Touch Gloves

Using my iPhone during the winter months usually meant taking off my gloves and typing with cold and shaky fingers (no fun!) and all the iPhone-friendly gloves I've seen so far were mostly boring black ones.
But now! TA-DAA

echo design

 echo design does not only sell colorful gloves with which you can use your iPhone or iPad, but also scarves, clothes and beeaaauutiful stuff for your home. Sadly, they do not ship to Germany, but I was able to order a pair of gloves via fab.de. Yay Can't wait to use them.

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Tuesday Tune: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

This song got stuck in my head for the past few days:

40 Day Dream by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
Beautiful :)

My

Autumn in Germany

Pretty colors, nice pictures. Just enjoy them. This is autumn in Germany.

Yummy! Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Perfect for ghastly fall-weather: warm apple-cinnamon muffins.
I used a recipe for normal muffin dough and added half of a grated apple, apple juice and cinnamon. I can't really remember how much cinnamon I used, I just tasted the dough a couple of times. Same goes for the apple juice.
So my modified recipe is this:

• 260 g flour
• 180 g sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 280 ml milk (I used a little less milk because of the apple juice)
• 120g margarine
• 2 eggs
• 1 apple (grate one half and slice the other one)
• cinnamon
• unfiltered apple juice

Preheat your oven (200°). Mix the liquid and the solid ingredients separately, after that put them together. Add the grated apple, apple juice, cinnamon and stir everything. Fill the dough into the muffin cups and put two to three slices of apple on top and add a dash on cinnamon. Put them into the oven for about 20-30 minutes.

Tuesday Tune

Today I present you a girl band from Sweden! They are playing this wednesday in Mannheim (Germany). Maybe I'll go and see them.

This is not a pop band! It's a real metal band! Metal from Sweden! Yeah!

CRUCIFIED BARBARA are Ida Eveleye (Bass), Mia Coldheart (lead vocal, lead guitar), Klara Force (guitar, backing vocals) and Nicki Wicked (drums, backing vocals).

Click here to watch them!

Crucified Barbara

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http://crucifiedbarbara.com/

Christina

Oh my deer!

I was looking through my pictures when I found this pretty video! It was made by me in the palatinate forest in the wild life park of Silz. 

Christina

Raclette!

Last weekend we had a Raclette-Dinner!
Raclette is typical swiss dinner. You melt a side of a big piece of cheese and scrap it off on your dish. Then you eat the cheese with bread and vegetables. "Raclette" is from the french word "racler" and means to scrap something.

We love raclette but we make it a bit different. In Germany you can buy a little oven for the table with little eight till twelve pans and wooden scrapers. You can slide the pans into the oven and there is a heating element cooking your food and roasting stuff on the top plates.

The raclette is a very simple and creative dish. You can take everything you want in your pan and put some high fat cheese on top. Then you have to wait a few minutes and there comes out a wonderful dish out of the small oven!

My family used to have the raclette on New Years Eve and my sister and I also wanted it for christmas because we love it so much!

My cat smelling the grilled bacon and cheese...hihi

It's nice to have this dinner in the winter time when it's getting colder because when the oven is on the table cooking and roasting it get's soon very warm and cosy!

Here I have the wikipedia link in english and here in german if you want some more information.

Christina 

tuesday tune: Doves/There goes the fear

  

http://vimeo.com/7844355

A looong long time ago when we still had good music television (meaning at least semi-good music all night long) and I was still young and able to stay up all night, my tired eyes saw this gem of music video. I was mesmerized (and tired).  It's not only the song which is really awesome, but the collage-like video really got me. So while browsing through my iTunes library yesterday I rediscovered Doves and realized that I only own The Last Broadcast from 2005 and neeeed to check out their newer albums.

Use the vimeo link above to watch the video in full-screen.

My

urban aviary

Last week I treated myself with a little gift, einfach so. I discovered Urban Aviary through eu.fab.com/ and fell in looove with the raw design. So I ordered this:

 

It came in a nice little box and the necklace itself is in very good in quality, so it is absolutely worth the money. What I really like is that their products are hand-made and eco-friendly and as a plus they give 10% of the proceeds to charity.

Go check out their shop for more beautiful pieces!

My

German Reunification

Today is the 22th birthday of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Since a couple of years I'm wondering why we Germans do not celebrate such a day as much as other countries do. Well I guess it's still because of our history. 
But: We Germans should be more proud because we reunified the country in peace!

