Schiller’s Birthplace the pope and the Middle Ages in Germany

Sounds funny? But all just happened this weekend! First of all Ben’s parents came to visit. Mainly to escape the pope in Freiburg, but also of course to see their son and their beloved daughter-in-law. So of course we wrecked our brains what to do and where to take them. There is an abundance of places to visit around here, so we had to make our choices very carefully. First of all, of course we had to plan a walk, because Melba, their pretty white and peach dog, would have to walk for a bit after the drive. So we went into the vineyards around Großbottwar. They are especially pretty at this time of year, with the harvest just staring. We made our way to the Winzerhäusle on the Harzberg and there enjoyed the sunshine and the beautiful view across parts of Bottwartal. For Dinner we went to a restaurant in a fortress where we had great duck and venison. For a closer look:

http://www.burg-beilstein.de/

Then on sunday we had a late breakfast and afterwards went to see Friedrich Schiller’s Birthplace in Marbach am Neckar:

http://www.schillerstadt-marbach.de/

Marbach is a very picturesque little town, with lots of old fashioned alleys, pretty colourful houses, plenty of flowers and nice cafes. You can walk on parts of the city wall and have a nice view around. There is also a museum in one of the gate towers. And then of course there is the house Schiller was born in. You can see the tiny room and the kitchen the Schiller family called their apartment, and also a lock of Schiller’s hair, his baptism cap and a baby suit. Also his mum’s spinning wheel and hand spun and woven linen, which very much pleased the crafty person in me and reminded me, that I always wanted to learn how to spin.

At the same time there was a renaissance fair in Großbottwar, where we learned about different methods of punishment, and realized while it sounded rather minor punishment to have your fingers smashed by a thumbscrew, it could still me that you were faced with starvation as you were no longer able to work properly….subtle ways to punish people in the Middle Ages! We also bought a felted ring for Ben’s mum and a cherry-elderberry wine called “Drachenglut” for his dad.

So this weekend we managed to successfully avoid the pope (despite the fact that Ben’s parents made us a present of two “Ratzefummel”) see Schiller’s Birthplace and dive into the Middle Ages….we also went for a walk in Ludwigsburg.

We were pretty exhausted afterwards, but it was all worth it!

Autumn

Autumn simply has the most brilliant colours of the whole year! I would possibly declare it my favourite time of year, but really there is something I love about all seasons.

This morning when we got up there was fog everywhere and we could not see much further than our windows. This is when it struck me that it is indeed autumn again. And to get me in the mood for it, I would like to share some pictures that I took last year:

entrance

This is the entrance to a most magical place which we called “the valley” just a few steps from our appartement in Orsingen. This is really the place we miss most!

bench in “the valley”

The most picturesque bench in “the valley” especially pretty with autumn decoration!

colourful forest

Pretty view from the valley. The leaves are already a little coloured.

a walk in the woods

Plenty of leaves on the floor now!

leafless beauty

No more leaves on this one!

colours

But the forest is even more colourful now!

entrance again

And even more magical!

trees

and the light is so pretty!

sun

And now some pictures I only took a couple of days ago. They show a sunset over our new town, which is in fact very old, and I hope you will enjoy the colours as well as the medieval houses in the pictures:

sunset over Großbottwar

sunset

sunset

These pictures have been taken from our roof window. I think sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words! I hope you’ll all enjoy autumn!

Turning Thirty

While this is a title of an entertaining novel by Mike Gayle, it as a matter of fact, very truthfully happened to me only just recently: I chose that my thirtieth birthday was supposed to be a dignified affair. So me and my new husband got up really early on a Saturday morning and he presented me with this lovely homemade chocolate cake

Birthday Cake

After consuming quite a bit of it, we packed our stuff and got ourselves into my shiny, tiny red car and got on the road. We never stopped until we arrived at

http://www.tripsdrill.de/

Yes, this is an adventure park! And even more so it is a very particular adventure park, very particular that is to the area of Germany , I was born in. The Bundesland Baden Württemberg, and particularly the Württemberg part goes by the Motto “schaffa, schaffa, Häusle baua” which roughly but less poetically translates as “work, work, build a house”. Schwaben are said to be stingy and industrious. Everybody who has met me knows that the first part is utter bullsh** while the latter part is absolutely true. But to return to the park: it very clearly and with little subtlety demonstrates the suabian industriousness. Here you can go down a river in washtubs (Waschzuberrafting), or if you prefer a steeper fall in Bathtubs with shower heads. All the way to the attractions you’ll learn about more than a century of laundry equipment. You can go on a rollercoaster that is called “gsengte Sau”, probably a tribute to the local (fast) car industry, you can taste local wine, or go down the “Donnerbalken” which is a dialect term for the loo, hahaha. So, you can clearly see, turning thirty has not only made me older, but wiser and so much more sophisticated!

