Island life.

One of my ex boyfriends is moving to Canada. In a way this is neither here nor there; we are long done and over with so I don’t really care where he lives, but I’m happy if he is happy. In general I do think it is a good idea for ex boyfriends* to move far away though. It should become an official break-up rule. Especially the ones that only recently became an ex and you realize that out of sight doesn’t immediately mean out of mind. I for once would like to bring some more distance between us to be on the safe side. The kind where you don’t need to wonder about running into him at the groceries in the standard scenario of – you un-showered, sweat pants, out to buy PMS chocolates and rent a sad movie – he with someone gorgeous, who looks like she has never even heard of PMS.
Of course I’m painting a worst case picture, but we all know it can happen just too easily. You can even avoid all familiar territory, but it’s still easy enough to just to run into an ex at a gallery opening, realizing you have common interests you never knew of, and choke on the olive in your martini. In my case this is unlikely as I don’t drink martinis anymore since I broke the martini rule – different story for a different time – and got sick, but you get my point. Murphy’s Law is having a field trip with running-into-your-ex-in-inconvenient-moments incidences. I once worked a promotion in Cologne for an audio book fair. We had to do a variety of activities wearing oversized Styrofoam headphones to show you can listen to audio books anytime. I got lucky and had to just lie on a couch in the middle of a busy shopping street. It was embarrassing enough I thought, but then I saw another girl who had to work out on a stepmaster with her headphones. Later she told us that on top of it all, her ex passed by with his new girlfriend.
In order to avoid any of these scenarios I wish ex’es would just move away. One could even make a television show, call it X-ile^© and fly a whole bunch to a deserted island in the Pacific, where they can do no more harm. I don’t even mind if they get a nice trip and a better life out of it, as long as I can have my town back to myself. I also think it would make for a fun show, as long as you are watching someone else’s ex, so I think the ratings would be good too. It may just make for better television and a better world in general.
Island show or just moving to another place will also give the ex’es in question the chance to redeem themselves a bit by showing such courtesy and consideration. Depending on the degree they have hurt you (or just annoyed you in case you were the one breaking up) they must either cross one boarder, a continent, one or two oceans.

In case you are an ex boyfriend of someone and don’t care about being considered, just remember, karma is a bitch...

In case you wonder...I’m not sure what brought up this surge of cynicism on my side as I haven’t had any recent run-ins like the above. I guess the idea of it is enough to drive me a bit crazy right now.
I shall be off now, island scouting. And no, not to see if they are suitable for any ex boyfriends, but suitable for my Dad and my annual Christmas trip!

*I would also out of personal interest very much like to include what I like to call ‘unsuccessful love interests’ in this group. They should in fact put an ocean between me and them.

No sweet sixteen.

My friend Johanna has a wonderful pearl of wisdom about aging. She says you don’t realize that you are not 16 anymore while dancing the night away, but only upon waking up the next morning. She certainly has a point and I have proven it over and over again since out of my teens. Yesterday I did realize the upside of not being 16 anymore though. The hangover might be more severe, but now I can cure it with pizza and pinot noir at Massimo’s Sunday lunch and crawl back to back afterwards without anyone berating me. These are the moments when I love being a grown up.

The night which brought along this hangover started innocently enough at a friend of a friend’s house party. The host, a recovering alcoholic, welcomed us and told us where to find drinks. With a laugh she said, we shouldn’t expect tequila, making me think some beer or wine would at least be on offer (My definition of drinks contains alcohol, everything else should be called liquids.) No such luck, I got handed a bottle of sparkling pomegranate juice. The party wore on sober, but entertaining enough, though after a few hours of sitting in the cold with neither drinks nor smokes (It has been a week, thank you very much!) Thekla and I decided it was time to sneak out for a glass. We put on our most innocent faces to pull a quick ‘girls sneaking out of boarding school’ stunt and quietly slipped out of the door only to realize outside that our car was parked in. Stuck on top of a road on top of Highlevel Road we discussed options:

A) Go back inside and skip the drink.

B) Go back inside, trying to find the driver of the other car, potentially having the host find out and insulting her with our intended escape.

C) Walk and freeze as for the first time ever I wasn’t wearing a scarf (Why is another story. Ask my mother.)

Of course option C was the only real option for us and we fully admit we may just have a problem, especially considering that we ended up at The Spur for our red wine and tequila. It was loveliness on a fake cow hide bench. But as Thekla was predicting - at least I got a story out of it.

Back to school special.

I seem to be having a bloggers block since being on holiday. Argh. So, now I’m trying my hardest to get over it. Tell me if you get bored, but in the meanwhile I will give you another list to get myself going.

I am back home. Very happily so. Home as in Cape Town. Sorry, my German friends, but that’s just how it is. Nevertheless my trip was great. Even the things that weren’t great were in hindsight at least entertaining. As a holiday recap – highlights from great to worst:

Good:
Drinking champagne with Julia in the dingiest dive bar/burger place in Berlin. Her logic for ordering the wrongest drink for a place like this? It was my last night...well, she had a point and it actually felt very right.


Julia with dog from hell.

My & Elvis.

 Better:
Having the complete season 4 of Gossip Girl for the train rides.*

Best:
My Dad and I slurping our test tube soup with a straw in a 1-star restaurant. Loads of fun, which I highly recommend, just don’t try it at home as you will need an audience as in people at the table next you to stare for best slurp results.**

Bad:
My mother stabbing her toe on my suitcase so she wouldn’t have to walk up the Drachenfels. Obviously not great, but to think that she would sabotage her own toe so she wouldn’t have to walk is quite bad ass. We couldn’t take a donkey either; since her trip to Greece she feels bad for them because she saw too many ‘pale, fat German ladies riding poor little donkeys’ there.

Worse:
Stomach bug, followed by sore throat, followed by stiff neck and shoulder and no Enmasse or boyfriend in sight.

Worst:
Standing under a chestnut tree in a storm is not a good idea. I learned that the hard way of course.

Obviously there were many more highlights and non-highlights. I must say though, coming back and unpacking the day I arrived was the best part and very unheard of for me.

*Yes, I am worried about the frequency of my Gossip Girl mentions too.
**No picture of the slurpy soup. As per usual I left my camera at home. Bad photographer, bad!

Nesthäkchen is home.

I'm on my final tour stop - Bad Hersfeld, my home town, with my Dad. The weather continues to be crappy and very Aprily and I have given up to look for sunshine. I should have known better when my Dad tried to get me out of bed this morning by saying 'look, the sun is out'. Of course it wasn't. Mean trick... Regardless I really don't care anymore, we are just having a nice time in the rain.
He already announced when I had just arrived that he just really wants to spoil me. And he does. Tonight we are going to the opera premiere and tomorrow we have fancy dinner at a restaurant with a star, which miraculously survived in our town.
Other signs of daddy's little girl being home:

Morels were already soaking upon my arrival.

First dinner.

Welcome home sign and bottles of bubbly in my room.

Berlin without words.

I will let the pictures do the (most) of the taking - things I liked about Berlin:

Royal breakfast from the self-proclaimed breakfast queen Julia. 

 Drink of the summer, Aparol Spritz, in mini desert format.

 In one word: awesome.

Trucker food in most places, hot stuff in Berlin - Currywurst.

 I wonder if someone really tried for them to put up the sign.

 The grass is always greener on the other table.

 Made me feel like home.

 Don't ask. Just your average ghost/jellyfish lamp.

Oversized chocolate piggy. Yum.

 Only now I know that I really want a white plastic Bambi.

I had to include at least one historic building picture - Berlin Dome.