. I call that defraud, cheating.
If the box was smaller, ok - stupid who doesn´t get it. But keeping the old size and writing very small 170g is intent.
And next year they say, look we have no advance in price, despite the higher sales tax.
Here is another article on the subject (german only).

Whom do they get with that? Old people who can´t follow anymore. And people who really don´t get it. I feel taunted, really.

Do you know how much is - or was last time - in the boxes your food comes in? It´s (for me) nearly impossible to tell if it has changed, if had fallen for it already!

In the EU sizes for staple food were regulated. Now we have less bureaucracy - and less consumer protection.

Reminds me of the time when the euro came. Products that did cost 1 german-Mark went up to 1 euro which would be 2 german-Mark. Ok, not that clumsy, they priced it with 89cent then.

I just refer to the movie Groundhog-Day, "do you have a Dejá-vu"?

My town... again

On Friday we saw a report on TV on a "new" method of house-building. A house made of straw. Plastered with clay. How fireproof can that be??? Well. They made tests. Guess where? Yep. In Brunswick :-)
Well, my town sure is known in Germany :-) Again. The City of Science 2007, or the "kitchen of ideas" as they say.
There are 35 houses made of straw-walls now throughout the country and they resist fire for 90 minutes. Felt temperatures are higher than in stone-built-houses and it sure is economical. At least it´s easy to get rid off the stuff if the next generation has different needs on how the building should be like.
My "Löwenstadt" :-)

Another millionaire

Yesterday the show "Who´s gotta be a millionaire" was on again. We saw the first part on Friday. A young man - younger than me! - went through the questions with no problem, with no joker.
No matter if the question was for the name of Britney Speares´ boyfriend or for the name of an ancient scroll in Israel (he was easier with the second question!)...
Yesterday he used all three jokers, made tough decisions - and won!

Well it´s still a million euros but compared to the 37-million-jackpot it looked rather like a small account.

He was sooo happy anyway :-) They called his wife at work and she, too, freaked out.

Bee sting-imagination

Summer is over now. Sadly I have to face this. I removed my dead sunflowers from the balcony last Thursday. I put them in plastic bags to bring them down to the bio-waste container. I grabbed the first bag and felt pain, not too much but enough to let go.
It was a bee that went with it´s last force into my ring-finger! I have never been stung by anything else but mosquitoes (and that a lot!).
I thought a bee-sting would hurt more. I ripped my hand out of the bag, the bee fell on the floor and after I saw what it is I managed to step onto the poor dying insect.
I was frightend a little, but ok.
On the weekend Ingo told me how a bee "stings". That the spine consists of two parts that "sew" themselves into the skin.
Yesterday (!!! It happened on Thursday!) my finger started swelling. I don´t know if I got the spine still in there, there is a dark line. Or did it swell just ´cause the thought of a spine sewing me is that gross?

Gross. Ugh. I remember. I was into flat sharing. I bought some gloves to do the washing up. Never did I have a wart and never since. But when I saw one of my roommates using my gloves, a wart emerged! Ugh!!! Yuck! Gloves to me are something personal! At least those plastic ones! And I didn´t like especially that roomate... I went to the doctor. She said, no problem, we ice it up, a one-minute-job. I was relieved. "It´s like you hit a stovepipe, a minor burning".

??? UGH! Immediately I felt cold. I asked if there was another way to remove the thing. Yes. Some ointment. Takes longer, sometimes doesn´t work. Ok, I want that! She wasn´t happy but gave me a request for the recipe. I had to wait at the counter. I felt dizzy. I told myself, "HEY! You get the ointment!" - Sweat started to run down my forehead. I saw stars - and a free chair. When the doctor saw me she realized I didn´t lie when I said the imagination of getting burned makes me feel sick...

Now. My finger is still thick and hurts a little and there is a dark "line" - imagination or the bee´s spine? Nothing serious. Friday I let my Mom have a look upon.
I just wonder - is it my imagination making my body react?

Tuberculosis

The news say today that tuberculosis is on its way through europe. I googled a bit and on cnn I found various articles over the years about the subject.
I never wasted a thought on that desease. We have nearly "african" standards on that subject here. A Euro TB comission that surveys tuberculosis in Europe exists. Unbelievable, I thought this desease is under control!
We´re fussing around with artifical viruses and then such an old "natural" one pops in like an old enemy, saying, hey, look out, I´m back!
Scary.

