No egg hunt this year, but still a typical Easter

My Easter wish has been granted:

beautiful weather for the long weekend. Awesome ^^

On top of that I had lots of family downtime. Nice!

Our family's easter tradition:

Easter Sunday we always have a big family breakfast at either my aunt's or my mum's. This year my aunt was our host.

It was quite warm, therefore the table was set in her backyard. She served all kinds of food and eggs in all its varietys: cooked, scrambled, sunny-side up...

Afterwards we sat down in another corner of the backyard: talking and enjoying the beautiful weather with chilled drinks and ice-cream...

I played with my little cousin: jumping on the trampolin, soccer, and what not... It was so much fun and a good workout at the same time ;)

Gosh how that reminds me of my Au Pair time, and of how much I miss my kids!! (Well well, I can't wait for September to come, that's when I'll see them again :D)

Last year's Easter:

A.'s hostfamily invited me to their easter dinner (as my family is jewish ;) ).

It was pretty awesome. They are such lovely family.

They also had an Easter tradition: an 'egg-cracking-contest' (that's how I'd describe it at least). I loved that part. So fun and such nice company. It sure was an Easter I'll never forget. :D

The first ones to try...

and here we go again...

A. got into the next round

But lil M. just had a better technique I suppose... ;)

I wasn't so bad myself, but I lost against the older finalist

The final: Little M. ruled ^^

Anyways, back to this year:

Sunday afternoon we also had  a BBQ with my grandma. Soo delish & sunny! 

This Easter was really nice, too bad my dad had to work in the mornings... other than that no complaints :)

Monday was the last day to relax in the sun. In the evening my sis and me took the train back to Essen. It was quite crowded, but we were lucky enough to get seats for the whole ride ^^

Today I had one class this morning and I'll have another one this afternoon. In between I should be running some errands.... nothing too stressful though.

Yet tomorrow will be another busy college day. Not so much looking forward to that :P

Happy Easter!!

On Monday I didn't have any classes. A perfect opportunity for my mum, my aunt, my cousins and their friends to visit. Mainly they just came to the city to go shopping. But before they parked in front of my bulding to check out my new appartment. - Approved!Later on we walked downtown and through all the good stores we like. I even bought new pants and a sweater. Sweet ^^

After that successful day of shopping we sat down in the sun and got some gelato. Awesome!!

Then 2 busy days.

Thursday morning was my last class for this week. Loooong weekend, yeay (:

Mainly because of the holidays of course.

Nevertheless the past few days have been amazing. It's quite hot for this time of the year. Apparently in Germany the weather is even better than anywhere else in Europe. haha

Yesterday my little cousin turned 5! So we went to her place. They celebrated in the garden with lots of good food and waterballoons. I guess you can imagine how everyone somehow got involved in that water fight ^^ At night my uncle made a bonfire. And my aunt served some dinner: Veggies, baguettes, dips and self-made pretzels. So good.

Today is Easter Sunday. But I'll tell you more about this next time ;)

volcano part 2

...Stockholm: We arrived early in the morning. On the same day there were like only 5 planes total that arrived at the same airport. None were allowed to leave. And neither was I....

I always wanted to be in Stockholm, but not like this!!...

The airport was just empty except for all those reporters trying to get some good shots and interviews.

One as saying something to me in Swedish, which of course I wasn't able to understand. So she went on in English asking me about my thoughts about all this:

Considering I haven't slept the entire flight was super tired and stressed out, I even managed to answer her.

I think I said something like:

I was glad that I finally made it to Europe and that I was happy that no one was injurred. There are worst things than this. Well to sum it up it was a rather optimistic and positive response, with no anger or anything.

I guess I was just too tired to be frustrated or sth like that.... I don't know

What else: my cell had no reception; there was snow in the backyard (in April!); I had no swedish money and worst possible case: No possible use of my laptop as I didn't bring any adapter.Concluding no Internet and no connection to my family or anyone! Just my luck...

Mostly I was worried about everyone else being worried. Strange I felt bad for my family and friends not knowing where I was & how I was doing.

