Sunday confessions! And happy American Father's Day!

Meine Lieben,

it is Sunday which means it's time to link up with sweet and fabulous Alyx from Every day is a new adventure! Confessions time!






But first of all: Happy American Father's Day to my Papa! He is lucky because now he can celebrate Father's Day twice a year! The German one in May and the American one in June. Woohoo!

My Papa is the best Dad in the world. There are many reasons why. I can tell you a couple of them.
He is always there for me and supports me all the time. We are a great team. After my Mama's death he tried to be Mom and Dad for me. He goes shopping with me and always picks out the greatest clothes for me. He gives me beauty advice. He always listens to my stories. He tells me when I talk crap. He buys shoes for me. He tells me to shut up when I talk too much. He smoked a cigar with me on my 19th birthday and got really sick. He makes me laugh. He loves my friends. He is always patient even when I spend 2 hours at Zara. He loves animals. He listens to my fashion advice. He drives two hours to a Lush store with me just because I want to buy a hand cream. He is funny. He is loving and caring. He eats a whole cake in 2 days just because I made it.  He is the best Dad anyone could ever wish for. I love you and I miss you, Papa! Thank you for everything!

Okay, my confessions. 
1. I found out that I am not a good a good baker. When I bake something it either tastes good or looks good. On Friday I touched the bottom of my baking career and made something that neither tastes good nor looks good. I am devastated. I wanted to make banana-vanilla-muffins but it looks like I wanted to make paving blocks. They look weird, they are sticky and taste bitter. David says they are good but he is my husband so he has to say that.

2. On Friday I went to a gas station and got gas. That doesn't sound very exciting but I never got gas at an American gas station before and it works completely different than German gas stations. I mean, completely. I had no idea what to do because in Germany you get gas and then go inside and pay. Here in America I had to insert cards, push many buttons and lift a handle up. And I had no idea what that means. I looked like a complete idiot because I had no idea what to lift up and how. I am sure it was lots of fun for the other customers. Sometimes I feel really stupid as a German in America. 

3. I am the leader of our little Fußball bet at the moment and I couldn't be any prouder. I know that it won't last very long but it's a good feeling. I currently have 15 points, David 12 and my Dad has 9. 

4. I would love to be the helicopter pilot for the Sea Shepherd. That would be so awesome. I need a helicopter license! Where can I get that? I admire what Sea Shepherd does and I would like to be a part of it. As sad as it is but I could never go on one of these small boats because I would die. I am so scared of deep water so the helicopter would be the perfect option for me. I am sure I would be a great helicopter pilot. Do you guys watch Whale Wars?

5. I love every single animal on this planet (and all the other planets) and there is only one animal I am scared of. I don't know why but I am scared that this animal could crawl into my ear and eat my brain. It's a childhood trauma. I am talking about Riesentausendfüßer. In English giant centipedes. Don't get me wrong, I would never ever harm them. I rescue every animal I see. My husband is not allowed to kill any animal that comes into our house. Riesentausendfüßer scare me a little bit, I can't help myself. 

I hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday and Father's Day!

Welcome to my German home. Hauptsach gudd gess.

Hallo meine Lieben,

I guess that most of you know that I am a German who lives in the United States. So today I want to show you where I come from, the place I was born and grew up in. 

Around 82 Million people live in Germany, A little more than a million of these people live in Saarland which is one of the 16 German federal states. You can see in the map that Saarland is a very small state. Actually it is the smallest state in Germany besides the city states Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin. The capital of Saarland is Saarbrücken, the city I studied and worked in. Saarland is located near the borders of France and Luxemburg and I was able to drive over there in less than 15 minutes. Pretty cool. For example gas is much much cheaper in Luxemburg (gas is very expensive in Germany) so I always drove over there to get gas and coffee.

Between 1947 and 1956 the Saarland was a French-occupied territorty. In 1956 the inhabitants were offered independence but instead voted to become a part of Western Germany. Since 1971, Saarland has been a member of SaarLorLux, a euroregion created from Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Rhineland Palatinate and Wallonia.

Enough history lessons. I'll show you some pictures.

That's Germany. As you can see Saarland is also very close to Belgium and the Netherlands. It is really cool because you are able to drive to all kinds of great places. I love that about Germany. You drive a couple of hours and you are in a different country. 

