Where everyone is quiet...

This post is about my passion for scuba diving.
I wanted to learn diving since I was 5 or 6 years old. My mother always told me: “You can learn diving when you are old enough and have enough money for the course”.
Luckily it didn’t take that long because when my aunt asked me about my confirmation wish I quickly answered “a diving course, what else?”
I wasn’t really sure if she would accept my wish, but it was worth a try. On my confirmation day I was very excited and nervous. I couldn’t wait to open my aunt’s present.
When we came back from the church she told me that she had bought something really nice for me. She turned to her car and gave me….. a big, white balloon! “Oh wow a balloon, thank you”, I replied and thought ‘Oh my god, a balloon! That’s it?’
“Open it”, she said.
“But you cannot open a balloon without destroying it”, I answered.
“Then destroy it, here’s a needle for you”.
I was confused and not totally sure whether to destroy it or not. So I just stood there and watched my family.
“I can help you”, my brother shouted.
He took the needle and burst the balloon. Suddenly about ten or fifteen plastic “sea creatures” fell out. My aunt had filled the balloon with them (I don’t know how she did that).
I was totally surprised and all of a sudden realized that this must be a symbol for the diving course. I looked at her and asked “Really?”
“I hope it’s okay”, she said with a smile.
“It’s more than okay, it’s absolutely awesome”, I replied.

A few weeks later I had my first diving lesson and I loved it from the very first moment. Since then I use every possibility for going diving.
The most amazing place I have dived so far was the red sea. There I saw some of my favorite animals such as “Masked Butterfly Fish”, “Anemone Fish” and turtles. I will never forget the last dive in Egypt when I saw two dolphins.

This was the best present I ever received and I will always love my aunt for it!

These are not my pictures but it really is that beautiful.

Cakes ♥

I love to be creative, theoretically. I’m neither able to draw nor to knit. I can’t do handicrafts and am not very patient when it comes to gluing small pieces together.
However, there is one creative activity I could spend hours with, without being bored or impatient – baking and decorating cakes.
I was always fascinated when I saw these eye-catching and colorful masterpieces in a shop or the internet. That’s why I decided to buy myself a cake-decorating book (50 Easy Party cakes, Debbie Brown) and watched many online tutorials.
The first fancy cake I have ever baked was for a friend’s birthday party. She was so excited about her birthday present that she “booked” me for the next party :).
Decorating cakes and buying handy stuff can be really addictive. I discovered some interesting online shops and ordered among others different kinds of food coloring, chocolate-flavored marzipan and edible, sparkling food glitter.
I know that I am not as good as a professional confectioner but I love to do it and it’s also the perfect way for expressing my creativity.

If you are interested, here are some of my cakes :).

Two Worlds – One family

At first, here is a little quiz for you. What do these four pictures have in common?

As you may have guessed correctly, they are all characters in the movie “Tarzan”. I am sure that nearly ever one of you knows the Disney version but for those who have never seen it, here is a short summary.

A long time ago, an English couple together with its baby son manages to escape from a burning ship and find themselves on a coast somewhere in Africa. The region is surrounded by rainforest and so the couple has to build a tree house in order to survive.
A few days later, the female gorilla Kala hears the cries of an infant and finds the baby in the tree house. Moreover, she notices that the baby’s parents were killed by Sabor, a brutal leopard. Kala, who lost her own child, takes the baby back to her husband Kerchak. Kerchak, however, disapproves her decision and the new situation with the baby.
Kala calls the boy Tarzan, which means “white skin”, and raises him like a gorilla. He makes friends with the female(!) gorilla Terk and the elephant Tantor.
A few years later, Tarzan falls in love with the human girl Jane. She teaches him how to talk and how to behave as a human being.

You may wonder now why this post is about a movie made in 1999 but I have a very simple reason for doing it.
Last week I noticed a cheap offer to Hamburg on the internet and spontaneously booked it. Now I am really excited to go there because Hamburg is the only German city where you have the chance to watch the musical … TARZAN.
Since I saw a documentary about this particular musical it was my dream to go there and to watch it live on stage.

The musical version was written by Phil Collins and the main character is played by Alexander Klaws, who you may know. Alexander won the first season of the casting show “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” and performs as Tarzan since 2008.

I am really, really looking forward to going to Hamburg (and to Tarzan of course!) and will post some photos of the musical afterwards.

EDIT: Unfortunately it was not allowed to take pictures in the theatre but the musical AWESOME! We had fantastic seats in the first row and got really close to Tarzan :)

I can't stop humming these two songs, so if you are interested simply click on the links.

Two Worlds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sZ8xZ_dWY
Everything that I am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-MtowPPugI

There is nothing like...NEW ZEALAND Part 2

This is the second part of my New Zealand trilogy and I am going to write about two very different but also really awesome cities.
The first one is called Kaikoura and situated midway between Christchurch and Picton on the east coast of the South Island. In this sense:

Kaikoura offers everything you can imagine: snow-capped mountains in the background and the marvelous Pacific Ocean which is home to very special marine life. It is not only home to 2200 inhabitants but also to gorgeous fur seals, orcas and the main attraction – the dusky dolphins.
The activities for tourists are almost infinite. They can go snorkeling, horse riding or fishing. Moreover it is possible to go kayaking with seals, do a whale watching trip or go swimming with dolphins. As long as I can think I have been fascinated by dolphins and it is my dream to swim or dive with them. When I was in Kaikoura I booked the dolphin snorkeling tour. I was so excited and could hardly wait for day X. When the day arrived we had very bad weather and unfortunately it was not possible to go out with the boat because the waves were too strong.
At first I was so upset and desperate. I thought that my dream will come true but it didn’t. So I had to look for another activity and found the company “Wings over whales”. They offer whale watching in a helicopter, which sounded amazing to me. So I called them, they picked me up and half an hour later in was in the helicopter and saw five awesome sperm whales. Although it was not possible to swim with dolphins I had a great time there, met a lot of nice people and saw incredible things.