Later I bummed into that swedish guy from the plane. Just right before he was going to catch his train home. Luckily he gave me his adapter and the hotel had free wifi ^^ Made me felt so much better...

Here again I spent another 3 days and 2 nights. Usually I was waiting in line at the airport... for hours. Everyday the lines got longer and longer. I  constantlly kept on rebooking my flights, because sometimes they decided to cancel the flights just a few hours after I got booked onto it... Nice! - Not.

Finally they opened the gates on Wednesday. I was able to get on a tiny airplane landing the same night in Duesseldorf  :) My family was right there to pick me up ^^                end of story

Eyjafjallajökull - remember that one?

I sure won't ever forget. It happened about a year ago. The eruption of that volcano in Iceland in 2010. ...
with that gigantic ashcloud following that covered like almost all of Europe... Aaahhh... you see

Hundreds and hundreds of planes couldn't fly for days and days... and thousands and thousands of people were stuck on tons of airports and not just in Europe, even in the States... and I was one of them.

Today I can laugh about it. At that time I was still working as an Au Pair in California. I decided to surprise my people in Germany for a couple of days. Only my parents were in on this plan.

My first flight headed out on friday morning going from San Francisco Airport (SFO) to the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Arriving there my flight to Deutschland was cancelled!!... I was stuck!! uuuhh yaaa... not good

The airport was totally overcrowded & chaotic. The staff kept sending people all over. I pretty much spent an entire day pulling my 3 heavy suitcases all over the entire airport. I was booked on several different flights, but they wouldn't leave until the next day or even a couple days later!! Nightmare, I tell ya. I only had 9 days of vacation....

Ukay I'll narrow my stay in Chicago down: 1 day travelling & at the airport; 2 days & 2 nights at a Holiday Inn; I met people from all over & I was greatful for all my language skills; also I spend hours waiting for a couple of flights that were cancelled anyway. GREAT!

Fortuanetly I brought my american cell & laptop, so at least I was able to keep in touch with everyone.

Finally I was booked onto an overnight flight to Stockholm, Sweden... even in Business class. That actually was awesome!! Much more comfortable ^^

Also check this out:

That very plane was one of the first ones that was allowed to fly to Europe.

to be continued... 

A fun weekend follows the next...

Especially when it starts one a Wednesday. I went home for my cousin's B-day!

Always good to see my lovely family (:

Thursday I helped my father with papering our hall. Well just so you know: upstairs, downstairs and the stairs.... so we had days of work to do. But I had to be back in Essen for Thursday night:

A party in a club downtown with free Dunkin Donuts! Yumm!

I went there with some friends to meet up with some friends and even bumping into unexpected ones...

That's how I like it ^^ 

The not so fun part: Awaking the next day with a cold, thx parents for handinig it over to me :P

Sure I won't let myself get down by that. AFter staying in bed the whole morning I walked downtown to get some herbal medicine. Really helpful! I felt so much better just after an hour!

Also I had some errands to run. That same night there was a friend's party: Sensation white, you hear me?!

He made chilly, salad and other yummy things. He even organized black lights!! Also those armbraces that light up in the dark ^^ Very considerate of him I'd say.

Saturday my sis and me went back home. Over the rest of the weekend my dad and me worked on getting the hall done. Takes up so much time. Then Monday was my dad's B-day and we almost did it all. Yeay!

More relatives to see, more cake to eat... awesome :D

Tuesday back to reality.... my mood was high and sure good enough for the early and long day...

It started as a normal day...

So many things happened recently.... I'm not going to name them all. AT least not in this post :P

Today for instance:

My first class started at 8.30am in Duisburg. About an hour earlier I had to leave the house.... too early for my taste though I have to admit that it looked kinda nice outside (at least this morning).My class supposedly ends at 11.45am. 

One thing here: My next class was at 12.15pm in Essen.

NConsidering it takes at least 45min (if your'e lucky) to get from one Campus to another, that's not exactly managble, is it?!

well well then, I had to leave my first class early. Arriving there we still had to find to find the right room. In Essen that can be quite a task. After some wrong turns we finally managed to get there in time. Guess what?! All the effort wasted as the prof was tied up with business. Nice, huh?!