The town I grew up in is very small. Only 700 people live there. We had a supermarket when I was a kid but now there  is only a bakery and a hair salon. So you need a car. There are buses that drive to bigger towns but not that many (but at least there are some buses, America). My school was 15 minutes away so I had to take the bus every morning at 7:10 am.  My town is very picturesque, there are lots of trees and cows and horses. It is always quiet, there are not many cars...it's like paradise. :)

That's the Saar. The state is named after the river. It rises in the Vosges mountains on the border of Alsace and Lorraine in France and flows northwards into the Moselle near Trier. Trier is a city located in Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate), the German state I was born in. By the way: is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC. 

A view over Saarburg, the town I was born in. Also a very small town, only 6700 people live there. As you can see, everything in Germany is a little smaller than in America. Berlin is the biggest city in Germany. 3.5 Million people live there. I guess that's not much for American standards. 

David took this picture because he thought it's funny that beer glasses are much bigger than glasses with coca cola in it. We Germans love our beer, it's a fact.

This is me with a cute dog. I am a huge animal lover and this picture was taken at the annual party of an animal rescue. The dog stood there like that for an hour and I immediately fell in love with him.

That's the famous "Saarschleife" (bend in the Saar). You can find it on every postcard in Saarland. Lots of tourists come to see it. Although there is not much else to see but I guess it is worth a picture. You can't really see it in the picture but there is a castle on the other side of the river. The castle "Montclair". 

This castle was build in 1439. There was a castle before that one which was build in 1180. You can still go and visit the castle. There are several sagas about the castle Montclair, one of them says that a knight jumped with his horse from a big rock into the Saar. You can still see the imprint of the horseshoe in the rock. A ghost also lives in Montclair.

That's me and David at the Saar. The place we stand is a hang-gliding ramp. It looks pretty dangerous to me. You can sit there and see people jump, it's pretty interesting.

Me and David at the Saarschleife. We had to take some touristy pictures. It was his first time in Europe. :) There are not many famous spots in Saarland but this is a must-see. 

I make a sad face because the black cat in background ignored me. 

The famous waterfall in Saarburg. I know, not very impressing. You can't really compare it to the Niagara Falls but it is in downtown Saarburg and you can sit next to the waterfall and eat ice-cream.

David sitting on a rock looking over the Saar. I am sure you are sick of seeing so many pictures of a stupid river but it's an important part of Saarland. You see that river everywhere. 

David at my favorite Pizzeria in Saarland. You get the best Pizza there and they are so big that they don't fit on normal plates. They have to use huge silver plates for them. But I guess you know huge plates when you are American. So I can't really impress you with that picture.  It's huge for German standards though. 

People from Saarland love to eat. David ate "Grumperküchelscha" here. At least that's how you call it in our dialect. In German you say "Reibekuchen". They are made of potatoes and you eat them with apple sauce. 
"Hauptsach gudd gess" is a famous saying from Saarland. It basically means that we are fine as long as we have some good food.
Another thing people from Saarland love is "Schwenken". In America you would call it Barbecue and everywhere else in Germany you say "Grillen" but we Saarländer use a "Schwenker" to grill our food. You can see it on the picture below.

(I put vegetables and tofu sausages on my Schwenker, no meat! :))

I hope you enjoyed my little journey. There are many great places in Germany but I admit that Saarland is not the most exciting one. :) But at least we have lots of nature and nice and friendly people. The dialect might be hard to understand though.

Have a great Saturday!

Book club! Fresh veggies day! Du & Sie. Icelandic names.

Hallo Ihr Lieben,

I hope you all had a wonderful National Skunk Day yesterday! Please don't forget that we can celebrate "Fresh Veggies Day" on Sunday! Another very important holiday! It's pretty awesome because I eat fresh veggies everyday so I am basically the hero of fresh veggies day. Yay for that.

I will bake vegan banana vanilla muffins later. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. I love baking and it is a very relaxing activity for me but usually everything I bake looks like a 5-year-old made it. It tastes good but doesn't look very flattering so you have to close your eyes when you eat it. 

I am linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde!

I guess you all know that I love crime novels and that's why I want to talk about Arnaldur Indridason today.

