The Piri-Piri Obsession: Our simple (almost) original, flame-grilled Nando's Chicken Recipe

During our time in London, the prince of sun and I got completely passionate about Nando's. Our favourite is the medium spice version of the flame-grilled Piri-Piri chicken.

Luke was obviously admiring the chicken from
start till end :D

We were unable to forget the incredibly delicious taste and decided it was time to get our hands into business. First step: During this year's early September market in Porto Seguro, we bought the long wanted simple churrasqueira (portable for future beach barbecues!) and came up with our very own and simple

RECIPE FOR PIRI PIRI CHICKEN * NANDO'S CHICKEN
Ingredients:
- any chicken you prefer, could be breast, whole chicken, there goes your preference, ours was chicken breast with some bones

For the Piri-Piri sauce, you'll throw the following ingredients into the mixer:
- fresh chiles, depending on how hot you like it - or chili sauce
- 2 heads of garlic
- salt, pepper
- olive oil
- coriander (Brazilian coentro)
- bit of vinegar, bit of lime

Our new flame grill churrasqueira & the prince
of sun taking care of the Piri Piri Chicken

You should get a delicious, hot sauce - very fresh smelling, in our case with a tendecy to coriander which we both adore.

We then cut out the breast bone to get butterfly-shaped open-lying breast shape and massaged the sauce into the chicken. Best would be to actually leave it soaking up the sauce during the whole night or at least 3-4 hours to get the lovely taste right until the bones.

And then you just throw the whole lot onto your barbecue grill of choice (or skewer) and roast the chicken to your preferred bronzed tone, our preference is quite deep and dark.

We had our Piri-Piri chicken with Graviola juice, garlic rice and vinagrete (tomato salad with onions, vinegar, oil and coriander). Yum.....

Enjoy!

Cutting my long hair - from tailbone length to waist length

After: Waist length

Before: Tailbone/hip length

Yes, for those who know my love for very long hair, it might be surprising news, but I finally decided to cut my hair from tailbone/hip length to waist length.

I felt like it got too heavy for my rather petite body structure and I had several serious neck issues, especially after washing it. It might be part stress, but I believe it is mainly due to the weight of my hair, which got thicker in the last few years after changing my hair routine.

Front view

I also had to give up not drying it with a hairdryer, every time I would let it dry by itself I could be sure to have a totally stiff neck the next morning. Nothing you wish to experience more than once, especially not after EVERY freaking hair wash.... So, I guess here in Europe, especially in Germany, I will have to rely on my hairdryer unfortunately.

So, there you go, my new hair cut - as always cut at home - my head and hair have not seen a hair stylist for more than 5 years now and I really don't miss the (at most times disappointing) experience ;)

Side view

Castles in Germany: Altes Schloss Hohenbaden & castle restaurant

Any castle fans here? Planning a trip to Europe any time soon? Well, congratulations, you are coming to the right place, Germany is the hotspot for all castle and middle-age fanatics!

This time I took my London friends to the Altes Schloss Hohenbaden, the Old Castle in Baden-Baden. It is part intact, part restored ruins and a very mysterious yet romantic spot.

As part of its history, it has (like most castles) lots of stories, including the legend of The Grey Lady: 
A countess famous for supressing the population and only worried about herself. Always asking for hard labour and high tax, and those who dared to resist, were promptly thrown into the dark and damp dungeon of the castles, where in worst case scenario followed physical torture.

One evening, she took her only baby son up to the top of the highest tower. Looking down on her kingdom, she held her son far over the stone window ledge and sneered: "Look and count all the villages, spots and farms! They are endless. As far as your eye can reach, all people have to bow and scrape to you. Force them under your knout and don't give them rest, thus you will live well on earth!"

But the moment the lady finished her cruel speech, the baby boy slipped through her hands and fell down into the deep darkness. Pale as death the lady rushed down the stairs to look for her son. Although she forced her servants to look for her child day and night, the boy was never found.

