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:

When your alarm clock does not wake you up anymore... although it had done it for about almost 27 years

I could never believe it when people told me that they just didn't hear their alarm clock. I thought they did hear it and would just ignore it until it finally stopped.

I was one of those people who would stand on their feet (on their bed) with eyes wide awake trying to silence the alarm clock at the 2nd or 3rd ring at the latest. I almost never arrived late in school due to missing my alarm (rather due to confusing days a few rare times). It also never happened at my work places and this did not change at all, even when I started working from home at often rather confusing and changing hours, often also night shifts, I could always pretty much rely on my ability to immediately wake up to the first few alarm rings.

Until now.

It is just after Christmas. My neighbours decided that they would have a three day party from 24th to 26th of December. 24h. Night and day. Without stopping. Not a single hour. I am not kidding.

But unfortunately, they only seemed to have two CDs to back their (rather poor-taste-like, primitive-level) music selection up. Which I now still have unvoluntarily playing up and down in my own head. (It`s nasty lyrics. Really nasty ones.) And this is pretty persistent. o_O So yes, I was working during the Christmas time, rather crazy hours sometimes more than 10h, to make this worse and I did not really get much more than 2h sleep per day as my whole house rather seemed like the next best club: the walls would often vibrate slightly with the bass sounds and rhytms. On the third day, I was pretty much exhausted and slept through various unsuccessful phone calls by friends and family, worried people coming until my house trying to call me from the street in front of my house and not getting through to me as I was obviously slipped away into near-coma-state sleep phases even with the whole crazy sound phrame around me (my dog was in the same state funny enough, poor thing with red eyes and sometimes desperately barking at the noise with no effect of course, just as the neighbours dogs did who had to live through this three-day party right at the heart of the chaos) and therefore did not wake me up either, he was sleeping on the floor next to my bed....). I finally managed to sleep in the afternoon and only woke up, when the prince of sun walked in totally worried as I did not react to his phone calls.

So... the moral of this story:

First impressions of my new-ish Fenix e-piano

In September, I had finally decided that I wanted to start playing piano again (and more frequently than just now and then on our church piano). My birthday was close as well so I thought, 'ya gotta treat ya self from time to time!' - and took on the challenge to find a good e-piano here in Porto Seguro. (Which is a real challenge as people here prefer shorter keyboards and there are not many full-keyboard e-pianos available...)

I finally decided to get a Fenix and was positively surprised with the general quality such as sound, sensibility, touch (the only things that really matter for me, I am not too much a person that likes to change the sound effects, I am pretty much a classic player and would be totally happy with a good old one-sound-non-electric-piano, but that s kind of impossible here, and those that they offer are about the cost of a new car o_O so... 

I was still pretty happy about the performance - which I am until today concerning the piano, sound, sensibility, touch - just one point is pretty disappointing:

Love parcels: River flows in you - "Bella's Lullaby" piano sheets by Yiruma

Today morning a wonderful surprise parcel was sitting on my doorstep, carefully packed into protective waterproof foil. (It actually looked like someone had opened it - again... must have thought it was a secret plan or something, who knows ;) ....

Inside my own personal often-dreamed-of flowing river was waiting to be discovered and mastered: The beautiful piece 'River flows in you' by Yiruma.

So I spent the whole last few hours training this amazing song - I believe it is one of the famous Twilight songs as well, Bella's Lullaby to be precise and I had often listened to this song, either when watching the movie or most often just on youtube, dreaming along the beautiful melody. Many thanks to my dear mum who has sent over the piano sheets along with other great sheets plus a correction roller for future changes during training and my good old antique wooden books and sheet marker. <3

Here Yiruma playing his song during a concert:

Luke Pavarotti, Luke Ludovico, Bilu-ke: Our new puppy =)

Last night I was listening to some youtube music videos and just quickly went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I couldn t believe my eyes when I came back from the bathroom and saw my puppy Luke lying on the sofa, with his tiny head placed neatly into the headset and listening to the music with closed eyes :-O 

He probably realized (could hear) that I was listening to the following youtube video:

My alltime favourite of Ivan Lins: Depois dos temporais

Com um arranjo super gostoso de ouvir.

