When I´m not Reading

When I´m not Reading is a weekly meme hostes by Missy over at The Unread Reader. It´s a pretty fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers better. We all have a life beside books, right?

Soooo, today I went to my favorite Swedish furniture store. My poor books were stashed in an old dresser drawer, because I simply had not enough space. Now I decided to throw out some old stuff and finally buy a decent bookcase.

Several hours, one plate of Köttbullar and far too many scented candles and tealight later, I finally had my very own BILLY. I stuffed the package into my tiny VW Polo, which was not easy and drove home.

The next problem: how do you transport a 22 pound heavy package to the fifth floor? The elevator was unfortunatly slightly too small. Thank god for female charm. Two unsuspecting victims, also know as fellow male students, had the pleasure to carry my BILLY all the way up the stairway to my apartment. But hey, I promised them drinks on me the next time we go out.

Have you ever tried to put a bookcase together on your own? With ine of those wunderful manuals IKEA provides. Not Funny.

But, one hour later it was done! *squee*

This is how my BILLY looks like:

Can you see the problem??? It is still too small!!! I never realized how many books I actually own when they were hidden in the drawers! I actually believed the bookcase was big enough! My roommates haven´t stopped making fun of me ever since they saw it and decided to refer to my room as “The Library” from now on. Ignorants.

I can aready picture myself: “Hi, my name is Christine and I am a book-a-holic…”

*sigh*

When I´m Not Reading…

When I´m Not Reading is a weekly meme hosted by Missie @ The Unread Reader.

 

As I´m still staying with my parents in my lovely little hometown, my “When I´m not Reading” activities are quite different from what I´m usually doing.

Last weekend for example, my mother decided she wanted to redecorate our bathroom, completely with a new color for the walls. And since it´s so much fun to paint together, we would do it by ourselves instead of letting someone do it. When she chose the color she wanted, I began to fear the worst. The color was called Killarney Green 3E (Yes, my mother was a huge fan od McLeod´s Daughters). It´s very well... green for such a small room like our bathroom, but well, who am I to disagree. To shorten things: after we painted the whole room, she didn´t like it anymore. My dad and I refused to repaint it, so now, we have a bathroom that looks like a meadow in spring when the sun shines: very very bright green. We secretly call it the Green Hell.

Besides painting the house of my parents in questionable colors, we also indulge in something that is kind of a tradition in the region where I grew up: each year in August and early September, mushrooms start growing in the woods. Here´s what the ones we collect look like:

It´s actually quite fun, because they don´t grow everywhere and you have to remember where you found them last year. It seems like I´m the one who can remember best, so my mom and dad are always quite jealous when I find more than they do. So now, they´ve thought of something to stop me from finding more than they find: I get to take our dog. Snoopy is really a cute and fine and harmless odg, but he is part Border Collie (you know those sheepdogs? Who have to be incredibly intelligent and seem to never tire? Yeah, that´s our dog.) Meet Snoopy:

Since we don´t have any sheep to herd (who does, really?), he most willingly herds anything else that moves faster that the average human (that also includes childern. Our neighbor´s daughters had the time of their life when he decided to herd them and approximatly 10 of their friends during one of their birthday parties. He didn´t harm anyone, just herded them. He is such a clever dog. *sigh* Every since this incident, the often play Snoopy: one is our infamous dog who gets to catch all the others...) Another example are birds. And as you´ve possible already suspected, there are quite a lot of birds in the woods. And Snoopy is a very strong dog who also seems to suffer from ADD. Somehow, everytime I seem to find mushrooms, Snoopy finds a bird at exactly the same time which he decides he has to herd or whatever and drags me away from the mushrooms (he really is stronger than he looks) Needless to say that I almost never get the chance to actually collect any mushrooms. I once tried to explain to him that we´re not colleting small brown bird but small brown mushrooms, but somehow, he didn´t listen. Too bad. I still love him!

When I´m not Reading

When I´m not reading is a weekly meme hosted by Missie @ The Unread Reader.

This week id the first week of my holiday between the semesters and so far, I´m really enjoying it! :)
I´m studying in Regensburg (Ratisbon) and I´m also staying there during the semesters. It´s a really beautiful city, with a lot of green, without too many high-rise buildings and a lot of beautiful old architecture. Here are a few pictures of the city:


For the next three weeks however, I´m going to stay at my parents´ house in the small town I was born. One week I´m just visiting and two weeks I have to look after their/our dog and cats, because my parents are taking a holiday. So now, I´ll be staying here:


It´s very idyllic and scenic and... well nice. Unfortunatly, there´s no bookstore, no cinema, nothing where you can go shopping and just one very small local bar. Oh, and an Italien reastaurant. Did I mention that there´s no book store? I´m in like bookstore nirvana. It feels like exile for a proclaimed book-a-holic like me!
Eveything is mostly made for tourists, especially for older couples. Like 60+.
I really like coming home from time to time. I can go for long walks with my dog, have my cats all the time and get to spend more time with my parents and grandparents. But after a while, I really miss Regensburg. :)
I´ll let you know how it is here un my exile from time to time.
But tell me, what do you prefer, big cities or small towns?
And what are you doing when you´re not reading?

