Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

... from sunny Spain! =)

PS: Happy Birthday Corvin and Maria, Samir and Grandpa!

Holiday Break?

Dear all,
I am in Spain at the moment, to celebrate Christmas and New Year with my family.
Unfortunately, I forgot my card reader at home, so I cannot access the pics I have taken already of Saarbruecken.
I hope to get a new one within the next days, but please try not to be dissappointed of a small publishing break.
I am really sorry!!!
MoonSoleil

More Shopping Madness

Wow - this is what an average shop looks like from the inside at the moment.
People have spent a lot more on Christmas presents than the past years in Germany.

Chestnut Train

Another cute sales stall alongside the Crêpes Mobil are those cute trains selling hot chestnuts.
There are several ones downtown just now, and even though I don't like the taste of chestnuts, I like those little trains.

Inside Saarbahn

These are the seats of one compartment of the Saarbahn. They're really loooong.

Crêpes Mobil

This is so cute!
This ancient =) bus has a little crêperie inside. I saw it on the Christmas Market at Bahnhofstrasse.

Shopping Madness

The shops were open until 10 pm today (usually they're open until 8 pm), but it's no pleasure to go downtown one week before Christmas... =)
Every Saarbrücker was there, plus many many French people from across the border.

Ape Sign

What where why who when?
I have no idea... any Saarbrücken inhabitants who can tell me what this ape sign is about? I saw this at campus today...

Candlelight

This ancient candle holder is part of the Christmas decoration of Coyote Café. It gave the room a wonderful light, and made you feel like you're sitting in your own living room.

Colourful Houses

Aren't they cute?
Those houses are around my corner, I live in a similar one. I love that colourful area!

Afternoon Sky

It turns dark quite early now, so this picture was made at 4:15pm.
I like this lonesome and kind of lost area at the train station...

Christmas Bin

Yes, you read correctly... this is a Christmas bin!
You can find it downtown at our Christmas market. They have them in form of a Lebkuchen-Haus (gingerbread-house), a Christmas tree, and so on. With those, everybody is motivated to throw away the garbage, and they fit the Christmas market theme nicely.

Advent Calendar

Advent calendars are really common in Germany, every child has one, and every adult wishes he had one. =)
This is a decorations shop in Mainzer Strasse, they turned one of their shop windows into a big advent calendar. What a cute idea, and you can always buy the products of the day (for a reduced price I would guess).

Sorry for the late posting

Dear all,
I'm very sorry I couldn't post the pictures of the last days on time.
I was very ill and just couldn't manage to blog as usual.
I will show you the pictures of the last days now.
Happy Holidays,
Conny

Luxembourg

Luxembourg and the surrounding region officially opened the celebrations for being "Capitale Européenne de la Culture 2007" (Cultural Capital of Europe 2007). Check this website of the festival to find out more.
The stag is their mascot, and I found one in Saarbrücken as well (Luxembourg is just about 80 km away from here), a funny detail are the little protectors on its antlers.

University Gate

This is the gate at the main entrance of our university. It's always nicely decorated, even though at night that scene felt more spooky than anything else. =)

PS: Blogger refused to let me blog earlier, that's why the picture is quite late. Sorry!

Heal the Blind

Isn't Jesus supposed to heal the blind?
I think Johanneskirche went a bit over the top by printing their banner at a size of about 2.5 metres by 2.5 metres announcing "15 minutes of music and texts at Advent, oecumenic, every day at 6pm".
Maybe they just made sure that God can see it from above. =)

Nikolaus Day

In Germany, the 6th of December is Nikolaustag. The night before, children will clean their boots, and put them outside the front door. Nikolaus puts sweets, nuts, oranges and maybe small toys into those boots.
The cleaned boots prove that the children were good.
This picture is from a Nikolaus-Party showing not just Nikolaus (who looks like Santa Claus here), but also his companion, Knecht (Farmhand) Ruprecht who punishes children if they misbehaved (This is just in theory of course. For children it's usually enough if they see him. =) At this party he pointed out the bad behaviour of the children and told them to be good from now on.)
If you want to read more about this traditon, check Wikipedia.