The great think about the day is, that the day of my birthday way the second to last day the park was open, there were hardly any visitors and you could pass by all the signs saying, “at this point you wait 45 minutes” etc. and basically just run up to the various activities. Of course this makes you notice more, how long the ways really are, but not having to wait in a queue makes it a lot more fun.

In addition to the fun park, there is also an animal reservations with deer, wild boars, horses, wolves and bears and a lot of birds. This is where we concluded the day, walked around with and fed the animals and had some nice mulled wine. some pictures:

Ben feeding a goat

Ben feeding boars

snow owl...Harry Potter says hello

cute racoon

Ben feeding big animals (yaks?)

Ben feeding Bambi

All in all I must say, I really enjoyed turning thirty and the way we celebrated it. I am even thinking of doing it again this year. Now we literally live around the corner from the park as well, so we might. Or do you think I am getting to old for this sort of fun now?

Getting Married

Right. so, as promised, here it is, my brand new blog with more varied detail about my life:

At the end of March 2010 I returned to Germany, following my fiancé to lovely Lake Constance where he had found a job in his prefered career as a radio journalist. I found a lovely flat on the internet, he checked it out, applied for it and got it. So when I arrived there, we had this nice place to stay, but it took our belongings five days longer to arrive. So all we had till then were some garden furniture and mattresses. But who cares, after 3 months apart we were finally together again. Never to be separated more in our whole life. At least that’s what we thought. I had also found a new job via the internet, applied online, had a telephone interview and got it. I Started on March 28, I day after I arrived. So no rest for the wicked and now time to be bored for me. Maya, our Scottish cat came with us to Germany of course. It was a nightmare to find a flight where I could take her in the cabin, as I did not want to send her cargo, as she is so easily scared, poor little thing. In fact she was less scared by the flight, than by all the people at the airport. People commented on her being so quiet, and I just told them, she is probably so scared that she’d rather not move or be seen. She managed the flight really well only miaoed once at take off and then she was quiet, sitting in her box on my lap. I assume my presence soothed her after all. What followed was a loooooong ride home on the car. I don’t think she did like it all that much, but we were now all reunited and happy. When we arrived at Lake Constance another problem came up. Maya was used to the cheep home brand Saintsbury’s cat food only, and she wouldn’t eat anything else. I had only brought a couple of bags however and had to find a suitable substitute. She would of course not touch any of the branded stuff, nice little economy cat that she was. So I went around all the discount stores buying their home brands . After 3 days of having eaten nothing, I got really scared and then finally I struck gold. Maya ate one of the low price things that vaguely smells like Saintsbury’s and life was good again;-)

I arranged one more thing on the internet. And that was us getting married. Now to all the none-Germans this might sound strange, but in Germany a marriage is only legal (or at least used to be, I thing things have changed now in this respect) if the wedding takes place at the registry office. So I arranged everything well in advance, from Scotland. And once I was back in Germany I just had to go there, sign everythin and we were on. May 22, 2010 was the date we set, it was the whitsun weekend of this year. May turned out to be a really bad month weather-wise, and I got slightly panicked, since I had bought a dress (yes on the internet!) with only spaghetti straps, and I hadn’t really thought of the possibility of there being no sun at the day, so I didn’t have a scarf or anything to supplement it. But all worries were unnecessary since the day turned out to be the most beautiful of the month, and all was well. The next scare was that 15 minutes prior to the wedding my parents and brother were not there yet. Turns out they mixed up times and thought it was supposed to be an hour later. The arrived 5 minutes in advance, got changed, and yet again, all was well. From then on everything went as planned, we both said yes, and now we have been married for more than a year already. How time flies!!!!

That’s the wedding cake I made for the occasion. Topped with these lovely lego wedding toppers I surprised Ben with. Well everybody really liked them, and I thought that was really something different for once. In the afternoon we had finger food and cake at our place, and we all had great fun. Sparkling wine flowed freely…

That’s another cake and some scones I made. Not quite suitable for the weather. But then again we couldn’t expect it to be the way it turned out to be after all. And it looked lovely nonetheless.

Our place with lots of food….and sparkling wine (mind the background!)

The happy couple

We had dinner in a place called “zum alten Schlawiener”, so the boozing and feasting continued, mind, there was only ten of us, but we ate and drank for at least 25 well most likely this is only to happen once, so we had to make the most of it;-)

Welcome

G’day Folks!

Since I am no longer located in Glasgow, I have decided to give my blog a makeover. It is now prettier than ever;-)

It will also be more general in contents and nature, i.e, it will not be as study focused as it used to be but instead it will cover all aspects of my life. And just because I am no longer living in Glasgow it does not mean that life has suddenly become less exciting, dangerous, full of adventures or boring, brooding and depressing. I hope everybody will enjoy what they read, comment on whatever they like or don’t like, keep in touch and join me in sadness as well as happiness. I will also try to keep this updated on a more regular basis. I know I wasn’t a very good girl in this respect before. I also will have some catching up to do, so there’s something to look forward to….