So since this incident, the legend says that the crual countess is running down the stairs of the castle on stormy days and when you listen well, you can hear her shrill voice being carried in the hoarse winds through the narrow corridors of the castles.

Me having some delicious moca tart

Got some goose bumps? hehe.... My friends indeed felt some shiver, especially with the wind harp close by, which claims to be the biggest in Europe.... We then decided that we had earned some rest and headed for some coffee and cake in the castle's own restaurant, I had some amazing moca tart and my friends both had fruit cakes, very yummy! Here the Castle Restaurant Menu.











Here some more pictures of the wind harp and beautiful sights of the mysterious, romantic castle:

One of Germany's most romantic, hidden gems: The enchanting Geroldsauer Waterfalls & Bütthof restaurant

My favourite romantic spot:
The Geroldsauer Waterfalls

So as I mentioned in my last post, I spend one beautiful day in May hiking up the enchanting Geroldsauer Waterfalls, together with the prince of sun, dance girl and holiday girl.

The weather was quite moody so after arriving a little bit later than planned due to the sheer impossibility to find any directions pointing towards the waterfalls, we finally asked our way through (even though we had to ask about 4 times, and one group of ladies were Russian grannies who did not speak any German, Baden-Baden is quite a favourite spot for Russians in general).

Getting there about 45min later than intended, we arrived just in time for a midday snack, so we thought. Hiking up the waterfall paths, we quickly found ourselves starving and ready for lunch, so we were very pleased when we realized that the nearby forest restaurant Waldgaststätte Bütthof was only about 5min away by foot so we were quickly speeding up and saw the pretty Landhaus style restaurant and its own grown Irish buffelos (?) already from far.

The prince of sun ordered the buffelo steak dish and I tried a bit, it was very soft and delicious (although I have to admit that I felt a bit guilty as they were peacefully munching along just about 100m away from us..... We all had a huge plate filled up with delicious, traditional Badener food, the girls tried out the "German sausage and fried potato salad" (Wurstsalat mit Bratkartoffeln, please try and imagine something different than some lettuce, chips and a sausage cut in pieces :D, below some pictures for further illustration). Your love, your friends, beautiful landscape, a beautiful restaurant plus nice waitress and amazing food, cannot get better than that, can it?

The forest restaurant Waldgaststätte Bütthof 

Check out this quick youtube video of the Geroldsauer waterfalls (the music is lovely as well!):

Mannas Zappan - Organic soap bars from Hungary

Mannas Zappan Soap Bars & Dresdner Essence relax bath

I had to write about one of my latest obsessions... but first things first: A few weeks ago, my London friends dance girl and holiday girl came to visit me here in Germany for a weekend. Spending our days eating out and sightseeing around the Baden-Baden and Alsace regions and hiking up the enchanting Geroldsauer Waterfalls, we actually spent our first 1h together just exchanging presents <3

One of the presents holiday girl gave to me was a wonderful collection of organic body, face and hair soap bars that she ordered from a supplier in Hungary. The brand is called Mannas Zappan and the products were originally made by a mum that got frustrated with available body care products. Mainly due to her children's allergies, she felt that common products did not work with her family and created their own original organic products: the soap(bar)s are all natural and organic, the ones I received in my collection, have an intense and earthy perfume, each of them has its distinct smell that gets you quite quick. All lather fantastically (for those who miss the lather in other organic soaps), probably due to the coconut soap that most of the soaps contain. I tried them out today (yes, all of them at once :D, I just could not resist) after having a wonderful muscle relax bath using the Dresdner Essenz Muskellockerungsbad. (Got to spoil yourself from time to time, don't ya?!)

My collection of
Mannas Zappan soap bars

On the left a few pictures of the soap bars, here a quick translation of each soap type (no guarantee though, it has been with the google translator ;)

On the upper left, a body soap bar with cinnamon and coconut, it says something like good for maintaining firm skin. Yummy it is for sure!

