There are pluses and minuses of living in, seemingly, nowhere. There’s the quiet. There’s the privacy. There’s the fact that we are lucky enough to have enough of a yard to have space for a vegetable garden and the dog to run around and the ability to attract and see birds and other animals. But […]
First Try, First Taste: French Chocolate Macarons Read More »
I’m halfway done with my return to formal German lessons. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Of my nine assignments, I’ve completed four. (OK, not technically halfway done but that’s about as good as it gets.) For the most part, my experience with Goethe Institute’s Besser Deutsch program has been really positive.
Returning to German Lessons, Part 2 Read More »
I don’t have a literal culinary bucket list but I do have a mental one. While I do seem to be adding things to the list quicker than I can find the time to make them, I can finally put a check mark next to pasta. I was provided with a package of Tuscan Fields
Sometimes you just have to take initiative, especially when it comes to something you enjoy or want to accomplish. I don’t have a bucket list or X number of things I want to do before I die. But learning German has always been something I’m excited about. These days I’m even more excited because I’ve
Returning to German Lessons, Part 1 Read More »
I’ve been highlighting practicing listening skills with videos and radio. Now I’d like to focus on practicing those all important reading skills with some German language news and magazines. There are lots of German language newspapers and magazines available online for free. Each publication is going to be a different level of difficulty so it
German Language News Read More »
Munich is famous for its traditional beer halls and its charming palaces and parks. But the city is also home to the Deutsches Museum, the world’s largest science and technology museum. It is also one of the oldest! The impressive museum seemingly covers every topic that you can think of: more than 30 fields in
Why the Deutsches Museum’s One of the Best Munich Museums Read More »
Radio is great for practicing your listening skills and training your ear to German, or any language. It’s also perfect for putting on in the background while you clean the house or are working. I’ve put together a collection of just some of the German language radio stations that are available for free streaming online:
Streaming German Language Radio Read More »
Apparently there’s a Billy Joel song about Allentown. I’m not aware of ever having heard it — he’s not really my cup of tea. But I had a fun time doing a little driving around Pennsylvania’s third largest city this past weekend. We had to go up for another errand and decided to turn it
Museum Visit: Allentown Art Museum Read More »
Although we’ve been moving at what seems like a snail’s pace in the home DIY department we made another inch forward this week. We ordered wallpaper! Wallpaper seems to be a divisive topic. Either you love it or you hate it. And after buying a home covered in wallpaper that was then painted over in
Wallpaper for the Walls Read More »
Sometimes it is hard to believe what you can access on the internet. I consider sometimes how much more difficult my quest to learn German could have been if I’d taken it seriously back in high school. If I wanted to watch films or television, it was all but impossible to get access to
Streaming German TV (Austrian & Swiss, too!) Read More »
Rock-n-roll autobiographies seem to be especially popular right now. But due to the nature of the beast, they’re relatively one-sided. You get the author’s point of view than you have to wait for their bandmates to write books to get their side of the story! But in 2005, authors Max Dax and Robert Defcon wrote
German Book Review: Nur was nicht ist, ist möglich Read More »
When I visited Berlin in 2009, I had a list of places I wanted to see and visit. One of those places was Tacheles, an art commune created decades ago by squatters in an old department store. As Berlin was reunited and rebuilt, it did so around Tacheles. But after years of fighting with the
Lost in 2012: Berlin’s Tacheles Arthouse Read More »
