Apr 25, 2008

back to my roots

Meldorf - home of Eike and also of Carsten Niebuhr, my great great great grandfather (i hope i got the number of "greats" right). for everybody who cannot read german: Mr. Niebuhr went to a few excursions to the middle east and drew maps. he also had some political position in denmark and has done even more "great things"....whatever. important is that already my ancestor was a traveller, my grandmother has inherited these traits and so have i :D *lol*
this time i didn't spend a lot of time in germany. only one very short week. still, enough time to attend a confirmation, celebrate a birthday, enjoy the windy northern nature and relax in the sun....





< in St. Peter-Ording








< "boardwalk" in St. Peter-Ording (the first and only time i was there before last week was during a class trip in 5th grade)






< north sea "beach"








< Wuschel @ beach

















< Deich idyll




















...and now i'm back in sofia. tomorrow, i'll leave for varna...more adventures to come!!!!

Apr 11, 2008

<<< rainy days in greece >>>

after a sunny weekend in plovdiv and some more beautiful days in sofia, we left on early friday morning to take the train to thessaloniki. and...who would have guessed, it was raining. three days straight. of course, exactly the three days that we spent in greece. well, at least it was also raining in sofia, so it was still an improvement.
an improvement??? hmm....okay, yeah, thessaloniki is a lot prettier than sofia: it has a nice center, a long quayside along the agean sea and lots and lots of old (byzanthine) ruins, which seem all to be situated about one and a half meters underneath today's ground.

however, the rain in thessaloniki is just the same horrible wet balkan rain that forces even me - who doesn't like any equipment agains rain very much - to buy an umbrella. and the traffic is even worse than in bulgaria's capital. on our way back to sofia i overheard a bulgarian girl describing the differences of both cities: in sofia, you are stuck in traffic all day, but during the night, you can freely go whereevery you like. yet in thessaloniki, traffic at night is just as bad during the day....it IS CRAZY!!!
from the train window, i already saw the big yellow fields of blooming rape all over the north of greece. wonderful! that early in the year....i really love it when spring paints the nature around us taking away this greyish veil of winter (sounds cheesy, i know, but it is true, though :-P)


oh, yes, darling! i think you made it: you are a bit taller than the palm tree :D

hmmm...so what did we do all day? we arrived in thessaloniki after a 7-hour ride in the train and the bus. (i had a first peak at the southern bulgarian country side and i kinda decided that i have to take a trip there, too, soon!) around 2 pm, we were welcomed by matina, our couchsurfing host - a crazy 18-year-old red head. she only let us into her flat and left again, leaving us behind with the advice to sleep and gain some energy for the party at night...well, we didn't rest (and later didn't go to the party) but went into the center instead walking all day along the quayside and from one café to the next...after all, it is not very nice to stay in the open for very long, when it is raining, raining, raining....
oh yeah! the return-ticket to thessaloniki was less than
40 euros for both of us, but the coffee in thessaloniki is so expensive that the trip cost a bit more than i had expected...between 3 and 4 euros for a regular cappucini!!! this really is exaggerated even considering that one always receives a glass of water and usually a few cookies to accompany the coffee!
so, having spent the first day in greece walking around, having coffee and doing some window shopping, we went back to matina's flat in the evening together with three other german girls, whom we had met in the city and who were surfing matina's couch at the same time. we slept almost 12 hours and continued on saturday and sunday just the same as we had finished friday....

my darling also had her first couchsurfing experience...it appears that it wasn't as bad as she might have expected *hihi*
altogether, it was a nice weekend after all...

PS: WUSCHELFILZBALL, ICH LIEBE DICH!!!!! freu mich auf bald bei dir ;)

Apr 3, 2008

spring or no spring?

wooohooo, wuschelmacho is here!
the new semester is still quite lazy, i.e. i don't have too many classes. better for me, cause this way i have more time to enjoy the sunny days of early spring...well, yeah, sometimes i was not quite sure, whether they had really begun. after all, one day we had 20 degrees but already the subsequent night brought snow and cold weather. however, while germany was hit by another wave of snow (i heard you guys had "white easter"), eike and i enjoyed ourselves all afternoon outside - not wearing any jacket!!! (2nd picture)



still, you should know that we did not celebrate easter! it is to early. bulgaria is an orthodox country, so we gotta wait until the last week of april until the cute little bunny hides our eggs....who cares, we are germans, so a kinder surprise was still a must :-P





the following weekend, eike and i went to plovdiv. supposedly, there was a wine fest, but we didn't see much of that. all the same, we had a great time in bulgaria's second biggest town and, of course, had delicious falafel, döner and ice cream (see blog entry a few months ago) and....wuschel just couldn't have enough cocktails (1,60 € a piece).



















meine kleine sonnenanbeterin












in the train heading for plovdiv i finally saw my first storcks this year, so i got rid of my last martenitsas as well!!!! :D

btw: tomorrow, we'll go to greece!!!!!!!!!! just to make you a bit jealous ;)