The lighter side

With just under two weeks back in terra germanica, and given the conjecture of being away for an extended amount of time, returning just before the Holidays, with friends and family coming to visit, I could easily say I haven't yet had the time to settle back in - were it not for the fact that what I define as my usual life is a constant state of exceptional circumstances (or an Ausnahmezustand, as I have noted in a previous post). But those events will be reviewed in a forthcoming post. For the present moment, I just want to collect a few random disconnected thoughts :)

- Shopping in Germany is simply amazing. While I have probably already said that when I first moved over, it's stressed over and over again when coming back after an extended period of time away. I just came back from the supermarket, where, besides groceries for three, I also bought a few spoils to my mother and sister, and it all came to just a tad more than what my basic bread-and-butter shopping would have costed me in Canada. Vintage French wine? Check. Fancy Swiss, German or Belgian chocolates? Check. Exquisite Italian, Danish or French cheese? Check. And all the Nivea creams and lotions my skin could ever want - Yay!

- I've been listening to some new, or at least unbeknownst to me, singers and bands, and as always, it's a great pleasure to find out there's such fantastic stuff out there. Still, I was somehow saddened to find out that one artist whom I just came to enjoy is actually deceased, or that another band has since dissolved, and I'll never have the opportunity to attend a real live concert from them. Nevertheless, and somehow making up for that, my perennial favourites Belle & Sebastian are playing in Germany in April - Yay!

- Snow, oh, the snow! I never had so many snowball fights; and I had never actually managed to build a large-scale snowman - and the last few days more than made up for that. And driving and skidding through the snow has been such fun! Scary sometimes, sure, but I'm thankful the Whiskaswagen has top-notch ESP and ABS brakes - Yay!

- I take some pride on how tidy I keep my little apartment, how good my clothes smell after washing, or how I managed to develop some cooking skills with some not only good looking, but also quite tasty dishes. But with one week of mom taking care of cleaning, washing and cooking, I notice I still have a lot to learn. Oh well. For the moment, I can only enjoy being spoiled - Yay!