On the lower left in light green, the shampoo soap bar of my collection, I absolutely loved my hair - I tend to have normal, rather dry hair and often have an electricity thing going on just after drying them, but this shampoo soap really helped avoiding the static state. It smells a bit citrussy and I suspect another green ingredient here:

Trip to Germany & Berlin coming closer! PLUS Information on Aguia-Branca, MeinFernbus & Condor luggage allowance

Since Dezember, I am planning my next Trip to Germany and Berlin! YAY!!! This time together with the prince of sun <3 Now there are only about three weeks left, OMG, so excited =)

I am going to visit my friend Berlin girl at her place in Potsdam, do Berlin sightseeing (and shopping) with the prince and her and we will even do a short day trip to Warnemuende, a seaside resort and former fishing village situated on the Ostsee, Baltic Sea in the North-Eastern part of Germany, close to Rostock. I am really looking forward to showing the prince an authentic German beach and sea as well as traditions and his first, ever dunes (and dune rabbits!). (He does not know about the day trip, so.... cannot wait to see his face when he suddenly stands in front of the beach and sea, he thinks we are only going to visit Berlin and Potsdam, no word from me or Berlin girl about the trip or destination hehe....

Castle beauties - Fantasy vs Reality 

There is more, my family and I are planning to go on many castle trips, at least 4 different ones, one will be the Hohenbaden Castle, one castle near Gengenbach (forgot the name, I have to research some more...) plus the beautiful Hohenzollern Castle (those three are all located at less than 2h by car from my parents' place) and the famous Neuschwanstein Castle (the one that Disney used as a template for their dream castle) (located more or less 4h by car from my parents' place).

And as a cream-top for my holiday cake of wonders, two of my dear London friends, holiday girl and dance girl, are coming over for a weekend trip, none of them have been to Germany so I am thrilled to introduce them to our wonderful culture, delicious hearty German food, relaxing Roman bath-spa, breath-taking waterfalls.... *_* so excited!

So, other than that I have been planning to take lots of books and have made some packing lists (what to pack in Brazil), German-culture-related items (especially German children s books and items), shopping lists, Berlin packing list, Berlin to-do list, Berlin shopping list, my region's to do list, home-trip packing list.... I did mention that I love making lists... haha....

I mentioned some of our travel companies during my Europe trip last year already, I actually used the same companies as we do this time, but now I'll explain the baggage allowances for each company in detail.

So here you go, here more about each company we are travelling with:

Our first travel company is a Brazilian coach company called

Aguia Branca - 12h night bus from Porto Seguro to Salvador
-one suitcase of 30kg (to be stored in the luggage department of the bus)
-no exact restrictions for hand luggage

Last time I travelled with them, I only had one hand luggage (the carry on size), but most people travelling with me on the bus had a carry on plus normal handbags plus enormous plastic bags with them so I am quite optimistic that they are pretty generous with hand luggage taken on the bus with you (as long as you can fit it into the relatively generous space in front of you).

Arriving at the bus station in Salvador the next morning, we will take one of the local buses to the international airport in Salvador, where we will catch our flights in the afternoon, we are flying with

CONDOR, 10h over-night transatlantic flight from Salvador to Frankfurt
-2 suitcases of 32kg each (yes, you are reading right here *_*)
-hand luggage=carry on of 6kg
-1 laptop bag plus laptop
-1 small handbag
-umbrella

Isn t that just a dream....! Let's get that straight.
Proper 64 kg checked luggage. 6kg carry on. Total: A whopping 70kg. Not counting the handbag and laptop bag stuff!!! AAAAND the prince and I are travelling together. Each of us has those allowances, making it official:  140kg. Plus content of two small (hand)bags & notebook bags *_*

Right, last trip to Berlin, we will probably leave most of my stuff at my parents' place when we leave for Berlin and only take one suitcase and backpack with us, so our last company mentioned is

MeinFernbus, 10h daytime coach trip from Karlsruhe to Berlin

Our luggage planning

-2 suitcases of each 20kg
-hand luggage of 15kg

Whopping, isn t it!

I know now you'll ask me how I will ever be able to get my luggage sorted with so many different luggage restrictions.