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So what happens at the 3rd of october in Germany?
It's an official holiday. There are flags in front of the civil services, agencies and other offices. On TV you can see several shows about the topic.

What does not happen at the 3rd of october?
We're not having dinner with the family just to celebrate reunification.
We are not decorating our homes in the colors of our flag and we don't have fireworks all over the country. Maybe just in the bigger cities.

Isn't that sad?! I think from now on I will have a big party on the 3rd of october! Why not also baking pies in the flag colors, decorating the home, having fireworks, wearing clothes and make up in black red and gold?

For more information in english click here, in german click here.

I wish you all Happy Reunification Day!
Christina

Tuesday Tune: Tame Impala

Yup, it's that time of the week again. Today, I would like to share an awesome band from Perth, Western Australia, which I found via Discovr Music (get it here).

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"Tame Impala make psychedelic hypno-groove melodic rock music. It's intended for moving one's body to, and it's intended for keeping still and observing other forms of movement. It's bombastic but it's swirling, think of the shoulder bones of a giant striding feline creature through some kind of tunnel. If Tame Impala's music reminds you of what you'd want to put on when you next visit your mind's engine room then they're happy. If not, whatever, it's just music. Put it on when the sun next shines. Basically it's all about the feeling." (http://www.tameimpala.com/about) 

This description is absolutely accurate and incredible :) see for yourself

 

Their second album Lonerism will be released at the beginning of October (can't wait). More infos and pre-order here.

My 

I heart kitsch

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Oh yes I do! And I'm not ashamed to admit it :)

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things I found at home

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Quiche

I visited my parents today. My mother asked me to modify her t-shirt so I packed my whole stuff for sewing. 
She cooked a quiche and we drank "Federweißer" something between grape juice and white wine. It was a very delicious dinner.

There are other names for "Federweißer". It's also called "Bitzler" or "Neuer Wein" (new wine) and a lot more different names depending on where you are. You can read more here.
You can buy the new wine in bottles or -like we did- in a plastic canister. 
A quiche isn't quite a german dish but is close to the traditional onion cake you can buy/cook in autumn. So Federweißer and Zwiebelkuchen (onion cake) belongs together. 

Christina

The Red Dress

Today I was up for sewing! A friend gave me her ruined dress. Her washing machine wanted to eat her red dress and she asked me if I could save it. So here the rehab in pics:

My friend is really tall. I hope she will still fit in this...

Christina

Wurstmarkt

Last weekend Chris, two friends of ours and I went to the Wurstmarkt in Bad Dürkheim (fun times!). A must for us since we come from a wine-growing area. The Wurstmarkt or Worschdmarkt (which basically translates to sausage market/fair :) is actually the world's largest wine festival (at least that's what they state on their web page.) It takes place every year around the 2nd and 3rd weekend in September and it really became a tradition for us to go there (my parents used to take me there since I've been a little kiddy).

Chris and I enjoying our Weinschorle

Of course, the most important thing at a wine festival is .. yep, the wine. The main part of the Wurstmarkt, and the part where you get the good stuff (wine), are the so-called Schubkärchler, which comes from the german word for hand-barrow. In this part there are 36 tents where different vine dressers from our region sell their wine. You can decide if you want your wine pure or as spritzer. If you go for the spritzer, you get a 0,5 liter glass filled with three quarters wine and one quarter water. The special glasses are called Dubbeglas, because they have spots on them. Tradition has it that butchers from Bad Dürkheim invented the Dubbeglas in order to get a better grip on them, because normal smooth glasses would slip easily out of their greasy hands.

caramelized almonds, yummy!

 Aside from the (very good) wine you get at the Wurstmarkt there is also food food food! You get all the good stuff from sweet to spicy. And of course Wurst, all kinds of Bratwurst (even a half-a-meter Bratwurst!). In addition to that you find a whole lot of typical food from the Rhineland area where we're from. 

Lebkuchen hearts, ham sandwich, cotton candy and Brezel

All in all we had a super fun time, although it was crammed with people, Chris even got to talk to some nice Americans. Looking forward to next year.
And now, have some more picuters:

top right corner: The Dürkheimer Riesenfass, the biggest wine barrel in the world (what a coincidence). There's no wine inside, but a whole restaurant

My

Postcards 3

Today I received four awesome postcards! So I thought I should show you all the new ones from today and last week:

Christina

Squirrel!!!

Just a few moments ago I heard our squirrel (it lives in our garden) squeaking. I had to look what's going!

Our cat was sitting under the elder looking up to the little fella! So here are some pics:

Christina