The book is called "Hypothermia", the German title is "Kälteschlaf" and the original Icelandic title is "Harðskafi". I would love to learn the Icelandic language by the way. So interesting. I have to say that it still confuses me that Americans and people from Iceland don't distinguish between "Du" and "Sie". Everybody is just "you" in English. It's the same in Iceland. In German I call my friends and family "Du" and people I don't know very well or people at work "Sie". So sometimes I feel weird when I say "you" to everybody. I know that doesn't make any sense because there is just no other word for it and you don't have to decide if you need to be polite or not but it's still weird for me.

Anyway. The book.

And this is how it looks in Germany. I have read the German edition by the way. I wish I could read it in Icelandic. 

I don't know why but I usually like the German covers a little better than the American ones. I think this one is okay but still...I can't really say why. 

Arnaldur Indridason is an Icelandic writer who mostly writes crime fiction.. Most of his novels feature the protagonist Erlendur (in Iceland people call each other with their first names all the time. I like that.). 

There is another fact about Iceland that I love! Your last name reflects your father's first name! Isn't that awesome! I mean, it is kind of weird that you don't have the same last name than your father but it is so cool! So you take your father's first name and add a "-son" when you are a boy and a "-dottir" when you are a girl. 
Here is an example: My Dad's first name is Heribert. So in Iceland my name would be "Katrin Heribertdottir". Isn't that fabulous? I love it. Unfortunately I am not from Iceland but you can't have everything. My husband's name would be "David Toddson". 

Okay, I want to talk about the book! (But I really hope that I will be able to travel to Iceland soon, The country is so fascinating!!).

In Indridason's crime novels the past always plays an important role.Inspector Erlendur's brother vanished without a trace during a snow storm...nobody knows what happened that night and Erlendur tries to run from his ghosts but has to face the truth at some point...Maybe he will be able to finally find out the truth...

The corpse of a young woman was found at a history charged lake in Iceland on a cold fall evening. It looks like a suicide. But Erlendur is suspicious when he received a tape recording of a seance. The young woman talked to a medium a couple of days before she died. Erlendur doesn't believe in Parapsychology but wants to find out the truth. He discovers a well-protected family secret during his research. The secret overshadowed the whole childhood of the woman....what happened to the woman? Can Erlendur solve the mystery. He discovers that 30 years ago two young people went missing in the same area? Is there a connection?


Indridason is a fantastic writer and all his books are so suspenseful. A must-read for every fan of crime novels. But I really think that everybody should read this book. Everybody.





What are you currently reading? Have a wonderful Friday!

In Bruges. And happy skunk day!

Meine Lieben,

Happy National Skunk Day!!! Yay! How do you celebrate it? It is pretty funny that there is a skunk day. I have never heard about that before but I think that there should be a day for every animal! But hey, people should celebrate EVERY animal EVERY day. Animals make me happy and that's a good reason for a celebration. 

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Last fall David hopped on a plane to come and visit Europe! We stayed a couple of days in Cadzand Bad at the North Sea and during that stay we visited Bruges (or Brugge) in Belgium. I have been to Bruges a couple of times and I am in love with the town. I love the atmosphere there. There are many tourists in Bruges but it's still very relaxed and quiet. 

Bruges is the capital of the province West Flanders. It's also the province's largest city with a population of 117000 people (I guess that's pretty small for American standards) and 13,840 hectars. It is located in the north west of Belgium and the historic city center is a prominent World heritage site of the UNESCO. It is sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the North" because of all the canals. And at least for me, the city has the same mystique feeling than Venice. (Did you know that there is something called "The Venice syndrome"? Many people chose Venice as a place to commit suicide because of it's melancholy. It's true.).

In case you haven't seen the movie "In Bruges" starring Colin Farrell yet: watch it! You see a lot of Bruges plus the movie is really good.

So, I want to share some of our pictures with you, I hope you like them.

Windmill! I swear, we stopped at every windmill we saw and we got so excited every single time. And there are lots of windmills in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Rozenhoedkaai. This city is so beautiful and it has many many beautiful churches that are definitely worth a visit. 

We had to do some touristy things and so we ended up in a boat on a canal ride. It was very funny and we saw a lot of great architecture including all the scary looking bridges. I was a little scared that the boat would not fit under it and that we had to drown. I am scared of deep water, you know. 

We were really lucky with the weather. It was a perfect day in Bruges! I am glad David liked it too. It was really hard for me to decide what I want to show him. I mean, it was his first time in Europe and there are so many places I want to show him...and we only had 11 days. 