I was actually looking forward to this class: Forensic Linguistics. 

But who am I to cry about more free time, right?!

Later that day I went back to the university to participate at my friend's study.

He sort of invented some apps for smartphones. Therefore he needs some guinea pigs to try his software. 

My opinion: Couple months of work were definitely worth it!

I was kinda looking forward to be using it myself. Knowing my friend, I did have some expectations. Afterwards I have to say: it sort of blew me away. SO much fun and so pretty awesome. ^____^

Just you wait and see in a few years he'll be famous and all (He might even forget about the little people, who knows ;)

It sure is a highlight. Perfect day for quite a nice day.

So I thought. Who knew my roomie had another surprise waiting for me.

She didn't exactly intend toshow it to me... but once revealed, no point of hiding it any more.... way too funny :D

A few years ago she was part of a reality show: living in the 50s!

Yupp you heard right.

It is astonishingly honest and therefore truly funny (for me at least ;) )

Enough details here I think... a lot to dream about tonight

The summer semester started...

Today was my first class for this semester - Italian.

So far I can say this much:

The teacher is pretty nice. My fellow students seem to be as nice. 

Good choice, I'd say.

Next step lunch & then my 1st Literature class for this semester:

'Crossing the U.S.-Mexican Border - Depictions in Contemporary American Literature'

Seriously who comes up with those names?! Way too long.

Let's try its acronym: CtUSMBDiCAL

Yah.... sure... not going to work :P

Hope it'll be better than what I just did now ;)

The weekend started so amazingly good...

Friday I had a bunch of friends over at my new place. The kitchen isn't that big, but we squeezed everyone in there :) After we went dancing in that same club I went to the other day... Pretty fun: good music, awesome people, what more do you want?! 

To sum Saturday up: Awesome!! :D

The weather was amazing (all sunny blue sky) so we went to a "beach" nearby at a big lake (called Baldeneysee or sth like that). We brought food, blankets and whatnot... Played a lot of volleyball, some frisbee, some card games, some other stuff, talked a lot and laughed even more ^^ Just hung out with some friends... so as mentioned before: Awesome!

Today I had some repairs to do at my old place and am finally done with that chapter, not that it wasn't great one ;)

After I met some friends in downtown to grab some ice-cream! Like there's a way I could actually deny eating 'ice-cream'!

For a change tons of stores were opened this Sunday (which is usually not the case). Therefore and because of the rain we took a stroll in the shopping center (Limbecker Platz). How's the chance of meeting people you know, right then & there? Must be at least a little high, cuz we did meet some :P

Spent some time together before going home, again there was a lot of laughing involved and free coke for whatever reason :)

Back at home I wanted to be productive and clean the bathroom.

But yeah, smart move, Desi!!

I was in the middle of cleaning it the 1st time. Altough It wasn't even that dirty yet ^^  

But instead of things getting done, somehow I managed to make a big mess. My luck has it that I try to clean that glass shelf and it shatters. haha

Nah, not in a few pieces but in hundreds of tiny ones: 

Scattered all over, in the sink, in the closet beyond that, in the bathtub, all over the floor and under the other closet. 

Good job!! - Not! Man I had to laugh so hard about my own mistake, Just someone like me is able to whip up sth like that... haha

Yeah, and that's how I spend like 20min finding all those tiny glass pieces! And to top it off I still had to scrub everything else after. I guess I was lucky enouhg not to hurt myself that much, no visible scars or anything :P

Nevertheless an awsome weekend I'd say ^___^ 

The things you learn...

by just living together. You just meet this new person for an hour maybe and decide to move together.

If you think about it a little more than you might say that it's kinda crazy.

So today again. I'm back at my flat, my new roomie not being at home.

I figure while cooking some spaghetti I might just have some music to go with it. Radio just wasn't any good that time so uk, why not hit the play button...

Said and done. 'Flabbergasted' just what I was when I realized I'm listening to FOTC (Flight of the Conchords - for the ones who are not aware of this awesome duo). Yep not my CD, but could have been ;)

And just like that I had to smile n hum along ^^