From Ireland to Greece | WEEKEND WIND-UP #66

Ladies and gentlemen… um… yeah… well…

I guess another one of coffeerocketfairytale’s legendary wrap-up posts is over-due. 🙂

You might have noticed how unusual it is for me to be that quiet for such a long time and I think you have every right to know what I have been up to since disovering the taste of rhubarb water.

I went to Greece for a short holiday.

Originally, I had planned to visit Ireland – my friend and I wanted to hire a car and stay wherever we wanted to – but flights to Ireland simply overrun our budget so we decided to go to the beach instead.

We went to see a travel agent and were ready to book the flights and hotel – when my friend stood me up and told me she didn’t want to go away at all.

First, I was really dissappointed and angry at her (after all we had planned to go away for almost 3 months now but she waited until 10 days before the week we had planned to go to tell me she changed her mind). I have had a whole lot of trouble to get that particular week off work so eventually I decided to go alone.

And that was my best decision ever. Going on holiday all alone is awesome. You can relax, sleep as long as you want, go wherever you want, do whatever you want. Perfect.

I went to Rhodos, Greece, where I had been before but stayed in a different hotel this time.

It was right near the beach where the water was crystal clear. There were more locals than tourists and I enjoyed the tranquility, the sound of the waves and the heat.

I went on a boat trip to the island of Symi where I ate Symi shrimps.

On another day I visited the Old Town of Rhodos with its magnificent history and arcane buildings.

And I spent a whole lot of time at the beach or at the pool reading, relaxing and drinking frappé:

Sadly, even the best holiday comes to an end and when I got back home I had my brother’s 30th birthday to organise.

It was a hell of a party and I made a huga cake for him.

And then there was Milow. You know Milow? The Beglian guy with the funny lyrics… “I sometimes wish you were a mermaid so I could raise you in the tub at home…”

The girls from work had bought tickets in February and for months now we have been looking forward to the show – and it was awesome!

We had lots of fun that night and I can assure you that Milow’s songs are live as perfect as they sound on the record (because don’t you hate it when you really really like an artists’s record and then find out that they suck when performing live?  – Well, that’s not the case with Milow, he is excellent on stage.)

Now I’m back to “normal” life after all these great summer experiences and I’ve got a whole bunch of things to do.

Right now, I design my next special cake for another competition at a trade fair in Munich in October (and this time I can choose the topic or motto for the cake myself, so that’s going to be rather exciting!).

And what are you up to these days?

I’m back

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m back.

Now, has anyone guessed where I had been? And has anyone got it right?

Let’s have a look… (*insert-dramatic-drumroll*)

I went to see

{in case it's not readable: it says "Bon Jovi"}

Remember my Bon Jovi ramblings about not being able to see them perform in a city nearby “once upon a time, not so long ago“?

Well, being a Bon Jovi fan is a “permanent disease and it takes more than a doctor to prescribe a remedy“, so I thought to myself: if the Bon Jovi concert can’t come to me, I must come to the Bon Jovi concert.

And off I went.

I always pictured myself in New Zealand or New Jersey when attending my first Bon Jovi show outside of Germany.

Well, neither happened to be the case.

I ended up in a place with 3.000 odd inhabitants, speaking a dialect I don’t understand and a language I failed to learn at school – despite six years of study.

My first Bon Jovi show outside of Germany took place in Zeebrugge, Belgium.

Zeebrugge is small, yet charming – although I didn’t even find a dairy, leave alone a supermarket there.

The hotel I had booked a few weeks prior to my stay was a… desaster.

When I arrived I was told there was no such booking under my name and that I must be mistaken.

So I argued with the guy at the reception, because I had received a confirmation of my booking via email a few weeks ago.

Finally, he gave in, agreed that I was right (and he was wrong) – but still didn’t have a room for me.

So eventually, he called his colleague down the road at Hotel Atlas and I ended up in the most charming, beautiful little hotel you can imagine (check the link if you don’t believe me!).

And from that point, I had a fantastic stay in Zeebrugge.

I took a long walk at the beach, hired a bike to ride to Blankenberge, saw the show (unfortunately still didn’t meet Richie Sambora, but one day I will!) and paid a visit to Bruges.

Belgium might not be the usual travel destination but it certainly is worth a visit!

Travelling alone seemed a bit scary at first, but once I was on the road (or on the rail, actually, as I took the train to get there) it was so much fun!

When you are on holiday all by yourself, you can do whatever you want and visit the places you want to see. It’s awesome!

I also want to share some of the pics I’ve taken at the concert, so I will put together a little gallery for you and post shortly.