Keep calm and... read on ;)

Love parcels: If I were a little bird and had 2 little wings, I'd fly to you!

Today I had two sweet surprises waiting for me at my doorstep.

One was literally sweet: A parcel from my lovely mum <3 full of goodies, delicious, sweet forest fruit tea (that I am slurping right now) as well green tea and as other sorts, loads of beautiful poems, songs and prayers as well as the invitation to my cousin's wedding and some cheerful baloons. =) My dear mum always manages to surprise me over and over again with new ideas and beautiful memories of my childhood and favourite childhood songs as well as showing me new poetry and in general re-inventing life and love the whole time.

The poem that touched me most was my alltime favourite little bird song (shown on the postcard in the middle picturing a young woman with a looong braid sitting under a try, being thoughtful and observing little birds flying around. The only colour aspect of the picture is a tiny heart on the bottom <3 so beautiful! *_*).

The poem says:                                                     (this old-style-German poem translates to something like:

"Wenn ich ein Voeglein waer,                                If I were a little bird  
 und auch zwei Flueglein haett,                               and had two little wings,    
floeg ich zu dir.                                                      I'd fly to you!
Weils aber nicht kann sein,                                    But as it cannot be,
weils aber nicht kann sein,                                     but as it cannot be,
bleib ich all hier!"                                                   I'll have to stay right here!).

She has also sent me loads of beautiful poems by Rudolf Alexander Schroeder, which I will come back to in a minute =) By the way, my mum had sent some cosmetics as well, but those errr got lost on the way somehow - we will never know where, right, aehem....


The second nice surprise was a traditional postcard from my friend law girl who is doing her LLM, master of law, in San Francisco and has sent her lovely lines over. It is the first postcard that actually arrived, she had sent one from New York once that got lost in the nirvana of international air mail =) So happy it arrived this time hun! <3 And who knows maybe the Brazilian mail will be getting better and better each, paying a bit more to their staff resulting in more reliable work force resulting in better service offered to the public!

(So yes, just need to work on that 'stuff disappearing'-issue, but we'll get there right, as we say in Germany: Es ist noch nie ein Meister vom Himmel gefallen = It never happened that a master fell from the sky., meaning we all continue learning and perfecting what we do...

And now, as promised before, here some of the beautiful poems by Rudolf Alexander Schroeder:

Good hair, bad hair and our world`s fear of gray/white hair & Update on hair cut

Just as anyone else on our dear planet, I have been confronted with hair issues during all my life. Any kind of it really. But today let`s only talk about our precious tresses!

Starting at teenager age, I had just decided to let my hair grow and quickly learned that the hair business is not as simple as it seems. I was quickly told that my hair was not thick enough to be grown long or that it had too many split ends and needed 3cm to be cut and after some time, it was suggested that I also do something about my rather boring hair colour. Insecure as those teenagers are, my colouring routine started at about 16 ranging from dark blue-black to chocolate-red-brown and went on until I was about 23 ending with indigo-and-henna-dark-red-brown. (I love how literal you can see the expression DYING HAIR. right!?....) Seven long years of dying my hair. Seven long years of horrible chemical substances eating into my scalp and flowing down my poor vains. And at about 20 years of age, the first grays started to appear. So as soon as I realized that those grays were appearing, I was pretty much condemned to colour my hair forever. So I was told. By the media, TV ads, magazines, some of my family (except my mum who herself has the most beautiful gray-streaked tresses herself since her late 20s/early 30s <3), friends, and finally after enough brain washing, by myself. Getting grays in such a young age, dreadful!

Well, during those 7 years, my routine was quite simple compared to what other people do, I had a shampoo and conditioner (silicone loaden of course), some loreal and fructis and such. Plus one finishing cream for shiny and non-frizzy hair. Plus some hairbrushes (in 4-5x daily use), hair dryer (about every 3 days when washing my hair) and a small set of flat ironer, curler etc (which I used at the age of 22-23, maybe 10x or less in total before changing my routine radically). I coloured my hair about every 3-4 months, sometimes later and went to cut it about every 4-6 months. I was pretty low maintenance most of the time, already before changing my routine, some might say now.

