The Ordeal

Today's football match between Argentina and Germany was truly an ordeal.
The fans couldn't be as relaxed as usual, since there was a 1:1 after 90 minutes, 0:0 after another 30 minutes, until the penalty decided the game. Germany won! Again! =)
So that's a 4:2 for us coming with a ticket to the semi finals.
I'm off celebrating downtown now, will post some more pictures in my Photo Blog tomorrow!

[Graffiti] Manga Fairytale

This is a large graffiti in Rotenhofstrasse, painted at the back of our biggest book shop, Thalia.
It was finished in 2004 (the artist used to have a website http://www.guggmoo.de which seems to be offline now =( ).
The cute manga-fairy is surrounded by evil and sleepy trees in her brightly coloured world. I love those brilliant colours and the great detail of the graffiti, as well as the theme... Listening to magic fairytales is great fun!!!

Doggy Style

Paul's Frisierstube on Dudweilerstrasse is a normal hairdresser (even if the interior looks like from some decades ago)... For some reason, their two miniature poodles are always sitting in the display window, maybe so people can go in, and say "I want to look like Fluffy and Puffy there..." to get the perfect curls?
Anyway: they're cute guys, aren't they?

Library

This is the new library of natural sciences and technical departments of the university.
Quite nice on the first look, but when you enlarge the picture, you can see that there's writing on the windows written from the inside. These are names of scientists (everyone from Couch or Franklin to Milikan to Schrödinger) who provided great technical achievements. Cool idea, isn't it?

Berlin Berlin

Hello to Philipp from Berlin Daily Photo!!!
On Wilhelm-Heinrich-Brücke there's this stone in the middle of the road, telling you how far it is to Berlin from there... As you can see, it's 755 kilometres (about 470 miles) from here, would you have thought it's that far?
Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed that 11 of us can make it there by July 9th... =)))

Laughing Buddha

When I came across the Chinese resturant Chinatown in Kaiserstrasse, I met this obviously very happy guy.
Unfortunately he had a menu sign in front of him, so I couldn't rub his belly to get some luck for myself.

In Saarbrücken, we don't really have any areas that are occupied by a certain nationality, like you would get Chinatown or Japanese, Indish, Turkish, African (...) quarters in bigger cities. Instead, we do have national shops (for Brazil, China, Thailand, Africa, ...) selling the products from those countries distributed all over Saarbrücken.

Ageless Fanaticism!

Hey there, YEAH, we did it! Germany is in the quarter finals!!!
That's a nice occasion to prove that you're never too old to wear one of those silly hats and to proudly carry around the national flag, as seen today after the game on Bahnhofstrasse. I thought it's a cute picture, the lady smiled at me so nicely when she passed... Congratulations on her behalf to our team!

Ship Wreck

I didn't realise until today that a ship went straight into the building of the Havanna Salsa Club.
Maybe it happened when our river Saar flooded the town once again (which happens almost every Spring)? =)

Cloud Shape Guessing

Don't you love looking up into the sky, trying to guess what the clouds look like?
Yesterday, we had this amazing sky over Saarbrücken, and I already thought the lines were cool, but actually for me the big cloud in the middle on the right looks like a human that's curled up like a ball, lying on his side. You can see the head (even with an ear) and the back...
Can you see it? Or does it look different to you?

Asian Table

I went shopping in Karstadt yesterday. I love their decorations of tablesets, so that I would usually say: "Yes, just wrap it, I'll have it all!"
They had this beautiful Asian décor, including (fake but convincing) bamboo, little elephants and the goddess statues in the picture.

PS: I'm sooo sorry the pic comes late, but I couldn't argue my PC into working unfortunately... =(

Dragon Slayer

Do you still remember this dragon? It was at the Johanneskirche.
Almost opposite to it, on the wall of the town hall, there's a dragon slayer scene. I'm not totally sure who the slayer is supposed to be, though I guess it's Siegfried from the Nibelungenlied, a famous historic German epic poem.

I chose black and white for the town hall and an enhanced green for dragon and slyer, so you could observe the scene better.

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Update: Yes yes, you were right, it"s not Siegfried, but St. George. I still like my theory better though... =)

Quack Quack

This is another picture from the French-German garden. They have many ducks and other water birds as well as those funny-looking geese there. They have huge, bulky beaks, a long brown stripe on their neck and the coolest bright orange feet. I tried to find the name of that species, but couldn't find it yet... maybe one of you knows what they're called?

Paddleboats

Today was a wonderful warm summer day, so some friends and I decided to have a picnic in the French-German garden that is at the border to France.
The garden has 50 hectare, in it there are huge lawns for sunbathing, lots of flowerbeds, restaurants, mini golf, Gulliver's world with 66 miniature buildings from all over the world... oh, and a casino. Plus this wonderful lake with 3 fountains in it, where you can rent paddleboats to take a little ride.
It's really bautiful and I highly recommend this park to everybody who comes to visit our town.

