Freshly baked

Mar 17, 2007 ~ filed under: Delicious & English & Visuelles ~ 2 comments »

…this weird looking white bread.

I made it with my bread bake machine. A simple white bread, because I didn’t have many ingredients…
but I wonder why the top moved inside…and why it looks so…artificial…white. It is not supposed to be a Ciabatta (italian white bread).

*identity crisis

Nochmal für alle: was ist ein Blog?

~ filed under: Blog & Deutsch & Well-informed ~ 1 comment »

Na Folgendes:

Blogs sind Sachen, die man der Welt mitteilen möchte, die einen aber überhaupt nicht interessieren… für wichtige Sachen hat man eine Diplomarbeit oder Dissertation. Das sind zwar auch Sachen, die keinen interessieren, die klingen aber wichtig.

Allet klar? =)
Dieses Fundstück brachte mich gerade doch sehr zum Schmunzlen.

(via)

*identity crisis

Home Habits

~ filed under: A-life & English ~ 0 comments »

Yesterday I did garden work for a few hours. In my front garden grows an old (huge) oak and in my absence my dad let it cut. It is much smaller now, the top is kind of skinny. A lot of little branches covered the whole ground of the front garden. I saw that my dad was too busy to remove them and clean up. So, I raked and raked and raked, until I rubbed the area between my thumb and my forefinger raw. I was bleeding and it already was rubbed on the wooden handle. I didn’t even notice it before. My dad made a comment that I am obviously not used to such a work anymore…because I had some lazy months in Santa Fe. Pah! It even motived me to show how strong I am. I removed weed that grew between the stone tiles and helped my dad loading his trailer full with the branches. At least it was sunny and warm what can really motivate to do garden work. But I can tell you, that I was happy when we finished for the day with having a coffee together. I thought, there is so much work when you have a house with quite a lot of grass areas and a garden. There is always something to do. You always need to keep it tidy, otherwise you live in a jungle soon. I am happy to be able to live in such a nice place, so I won’t complain.

Well, what else do you do, when your partner is far away (and you need something that makes you happy)? You eat pickled garlic cloves…a third of a glass! Yummy!
Yesterday I also cooked the first time in my home kitchen. Good: any kitchen tools I can dream of, makes it easy and fast and enjoyable to cook. Bad: cooking partner is missing, cooking alone is not much fun, eating alone is boring. Even worse: Now I can eat chocolate without being ashamed because nobody is watching (and pinching my belly). German chocolate is just too good….sigh.

*identitiy crisis

(My) name day

Mar 15, 2007 ~ filed under: English & Well-informed ~ 0 comments »

I found out that today (March 15) is the name day of my first name: Anja.
1970 this name was the most popular first name. Yes, I remember that we were three Anja’s in primary (elementary) school. We were called Anja one, Anja two, and Anja three. =)
Before 1950 the name Anja wasn’t known very well and nowadays almost no baby gets the name Anja (yay, my name is rare…grin).
My name is a Russian form of the name Anna.
Anja means the graceful, beautiful, lovely and the gifted, talented.
Anja also means “the indecisive”. (Die Unentschlossene) *ashamed smile because it is true* **the above of course as well**

That is all I could find out so far.
What is the background of your name?

3sat documentaries

~ filed under: English & Well-informed ~ 7 comments »

Yesterday I watched a documentary about the Grand Canyon (Arizona, USA); what a coincidence that I just went there….and right now I watch one about the Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock (Australia), which I haven’t seen when I was in Oz and I watch everything about Australia anyway. Good TV program (on channel 3sat in Germany). Supports my (never ending) wanderlust though…

A jet lag suffering cola-missy

~ filed under: English & Germany & Natey&Cola & USA ~ 2 comments »

