permanent cycle on my ipod

I first heard this girl sing at the Falls Festival in January.  At the time I asked my ever-so-much-hipper younger sisters who this quirky, slightly awkward girl wow-ing the crowd was.  Almost simultaneously they both looked at me with the distain reserved only for older sisters who are displaying how totally out of touch with the Australian music scene they have become, and they told me she was Lisa Mitchell, one of the few talented singers who has managed to succeed as an independent musician after the roller-coaster of Australian Idol.  I flew back to Germany and promptly forgot about the whole thing until last weekend at the movies I saw an ad for mobile phones, of all things, using her song.  Afterwards I went home, downloaded her album Wonder, and have had it on permanent cycle on my ipod since.  Guaranteed I'll be listening to it this weekend too as I settle into another wet weekend spent indoors chilling out, eating homemade soup, reading and listening to the rain fall on the roof. 

A Poem on Thursday : i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me, 

by E.E.Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

terrariums

For some reason this picture has got me thinking about Terrariums and I've decided that I want one.  Not exactly sure where it's going to go in our small apartment, but Matthias seems to haven taken over the role of Chief Balcony Gardener, and I figure maybe a Terrarium could be a little bit of dirt to call my own.  Actually, I'm quite happy that he's Chief Gardener because I have a nasty habit of neglecting plants and tend to kill them with a vicious cycle of under and then over watering.  But a terrarium would water itself and then I could just admire the wonderfulness of the green, little microsystem.  And if it was a pretty shape like the Pear Terrariums below, well, that'd just be grand.

Image: Shel Terrific

tea time

Image: Risumiru on Flickr

Six days into my caffeine-free stint my caffeine headache has well and truly passed.  Good-bye Coffee Mug, Hello Tea Cup!  So far I'm sticking to a simple Green tea with the occasional Peppermint tea to keep it interesting.  To be honest I'm a little intimidated by the supermarket 'tea selection'.  So many options!  Does Apple and Cinnamon really work as a hot drink? Dandelion? It may be good for you, but I'm not really interested in drinking something that tastes like grass.  And I need options - bare in mind that I pretty much constantly have a hot drink in my hand at work.  That's roughly 4-5 cups a day, plus breakfast and after-dinner.  So we're talking about half a dozen cups, Green tea and Peppermint tea may be nice but they're not going to sustain me forever.  So people, help me out here, what are you favourite caffeine-free hot drinks?

PS. I know that Green tea isn't caffeine-free, but it contains lovely anti-oxidants and it tastes good.

gumboots and umbrellas

Image: thirteen winks

It's a rainy, grey day here in Berlin.  I woke up to the sound of rain falling onto the roof and into the gutters.  Was very tempted to roll over and go back to sleep.  It's the perfect day for having a nice long, warm bath, snuggling up under a doona and reading a good book.  Plenty of hot tea and scones on the side.  Pity I have to work.  My mind keeps getting distracted with the thought of gumboots and umbrellas and stomping through puddles like it's nobodies business.  There's something so refreshing about spring rain making the city fresh and clean again.

Oh, and I found this little sketch on etsy while I was day-dreaming and taking a break from some pretty mundane stuff I have to do today. So simple and yet so, so cute!

May Day

May Day in Kreuzberg.  

The 1st of May has a strange significance for Berlin.  Traditionally a day to celebrate the humble worker, for the last few years it has been a day where anarchists and neo-Nazis take to the streets, often with violent clashes with the police.  The burning of cars and bloody fighting between police and protesters  is not unusual.  In an effort to try to reduce violent clashes the police and government have given over two blocks of Kreuzberg to the people on May 1st.  

In theory, anything goes.  We wandered down in the mid-afternoon and it was actually very calm and resembled every other street festival I've been to.  Although with one exception - almost all of the food being sold seemed to be made by people who lived in the apartments above the street.  Most tenants had simply set up a table on the street and were selling homemade Koftas, Kebab, Kuche (cake) and, of course, beer for 1-2 euro.  There didn't really seem to be much threat of violence either, although much later on Saturday night there were helicopters and the constant wail of police sirens so it, perhaps, got nastier after dark.  Another layer to this strange and eclectic city I'm living in.

Happy May Day!  

oscar wilde gift cards

A few weeks ago Tillie from she waits for whispers asked for a favourite quote.  I think I might have adopted this from my older sister - which is really what older sisters are all about - and I remember having a t-shirt with this quote printed on it and it has remained one of my favourites.  What I didn't realise when I posted on Tillie's wall was that she would design a giftcard for my quote and send it to me.  But here it is - all the way from New Zealand.  I have four cards just like the one above patiently waiting to be let out into the world again - I just need to decide on four people who'll also appreciate the quote!