New hair cut:
Shorter front hair on March 2014

Wake-up-hair ;)

Then, about 4 years ago, I started researching about product content and general (beauty=) health related issues as well as going through some personal growth and changes in attitude and how I viewed myself and everything around me and totally stopped EVERYTHING I did before. I went through a lot of different stages (like trying out the no-poo-movement and such) and then finally decided to let my true hair/hair colour shine (and sometimes bounce) again =)

general length the same,
kept at hip length

And I have not looked back ever since. I did go back to shampooing due to my sensitive scalp, no other products such as spray or such, a very mild shampoo version (see my hair routine for more information) (most of my shampoos are Alverde) and wash my hair about once a week now. I brush it once (sometimes twice) a day, mostly in the evening, sometimes in the morning, but here in Brazil I have it up in a bun for most of the daylight (HOT) hours as it is really too hot for having hair longer than your ears ;) I have it down in the late afternoon and evening hours as well as when sleeping, I just throw it over the pillow and wake up with my octopus hair almost strangling me ;) I have tried sleeping with buns and braids during almost 3 years. But it is just not the same comfort and now that my hair is long and heavy enough, I just keep it over my pillow for most of the night and from time to time, throw it back into its off-pillow position when it gets into my face after tossing around too much and have to grab it from under the prince of sun`s head haha.... oh well ;) since changing my routine, my hair shows that it too has its moods. Sometimes it is very wavy and almost curly, sometimes it is almost sleek with just really slight waves.... it probably just depends on my current state of mind haha..... one thing that I noticed though is that the longer I go between washes, the easier it goes to the wavy-curly state. I do love combing my hair and letting the curls (that appear at the ends mostly) bounce around for a bit.

Side view of new shorter front section

I also cut it myself (straight across mainly, at hip length), a few weeks ago I decided to cut some of my front hair as my hair was getting too heavy for my taste and finally had the courage to cut about 3 hands of length! But I love it, the rest of my hair is still hip length, it is lighter and the front section lies in a soft wave next my face.

My beautiful glitter-whites in the sun <3

Now about the gray hair/white hair issue: I LOVE my white hair which distributes in layers and fine glitter-lines throughout my head, but mostly at the front sections and I get so many questions who coloured my hair and did the delicate light-blond highlights and that it looks sooo nice and natural and shines like little stars glittering in the sun, especially the front highlights sections... and how I managed that sometimes only a few hairs are highlighted and not streaks of hair, really SINGLE hairs. I always answer that my hair dresser is called god and that he is a real genius in making me perfectly look exactly how I am supposed to be, combining my hair colours and structure exactly to how it best combines with my natural skin, cheek and lip colour :D

I get strange looks then, some pauses and deep thinking periods and some ask:

My morning in three easy steps

Here my morning in three easy steps haha:

Step 1: Wake up and put this octopus hair in a bun to stop it from strangling me

Step 2: Open the door and in comes Luke for his first belly rub

Step 3: Morning coffee =) 

And guess what happened after taking the morning cup pictures?  

Love parcels: Belated Christmas parcel and very belated November-beauty parcel

November beauty parcel

You can imagine my joy when I realized that the November beauty parcel that my sister and mum had sent and that we already thought had been stolen, made a 3-month-belated appearance today! =) A huuuuuge Lush chunk of Coconut Shampoo and Bodywash - Soap was waiting for me, as well as a hydrating face gel for the prince of sun, my favourite German soft toothbrush, a delicate Alverde face cream for dry skin and a muscle relaxing Dresdner Wacholder bath essence. *_*

