French weeks

The Alsace. The Lorraine. Riviera des Alpes. The Ariege. Or from the north to the south of France.

We (I) spent the last couple of weekends in France. Stuttgart being so close to the French border makes it a nice weekend escape. France, a huge & beautiful country with so many different landscapes included. Je t’aime!

A wonderful weekend in the Alsace with friends from Ireland.

Lorraine with a friend from Chicago. Girls weekend.

This young lady traveled all the way from Chicago.

Now enjoying summer holiday in France. Looking forward to meet friends & family.

Happy summer vacation. Tomorrow, we are going south. Bon voyage 🥖🇫🇷🍷☀️🐶🍦

I got you

9 years ago we said “yes” to each other. A day to remember like it was yesterday: an old Camaro from 1978. Getting married in a vineyard. Andrettis Vineyard. Napa Valley. Lemon cake. California. A daddy parking the car so we could run away if I wanted. Lots of happy tears. Mum and mother-in-law almost wearing the same dress. Music notes gone with the wind. 8 guest and us. Olive trees. 5 course menu. Lemon tart for wedding cake. Curly hair. Ave Maria. A dance. Newly weds. My mums almost broken ankle. Wine. Plenty of delicious wine. 2 families who (still) don’t speak the same language but like each other (maybe that’s why). 2 weeks later an earthquake. Lucky us. It was a fantastic day! It’s been wonderful 9 years!

Happy anniversary!

„I Got You

I got everything

I Got You

I don’t need nothing more than you

I got everything

I Got You“

-Jack Johnson

We are F A M I L Y

A week with Charlotte, my 8 year old god child and niece. We had a fantastic and busy week: Minigolf. BBQ. Curly hair. Making chocolate. Barbie & bed cinema. Being asked to get married. Uhhhh. Ahhhh. Motorcycle mandalas. Baking muffins. Making popcorn. Monopoly. Sleeping in every morning. Taking Charlie for walks.

A week filled with laughter. Dancing & singing songs. Me eating kids dinners: fish finger & piccolino pizzas.

Friday night:

Saturday: family reunion. It was wonderful seeing you all again! Making Dutch ovens for dinner and sitting around the fire is simly the best.

We counted 884 years all together. We are all related to each other from my mums side.

Sunday lunch: hungry again after last nights amazing dinner.

Ready for a wee family break. Lol. Cu all again in 5 weeks, and then it’s wedding time!

Barbie

Barbie Fever. Barbie mania.

Did you know that “Barbie” had a German Mama?

Here she is… Lilli in her up-to-the-minute ski outfit, a “Blond Bombshell” based on a comic strip character first published in Germany’s Bild-Zeitung on 24 June 1952.

Ruth Handler, wife of a co-founder of Mattel, saw “Lilli” in 1956 while holidaying in Europe, and bought six dolls to take back to the US. Including this one where she was dressed ready for the slopes.

Mattel’s designers were ordered to come up with a similar doll for the US market, so they “tweaked” Lilli’s shape and Ruth Handler renamed the doll “Barbie”, after her daughter Barbara.

On 9 March 1959, the first Barbie doll was unveiled to the toy industry at the New York Toy Fair.

So Barbie is a German American… but it was not until 1964 that Mattel managed to obtain the rights to “Bild Lilli”, and production of the doll had to end in Germany. Then Lilli became a part of history.

In fact it had been sold in the United States as just “Lilli” or as “Lilli Marleen/Marlene” and marketed briefly to young girls.

And in 1958, a year before Barbie appeared, German cinemas were showing a murder comedy, Lilli – ein Mädchen aus der Großstadt, – Lilli A Girl From The Big City, where Lilli used her charm and good looks to help the police deal with “baddies” at a hotel, while also holding down her job at a newspaper.

Lilli was young, pretty, flippant and quite a character, and with her wardrobe of over 80 outfits, including this typical Bavaria Tracht, she mirrored the trends of popular female culture and international fashion of those post war times.

Catalogue photo of Lilly in her ski outfit is from fondationtanagra. In those days snowfalls were heavier and lasted longer than today, so skiing was something of an “everyday” experience during the winter months in many of Germany’s regions.

Is she going skiing in those shoes? Lol.