When I´m not reading...

When I´m not reading is a weekly meme hosted by Missie @ The Unread Reader.

Right now, I´m like crazy busy with all my exams and I have to study a lot for them, but there´s no need not to mix business with pleasure, right?
One reason why I love the apartment I share with two friends of mine so much is, that it includes a roof terrace. That´s what it looks like in the evening:






It´s beautiful, right? The sunsets are very spectacular! :) I oftern sit there and read or study, but we also have friends over and have a barbeque. We also spend a considerable amout of money to buy flowers or even grow some of our own. I grew up in a rural area and I was used to spacious gardens and enough green aroud the houses, so it was quite a change for me when I moved to a city when I started going to university. I´m so glad we have that little greenish spot for ourselves now.

So this week, I was grabbing my stuff and I was just about to get comfortable with a glass of soda and a few snacks for ma daily studying session, when I hear a steady alarming and unnerving buzzing sound. It didn´t take me long to find the cause for it. Check this out:

There´s a vasps´ nest in the space where the shutters usually are! o.O

We instantly called the property management and they told us to stay away from the terrace until they´ve sent someone to remove it.
That was like 4 days ago, nobody has come yet and there are even more vasps than before. No one dares to go out anymore, because they are really aggressive.
At first I felt bad when we were told the nest had to be removed, but now I´m kind of glad when someone comes to remove it!

Until then, no sunsets and barbeques for me!

When I´m not reading...

When I'm not reading is a Thursday meme started by Missie, at The Unread Reader! This is a new way to find out about the bloggers behind the blogs and what they do when they're *gasp*... NOT reading!

To participate, grab the button, and find out more information about this fantastic meme, you can visit The Unread Reader HERE!


...right now, I´m sweating. Or both. Normally, the summers in Germany are nice, not too hot, not too rainy, just the right thing. This year however, it´s completly different. During the whole July and the last week of June, the temperature is around 96 degrees during the day and 77 at night. They say it might be the hottest July since 110 years. *puuuhhh*
Unfortunatly, my skin is rather pale and I easily get a sunburn, so going to a lake to relax is completly out of question. Throw me in the direct sun at noon for half an hour and I do a pretty good vampire impression (you know, when they start burning and smoking and eventually turn into dust? Yeah, that´s me at 1 p.m.)
Plus, I´m living in the top floor of my building, so my apartment is really really hot. At one point last week, the temperature in the kitchen was around 105 degrees. Talk about baking.
If it´s not hot, there are these crazy storms. There was even a small tornado near a island in the North Sea. Ever heard of tornados in the North Sea? No? Well, that´s because there aren´t supposed to be some. Hello Global Warming!

I really wish I could hide the whole day from the heat in a dark, cool room, but unfortunalty, I also have to study for my exams, as the end if the semester draws near...
So, if you don´t hear from me in a few days, I might have melted/spontaneously combusted in flames/died of the heat or some such thing! :)

When I´m not reading...

This is a new meme, hosted by Missie at The Unread Reader
Here is how When I'm Not Reading works:

1. Every Thursday make a post in which you share a little something about yourself or what you like to do outside of blogging. Include pictures or videos. Make it fun and wild or simple and sweet!

2. The point of this meme is to get to know other bloggers! And the one thing I've learned is that bloggers love comments! Everyone that agrees to participate will try to visit each other's post and leave comments!

3. Anyone is welcome to join at anytime, but no one is obligated to participate every week.

4. Be sure to sign the Mr. Linky Widget that will be posted here on Thursdays.

5. In your post provide a link back to this When I'm Not Reading intro post so that other people can find the information about participating and grab the coolest button ever!


Okay, so here´s a little bit about what I´m doing today:

First, I have to go to the my local post office and fetch my package with the two books I recieved (see post post below!)! Unfortunatly, the postman always comes when I´m not at home, so it can get rather tiresome to fetch them. Especially if you order as many books as I do. But this can do nothing to destroy my good mood! :)

Tonight, I´m going to watch football. In case you don´t know, Germany is in the semi-finale. :)
So I´ll be off to a little bar near my apartment where there´s a public viewing, meet up my friends and watch the game together. I´ve been there before and it´s really cool.

That´s pretty much it for today!