I love this picture. In my opinion it perfectly catches the atmosphere of the city. I mean, all the medieval architecture....it's fantastic.

I have to say it wasn't easy to find a place to park. All the streets are very small and I think we searched for over half an hour. My Dad later said that he thinks it's totally easy to find a parking spot in Bruges but okay. So maybe it was just me. 

And this is the most famous inhabitant of Bruges. Fidel the dog. He is a golden labrador and he lives at the Côté Canal bed and breakfast overlooking the main canal. But he’s better known as “that dog who’s in every person who goes to Bruges’ photo album”. He even made an appearance in the movie! So cool.

Please watch the trailer, you won't regret it. Plus you see the dog at 1:47.

David and me in front of the Provinciaal Hof. It is located at the market. I think the post office is in there but I am not sure. 

You can see it better here. You can't miss it when you are in Bruges. You see it from far away, it is in the city center and there are many shops and restaurants around it. 

David at one of the many canals. I just realizes that I love all cities with canals. Venice, Amsterdam, Bruges. I am not sure what that says about me. 

As I said, the bridges were all so tiny and our boat captain told us to duck so that we don't get hurt. I guess I was the only person who actually did it. 

And at the end David tried to break into a windmill. He wasn't successful so we did not have to spend the night in jail.

I hope you guys are having a great day. Have you ever been to Belgium? Did you watch the movie?

Chaos. Or: In my purse.

Hallo Ihr Lieben,

I love to read posts like this on other blogs so I wanted to show you what's in my purse. Maybe you are a stalker like me and enjoy looking at other people's stuff.

Sorry for the quality of my pictures but I had to take them with my phone. 

So this is all the stuff I carry around in my purse.

1. My sunglasses.
My eyes are very sensitive so I always need sunglasses when there is any sign of sunshine. My eyes start to hurt a lot when I don't have my sunglasses. I had a hole in my left eye once so maybe it's because of that. On the other hand, my right eye hurts too so I don't know.

2. Antiseptic hand cleanser.
I need it. You never know where you go so it's always good to have it. I feel so much better when I know that it's there when I need it. This is from P2, from my favorite German drug store dm.

3. My passport.
I am a stranger in this country so I always carry around my passport. 

4. A pen.
I always have a pen in my purse because I need to write down stuff. Kind of sad that I forget my notebook most of the time. So yeah, it is not on the picture because it's on the couch table at the moment. If I don't have my notebook I write important things on receipts, business cards etc. I am oldschool, I need paper and a pen.

5. Little purse for stuff.
I have all the smaller stuff in that little purse. It's cute because it is pink with beige polka dots. I got it from my Dad. Yeah, my Dad knows me and gets stuff like that for me. He is the best Dad ever by the way.

6. Keys.
In America I only have 2 keys on my key chain. One for the car and one for the house. I have lots more in Germany, I don't know why. But anyways, I have a lot of other stuff on my key chain. That blue-white (not so white anymore) band you can see is from a Robbie Williams concert in 2003. I use it since then and I love it. My best friend Julia has the same. I got that teddy bear from my Dad because he knows that I love animals. I also got that silver kitten from my Dad, he bought it for me when we were in Amsterdam together. The turquoise heart is from David, I got it from  him when I visited for the first time. Together with a key to his house. How sweet! There is also a blue lion on it, I got it from Julia and she bought it in Venice. Plus there is a little light on it because I can never find the keyhole in the dark.

7. Concealer.
Always good to have it. This one is from e.l.f. cosmetics and the color is apricot beige. It smells good which is weird because usually concealer doesn't smell that much.

8. Lush Handy Gurugu
Funny name, great hand cream. My absolute favorite at the moment. It smells incredible and makes my hands so soft. With cashew butter, shea butter, rose water, almond oil, vanilla and lots of other great stuff. Vegan and cruelty free.

9. Wallet.
My wallet. I got it from my Dad. He found it in a store and thought I would like it. I do. Lots of space in there. 

10. Nail file.
My nail file has cats on it. Isn't it adorable? Hehe, yeah, I like cute things. I saw this one, it was cheap and I bought it. And yes, I buy things just because they are cute. I am a victim. 