Centenary

Here's a piece of cake for you, because we're celebrating the 100th Daily City Blog!!!
It's been almost 2 months now when I started my Saarbrücken blog, and I'm really thankful for Eric for having this great idea and inspiring me to start it. I'm also happy about our great DP-community and the possibility to stay in contact with so many people from all over the world, learning about their culture and seeing their city in their eyes - something a tourist guide could never give you.
So here's a toast to all of you - on to the next 100! =)

Italian Sakura

Tonight, some friends and I went to an Italian restaurant (DaToni in Mainzer Strasse, providing excellent food for a good price) where we stayed until now.
My Japanese friend Akiko dressed up in her gorgeous kimono, and since we see them very rarely in Germany, she was the attraction of the evening. She turned countless heads in town tonight, so I asked her if I may also present her picture to all of you, and luckily, she did agree. (Thank you so much Akiko!)

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Update: She's not wearing a kimono, but a yukata, a more casual garment.

1901

One of the most beautiful doors in Saarbücken must be this one (Betzenstrasse 5), claiming to be from 1901.
It was restored, and all the beautiful details painted recently. I also love the little angel above the entrance.
The golden sign tells you about the three attorneys who work there (and who just got some free publicity =).

Pustefix

I'm sure all of you still have sweet childhoof memories of making soap bubbles. I used to love it, and to be honest, I still love making them and looking at them. Soap bubbles just have a certain magic attraction to me. =)
The most famous company in Germany to sell soap bubble liquid and dispensers is Pustefix.
When I went downtown the other day I met their mascot bear next to "Spiel und Kunst", one of the biggest toy shops in Saarbrücken. He's electric, and automatically blows soap bubbles several times per minute.
I'm sure many of the German bloggers will recognise him, and who knows, maybe he's even famous somewhere else?

Saarcenter

This is the Saarcenter at Wilhelm-Heinrich-Brücke. You can live in flats spread over 10 floors overlooking the river Saar, and there are several shops, bars, even a night club and several cinemas in the building.
There are big advertisements along the building, a 11 metres high poster of Coca Cola, a big banner of Karlsberg beer (they're all over the town), and obviously the large Mercedes-star on top of the building.

Alley

I really really love the little alleyways of Fröschengasse, especially in summer.
They make you feel like you're on holidays, since they're so narrow.
Here you can see some restaurants with their advertising boards outside telling you about today's specialities.

Sunset

Wow - after the gorgeous full moon yesterday, I was lucky enough to see this picturesque sunset on my way home.
So there you go... Moon and Soleil from MoonSoleil in one weekend. =)

Full Moon

We had a wonderful bright full moon tonight.
It appeared huge in the evening sky when while we had a BBQ at the Staden (at the bank of the Saar).

Ole Ole Ole

This was the moment of the second goal.

Loads of people...

I promised it yesterday, and today I infiltrated the football site at Congresshalle during the FIFA World Cup opening game of Germany playing against Costa Rica.
There were hundreds of people dressed in black-red-gold watching the football match on a large screen supporting their team.

I'm not a football fan (though I watched the game today), so I can't fully understand why you would squeeze into a bunch of sweaty people at 30 degrees to watch a screen that you probably can't see properly, but somehow it was exiting to see. =)

Beautiful Day

Oh, I couldn't stop singing "Beautiful Day" by U2 today... we really had the most gorgeous weather with a wonderful blue sky, and everybody went outside to enjoy it.
This is a view from St. Johanner Markt where all of the little cafés and bars put their chairs outside (well, they did that a while ago, but today all the seats were finally taken).
Let's hope that for the start of the World Cup tomorrow the sun will shine as well, there are many places offering huge screens to watch it outside... I'll give you an impression then.

Coffee Shop

This is one of the nicest looking coffee shops in Saarbrücken, the "Java" shop at St. Johanner Markt.
They've been there for quite a while, but for some reason I hardly ever see customers in it. (Must be quite expensive.) Still, it looks and smells fantastic! =)

King of his Castle

I loved the way this little male duck showed off his property on the university campus. There were no duck girls around though... =)

Johanneskirche

This is Johanneskirche. It's a really tall church and is very present in the middle of the town center.
Since today is the last day of Whitsun, I thought it's worth showing you another church picture. =)

Window Art

I love this pink house in Nauwieser Viertel.
The three windows on its side are not real, they have been painted by some creative artists. You can see some people looking out on the second and first floor, people on the ground floor don't seem to be at home... =)

Lonely Shoe

I saw this lonely shoe on the way to a friend, on this concrete socket it almost looked like an artwork. =)

Blue Lights

It was new to me that the Karstadt shopping centre has blue lights outside at night.
It has a very nice effect though it looks a bit surreal within the other warmly light shops and streets in the town centre.

Theme Day: Parking Charges

Today's a theme day again for us Daily Bloggers. We were supposed to take a picture of a sign that shows car park fees, so you can see different prices for those around the world.
Saarbrücken still has moderate prices, for parking on Beethovenplatz, one of the biggest parking spaces here that is open 24/7, you pay 2 Euros per hour for the weekdays, 1 Euro per hour for Sundays and national holidays.
QPark is a big company that owns most of our parking spaces here, as you can see on their website.