I watched “Barbie” today in the cinema. I loved it. My 8 year old god child was rather bored (she was excited about the bed cinema & popcorn). It’s not a typical kids film. It’s about the “real world”. It’s about feminism. It’s comedy. It’s fun. Barbie is leaving her Truman’s world. Good job, Greta Gerwig!

…moving to the real world (is Venice Beach the real world? Lol).

The movie is ending, that Barbie decides to be a human living in “our humans world” and making an appointment at the gynecologist. And she’s not in love with Ken! Oh dear! Ken may not sell anymore…

Enough told. Everyone who loves Barbie should watch it.

S U M M E R 2 0 2 3

Weeks of sunshine & blue sky. Ice-cream & hanging out outside. Beer garden. Daily BBQs. A garden full of veggies & fruits & flowers. A summer where the living room is outside, and the stars are the television program. Mosquitos inclusive, of course. And visitors: friends from France, South Carolina, Cyprus, Spain, Lilienthal and Ireland (on the agenda). And the best part: summer isn’t over yet.

P!NK

More concerts! Yesssss!

Wow! Wow! Wow!

Summer Carnival in Munich! And we were part of show 1 (out of 2) in Munich. And what a show it was!!!

She’s a rockstar!

I love spending Wednesday nights in Munich with Pink! She rocks! Her music is powerful, she makes statements. She’s sexy. She’s confident. She’s amazing! She’s great! I’m proud to be one of her fans. lol.

What a show! We thought about getting a ticket for the 2nd show tonight… but getting up this morning was hard… so we decided for the beer garden instead.

Munich, enjoy P!ink tonight!!!

More photos from Facebook:

Wow!

Jack Johnson

“I Got You

I got everything

I Got You

I don’t need nothing more than you

I got everything

I Got You”

“I’ve got an angel

She doesn’t wear any wings

She wears a heart that can melt my own

Wears a smile that can make me wanna sing

She gives me presents

With her presence alone

She gives me everything I could wish for

Gives me kisses on the lips just for coming home”

…how could you not love him… I mean his songs… lol

It’s the year after Covid. It’s the year of concerts. It’s summer & Jack Johnson in Europe!

My bestie discovered his tour dates in Europe many months ago. We purchased tickets. She organized a baby sitter. We got her camper ready and off we went! A girls weekend in Austria to see Jack Johnson, a singer we both adore since 2005/2006. A throw back. Fabulous music & memories.

It was soooooooo good! Despite a little bit of rain, we had a fab time. Repeat in 2024!

Roses

Roses everywhere. Pink. White. Red. Small ones. Big ones. All of them have one thing in common: they are beautiful & smell wonderful.

Just roses. The color of love, desire, and hope.

Our garden. Our oasis.

B A N K S Y

It all started back in 1990… He chose Bristol, England, as the playground for his work. It’s assumed he is from Bristol, nobody knows… what we do know is that he was different, evocative. Nobody knows his real name. Banksy is a pseudonymous street artist, political activist and film director. Or: he’s the Picasso of the 20th Century.

Everybody is crazy for Banksy. His fans as much as the police…

BANKSY once said “I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.”

We don’t need to know his face to get a glimpse into his brilliant head, BANKSY*S anonymity is his superpower, it gives him the opportunity to speak freely and everyone else the chance to identify with someone who has no identity.

“Stop me before I paint again” shows a policeman in uniform holding a police dog on a leash and carrying a torch in his hand. He inspects the writing of the same sentence on a wall and looks for the person responsible for the graffiti. Once again in this work Banksy mocks the police forces who arrive on the scene too late. It implies a certain superiority of the street artists over the police, who are even challenged by the words “Stop me before I paint again”. So the artist behind the graftiti seems to have no fear of the police. Yet it is very important for Banksy and other street artists to remain anonymous and undetected in their art, as it is legally damage to property which can be punished with heavy fines and even imprisonment. “Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better-looking place.” – Banksy

He is and has been writing history ever since his first works popped up in the streets of Bristol in the late 90s, a history that we are all part of leading to a future that lays in our hands.

Some impressions from the current Banksy exhibition in Stuttgart.

“Love hurts”: The motif of the wounded heart balloon has also been used in other works. Banksy himself has stated that Love Hurts is “obviously an icon of the struggle to survive a broken heart. It’s an uplifting visual poem for the most fragile human emotions that seem to move within us as if on a gentle breeze.”