Second Christmas parcel

It was however not the first one in the (you guessed it already) parcel bunching list: About one week ago, a belated second CHRISTMAS parcel  sent by my mum arrived <3 It was filled with tiny, sweet Christmas decoration (all packed in a (still perfumous) tunnel-perfume packaging), two Kamillin Camomilla bath solutions, two relaxation and spa bath essences (one with refressing Melisse and the other one with romantic flower perfume), a natural face wash, my favourite Weleda reconstruction oil as well as a 2014 calender with beautiful mouth-and-foot-paintings-pictures and famous-poet-quotes, January was a deep yet wintery quote by Goethe: "Wer will denn alles gleich ergruenden! Sobald der Schnee schmilzt, wird sichs finden." (translated to English, something similar to: Who wants to examine-discover-explore everything! When the snow melts, it will be found!) and February a DANCE QUOTE by poet Aurelius Augustinus=) which totally spoke out of my heart!

"Ich liebe den Tanz, denn er befreit den Menschen von der Schwere der Dinge."
(translated to English something similar to: I love the dance because he frees us humans of the heaviness-weight of things).

Right now I am just using half of the sweet, romantic flower bath essence salts for a relaxing foot bath, Luke loves the smell as well, he sniffed and examined the perfumed pink water and immediately afterwards relaxed and fell asleep next to me on the sofa....

Puppy play time: Luke and his best friend Rhalf

Rhalf close to Luke's ear, whispering: "Luke, you won't
believe what happened yesterday...  Oh dear,
I have to whisper they're listening in :D!"

A few days ago we went to see a friend of ours who has two dogs, one puppy called Rhalf and one adult dog called Hans. Luke is best friends with Rhalf and together they run and jump and build sand caves and do just everything, like people say here "os dois estão grudados como cola" (those two are stuck like glue).

Luke will stay with them during our spring holiday, he has already spent one week there and thank god was alright and not too homesick, although from the day we picked him up again, he was even more stuck like glue to me ;) But I do love it, I freely admit it hehe....

More pictures of the 'gang of two', playing, wrestling and drinking water, exhausted from playing like the crazies - next to the 'old, wise often grumpy a bit jealous but mild' German-shepherd-mix ginger Hans:

Love parcels: Belated Christmas bunching

So waiting patiently during Christmas and New Year really paid off ;)

Punctually at about 2 weeks into the new year 2014 (oh and I totally forgot: HAPPY NEW YEAR BY THE WAY)! 

A small letter with a wedding invitation arrived around the 10th of January, then the first two Christmas and indulgence related parcels from my mum arrived on the 14th and the last Christmas surprises parcel came from my sister on the 16th.

My mum`s Christmas parcel had a really sweet mouth painted postcard with a wintery setting, a decorated Christmas tree and a pretty child-angel holding a the top star of the tree, in the background of a snow-covered landscape with a cute bridge and little houses. And even Luke received his own postcard, with a cute Christmas sausage dog frontside and a tiny yummy", crunchy dogfood plastic bag. Luke`s eyes totally glimmered when he was eating it, so this was a true Christmas treat!

The second parcel was poetry and arts indulgence with a beautiful butterfly spray painting, a ballet-culture postcard, a tiny calender for 2014 and a mouth-painted calender picture with a beautiful quote by Jean Jaures (German: Die groessten Menschen sind jene, die anderen Hoffnung geben koennen. = English: The greatest people are those who are able to bring hope to others.) plus some amazing dividable dog-sausage treats for Luke which he absolutely loves - a good thing to use for our training sessions, need to get more of those when I visit my family in spring. Oh yes, I did not mention it yet, but YYYAAAAAY, we are close to another trip to Europe, this time together with the prince of sun and we are concentrating on Germany only with a short visit to our funky capital Berlin (and Berlin girl obviously) and other treats coming soon *_* - cannot wait to see my sweet niece and sister, brothers, mum and dad, grandma, friends.... aaaah =) By the way, I was really laughing at the name of the Orlando dog sausage product but cannot go into details due to privacy reasons but... I really love the fun thought behind it and understand why mum picked exactly those HILARIOUS! And finally, my favourite relaxing Camilla bath liquid *_*

  

Now let`s get to the final love parcel, sent by my sister (and partly my mum as well):

London's best kept budget-books secret: Southbank Centre book market

Southbank Centre book market under Waterloo Bridge

I have always been a book worm, starting from a tender age of four when I wasn t even able to really read - didn t matter, I would still take out my favourite books and pretty accurately tell each story word by word to my younger siblings - by heart.