37 million Euros

The highest german Lotto-Jackpot of all times is cracked! A single person did it! If he got the money in 1-Euro-coins that would make 47 trucks full of them. Even knowing this fact makes it hard to realize how much money that is.

I wish I could be the winner (which is a big wish since I never take part in playing lotto).

Money doesn´t make one happy, is said. But... it wouldn´t make me sad if I had so much of it! I could help others and, well invested, make my dreams come true!

1. First I´d buy my apartment and the one of my stupid old neighbour and throw her out. And make one larger apartment out of it


2. I´d work only 3 days a week


3. After a short holiday, ´cause I´m really kind of worn out


4. I´d buy a house in Perth


5. I´d buy my old Nissan Patrol back!


6. I´d place Ingo in the car and we´d go for another trip throughout Australia. And there I would never take a cold shower again!


7. I´d buy little holiday-houses in Carnarvon, Broome and Darwin. With a shaded pool at each.


8. And I´d have the possibility to work my three days a week in either of those towns


9. I´d visit every Lions football game, at least those in Brunswick
   

Yep. What a life.

Chances are higher to get struck by lightning, I guess.

Can anyone tell me why blogger doesn´t accept unordered lists? Even styles are ignored. Ordered lists are shown correct...?

Nuclear weapons

I can´t believe that North Korea really tested nuclear weapons!
Where will this lead to?
Their people hunger and they put all the money in weapons... If there will be financial, trade and travel sanctions like Australia and the USA demand, the people are going to hunger even more. Or will they? The governments´ money doesn´t go to the people anyway.
The EU will continue to give humanitarian help. This is good but does it really help?

This is really frightening and crazy. Unnecessary and stupid. Dangerous.
The news call it "extreme provocation" and that the world is horrified.

But who knows where biological weapons are being developed. What a crazy world...

Lions got it done

It is done! For the fist time a german team won the German Bowl in his own town! Yay! For the fifth time "we" are the German Bowl Defender!
The article says, the most valuable player was Robert Flickinger, he is one of the trainer at my gym :-)

It was just great! Usually there are 7-9000 fans - on Saturday it was nearly 16000!

And I even liked the national anthem - they sung it in a soul-like manner.
The atmosphere was great despite the rain we had in the beginning. Despite the radio station playing music like "Give it up" when the Lions are on the field with their offence-Team (I will have to complain about that!). Despite the referees´ decisions against the Lions all the time.

Even Headcoach Kent Anderson said, the referees´ performance wasn´t worthy for a German Bowl. Both teams´ players were good, the fans were good and you should expect that from the referees, too.

And will you believe it - we trott over the place and end up right beside Elzie Anderson!!!

He hangs in my kitchen:



And came to see his former Team win the German Bowl!

Few people recognized him, but Ingo sure did:



He is sooo cute, I just loved to see him dance after he made Quarterback Sacks! Or doing the motor saw after the games!

Ingo made me go to the kids´s facepainting again and so we made clear again for which team we are there:



There are several ways to make a fool of yourself ;-):



Ingo just poses here. After a while I saw I´m the only grown-up with that crown on. Later on when the winner was clear others put the crown on again. Ha! Fake! Either you look like an idiot all the time or not at all, I´d say...

There was great fireworks:



Unfortunatedly this radio station who attends the Lions put the stage so far to the north we could hardly see the award ceremony. Why not put it in the middle, huh?
But, well. After all it was just great.

And this time I could stay in the stadion to listen to Queen with "We are the champions"!
Last year we had to leave our champions in Hannover due to Ingo´s inflamed tonsils. The doctor called it even life-threatening the next day! But this year we could enjoy!

Only sad thing to the weekend: My stupid neighbour. She called me names and I got so mad, I went down to the same level and yelled at her she should stop touching my window all the time (we attached some foil so we can look out but you can hardly see in. You have to get really near and that´s what she is doing. Just to check if I cleaned up...). There is another old woman in the house she called weird but now they made friends and nag on me. Ingo "made" me call the concierge - on a Sunday evening! I got really upset on the phone. I´m anxious to see what´ll happen. This is so much kindergarten! Everyone in the house is nice - apart from those two! And I hate to have to get past her to get into my (very nice) apartment.