“Kissing Coppers” is a Banksy stencil depicting two British police officers kissing. This work celebrates tolerance in a city that has been known for its gay-friendliness since the 1960s. Yet the public was not always so tolerant. Until 2000, says were still barred from serving in the British armed forces. The Civil Partnership Act, a law granting same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, was only introduced in 2004

“Devolved Parliament”: The painting shows the debating chamber of the British House of Commons in a bitingly satirical way, but instead of debating MPs, the House of Commons is filled with chim-panzees. Although it was painted back in 2009, many commentators have drawn comparisons to current politics and the chaos in Parliament over Brexit.

“The Makeup”: Graffiti in the graffiti a black child covers with an adorable pink pattern a most well-known symbol: a Nazi swastika. It was found near a former first reception centre for migrants on the northern edge of the French capital Paris. The Image has since been sprayed over. Banksy had already criticised France for its treatment of refugees in an artwork in 2015. Near the “Jungle” camp in Calais, he left a motif showing Apple founder Steve Jobs – himself the son of Syrian immi-grants – with a bundle over his shoulder and a computer in his hand.

“Pissing Guard” (also known as Queen’s Guard Pissing) is meant to illustrate the hypocrisy of the authorities and the British royals. The distinctive guards are most often seen outside Buckingham Palace. They are known for not being allowed to move while on duty. It is therefore most ironic to see a guard in this inelegant position – urinating on street corner.

“Di-Faced” is a pun on the word “defaced” and refers to the fact that Banksy has altered the well-known £10 note by replacing the portrait of Queen Elizabeth I with that of the late Princess Diana. The work can be seen as a commentary on Diana’s estrangement from the royal family, her criticism of the British royal institution and the ensuing chivvy by the press. Instead of “Bank of England”, the note reads “Banksy of England* Under the banner it says: ” promise to pay the highest price to the bearer on demand”, an allusion to the fate of the late princess in the hands of the media. The back side of the print remains essentially unchanged, with the exception of the motto “Trust no one” that is written in the lower right-hand corner below the portrait of Charles Darwin.

“Venice in Oil” takes on a double meaning here: the sign provides information about the subject and the material, and in addition it criticises the environmental pollution caused by shipping and tourism. Mass tourism in Venice has reached new dimensions in the last 15 years, especially due to cruise ships. More than 600 passenger ships call at the lagoon every year, flushing more than 1.5 million day-trippers into the city, making it an ecological disaster. In addition, the ships cause lasting damage to the lagoon’s foundation. Banksy’s statement to the action: “I am putting down my stand at the Venice Biennale. Despite being the biggest and most prestigious art event in the world, for some reason I was never invited”.

Maybe the most Knie art work from Banksy: “Girl with Balloon”. The work shows a girl whose hair and dress are blowing in the wind and who is reaching for a red, heart-shaped balloon. The gesture and the red balloon convey a strong message that can be read in different ways. The meaning can be interpreted as the loss of innocence or the arrival of new hope and love.

One of his framed prints from 2006 was up for auction. Moments after the painting sold for £860,000, the shredder secretly built into the frame triggered and destroyed the canvas. With this statement on the commercialisation of his work, Banksy made history in the art community. On 14 October 2021, the half-shredded “Girl with Balloon” changed hands with its new title “Love is in the Bin”. At the London auction house Sotheby’s, the work went under the hammer for 16 million pounds.

Best of Scotland

Scotland is all about Harry Potter, castles & whiskey, history & nature. From The Highlands to Edinburgh, whiskey to pints, and kilts to high-fashion. Scotland is incredible, wild, historic & mystical.

Whisky 🥃 from the highlands, lowlands & islands!

The magical street – inspiration for Harry Potter

About Scottish weather: either we were extremely lucky or weather discussions are totally overrated. What we can confirm: If you don’t like the weather just wait for 5min, it will change. Also you can experience all 4 season in the same day… true and maybe that’s why I caught a pretty bad cold.

Scotland is definitely delicious. No matter if you try the classic dishes: Neeps (Turnips), and Tatties (mashed potatoes), Haggis (combination of sheep’s pluck (sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs), onions, oatmeal, and spices, then wrapped in an animal’s stomach or an artificial casing.) or anything else. It’s delicious.