This passion has not really changed, although nowadays I have less time than I wish for curling up with a thick novel....

One of my favourite London budget-books markets is under Waterloo Bridge, right in front of BFI Southbank: Southbank Centre book market.

Passing London Eye
on my way to the market

You can get almost all genres, novels, poetry, cooking, children's books - the list of 2nd hand and antique books is infinite. Prices vary, you can get smaller books for 1-3 pound, heavier or newer books and depending on the genre the price can be higher.

Beautiful view on London Eye

As far as I know, the market is the only outdoor second hand and antique book market in London.

Address and opening hours:

Pink Dolphins in Porto Seguro: The Amazon River Dolphin

Now that summer has finally arrived in Porto Seguro, the sea water is getting warmer every day, especially the river section next to the port of the town. You can imagine my surprise when I saw something pink jumping out of the water. First time I have ever seen pink dolphins! They swim-travel to Porto Seguro together with the hot water streams and stay in the region until the water streams travel further.

Here they are called `Boto-cor-de-rosa` which literally translates to something like Pink Dolphins. On google they were referred to as the Amazon River Dolphin, but here they make a clear reference between BOTO and the Portuguese translation for dolphin which is GOLFINHO. To me it seems like the pink boto dolphin has a much longer mouth than the grey golfinho dolphin brother.

On another page I found out that Amazon River dolphins are becoming an endangered species due to overfishing: http://www.catholic.org/green/story.php?id=37323 So hopefully it is a positive sign that loads of them are still to be found here in Porto Seguro.

I also found a sweet Brazilian Pink Dolphin Tale: The story says that the Pink Dolphin is the most playful of all dolphins and that`s why he particularly attracks women and children close to the river. According to the legend, he protects everyone in case of drowning risk. People also tell that the boto is also famous for being a conqueror of hearts. That he seduces girls who dance at the parties in town, who take a bath in the river and those who navigate alone in small canoes. The legend also tells that in the nights of the June parties, the Pink dolphin transforms himself into what?

Why were houses in Brazilian town Porto Seguro restricted to a max of two floors? And what does Beyoncé has to do with it?

When I was landing in Porto Seguro, Brazil for the first time, the breathtaking traditional skyline captured my attention from the first few seconds. What most impressed me, was the sight of the church that one could see from almost everywhere, even the big supermarkets and shopping centres were not obtrusing its sight. 

Porto Seguro Skyline - with its church right in the middle near the harbour and sea

Let's play a little quizz game and see if you guess right concerning the reasons for this fascinating fact:

A) The church was being used in times of heavy flooding, the roofs of the houses were connected in a way that one could reach the church from whatever borough you lived in by climbing onto the houses and getting to the meeting and rescue point which was the church near the harbour. The church was built higher so that everyone could see it from far and orient himself easier when trying to reach it.

B) In earlier times the town's church was used as a Guardian tower and therefore, it was necessary that it was the highest building so that one could see, search and find enemies or criminals from the top without obtrusing views through other houses.

C) The church had to be the highest building in town as an honour to God with nobody trying to get "higher" than him. 

Schlösserrundfahrt - Palace boat tour in Potsdam

During my time with Berlin Girl, we reunited with another friend, let's call her Lizzy Girl (she shares my passion for Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice!).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

We decided that it was the perfect day to do the Potsdam Schlösserrundfahrt - a boat tour during which you can see the most beautiful sights and castles and palaces which range along the banks of the Jungfernsee. For the hungry ones: Yes, you can get food and drinks on the boat.    

