I want to live there!

One of the great things in Wiesbaden is the abundance of historistic buildings from the late 19th century. If I had a lot of money and nobody to stop me by telling me that the idea is insane, I would build myself a castle, just like Ludwig II or the guy who built Cardiff Castle.

Close to my house, someone else had the same idea more than a century ago.
Isn't it wonderful?

Weird Wiesbaden

Last week I went for a long walk through Wiesbaden. In the Rhein-Main-Area, Wiesbaden ist often considered uncool, snobbish and full of old, rich people. And all these cliches are true. 
On the other hand, there are many wonderful, strange or weird places in this town, hidden somewhere between the arrogant, sunglassed widows who shop at the Wilhelmstraße and the absent youth culture. I plan to post a series of short entries in which I show the things in Wiesbaden which I love. Not to defend this town - if it needed defending, Wiesbaden would have the most expensive lawyer possible - but to stay aware of why I enjoy living here and to remind myself of Wiesbaden's redeeming features.

Ok, let's start. On my walk, I first noticed that the knitters of Wiesbaden are much more productive than I am. (After all, I managed to knit about two inches of sock in the last three weeks...)

After that I found the coolest company sign ever.

I knew that there was a company that produced artificial eyes in Wiesbaden, but I had never seen their sign. It reminds me so much of E.T.A. Hofmann's "The Sandman"....

Rooftops

About eight months ago I moved from the suburbs into the city. Now I live on the fourth floor and I have a wonderful view on the rooftops of the other houses and into the sky. When I look at the antennas in the evening or I see snowflakes on the dark roofs at night, just like in movies that take place in Victorian London and start with the camera moving across the sleeping city, I am (almost) reconciled with the 82 steps I have to climb every day. Sometimes I look at the chimneys and would not be surprised if suddenly a chimney-sweep appeared and started singing a song about his work, but so far it has not happened...

When life is too sweet to bear

I love websites where well- but originally -dressed people show their wonderful, creative, charming ideas for decorating or crafting or just display the things they love. (I occasionally do that myself here.)

However, sometimes I am not in the mood for all this pastell-colored vintage loveliness and feel like I am stuck in a giant sugary marshmallow... Then it's time to visit my favourite "sour" websites:

http://www.theanticraft.com/
As they claim on their facebook-page, the Anticraft is "fucking up craft since 2005". And they do it amazingly well. Unfortunately, their homepage is in a bit of a hiatus, but still their archive contains more great projects than I could ever finish. If you want to knit a toxic tea-cosy, plan to make a tiara out of bacon or know somebody who would love to get a hat with tiny impaled figures on it this page is for you.

http://www.geekgirlsrule.net/
The GeekGirlWhatRules blogs about feminism in geek culture as well as about roleplaying games, movies and other stuff. Although I do not always agree with her (but hey, I do not even agree with myself quite often), I admire her clear style and enthusiasm about RPGs and maintaining a "geeky" lifestyle as an adult.

http://badassdigest.com/
My main source for information about movies and popculture topics. Especially the long and rather academic essays by Filmcrithulk are worth reading.

Yeah, so now you have the opportunity to make a bleak day even more uncheerful!

Toxic Presents

As I told you in my last entry, I got a wooden box with a toxic content for Christmas. (You could call it a "gift" if you like puns. If you don't, just call it "present").

The box looks like this:

The background is the following. Although I am definitely an adult now, I just don't do some grown-up things. For example, I do not drink wine. I am not interested in investing any amount of time and energy in learning something about the different kinds of wine or trying to find my "favourite vintage" or whatever. I am a beer person. However, I thought it would be nice to know at least a little bit about the "stylish" side of drinking, and therefore I decided to become a spirit-person instead of a wine drinker.
Naturally, I asked my father to help me with this project and give me some high quality spirits for Christmas in order to have a sophisticated alternative to beer.

And this is what I got:

Cognac, Sherry and Whiskey. I am so happy, this is really a great start for my journey into grown-up drinking... (Just to make this clear: I don't drink that much and I am not an alcoholic, but I am not a Puritan either. You should enjoy the good things in life, and drinking responsibly and not too regularly is definitely fun.)

And just for fun, here a recipe for one of my favourite alcoholic drinks, liquorice vodka, or, as they call it in Northern Germany "Schwarze Sau" (what a great name!).

"Schwarze Sau" (Liquorice Vodka)
You need one bottle of vodka (in this case a very cheep brand works just fine, I always use the one from Aldi), two packs of "Türkischer Pfeffer" (very strong liquorice sweets) and a large glass bottle.
Smash the sweets with a heavy object, e.g. a hammer or a bottle, and put them into the large glass bottle. Fill in the vodka and just let it sit somewhere for about a week, shaking it once a day. After some days, the sweets are dissolved and the drink tastes just wonderful.