Only a few more hours and 2010 is over. The year 2011 is just around the corner. What will it bring for me, for you and for us. Will it be goo, will it be bad? Who knows?
The new year will lay in front of us just like a white sheet of paper waiting for to be written on. What will be written? I wish you all the very best for 2011!
So, be keen to write your own story on this sheet of paper! It’s your life and you’r the main character. Go for it!
Yes, it’s true. The current amounts of snow were not common here over the last approximately 30 years. Such snow amounts were common when I was at school. But now the city governments are not used with such conditions and have serious troubles to handle with them.
Two weeks ago it became a bit warmer and started to rain. Beside the fear of getting a green Christmas again we got very dangerous conditions on the strees because of black ice from the rain falling onto the cold frozen streets. On the other hand the rain began melting the snow.
But the next day the temperature dropped down again and it also started to snow again. Currently we have approximately 40 – 50 cm of snow laying on the ground.
Today it’s Christmas Eve. Today is the beginning of Christmas. Most offices are closed today. Shops, city malls, supermarket and grocery stores are open ’til 1 or 2 p.m and open very early in the morning (i.e. at 7 or 6 a.m. instead of 9 or 8 or 10 a.m.).
In the afternoon there are special programs for kids (and even young kids) at TV, in some cinemas and theaters to help them shorten the waiting time until the evening.
Christmas starts in most families usually at about half past 4. Many people are going to the Christmas service in one of the churches even they don’t go for any other service during the whole year (expect Easter maybe). When back from the church we usually have a special dinner. Some have a traditional dinner with potato salad and sausages or grilled duck, cooked carp. Other cook a more festive meal. After the meal everyone gets his or her gifts. When a family has small kids, they get their gifts before the meal and they are usually allowed to stay up a little longer.l
The Christmas Day (25th) is usually used for visiting relatives, like parents or grandparents. It’s a pubic holiday.
The Boxing Day (26th) is also a public holiday. It’s also often used for visiting relatives (i.e. the spouses relatives) or friends. Some people use that free day for a walk after all the good food.
During the 4 weeks before Christmas the people decorate the homes with candles, Christmas pictures, angels and other Christmas related decoration stuff as well as with an Advent wreath. It’s usually made from fir twigs and is also decorated. It also has usually 4 red candles, one for each Sunday before Christmas. At Christmas most families buy a fir and build it up as the Christmas tree where later the gifts are put under.
I wish a peaceful Christmas to you and your family.
Yeah, my first photo in a book about the beauty-ness of our region.
Photographers in our region were asked to send in photographs taken in our region. Each photographer was allowed to send in up to 6 photos in 6 categories (one in each category). More then 2.600 photographers took part.
The winners of each category got a prize and another 170 photographs got in the book, too.
The pic shows our old town during the traditional fun fair. The laundry is for decoration purposes and is also a tradition.
Unfortunately I don’t know the meaning behind, ’cause I’m not a native here in the city.
Yes, it’s true: winter started yesterday. Snow is falling slowly but constantly and covering the landscape with a thin white blanket. After about 24 hours of snowing the coverage is approximately 1 -2 cm thick. Not much yet, but it’s enough to hinder the traffic enormously. Many traffic jams and accidents were reported in the evening news yesterday and even flights were canceled because of the slippy snow.
This weekend we had had the first Advent. That means, that the Christmas market in our city took place again. As usual there were several booths build up on the old market place in front of the protestant church in the old town.
And as usual, many of the booths were operated by local clubs, like sports clubs or social clubs, offering food or drinks. They offered green cabbage with roasted potatoes and Mettwurst (a type of German sausage), bratwurst, French fries and waffles to eat and hot coffee, tea, cacao, punch and spiced wine (Glühwein) as well as cold beer from our local brewery. There were also some stands selling Christmas decoration stuff. At one stand they sold warm pullovers, gloves, wool scarfs and wool toques. For small kids there were three different merry-go-rounds. For older kids a mobile smith offered to forge an artistic object. There also was a stage for different music bands playing Christmas songs.
You can find a Christmas market in nearly every German city during the Advent. In most cities th Christmas markets lasts 4 weeks and in some big cities you can even found more than one. On the other hand, in smaller cities the Christmas markets are only run on a few days, like in city where I live. Here the Christmas market lasts only one weekend. (Beside, they started this year already on Thursday than on Friday as before).
no images were found
The Breitach is here a young, small river and a Klam is a narrow and deep valley, the river goes through, a flume. This flume is very deep and the water has formed the stone in an interesting and impressive way.
We visited the Breitach Klam during our trip to the Alpes. It lasts haf a day. Even it was a nice and sunny day, it was cold in the Klamm because of the moisture in the air and on all stones. Water falls from above the Klamm and the river goes very fast.
Don’t wonder about the fancy colors at the walls. All the colors are real. I guess they come from reflecting the sky.
During our trip to the Alpes we also had a little hike mountian up. Even it was a bit exhausting, because we’re not trained to do such hikes, it was nice to enjoy the beautiful landscape from there.
The snow, that did fall a few days earlier, made the landscape look even more beautiful.
This morning my wife found an Alpine newt in the water in our guests toilet. We’re not living in the countryside, but in a small city. Thus it’s quite a surprise to find such an animal in the garden. Though the surprise was even bigger to find it in the house. We also don’t have a pond.
Never the less, we fetched it out of the toilet.
Here are some pictures I’ve taken before we set him free at the pond of our neighbors.
Have you ever seen paradise birds flying free in the sky? I have, and it was so wonderful to look at them. It seemed to me that they had so much fun in flying. It seemed to me that they were playing tag with each other and flying one loop after another just for fun.
This is the White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus ). I saw them several times and it was a pleasure to observe them. Their flights impressed me very much.
I also saw the black Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher, a very rare black paradise bird. I only saw one bird twice. When I it first I didn’t have a camera with me, because I came back from snorkeling. At the second time I saw one I was unable to place a good shot because the bird only flew short distances from one tree to another hiding itself in the leaves. According to Wikipedia there are only about 200 black Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher couples living on La Digue. So I’m happy for have seen one.
There were also some other birds. But until now I’m unable to identify them all. I’ll post them later.
no images were found