Things I love in March

The list is pretty short this month, but if I wait to write more, March will be over....

1) Cupcakes and Macarons

To celebrate the beginning of the Easter holidays, I spent quite some money on cake. The macarons are from "L'art sucre" in Wiesbaden, I chose violet, pistachio-rasberry, lemon-ginger and caramel with salted butter. The cupcakes are from "Dale's cakes" and the flavours are lemon-walnut, strawberry-poppy, peanutbutter and chocolate-mint. I love these cakes because they look like a children's drawing of what a cake should look like.

2) The "South Wing"
One room in our flat is called the "South Wing" because it is a multipurpose room and we did not know what else to call it. My partner's desk is in there, but it is also a room for crafting, sewing and playing board games. It is the room that got the least attention during the last year because we didn't really have the time to start decorating it, but this weekend we finally managed to transform the untidy, chaotic mess of a room into the place we always wanted it to be:

There are still some things to do but I already like it.

3) Watching Sons of Anarchy

So far, I have only seen the first five episodes but I enjoy it so much. Actually, I think this show is much more interesting than most shows I watched in the last months. The characters are not very likeable but well-developed with lots of layers, the episodes are entertaining and rather fast-paced and the show has an ambivalent attitude towards its characters’ criminal activities, which is something I really missed while watching Breaking Bad. In Breaking Bad, I always felt like I was expected to feel some form of sympathy for poor Walter, but in my opinion “I want to take care of my family” is no sufficient excuse for his behavior, especially after he is –almost – cured of his illness. That’s fine, I like to watch shows where people behave in totally inacceptable ways, after all I want to be entertained by the characters, I do not want to be friends with them. But if the show wants me to feel with a character who constantly abuses and manipulates people who do not belong to his family, I have a problem with that. All in all, Walter White is a character who has been exploited and mistreated all his life and when he gets ill and the system just does not care, he starts to exploit and mistreat people himself and is really successful. I like the show, but I miss the critical attitude towards a system that forces people to act like this.

Sons of Anarchy, on the other hand, shows the fun and the “outsider glamour” of being part of a criminal group, but it also indicates the hypocrisy and the shallow excuses these people use to justify their activities. Moreover, it is almost ironic that a show that is set in the most chauvinistic and male-centered environment imaginable has so many well-drawn female characters. There are at least three main female characters, and all of them have their own agenda and motivations apart from “Let’s see what the boys are doing and react to it.”

I hope the show continues to be that excellent.