Hello Germany, you have me back. I safely arrived after my long flight from Albuquerque in Hamburg. (Hannah, thank you for your nice email.) The first short flight from Albuquerque to Denver (with United) was very bumpy and I had a headache, talked the whole flight sideways to my neighbor what causes that I threw up in the last 5 minutes of the flight. Too bad. The first time I used the paper bags on a plane. I can tell you, they are made out of a good strong paper! I wonder why they are not supersized, because I just ate a sandwich before the flight and when I imagine what the average American eats…
[Frankfurt airport on my way to my gate. Color changing moving stairway. Spacy, isn't it?]
The flight from Denver to Frankfurt was better. My first long-distance flight with Lufthansa. When I entered the plane, my eyes started to get watered. I was impressed by the nice Stewardesses and the awesome new and modern looking inside of the plane. And I thought, now you are back in Germany…soon. To be honest, my tears were happy tears, I just don’t know why I was such a soft-girl at that moment. I went to my seat and was happy to find a row with only two seats (often there are 3 seats). I had a window seat, yay (I didn’t know what I get before). I talked to my nice neighbor (Pole, immigrated to Germany 20 years ago, works a lot in the US and other countries) for three hours straight. We talked about politics in the States, in Germany and Poland, about what we think about each country and about general life issues. The guy knew everything about German politics, he spoke four languages, and it was very interesting to talk to him. I am not that good with politics but somehow I impressed him because he said that he never met someone from Germany that is that world-open like me and that already experienced as much as I did. Smile. Nice compliment…and I sometimes felt so stupid when he talked about German politics with me. I guess I smartly covered my ignorance. Hi hi.
When the meals came, I still was too sick to eat, so I kept my tablet with the food for a few hours. The stewardesses were very nice. All of them. Very friendly. One of them came and asked if she should free me off from the cold food in front of me, but I explained that I had a migraine and my stomach was not fine yet. She asked me if I want to have a bottle of water. Oh, yes please! Great service, I got a 1.5 liter water bottle just for myself. The talk with my seat neighbor and drinking enough water made me feel better after a while. I had pasta in vegetable sauce, a bread roll with butter and a piece of chocolate cake (they know how to cure a woman, ha ha). I could eat my food, except for the Cesar’s salad…the Parmesan stink wasn’t acceptable for my stomach. I tried to sleep for a while but it was quite loud on the plane. Just behind me was the kitchen area where the stewardesses were talking and organizing food and drinks, and I also heard lots of people standing there, laughing loud, and talking as if they have a little party back there. I remembered that many people ran with beer bottles through the aisles. Lots of alcohol was served on this flight.
I could not really sleep. I forgot to tell you, that there was one weird thing that I noticed in the first minutes of taking my seat in the beginning of the flight. In the headrest area of the seat in front of me, where you normally find the little movie display, was a large empty hole. Nothing. Nada. No screen. This really disappointed me, because I looked forward to watch the newest movies during my long flight and hoped that they have more and better movies than United Air with whom I flew from Munich to Chicago a few months ago. My seat neighbor said, that this in one of Lufthansa’s savings. I could not believe that they don’t offer movies to watch on a long distance flight!! Unfortunately I packed my books in my luggage. They had magazines on board but I am not a (gossip) magazine reader. The German newspaper “Die Süddeutsche”, which I took when I entered the plane, was too heavy content. I wanted entertainment. I looked forward to relax while watching a movie (or two, or three).
In the whole cabin they only had two TV screens in the middle of the cabin, which I couldn’t see, because I sat too deep in my seat. They didn’t show movies on these two screens, anyway. Commercials and Flight information were displayed. What a bad Lufthansa surprise…
Although, I cannot complain about the food or the service on board, but for the next long-distance flight I would probably choose another airline. Singapore air shows how everything can be top, service, food and entertainment (movies & co). My seat neighbor said that Delta Air is ok, but I have read also bad things about them. Well, we will see, when I fly “back” to the States.

Now I am at “home”. When I landed in Frankfurt it was the best sunshine weather and it stayed like this until I reached Hamburg and an hour later my home. Nice welcoming weather. When I entered my house it felt weird. Everything was so sterile white and almost all rooms were a mess. Before I left, I packed half and more of my stuff in boxes, and now I feel not very homey because it looks like I should leave. The rooms are cold. I was freezing and switched the heater on that was shut down the whole winter. An empty fridge welcomed me. I already missed, besides the full fridge, the warm colorful house in Santa Fe. I already thought about some colors and how to paint my kitchen, the hallway, and the bathroom. Maybe I just need to become friend(s) with my home, again.
In the evening I watched TV, what can be weird when you didn’t watch it for a few months. I thought it is just nice to hear voices, then it is not so quit. I didn’t even watch much, because I cleaned my house and washed my clothes. I stayed awake quite long and Nathan called me at around one in the morning. He was at JCPenny’s to exchange a shirt that I bought. It had a large hole on the side and we wanted to exchange it, but there was no other S-size one, and because they don’t give you the shirt cheaper (what I don’t understand), Nathan said he will sew something on it. Didn’t I tell you that my hon is an all-rounder? Yes, he can sew and I don’t. Shame on me.
However, the first night in Germany I went to bed at three in the morning. I set three different alarm times, but I heard none of them and woke up at two thirty in the afternoon the next day. Damn. I wanted to avoid this. I guess I have a bad jet lag, because three in the afternoon here, is eight o’clock in the morning in Santa Fe. The following night was even worse. I talked with Nathan on the phone until almost five in the morning. I thought it is two in the morning. My time feeling is totally mixed up.
Tonight Nathan and I want to talk at midnight (my time). He needs to sing sleep songs for me, so that I can sleep afterwards. =) He did this before actually…
This morning my dad came over and rang the bell at ten o’clock and immediately I was awake and could stand up. I was glad that it worked so easily. I wanted him to wake me up, if he still sees my blinds down.
Wish me a good portion of tiredness tonight! I hate jet lags.