Have you ever been travelling alone? If so, please share your story, I’m looking forward to hear about your adventures! 

Promise!

I hate to break promises.

I promised a few things lately and I think it’s about time to acquit myself to some of them.

So first of all I would like to share with you some pictures of my short trip to Austria.

My parents had dropped my nana off at a friend’s house and it was my job to pick her up and drive her home.

Wasn’t as easy as it sounds because my grandma is quite a complicated person. (She asked strangers to check on the tyres because she didn’t trust me when I told her on Thursday the car had just been to the garage on Wednesday).

Anyway – it was a stressful, but nice trip and here are some more pics:

There was a special visitor outside the kitchen window:

In other news: the facebook page has now been established so if you have an account, please feel free to show your appreciation of coffeerocketfairytale here. (If you don’t have an account, it might be an idea to join 😉 Here’s a “how to” ).

And finally the cake.

Now… how do I say this…

It has been… kind of… unsuccessful. You might just call it Mission: Impossible. Or The Ugly Truth.

Let’s just say I was too lazy to read the oven’s manual and therefore didn’t adjust the settings right.

To cut a long story short: the cake looks sort of okay and tastes sort of okay, but in fact it’s still a bit raw on the inside.

A bit embarrassing really, especially considering that I have been thinking about training as a confectioner/pastry cook. (In fact, I have a job interview this afternoon, so wish me luck!)

So I will have to go back and do it all over again – and then I will be able to tell you exactly how to make a “Schichtkuchen” (a layered cake, a bit like Baumkuchen).

P.S.: Dear Spammers, stop harrassing me for writing “email” and “facebook” in my posts. Go and get a life! (Or write a nice and honest comment – much appreciated!)

Popsicle cake road trip | WEEKEND WIND UP #31

Now guess what arrived today…

*drum roll*

Tatatataaaaaaaa!

My very own, very special infamous popsicle cake tin!

Yes, that’s right, the one I have awaited eagerly.

The very same one I kept telling everyone about (and probably annoyed the heck out of everyone, too! I sincerely apoligise if that was the case!).

Although I’m glad it’s finally here, the timing is rather unlucky, as I am about to go away for a few days (which is why this is the representative WEEKEND WIND UP for this week).

So I guess it won’t be until Monday that I can make some popsicle-shaped cakes.

Tomorrow, I am embarking on a road trip: Me, my brother’s awesome car (he was so generous to offer me to use his Audi) and myself, 508km on the Autobahn. Yay!

I’m going to this little place in Austria where some family friends live.

My grandma is on a short holiday at the moment and I basically go there to pick her up and take her home on Sunday.

I’ll take my camera and definitely show you some pics when I’m back.

Most likely, I won’t have internet until Sunday or Monday, but I’ll definitely catch up on your comments and your blogs when I’m back and also will post a monday morning message on Monday, so make sure to come back next week!

✩✩✩ Take care! ✩✩✩

And it gets even better… my 2-in-1 adventure | WEEKEND WIND UP #10

YOU may wonder why it’s been so awfully quiet here – or maybe why I have been so awfully quiet, which is (admittedly) not common for me.

Well, following last week’s exciting news, I have some MORE exciting news for you!

Now you better sit down or hang on to something otherwise you might take the risk of getting blown off your feet!

1. I am going to London tomorrow!

2. I will look at a flat and something that might as well be my future workplace as I am about to MOVE to London!

3. …

Well, there is no “third”, actually, but good things come in triplets, so I make something up:

3. I am going to Paris, too!

Okay, that was actually not even a joke. Didn’t even make that one up, I am really going to Paris, too.

Because, Geez, have you ever tried to get a Last Minute flight from South Germany to London?

Impossible (unless you’re a millionaire or some other awfully rich person).

The best connection was via Zurich, Switzerland – with a seven-hour stopover. Hello? Seven hours? On a flight within Europe? That is ridiculous! I mean, in the same time you can almost fly over to Malaysia or something – and that means you’re halfway in Sydney!

Anyways, so I called that train-lady and she was just amazing (so much more helpful than the lady at the travel agency!).

She found a relatively cheap connection for me and so tomorrow morning at 6.54, I will hop on the TGV to Paris. And then I’ll have a short break of two hours there, during which I will have to transfer from one train station to the other, before heading off to London on the Eurostar.

I’m a bit scared of that, because my orientation is not always the best (even though I found my way around Auckland, whereas my Kiwi family didn’t) and my French is even worse.

So I’m going to two European capitals in one day – that is pretty mean, don’t you think?