PS: Congratulations to my mum, who celebrates her birthday today!!! =X

La Tristesse

On my way home, I took this picture of a downtown view of rainy Saarbrücken, you can see the town hall ahead, and the tracks of the tram Saarbahn (with their electronic information boards). It's the stop Johanneskirche.
Looks a bit sad, doesn't it? (That's why I called the post La Tristesse. =)

Cigarette Machine

Since a few weeks German cigarette machines finally got a function to test the age of the customers: you have to pay with an EC-card that proves you are 18 or over.
Before that, you could simply pay with cash, so nobody could prevent underage teenagers to buy cigarettes.
I'm still against those public machines, but at least there is some control now. BTW: The poster says "With card. Complicated without." (quite a stupid line, right?)

Winners of 11111

My blog passed visitor number 11111, so you had the chance to win!!!

The major price was given to Gerald from Hyde (England), who made a tremendous effort to win.
There you go Gerald, CONGRATULATIONS!!! You really deserve it!
Your surprise package is on its way. =)

Oooh, we have a second winner!
Michael Neff from Davis (California, USA) just emailed me the screen shot of him being visitor no. 11111.
Wow - I didn't think somebody would still send the screen shot.
Since I promised Gerald the major price, I'll make sure your packages have an equal size... so there's two major wins here. =)

Present

Heyyy, somebody is really close to the surprise gift just now... the counter showed 11097 some minutes ago!

Matching the present you can win here, I saw a golden present hanging in a tree some days ago! (It was taken off a Christmas tree that stands next to it. Somebody must have thought that this little tree deserved a present, too. =)

Taekwon-Do

This is a picture of my Taekwon-Do trainer Franz Purzer. He does Taekwon-Do since about 30 years, has the black belt 5th dan and is a trainer at university as well as the Son Jong-Ho Classic Taekwon-Do Center Saarbrücken.
(There are some impressive pictures on this website, so make sure to check it out. =)

This picture should explain why I could hardly cut half of his body off for the picture yesterday... half of his leg would have been missing! *gasp*

Theme Day: A Photo of Somebody from the Waist Down

These are two grandmas waiting at the train station. They were about to pick somebody up.
They must have been waiting for quite a while already, because one of the ladies decided to sit on her walking frame...
(Originally, I wanted to take a picture of my Taek-Won-Do trainer, I'll show you tomorrow, why I couldn't. =)

Here are more towns all around the world showing you people from the waist down:

1 (Porto ) - 2 (Greenville ) - 3 (Evry ) - 4 (Queens ) - 5 (Seattle, WA, USA ) - 6 (Stayton , OR, USA ) - 7 (Albuquerque, NM (USA) ) - 8 (Joplin, MO (USA) ) - 9 (Singapore (Raymond) ) - 10 (Guadalajara, Mexico ) - 11 (Santiago, Chile ) - 12 (London (UK) ) - 13 (Jakarta (Indonesia) ) - 14 (Bandung (Indonesia) ) - 15 (Melbourne, Aust (John) ) - 16 (Phoenix, AZ (US) ) - 17 (Twin Cities, MN ) - 18 (Newcastle upon tyne(England) ) - 19 (St. Paul, MN (USA) Carol ) - 20 (Szentes (Hungary) ) - 21 (Tuzla (BiH) ) - 22 (St. Paul Kate ) - 23 (Dubai (U.A.E.) ) - 24 (Nelson (New Zealand) ) - 25 (Sharon, CT USA ) - 26 (Tenerife (Spain) ) -

27 (Auckland (New Zealand) ) - 28 (Budapest (Hungary) ) - 29 (Sydney, Australia (Sally) ) - 30 (Sequim, WA ) - 31 (East Lansing, MI (USA) ) - 32 (Vantaa; Finland ) - 33 (Singapore (Zannnie) ) - 34 (Paris (France) ) - 35 (Kuala Lumpur ) - 36 (Shanghai, China ) - 37 (Sydney Aust (Nathalie) ) - 38 (Hyde (UK) ) - 39 (Akita City, Japan ) - 40 (Tokyo (Japan) ) - 41 (Rotterdam ) - 42 (Manila (Philippines) ) - 43 (Not Strictly Seattle ) - 44 (Stavanger (Norway) ) - 45 (Hong Kong ) - 46 (Chattanooga, Tennessee ) - 47 (Barcelona (Spain) ) - 48 (Trujillo (Peru) ) - 49 (Naples Florida ) - 50 (Delta Colorado ) - 51 (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - 52 (Cheltenham, England) -