Hurra, wir leben noch…

Mar 13, 2007 ~ filed under: Deutsch & USA & Visuelles ~ 0 comments »

Vor zwei Nächten haben wir, bzw. ich, fast unser kleines Haus niedergebrannt.
Nein, ich habe nicht wieder mal das Öl in der Pfanne zu heiß werden lassen und ein kleines Feuerchen verursacht…wir haben ja dank Nathan seit einiger Zeit ein Schildchen über dem Herd, auf dem zu lesen ist: “Please don’t burn the oil”. =)
Ich hatte meine Unterwäsche per Hand gewaschen und sie dann abends allesamt über einen Kleiderbügel gehängt; also ein paar Sets neben- und übereinander. Der Kleiderbügel hängt bei uns an einem langen Band von der Decke, so dass er vor unserer Gasheizung hängt. Dann hatten wir einen Film geschaut und später waren wir dann mit anderen Dingen unter der Bettdecke beschäftigt, bis Nathan dann aufsprang und meinte, ob der Nebel in unserem Haus Qualm sei. Ich war ziemlich erschrocken, als ich die Schwaden sah. Man konnte kaum noch was im Haus erkennen. Panik. Nathan hat dann Fenster und Türen aufgerissen und mit einem Stück Pappe ziemlich lange herumgewedelt, um den Rauch aus dem Haus zu bekommen. Irgendwie war die Situation lustig als auch überhaupt nicht komisch zugleich. Wir hatten gerade einen Tag zuvor unseren Rauchmelder von der Wand genommen, weil der zu sensibel eingestellt war und bei jedem Anschalten unseres Gasherdes bereits Alarm schlug. Der Rauchmelder hätte bestimmt schon ne halbe Stunde eher Alarm geschlagen.
Nun ja, aber komisch war es schon, weil ich schon die Schlagzeilen im Kopf hatte….’Junges Paar vergnügte sich bevor sie sich gemeinsam das Leben nahmen, weil Ihnen die Visabedingungen das gemeinsame Leben in einem Land einfach zu sehr erschwerte’…oder so ähnlich. Grins. Ich habe mir dann meine Klamotten angeschaut und da war nichts Verbranntes zu sehen. Gar nichts. Seltsam. Nathan meinte dann, dass es das Waschpulver gewesen sein muss. Er meinte, dass die Chemikalien des Waschmittels eventuell das Kokeln verursacht haben könnte. Ich glaubte das nicht, denn erstens haben wir ein Ökowaschmittel was nur aus Kokussnuss- und anderen Ölen besteht und zweitens, weil die Sachen nichts Verbranntes an sich hatten. Wie kann denn bitte etwas ein kleines Haus komplett zuqualmen, ohne die Stoffe der Materialien zu beschädigen? Ich glaube, dass es eher die Synthetikfasern in meiner Unterwäsche waren, die den Qualm verursacht haben.

We did it…

Mar 8, 2007 ~ filed under: Natey&Cola & USA & Visuelles ~ 0 comments »

We hiked, dragged ourselves, complained, nearly passed out and barely made it out of THE CANYON! These words are from a magnet that I bought as proof and for memory of our hiking event. Yes, we did it and we survived.
As you can assume, we are back from our Arizona trip. It took me quite a bit of time to go through our tons of photos, choose the good ones and upload them. Sorry, if you have been waiting for so long. Here are the pictures:

The Grand Canyon is a about seven hours drive from us.
Most of the photos were taken from out of the car.

Still in New Mexico…on the road…

Then we thought we saw Uluru (Australia’s famous rock) in New Mexico’s desert…

Along the way we saw many mile-long trains:

Then, welcome to Arizona:

Some dinosaurs almost attacked us as well

An impression of how the roads looked like…(straight baby, straight)

Not long until we get to Williams and quite close to Los Angeles

This is our cute Bed&Breakfast Canyon Country Inn in Williams. We each paid $66 for two nights on route 66, yeah!

the train station is right next to our bed (ok, almost) and the first night we woke up and sat straight in bed at 3.30 when a train made loud noises with their train whistle to let everyone know they now run through the town. Aaaarrghhhh! Two more times we woke up through this. Have you seen the movie Polar Express? It was like that…hooooonk! OMG, I thought it runs right through our room. You should have seen Nathan’s face…haha, funny. But…you know, it somehow was nostalgic. =)