Lyrics:
Sempre viveram no mesmo barco
Foram farinha do mesmo saco
Da mesma marinha, da mesma rainha
Sob a mesma bandeira
Tremulando no mastro
E assim foram seguindo os astros
Cortaram as amarras e os nós
Deixando pra trás o porto e o cais
Berrando até perder a voz
Em busca do imenso,
Do silêncio mais intenso
Que está depois dos temporais

E assim foram sempre em frente
Fazendo amor pelos sete mares
Inchando a água de alga e peixe
Seguindo os ventos
As marés e as correntes
O caminho dos golfinhos
A trilha das baleias
E não havia arrecifes
Nem bancos de areia
Nem temores, nem mais dores
Não havia cansaço
Só havia, só havia azul e espaço.

Revival

A cosy feeling in my belly. Like eating freshly-made, warm apple crumble.

Soft shudder in back and ears.

Neck moves like a fond wave caressing rolling shoulders.

A wish to run and jump and love and laugh and cry and scream and dream.

Energy wakes up deep inside, simmering in my stomach.

Legs get up in soft motions.

Heart beating strong and round.

Hugging my loose shoulders with closed eyes.

Move my way across the room in delicate turns.

Arms swing open welcoming an imaginary mizzling summer rain.

The peaceful air smells like butterflies, allround a tender invisible breeze of beauty.

Endless love flowing out.

Thank you Zouk. You revive me over and over again.

My current favourite song - Like Yesterday by Colbie Caillat

The lyrics to this song are just too sweet <3

"Like Yesterday"

I remember like yesterday I 
Carried a heart without hope
Had given up on mystery I 
Only saw mirrors and smoke 
Thought I was fine alone 
That’s just because I didn’t know 

I remember like yesterday
Lovin you seemed far away 
We were friends in different places 
Then love began leavin traces
Sitting with u on a crowded bus
It seemed like just the 2 of us
That night everything was changed 

My Top 5 favourite places in London

Those are my current Top 5 favourite places in London

1. Hampstead Heath 

My favourite London Park (Tube: Hampstead) and the area where I wish to have a small garden flat in the future. It is the place where I´ve dreamed alone, had picknicks with friends and where I can renew myself after a tiring day – whether working or when coming back from the busy centre

2. The British Library 

(Tube: Kings Cross) 
Researching, browsing or just enjoying free time over free classics of British literature and the whole atmosphere of reading people surrounding you, also offer free internet, lovely to meet other fellow literature/book fans. I also love tiny side street book shops, often just stumble over them during a shopping or sight seeing trip. Oh and the (under) Waterloo Bridge Second Hand book market is fantastic as well!

3. Whereever my beloved Zouk-Lambada, Samba and Kizomba classes take place

Elections and Publicity in Porto Seguro - Politics the North-Brazilian way

Since my first day in Porto Seguro, I have been interested in the way North Brazilians - or well, Baianos - do their publicity and politics.

One thing that's quite unfamiliar for me and other Germans and Londoners at least, are cars (or motorbikes) that drive around with annoyingly loud speakers strapped to their roof called "carro de som" and public radio stations on the streets that are playing the latest supermarket advertisements or politics propaganda songs. You cannot escape them, even with all windows and doors closed and it starts at 8:30am, even on Sundays...

Most politicians decided to choose a popular song (best are those that you can scream and rhyme, especially the number to vote for should be repeatable...), well known party songs from the Toa Toa e Axe moi beaches are the favourites. Then they change the lyrics into something like "vote for better education, good infrastructure, safety" or "the people from Porto Seguro don t want to return to the past, a new time has started now, vote now for xyz and remember 44"

I'll try to upload a few examples that I recorded with my phone:

My favourite Indian culinary treats – Chicken Korma in Camberwell

During my flatshare time in Camberwell, SE London, I often went to Zouk-Lambada on Monday and Wednesday nights with the “dance girl” (I had actually met her at Zouk-Lambada and she stayed one of my best friends until the very day) and arriving late in the evening, both being hungry from dancing, talking and laughing, we ordered some take aways with my local Indian restaurant, 5min from my home. I also had dinner there once when my parents and brothers were visiting me and in general, got one of my two favourite Indian culinary treats – either:

Kizomba & Zouk-Lambada - The interwoven story of Angolan/Afro Music and Brazilian/Afro Dance

First time I heard Kizomba was in Germany, one of my Angolan friends had shown me this lovely song that I love to listen to until today. But it was not until - during my studies in London - one day I watched a dance video on youtube when I got reunited with Kizomba - and met the dance Zouk for the first time.

For everyone that got confused by now. Yes, I also was, the history and connection of the two words, dances and music is complicatedly interwoven. But let's start from scratch.