I am sooo super-excited!!!

I’ll be back by the end of the week and tell you about my adventures (I haven’t got a place to stay in London, yet, but I’ll figure something out – hopefully).

Wish me luck!

The spooky part of the mini series ❀

So here is the previously announced zombie-graveyard-story.

A nightmare as it happens in real life. Written by a survivor (that’s me!).

It all began when my parents went on holiday. Or actually the week before, when my Dad gave me a brief on how to water the plants in the garden, on the graveyard* and in the garden of my brother’s restaurant.

[* I am not entirely sure how other countries handle this, but because I got rather confused comments when I told this story my Kiwi friends, I came to the conclusion that graveyards may be operated differently in other countries. So here is how we do it over here: usually, every person has his or her own grave, but usually wife and husband are buried together and some people have like family graves where there is enough space for four or five people… anyway, a sad matter, but once a person is buried, we plant flowers on top of the graves – and subsequently have to water them every day during summer – so that is why I had to go to the graveyard and water the plants on the grave Dad is usually looking after. That is Dad’s parents’ grave.]

All these jobs required a week’s practise – after all you can’t just let anybody water your plants, can you?
So every evening Dad and I would go around and water the flowers in the garden, on the graveyard and in the restaurant’s garden.

Once my parents were gone, it was all up to me to do the job.

They left on Sunday morning, so on Sunday evening I left for my first “plant-watering-mission”. Took me about three quarters of an hour, everything was fine.

Next morning, Grandma called. (I should have recognised this call as a first sign, a warning, but I ignored the fact that whenever Nana tries to find out the time and place I was going, a disaster is near…)

So Nana wanted to know when I was going to water the plants on the graveyard. And I made the mistake of telling her.

And then… I don’t know how it happened, but it went like this:
Nana: “So you’re not going this morning? Because I should go this morning, because it’s so hot.”
Me: “No, I am going tonight.”
Nana: “Hum. Maybe I should go tonight then. What time are you going?”
Me: “Not sure. Depends… Why?”
Nana: “Well, you know, it’s so hot and I think I need to go tonight as well. The plants need a lot of water…”

And at the end, I had agreed to take Grandma to the graveyard – a trip that ended up being the worst inquisition you can imagine (Grandma wants to know EVERYTHING, so that she can tell her friends about what I am doing and they gossip and because they can never listen porperly and only get half the story, at the end of the day, I have half the town discussing stuff about me that is not true…) .

So on Tuesday morning, I decided to avoid the questions and all that – and offered to water the plants on Granddad’s grave as well, so that Nana could stay at home.

Okay. By Tuesday night I had two graves to look after: Grandma and Granddad’s (Dad’s parents) and my other Granddad’s.

No problem. Just another five minutes, so that was allright.

But THEN… on Wednesday for some reason Grandma called and told me I had to look after “Lotte’s Grave” as well. Now Lotte was a close friend of Grandma and so I thought, well… you know… it’s just another five minutes…

So from one day to another, I had three graves to look after (the local gardener already threw evil looks at me because he was afraid I might be a real threat to his business!).

And that is not even the end of the story.

Because on Thursday – you may have guessed it already – Nana added another task to my list.

That was, because “the nice man next to Lotte’s grave” went on holiday.

So Friday came and I had four graves to look after and watering plants took me almost 1 1/2 hours a day.

I don’t even know the “nice man next to Lotte’s grave”‘s name (neither does Nana, by the way), but nevermind. At least we water the plants.

And then came Saturday.

A friend and I went for coffee and ice-cream. She insisted on helping me to water the plants on the graveyard before I would drive her home.

So we watered grave 1 to 4 – when a stranger walked up to me and said: “Do you come here regularly?”

Well, what do you say? I had a bad feeling and yet I couldn’t lie to this old lady.
“Yes, almost everyday, but that is only until tomorrow, as long as my family is on holiday.”
“Oh. So would you mind watering the flowers on this grave as well?”

And for some weird reason, even though my mind yelled “NO FOR HEAVEN’S SAKES, NO!!!”, my mouth kinda went: “Well… ahm… yeah… I suppose so.”

So there it was: Grave #5 added to my list.

The poor professional gardener almost got a heart attack!

{The zombie-part of the story was actually a misunderstanding between my Kiwi friend and myself. I told her the story and she thought I had spoken to dead people who asked me to look after their graves, but in fact I had been talking to relatives of the dead people who looked after their graves. So it was acutally no real zombie story. More like a flower-story. But you know: it’s always the gardener!}