The next city on my trip was Christchurch and is very different to Kaikoura. It is also located on the east coast of the South Island and is well-known as garden city. Before I visited Christchurch I read about the famous Hagley Park, the Botanic Garden and Mona Vale on the banks of the river Avon. There are two big and popular floral festivals each year, the Festival of Flowers in February and the Ellerslie International Flower Show in March.
I saw beautiful pictures on the tourist website and was very curious when I arrived in Christchurch in the evening. Because of this I had no chance to see a lot but could hardly wait for the next morning.
When I explored the city on the next day I was shocked. In 2011 Christchurch was hit by a very powerful natural event – an earthquake. In total 185 people were killed, making it the second deadliest disaster in New Zealand. The Canterbury Television Building and the Christchurch Cathedral collapsed.
Although I had read about it in the newspaper and had learned about it at school, I was not prepared for what I saw there.
Luckily I have never experienced it but this is how I imagine war. The Central Business District is still declared as red zone. This means that the streets are still closed and the buildings are destroyed. It is possible to discover the zone by bus or walking.
Although it was shocking and a bit scary I do not want to miss these experiences.

There is nothing like... NEW ZEALAND

Kia ora and welcome to my Post! I have decided to inform you about a very interesting and exciting place. Aotearoa, “the land of the long white cloud” or New Zealand, as most of you will know this country, is an awesome piece of ground.

Because there is so much to see and to do I decided to split my blog in three parts, like J. R. R. Tolkien did it with “The Lord of the Rings”.

At first some geographical facts about the place, where one inhabitant possesses (theoretically) four sheep. New Zealand is an island country, divided into two parts – the North Island and the South Island – and is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

It became independent in 1853 but is still a member of the British Commonwealth.

Important things you should know:

1.   Largest city: Auckland (although it’s the largest one it is not the capital)

1.   Capital: Wellington (and not Auckland, like most people think)
2. Official languages: English, Māori (the language of the indigenous population) and since 2006 NZ sign language
3. Population: 4.4 million
4. Famous New Zealanders: Sir Edmund Hillary (first man who conquered Mt. Everest),     Peter Jackson (film director and responsible for the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, won 11 Oscars), Valerie Adams (shot putter, won a gold medal at the Olympics in London and Beijing)
5. Worth seeing places: Abel Tasman National Park, the “Pancake Rocks” in Punakaiki, Christchurch (which was damaged by the earthquake in 2011), Kaikoura, Fox Glacier…

I have been to New Zealand and it was one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen.

E noho ra.

1. To be continued...

Cake&Allie

It wasn't easy for me to write about my favorite food blog, but now I think I found the perfect one. I read about 50 different blogs but always was not satisfied with what I found. The most important thing for me was to present you a “sweet blog”, a blog with dessert recipes. I love baking and therefore was curious when I discovered how many different kinds of food blogs there are on the internet.

I noticed that some of them used very less pictures which was bad for me because I am a visual person. I have to see the desserts.

Many other blogs had too many writing on it. If I am interested in a particular recipe I do not want to read a novel about how the person discovered the recipe, what all his/her friends think about it….
For me, a short introduction, ingredients, preparation and (of course) a big (!) picture are enough.

So, after beating around the bush about which food blog qualities are important for me, I am presenting you the one which meets (nearly) all requirements.

http://www.cakeandallie.com/category/desserts/

Allie (as you may have guessed) is the name of the person who is responsible for this food blog. She blogs not only about sweet dishes but has also recipes for soups, salads, main dishes…
As I mentioned before, I tried to find a pure dessert blog (which is clearly not the fact but I ask you to ignore this – I did the same ) and for this reason only concentrated on her desserts.
I found pretty cool recipes and also great photos. Unfortunately I am not sure wheter it is allowed to publish the images or not. For this reason I present you my Top Five list in the written version (simply click on them and you will see the pictures).

1.     Chocolate Candy Cane Cupcakes

2.     Oreo Truffles

3.     Banana Split Cupcakes

4.     Tuxedo Cake

5.     Guinness, Jameson & Baileys Cupcakes

They look and sound amazing, don’t they? I can’t wait to go home next week and try some of them out. Baking here in Graz is too strenuous for me because I do not have all the ingredients and tools (and I do not want to do all the washing-up on my own).

Now, I would like to invite you to get inspired by these recipes and (if you are interested if they taste as good as they look on the pictures) try some of them.

Challenge 1

I am not sure if it is too late for Challenge 1 but I was so busy last week and therefore I decided to post my sign now because I am thinking about it all the time. I was not able to find a funny sign in Graz, I just found some correct ones but this was too boring. When I was in New Zealand I took this picture because I saw it every day and I am still wondering if it makes sense or not. It is an advertisement for “Liquor King”, a well-known company in New Zealand which sells alcohol. This is the sign:

If it is the best liquor store in the world, it is automatically the best one in New Zealand and it would be enough to write “World’s best liquor store”. If it is the best liquor store in NZ, it is not automatically the best one in the world. Maybe there is a better one somewhere else?
Perhaps it is possible to write it like this but from my point of view it sounds strange.
What do you think about it?