Our Lion

On Wikipedia I found a long article about the Brunswick Lion (in german available only) - I´ve seen the copy heaps of times (due to pollution the original is in the museum), but I never realized he is so big! He is 1,78 m in height! Way taller than me. 2,79 m long and weighs 880 kg. He was probably made by a goldsmith and they even found gold in the lion's mane.

He reminded me of the statue in Goslar, and, yes! In Goslar is a duplicate! As well as in some other towns in Germany. Duke Henry the Lion had them placed everywhere he had his business done!

He was made in 1166 (the lion, not Henry ;-)...) and is the first bigger hollow casting northerly from the Alps since the ancient world (wow, I´m learning new words here! But I don´t think I´ll memorize them...).

He was first restored in 1616, 1812 he was saved from Napoleons´ occupying forces and during World War II they saved the lion by hiding him in Goslar - what a (hi)story!



There is another article on the Brunswick castle that got hit by 40 bombs in World War II. The brunswick people had five years to decide what to do - rebuild it or tear it down. Most wanted the first but with only two votes they started tearing it down and took away an important part of the town, a part of the peoples´ identity.
There was a park ever since, a really nice place to go. In May 2005 they cut down all the trees. They rebuild the castle now. It costs a lot of money and to most people it´s "meaningless" - we grew up with a beautiful park that is gone now! It will become a shopping mall - right beside the city. What about all the smaller shops, what about the city; will it die?
It was again a very narrow voting rate that made the start of this project possible and heaps of protest was there, again, too.

This lion sits on the wall of another rebuild building. World War II hit Brunswick hard due to its industry. But these people always stood up again!



Small as the town is (245.000 residents) it has some really funny products, like the Brunswick Mumme, a beer that was exported even to India and in the Caribbean in the Middle Ages. Other towns tried to copy it but never succeeded. There is lyrics and even a song upon it! In 1736 it was decided to make this beer without alcohol and its popularity went down. Today you get it only here. From being export-article number 1 it went down to a souvenir "for exile Brunswick people and tourists".. and this article suggests, this happend just because it´s nonalcoholic now. I think it´s the taste. Too sweet.



Yep. I sure love my town. I even buy books on it. I never had much interest in the town I grew up in, though.

But here nice things happen all the time. Once I was in my mothers´ car (number plate from another town), having the town map on my knees. A woman knocked at the window and asked if I needed help!

In the town I studied in it was very different! For christmas time they always had the slogan "the friendly people of Hildesheim" - they were needed to be reminded to be friendly!!!
Yeah. This may be a reason I honor my town´s friendliness so much! :-)

Hippokrates

We´re going to rent a car in Australia. As I mentioned earlier (in the September-post Addendum (no deep-linking in blogger-archives)) I´m not good in parking a car. Well, there I won´t have to! Another bet I won.

We went to the greek restaurant, Hippokrates, and I ordered a childs´ serving - again, or: for the second time. I couldn´t eat it up, again (or for the second time) and Ingo stated this had been the third time.

We bet on it and due to my blog I could prove I´m right.

So. If we have to park the car in the city or someplace else where it´s difficult and I am the driver, we´re gonna change places. (Despite the old rule of our Australia-travels, the one who drives, drives, no matter what - which we broke up only once).

Ah. What a great Monday. Tomorrow is the day of german reunion (public holiday) and I got a bridge day - we´re together - on a Monday! (as soon as I finish blogging) - :-)

Autumn

... has arrived today. It´s grey, windy, cold.
Believe it, these pics were taken this weekend!



Isn´t the bread as happy as Ingo? Too cute!

And here - cool colors from yesterday evening!



I´m glad today is a bridge day. Makes the loss of summer a little easier. I´m going to visit my family now; Ingo is working. At lunchtime we see each other again and pretend it´s Saturday :-)

Humor

We went to visit Ingo´s Grandma on Saturday. His parents were there, too. After feeling odd a little we did catch up. Ingo´s Grandma realized she had forgotten Ingo´s birthday and she was very upset. Ingo told her it´s ok, I told her I myself had forgotten Ingo´s birthday, too, once.
His father went on in a different way...
"You can get away from this only in a financal way..."
and
"Now, this really tops everything! If he was two years old, ok, you might have forgotten, ´cause it´s new. But he is over 40 now! You may forget stuff like this when you´re 90!"

He thought it was funny but I don´t know if the Grandma really got that. As usual he didn´t smile to the words; a very dry humor, as always.
Man, inside I laughed my head off, but the poor Grandma was really very down...