11. Bracelet.
A wooden bracelet. I got this one from my Dad too. He bought it for me in Italy, at the Lake Garda. 

12. Nail polish.
My Beauty Without Cruelty nail polish. It is new and I love the color so much. Plus I love the fact that it's from BWC because it's a cool company. I also like the way the bottle looks. As you can see, I like everything about it.

13.Lip Balm
This one is from my favorite German drugstore, what a surprise. It is pretty old but it's still in my purse.

14. Nail file.
Yeah, another one. This one is a pocket file and I am pretty sure that I need both files. Yes, I am. 

15. Another bracelet.
I really don't know why I carry around all that stuff. I could just wear the bracelets from the beginning but I guess they are in my purse just for the case that I want to wear a bracelet at some point of the day. I don't know. And no, I don't always have bracelets in my purse. I have necklaces too,

16. Eye Freshness Gel.
This one is from Bärbel Drexel and I love to use it. It makes me feel good and I can't really say why. You use it around your eyes and it cools the skin. It's just nice to use it and it is also cruelty free.

And this is my purse.

It is pretty old, was really cheap and I still love it. One time the sales woman at Macy's told me that she loves my purse which was pretty funny because she sells all the 1000 Dollar purses and liked my 15 Euro purse. Ha.

Okay, please be honest, was that totally boring or kind of interesting? As I said, I like these kind of posts from time to time so how do you feel about it?

Have a wonderful day! Germany plays against the Netherlands tonight by the way.

Ten on Tuesday. A weird dream. Dresses. Cows and cakes.

Hallo Ihr Lieben,


I am linking up with lovely Lin from Linny's Vault!


1. I would love to live on a farm in Ireland with cows, sheep, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, bunnies, donkeys, chicken, goats and all kind of other animals. That would be so cool. Animals make me happy! The cow on the picture was so nice. She liked the grass I gave her and let me pet her. I named her Luise.

2. I miss my German "dm" Drogeriemarkt. I know, there are drugstores in America too but they are not like dm. They don't have Alverde and P2 and I don't spend hours there just to look around. I want to be able to buy the Alverde Nude & Flash Limited Edition. I know, this sounds totally stupid. I am aware of this. 

3. I am totally embarrassed because it turned out that I am not a Fußball expert. I watch it since my early childhood. I love it. I get excited. But I am totally losing our Fußball bet. Before the Euro started David, my Dad and I guessed the results of the games. The only game I guessed right so far was the German game against Portugal. They won so I got 1 point for it. I did not even guess the right score because I thought it would end 2:1. You get 3 points for the right score. So now David has 6 points, my Dad 5 and I have 1. It's so embarrassing. I mean, David never cared about soccer before ans he is leading the game? It's just not fair if you ask me. But I am also sure that I will win the bet in the end. 

4. A couple of nights ago I had a really weird dream. David and I lived in a farm house (yeah for that) and we had a strange neighbor. She looked like one of those African voodoo witches and she asked us for marmalade every day. I don't know why but she did that every day. One time we went home from grocery shopping and she had a party going one. We were in a hurry because a soccer game we wanted to watch just started and then every party guest game over to ask us for marmalade. They looked really scary and got angry when we said that we did not have more marmalade. 

Do you have weird dreams too?

5. Today I joined Shane's Bloggers Coast to Coast. You just have to fill out a simple form and Shane adds your name to a virtual map. It makes it easy to find other bloggers from your area. What a great idea.

6. I would like to wear more dresses this summer. I have a couple of really cute dresses but most of the time I wear pants. I don't know why because I really like dresses. But I have so many pants and tops that I wear them every day instead of trying something new. Plus I don't like my legs that much.

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7. By the way. I bought my wedding dress at modcloth.com. I guess most people go to one of these bridal stores but we just did not have time for that. I love my dress. 

8. I love to bake and I should really bake a cake soon. Baking is a very relaxed thing for me. Although I always listen to loud music when I bake. I am not always successful, sometimes my cakes look really awful but they usually taste good. I am thinking about getting this book:

9. My husband should be famous. He is such an amazing writer and musician and he deserves to be famous. 

10. I am totally addicted to spicy pepper mustard at the moment. I eat it every day and combine it with almost everything. Except of my raspberry marmalade. But mustard with fries? So yummy!
Do you like mustard? 


I hope you guys are all having a wonderful Tuesday!