Picture from the Palace tour
 source Schifffahrt in Potsdam HP

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

We were really surprised that it passed by so quickly: only 90 minutes but packed with loads of beautiful sights such as the Palace and Park Babelsberg, the tower "Flatowturm" and the "Small Palace".  I loved the story of the Palace on Peacock Island (unfortunately we did not spot any peacocks, from far at least).                                                                                                                                                             

Then we enjoyed the sight of the Church at Sacrow, the new Hans Otto Theatre, the Glienicke Park and the famous Glienicker Bridge. Last but not least the New Garden with the Marble Palace and finally the famous Cecilienhof Palace, where the Potsdam Agreement was signed in the summer of WW2's ending! Oh, as far as I remember you can even do the tour with another, older boat, the original "steamer Gustav" dating back to 1908, so if you love old ships and boats, that might be THE secret tip for you! 

Here a few tips in case you would like to do the same trip and a few more pictures of the boat tour: 

"Puppy-photo-love-story": Luke's first time playing in sand

A few weeks ago, we were doing construction works again and therefore had some sand in our yard. Of course Luke couldn't resist and HOOPI DI HOPP he jumped right onto it <3 Judging his face and reactions he absolutely loved it ;)

Fish and Chips at Spotted Horse pub in East Putney

After my afternoon park stroll with Culture Girl, she headed off to get some work done and I decided that it was time for an afternoon snack - or well, catch up with a proper lunch-dinner meal! I decided for an English classic this time:

FISH AND CHIPS!

Quite some time since I had my last one so I was really looking forward to it!

I decided to just go to a pub right here in Putney, quickly went to boots to get some stuff I still needed to stock up on and quickly found a nice, traditional pub called THE SPOTTED HORSE, on Putney High Street quite close to Putney train Station.

You need to order at the counter and then they will bring whatever you like to your place, if you first want to have a look at the menu, no worries, just get the drink and then sit down somewhere - that's what I did with my coke although in fact I already knew what I wanted to eat but wanted to check out the menu anyway ;).

It was a feast of a fish and chips dish, I did not actually manage to eat all of the chips, it was just too much for me, but very yummyyy. They have special daily offers on individual dishes, I believe Friday is the Specials Day for fish and chips, but I am not sure anymore. Oh, and of course they have free wifiiiii as well ;) 

A lovely afternoon in Putney: Limonade at the Boathouse & a stroll around Bishop's park & Fulham Palace herb garden

Putney Bridge

The first time that I set foot in Putney was during my young student years, my second stay (language school holidays) in London where I stayed at a lovely English lady's home in Putney a few years ago. Even though the first day started off rather on the wrong foot (at that time I had not that much knowledge of most English words so self-catering was innocently interpreted as Selbstbedienung (German for kind of just like just serve yourself of what's available), unfortunately it is kind of the  opposite :D.

After solving this little issue,  my kind host and I had a few wonderful weeks together and she showed me around the wonderful areas in Putney.

The Boathouse

Limonade & 

That's why Culture Girl and I decided to meet up in Putney this time for some limonade and tea at the Boathouse. It was a really lovely day, sun all day - at least in this part of London.

Anyway, after our relaxing stay at the Boathouse, we decided to take advantage of the wonderful sunshine and off we went to the nearby Bishop's park for a short stroll. A lot of people around, kids and dogs running around and sharing the love.

Culture Girl and THE RIVER

(I even got a bit of a sunburn and when I went home later to meet up with another friend in North West London, let's call her Holiday Girl: she looked at me with an open mouth and asked "where the heck did you get this sunburn today? It was cloudy and rainy ALL DAY LONG!" Well, not in lovely Putney :D).

Fulham palace - drawing room café

We also had a look at Fulham Palace, now a mix of museum, art gallery and drawing room café.

Fulham Palace herb garden

There is a beautiful herb garden close to the Palace. It reminds me of what I had in mind for the "original Secret Garden" scenery, especially the romantic entrance really enchanted me and Culture Girl.

Here local people are allowed to grow their own vegetables, fruit and flowers, we observed some mainly older people peacefully caring for their veggie plants, I really wanted to get my hands into the rich-scented, dark garden soil as well I have to admit....

A true gem!