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) -

Weird Sign

At work, we got this new sign, which is symbolising a bridge (there is a bridge between our building and the university's computer science building).
You can kind of realise that they mean a bridge with this sign, but what is it good for? Just to say "bridge ahead" or "hold on to the bannister"? Whatever it tries to tell us, I think this is a pretty bad sign (I wouldn't have recognised a bridge anyway in the beginning).

A Home in the Clouds

This Christmas fairy (? Or angel?) has got a nice home in the shopping mall Saargalerie...

Christmas Market

The little booths of the Christmas Market are back! (This means, mulled wine is back as well =)
There are several booths for drinks and snacks (waffles, chocolate, candy apples etc.) but also many where you can buy small gifts for Christmas - like candles, spices, toys, art, jewellery, decorative things etc.

Last Autuum Impressions

Almost all of the leaves have fallen off the branches of our trees.
To enjoy the amazing spectrum of autuum trees one last time, I'll post this picture to remember my favourite time of the year.

Phone Booth

This is one of the original yellow phone booths here in Germany. They actually got quite rare in the last years - due to vandalism (there is also a glass window missing on this one) many of these booths were replaced with an open type.
Also, the colour changed: the yellow ones were property of the Deutsche Post, they got replaced by grey-magenta ones by Deutsche Telekom.
(You can read more about it in the German Wikipedia entry "Telefonzelle")

Town Decoration

Our town's Christmas decoration was set up during the last days, and the Christmas sale is now officially opened (Saarbrücken is full of shopping French people at the moment =).
This is part of the decoration I like especially, it looks like the sky is full of sparkling lights...

Burning Sky

It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine... =)
(With R.E.M. in my ears and this stunning view I probably would.)

No Parking!

I passed this old Wartburg on the way to Karate today, and couldn't stop laughing.
The car has obviously been disposed there, the tires are flat, the hood demolished, and the front window destroyed... but somebody might still be trying to fine the (unknown) owner with this little mobile no parking sign, or just tries to make a statement of German correctness. =)

Sushi Party

At one of the university halls of residence (Waldhausweg), there was a Sushi Party tonight.
Japanese students therewith introduced themselves and their culture. Here you can see some German girls trying to roll maki sushi.

Cute Entrance

Karcherstrasse 4 has the cutest and friendliest entrance that I've seen in a long time...

How Reindeer Learn to Fly

Every year, we have a Christmas decoration above St. Johanner Markt.
It is a real attraction, reindeer "flying" above the heads of the people, pulling the sleigh with Santa in it (there is a real person sitting in the bobsleigh later, waving to the masses).
The sleigh is not there yet as you can see (the bike with the man sitting on it will have a casing in form of a sleigh later), but the reindeer are arranged in their new home. I'll show you a picture of the show as soon as it starts (in the beginning of December).
Funny detail: The lifting ramp says "Securely to the top". =)

Thank you so much so my friend Ralf who was there at the right time, took the picture and allowed me to post it.

Street Artist

I saw this artist downtown, and actually I'm still wondering what he tried to be.
Obviously, he tried to look like Roman statue, he even stood on a small column. But instead of standind still (like most of those artists do), he made soap bubbles... =)
Anyway, it was still nice to see him there (actually, I'm not totally sure if it's a he or she), I really admire street artists for their ability and will to entertain passengers outside... and their passion about it.

Sleepy Hollow

Looks like right out of the movie, doesn't it?

Carousel

In town, there are several cute carousels for children at the moment. They look so cute in the evening... =)
Unfortunately, there are never many people on them, sometimes the big carousel is just running for one kid.

Crow

Crows and ravens are my favourite birds, I love their elegance and beauty.
I saw this cute guy getting some food in the grass today, guess he was lucky, because it was the warmest day at this time of the year since 30 years (it was around 20 degrees C).

Hairkiller

My friend Akiko and I have been to the hairdresser today.
We went to Hairkiller at St. Johanner Markt, which is comparable to a fast food restaurant ... They are really cheap, but they don't offer all the services a normal hairdresser would provide. For example, you won't get the usual gossip here, or a cup of coffee. Blow-drying your hair is not included in the cutting service, so if you want the professionals to dry your hair, you'll have to pay extra.
Why bother to go there then? Well, the most important reason is: they cut hair quick and really well and this is for 13 Euros only! (You'd normally pay around 30 Euros for a haircut including washing and blow-drying)

For You

This is for you. Thank you for bringing colour into my life.

Fake Fish

I've shown you some real fish two days ago.
This is a pane of a series of windows of a bank in Kaiserstrasse. At night, they have those virtual aquariums with colourful fish turned on. It looks so surreal when you take a walk around this street and have the lit-up fish swimming next to you...

With my Feet in the Leaves...

There is one thing I love to do in the autuum... dig my feet all the way down on the ground, so the leaves surround my ankles... and then start walking. =)
It's so much fun!!!

Blubb blubb

These cute Koi are at home in a Chinese restaurant where we had dinner tonight.
The restaurant is called Jasmin, it's in Kaiserstrasse. It offers an all-you-can-eat buffet for 7,80 Euros only! It was great food, good service and a nice restaurant. Make sure to check it out when you're here!

Waiting...

... finally! Green!!! =)

Christmas Decoration

Villeroy & Boch, the famous ceramic manufacturing company, already set up their shop Christmas decoration. I actually wanted to show you more of these, but I wasn't allowed to take more pictures.
Trivia: Villeroy & Boch have their head office in Mettlach, which is not far from here in the Saarland. That's why we have many outlet shops nearby.

Golden Graffiti

This graffiti looks quite boring in reality, but when the sun hit it, it looked sooo shiny, almost like gold.

Foggy

Usually, we have fog only in the mornings, but today there was fog over the hills all day.
It looked so dreamy, the only thing I could think of is going straight back to bed... =)

Sunny Day

I'm having a cold - again... =(
It's around 1.5 degees C at the moment, and if I wouldn't wear my big jumper, socks and fluffy slippers as well as having my warm cat on my lap, I'd probably freeze to death.
That's why I want to recall a nice sunny day from two weeks ago... Ah, I immediately feel better! A-a-atchoo!!!

Birds Flying Away

Saturday morning I woke up from a loud noise that sounded like out of Hitchcock's movie "The Birds".
Many birds were gathering to escape our cold winter and fly South. The circled above our houses for a while, calling for any missing friends, and then flew away when everybody was there.
I liked this picture because it looks like they would form a big bird themselves... =)

Against Chinese Organ Harvesting

There was a group of protesters in town today who raised their voices against the Chinese organ harvesting.
The Chinese government tries to cover up the killing of people and the selling of their organs. Usually, the victims are followers of Falun Gong.
The Epoch Times has some articles online that will give you more detailed information about this alarming topic.

Sunset

Sometimes you see things which seem to be too beautiful to be true... *gasp*
(This picture is not edited in any way!)

Nighttime View

It gets darker now much earlier in the evening, especially since we set our clocks one hour back some days ago.
This is the nighttime view of the Saar crane with the golden eagle (see an old picture here), the church close to the castle, and even the moon...