- Running into the ocean on a particularly hot and sweaty day.
- Managing the insane traffic in Sicily without actually destroying anything. Getting upgraded to a nicer car. Listening to Marilyn Manson while driving.
- Parsley growing out of a house wall in a little mountain village in the Etna region. Exploring the volcano in an ancient train car, just looking out of the window and taking it all in.
- The luxury of sleeping in an air-conditioned hotel room. Taking a long shower before going to bed to wash all the sand off. Oh, and SKY Cinema.
- Discovering a really nice bar in Catania with 4€ gin tonics and free crisps. As soon as we made the owners talk to us the vodka shots were free as well...
- Tiny street cats.
- Isola Bella in Taormina with its blue water and the interesting sea caves.
- Unusually tan skin.
- Truffle Philadelphia cream cheese and Tronky coconut. Oh, and Cornetto Peanut Butter.
- Ortigia in Syracuse, discovering Harry Potter symbols by the sea and walking along the market streets.
- Mediterranean plants and the citrus trees everywhere.
- Granita!
- A reliable wi-fi connection. Flirting with Marcus all night long.
- Pretty good street art and graffiti in Catania.
- Doris Knecht is an amazing writer who makes me appreciate the German (Austrian) language again. So far I've read Wald and Gruber geht and loved both books. Also, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is getting more and more excellent with every turned page.
- Pistachio everything. I love that these delicious suckers get the representation they deserve in Italy (pistachio flavoured cremoncello and amaretti morbidi, just to mention some of it).
- Honest conversations with T. about our malfunctioning relationships. Idiots, sex addicts, FRANK...
- Stroking T's head when she was sick.
- Tiny fragile purple flowers in the Vendicari nature preserve.
- Having tiny conversations with my limited (10-15 words) Italian vocabulary. Not being outed.
- I love it when the people sitting next to me on the plane are really quiet and preferably not moving. WIN. Also: they had tomato juice. With salt and pepper. Yum.
- Mama picking me up from the airport in the middle of the night.
- Elsa's homemade tomato soup. And her amazingly charming and chaotic apartment. I'm so envious.
- Seeing Franzi, Martina and Elsa. So glad I met them two years ago and we managed to stay friends.
- They released the second season of Mann/Frau all at once. Yes!
- Wearing more than one layer of clothing. And a jacket. Shoes that are not sandals. I'm just not cut out for temperatures above 30 degrees.
- Taurus Horoscope for September 2015: "Your romantic life is improving by the hour, and you may have seen evidence of a resurgence of the power of love last month when good fortune planet Jupiter entered Virgo and your solar fifth house of love for a nearly thirteen-month stay. This development is extraordinary because over the past two years, a relationship seems to have given you pause, making you wonder if the two of you were meant to be together." (How the fuck does that woman know about the hardest two years of my life?! Nevertheless: good news, eh?)
- Small successes on my first school day: finding two really nice people to sit with, signing up for one of the laziest teams, having a good arts colleague.
- Hugging Frank really hard after a long time no see. Thai food and coconut ginger panna cotta. Watching the first episode of True Detective #2.
- Flora from the Great British Bake Off has a blog!
- An invitation to Franzi's and Ralf's going away party.
- Finishing The Goldfinch - an excellent read but that book has almost 800 pages which can seem like a neverending story sometimes.
- Lying in the garden under the ginko tree. Reading some Doris Knecht. Helping my mum with a paint job. Going grocery shopping together. Fixing some garden decoration (birdcage), being reminded of the goldfinch.
- Buying another one of my favourite plants at the flea market.
- After a fuckload of trouble and stress: arriving in Munich. Setting up my new apartment, coming to terms with everything. Trips to the hardware store, doing repairs, furnishing.
- Oh yeah, and: being in Munich. Meeting new people and seizing all my new possibilities.
- An IKEA trip with Frank. Getting along much better than last time, kissing his hairy cheek goodbye. He also helped me quite a lot during the move and is my new "key bearer".
- Red wine with Pablo at Café Loretta (although we basically had to scream to talk to each other).
- Going to the zoo with my fifth-graders and some colleagues. At least I saw some groundhogs, elks, tigers and a bear but I want to go on my own again during the next weeks and see the giraffes and the penguins.
- A trip to Schliersbergalm with my colleagues. Riding the cable car, having a lot of fun during dinner and walking down in the dark. I'd really like to get together more often with some of these guys.
- Getting a massive discount on beautiful autumnal plants for my balcony! It looks so much better than before now.
- Date conversation topics.
- Watching Fargo with Frank, drinking 1l gin tonic. Falling asleep on top of each other. Talking honestly about our respective love lives and possibly opening the door to one with each other at some point in the future. What time can do.
- My cutest pupil is Zoran, my fifth-grader. For example, he gave the "I have a dream" speech (in a weird Hitler voice?!) when he was voted for class representative. Daw. (Closely followed by Lisa with the adorable voice, who is a massive fan of my drawings.)
- A bright orange squirrel hurrying over the street in the middle of the city.
- Amanda Brooks is back to blogging! And Instagram, of course.
- Betty magazine.
- Looking into the mirror and actually liking what I see. Yeah, doesn't make me any less fat or anything but happy self-image moments are a rare treat!
- Der Absprung, Max Frisch und Herbstgefühl.
- Cleaning the windows and floors, decorating, making the apartment cosy.
- Drinking with Frank, not the worst conversation at Milla. My only mistake: trying to keep with his drinking habit...
- Meeting Sonja, our afternoon at the Wiesn. We shot for roses, met Yassine from Zürich, had Knödel and I got along great with Sebastian at our table at Oide Wiesn. Best thing ever: I met SIMON, one of my favourite colleagues from last year!! Unfortunately things went a little downhill in the evening #crazypsychobitch but I managed to keep out of it more or less and just went home alone. Nevertheless it was an exciting day. I got water and beer all over me, talked to an interesting man for an hour, I was covered in hay, I had to climb over a fence...
- Doris Knecht, Doris Knecht, Doris Knecht, Doris Knecht, Doris Knecht!
- Assembling Frank's kitchen worktop together. Sanding the wood with a special machine was extra fun. Huddling against each other on the sofa because we had to turn the heating off before.
- Butterflies on my balcony.
- Archiv/e mag with Stepanini!
- Wednesdays! (being back home at half past 10 is priceless)
- My first dirndl! It's pretty simple and plain in black and dark green and it gives my ginormous boobs. Mission accomplished.
- A day at Wiesn with my colleagues, especially Martin, Rudi and Sophia. Telling an outrageous story to Liam from Britain with Martin, shooting for screwdrivers and talking about art with Rudi.
- Bright yellow sunflowers on a dark green tablecloth.
- Whole peanuts. Not the broken ones, I want them shiny and big.
- I was born on the same day as Liberace.
- Looking at my instagram account brings back all the feelings I had when I took each and every picture. Satisfying.
- I just found out one of my guilty pleasures: eating veggie bolo pasta sauce with a spoon, directly from the jar. No pasta needed.
- Music:
- Destroyer - Dream Lover
- Beck - Dreams
- Wanda - Bussi Baby
- K Flay - Can't Sleep
- Santigold - Radio
- Everything Everything - Regret
- Ásgeir - Torrent
- Attwenger - Oida
- Deerhunter - Snakeskin
- Editors - Life is a Fear
- Fettes Brot - Von der Liebe
- Rival Sons - Electric Man
- Jason Derulo - Want to Want Me
sep 8 2015 ∞
oct 3 2015 +