The guest house from the outside

Our Canyon hike tour the next day (Saturday)
our first view into the canyon

we hiked a trail called bright angel trail

on this picture you can see how far we hiked, until the trees at the very bottom, need a magnifying glass? Point your finger in the center of the photo, then go a little bit south and then west…that was our goal (puhh)

You could ride a mule on the way into the canyon and back.

there was mule poop and pee everywhere on the paths…

and more…

A view from bright angel spot up to the top:

The historic Grand Canyon train (prizes start from $60 p.p.):

Downtown Williams.
Me on Route 66.

and Nathan in the route 66 cafe

On the way back home to NM.
close-up of one of these many trains (shot from inside the car)

We hiked 10 miles/15km in 5 hours (without breaks in total of one hour) in an elevation change of 3300 feet/1000m! The estimated time to hike our distance is six to nine hours. We did it in five hours, but don’t ask for the muscle pain that came after!! Horrible. Today, four days later, is the first day that I can walk. I had the worst muscle ache ever and Nathan suffered the same. We didn’t hike the canyon, we ran through, because we wanted to make it back up to the top to see the sunset. I really thought that I will never make it. I wanted to give up, close before the end, but Nathan pushed me. I thought we have seen so many sunsets all over the world that I don’t really care about this one, if I can just slow down or don’t move anymore. Nathan finally convinced me to try it at least. At 6pm we reached the top. First we went straight to the toilet and to the shop to buy water. Then we sat down in front of an open fire of an old fashion fire place. To sit down felt so good, that we didn’t want to get up anymore. Nathan found out that the best spot to see the sunset is eight miles away and the sunset starts at 6.25pm. It was 6.05pm and wouldn’t have made it to catch the bus. Anyway, we were so tired and sore (our feet hurt like hell) that we decided to rather miss the sunset than stress ourselves more. Take it easy…don’t move, just sit down forever at the nice warm fire, was in my mind. Well, in the end we took a quick look outside just in front of the building. The sun already set quite far and the spot was not the best to enjoy it. We barely could walk, and decided to just drive home…to lie down. *g*

Back in Williams, we went out for dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant, called ‘Red Raven’. The night before we ate at a local restaurant and I got to know the typical American food. Smile. Here is one impression of the american-supersize and deep-fried-mode:

actually my chicken was baked, but still very oily, same as the fries and even the vegetables (corn,carrots from a can). In the middle of eating the waitress came and asked us if we want dessert. They do that always, in the middle of you eating, while your plate still is full. If you say no, thanks, then, five minutes later, you have the bill on your table. It confused me a lot in the beginning, but Nathan said, they have to do it like this. The faster the tables are served and billed, the faster they can have new customers sit down. Yes, fast food always and everywhere. I thought that the locals eat better food than this, but Nathan meant that I have to get to know the ‘what-most-Americans-eat-experience’, because this was my first time eating fast food in the States. I never went to any Big M’s or similar nasty places. This restaurant In Williams would not call their food fast food, they are an old traditional restaurant on route 66 and I got the impression that they really think their food is great.
It was very very oily and to Nathan’s astonishment, they didn’t even serve alcohol. What a pity. Beer generally fits good to fatty food.
To my astonishment the people who sat next to our table, they came way after us, ordered their food, ate, ordered more food, ate, and left while Nathan and I still were eating! Wow, I could not believe how fast they ate (scoff). The portions were huge!

Ok, enough from fatty overweight because of always super-size America. We highly recommended to watch the movie “Supersize Me” and you get an impression what super-size means. We watched the movie a day before we went on the trip…a good movie to watch while you are in the States.

Now, I have a problem with my photo plugin, damn. Unfortunately, I cannot show you more photos at the moment, I’m sorry.
For now, I only can say, please visit my photo gallery, if you want to see them all. Yes, there are many more, but I’ve shown you the best, I think.

Puh, this was a long post. I hope you enjoyed to read the photo story.
It was a very nice trip, we had the best weather, and our car brought us, without trouble, the whole 1000 miles.

Road trip to Arizona

Mar 1, 2007 ~ filed under: English & USA ~ 4 comments »

We are going on a little trip for the weekend (Friday – Sunday). We will explore Arizona and the Grand Canyon, yay!
Cross your fingers that our old car does not brake down. I wanted to travel down to Mexico to jump into the Ocean, but the risk to brake our car is too high, so we decided to see one of the natural wonders of the world.
I will give the result for the PiCola quiz (see previous post) when we are back. Please make your guess!
Mau, you are not right, sorry.

Have a nice weekend everyone!
It is supposed to be warm and sunny here. I hope.
Sunscreen and sunglasses are packed.
Byeeeee….