Cakes and pralines

A couple of months ago I got a voucher for a sewing class as a birthday gift from friends. The new courses are just about to start in June and I couldn't find a weekend so I had another idea how to use the voucher for:

A patisserie course at one of my favourite café Herr Max. : )

On Tuesday night at 8pm after the cafè has closed a couple of other women packed with aprons catched up there to check out the back of the cafè where they create all those wonderful cakes, tartes and pralines.

We learned lots of tricks and made the most wonderful joghurt-strawbery-basil cake, a caramel sauce and white chocolate pralines with a sugar-lemon or sugar-mint cover.

I can't wait to try out the recipes we got from them.

A lovely Thursday....get some cake and have a nice tea : )

A weekend

#1 Friday was pretty grey and rainy

#2 and I wore my shirt which Will calls cloud-shirt because of the collar

#3 I prepared a little snack for friends before we went out having a beautiful dinner and evening

#4 This morning I felt like baking a cake and searched for a nice recipe while having a tea

#5 I made an orange, almond, poppy-seet cake and it is delicious : )

#6-15 A dear friend came over later and we went out for a nice walk .... It is so beautifully green here..I can sometimes not believe that I just need to walk 5 minutes and I am in the middle of trees, flowers and little gardens...

And right now...I am here in the flat enjoying the evening sun which is brightening our flat, flickering on the wall, playing its shadow-game...wonderful

I hope you had a wonderful weekend too...

Maria

Polaroids

I was going through a bunch of polaroids and stumbled over those few I took in Australia in March. How crazy to imagine I will be there in a couple of weeks again.

There is so much to plan, think of and organize right now and it feels sometimes like being between two worlds ...

crossing things from my to-do-list and adding other things on it, selling stuff,

finding a flat in Sydney...arranging all sorts of other things...and also trying to see and hang out

with friends as much as possible before I go....

But I realize too, that sometimes you just can't plan everything and it is just maybe good to see how it goes...well, will see...

It is a nice quiet public holiday here...Which feels good to have in the middle of the week

....

A quiet one

What a very unusual weather we have here.. Instead of sitting in parks, reading books and enjoying the warm sun of May...I am sitting here drinking tea wrapped up with blankets...

It really wasn't the best conditions to be on the flea market with a little stall yesterday as it was supposed to rain all day. But I did go with all my boxes and it was fun to see all the people coming by and to sell all sorts of things which were lying up in the attic un-used way too long. And in the end it didn't rain. What a great thing flea markets are..You can get rid of things and feel relieved and at the same time make people happy with finding bargains and tell little stories about a view pieces.

It feels great to have more space now and I can use the money for a not so cheap flight or many other things I am organizing right now.

Oh and I couldn't resist and got myself one tiny thing. This OXO cup which is standing right in front of me right now and makes me happy with its bright yellow and blue colours..a bit like the sun is shining with a blue sky : )

I was just very lazy today. Wrote a few cards, read in bed the new "Apartamento" magazine which came last week. I love the article about "the unlucky allotment".....There is this garden colony close by the place I live and it is so nice to watch the people gardening there...It must be a great feeling of growing your on vegetables and most of all eating them or giving them to friends..Maybe one day I will have the chance of having a garden with a veggie patch...

The other image I liked a lot was the one with the red/white heart in the back. I have dear friends living in Copenhagen which once crafted those for me for Christmas...It made me smile because it reminded me so much of them..

I wish you all a wonderful start in the new week

Maria

Hamburg is for lovers II

Oh my, I can't even tell you how overwhelmed I was after I read all your wonderful comments.

Thank you so much for all your kind words.

I am sometimes a bit careful with posting personal things as you just don't know who is out there and reading what you write...but than it was so good to share those news and also to see comments from people I haven't 'heard' from yet and to explore their blogs ...

It is all very exciting..and I am very glad that I made this decisions.

I started being in a farewell phrase already....and I hope I can show you the best sites of Hamburg in my last two months here...it will be sad to leave..but there is another city which wants to get explored : )

Here are a couple of images I took last night when I was out with Frau Sieben...looking for letters on the ground and having a nice tea afterwards while enjoying the view over the harbour...

Have a wonderful Thursday

Maria

Changes

Sometimes you say a sentence or even just a single word and it is enough that

many things in your life are changing.

The little world you are living in suddenly shows all sorts of new ways.

Ways if people had asked me about them years ago I might have shaked my head ....

But in the last couple of weeks I had moments like this.

One of them has something to do with this little box you see in the picture :)

......

There have been many long-distance-flights in the last couple of years;

welcome hugs & sad farewell moments, long emails and letters, chats,

7 wonderful months living here in Hamburg together but also months of being 13.000km away from each other...

I will miss my friends, my family and Hamburg a lot. a lot.

But it feels so good that something will change now..

I quit my job and booked my flight this week and I will move to Sydney in the end of July.

I can't wait to start a life with the man I love.

To read next to each other in cafés, cook dinners & share our beloved Friday evenings together, talk till late in the night... just care for each other...

I thought I share those wonderful news with you.

Maria

Last pictures of April

While I am writing this I am sitting by my desk and look outside...the chestnut tree got its leaves and is so green again that I can hardly see the houses behind it, which seemed so close to my windows the whole winter. I am guarded by the tree again...which feels so much better...

I left work a bit earlier yesterday strolled a bit around the Schanze, a neighbourhood with nice cafés, bars and shops here....As it is a public holiday today I thought it would be nice to go there... I tried on a few pair of glasses in a glasses shop....got a new book at my favourite book store and also got this little anchor kerchief...I passed the photobooth and couldn't resist..I went to one of the most weird shops, I haven't been in for a while. You can hardly walk in there as this guy seems to collect everything..he has many old school maps too which are quiet nice...before I went home I had a nice green tea at one of my favourite cafès here...

A good way to start the weekend....

A wonderful 1st May to everyone...

Maria