On My New Hometown

Some constructive criticism. ;-)

Go West, Young Lady

 
Wroclaw, WrocLove: Very nice, very nice.
But occasional excursions are never a bad idea, especially if they involve famous and impressive bridges and palm trees, speeches by Al Gore, meeting MC Hammer, trying out for the Guinness Book of Records, working from a workplace I'd previously only seen in documentaries, cycling through sunny California hills, and trying a completely different selection of free food. Except that I could have done without the night of the worst case of food poisoning ever.

I still managed to go sightseeing in the remaining 24 free hours, cruised the bay, took pictures, met multilingual musicians and tie-dye-happy potential future presidents of the USA.

Contrary to popular belief, California isn't by default Warmer Than Home. So back in Wroclaw, spring has finally decided to enter the stage boldly and beautifully after too many weeks of only peeking out at its hopeful audience. So even though more time for California would have been welcome, it's not bad to be back.

Very nice, very nice.

London!

London!

One girl, one camera, five days - what do I do? So much to see, so little time - and really, people, London, how do I ban that on (digital) film?

London streets, they are wise. Also, they talk to you.
At first I thought it was the tyranny of fashion trying to keep tastelessly dressed pedestrians off the sidewalks.
Then, I speculated that it might be about the fact that on this island, cars drive on the wrong other side of the road, and the many one way streets and multi-street intersections make traffic confusing even to those who turn their heads in the right direction already.

But there was more. The streets were right: If there's so much to see yet time (as well as the patience of those looking at the pictures later) is limited, you simply have to adapt the way you perceive the world around you. You need to



Oh, and I also looked right on more levels than that: I seem to have looked as if I knew exactly what I was doing. Surprisingly many people approached me to ask about directions to streets, shops, junk food places.


Anyway -- on to the story.

Have a few thumbnails to make you curious:

The first idea:

Cram as much tourist value into one picture as you possibly can! Here, wasting as little space as I possibly could, I offer you: Tower Bridge, if only to add colour, the Tower of London and the Gherkin.



In the same fashion, with more Tower Bridge and more architecture by Sir Norman Foster, this:

or even, adding height and life and confusion and bold lines to City Hall and Tower bridge, this:

Yes, this is working quite well, and so the following picture follows the same concept: There are narrow, colourful and not very high buildings stuck together, complete with a pub, but there is also the very swift transition to something much less inviting and bright, and there's even a black cab thrown in for good measure:

Because there are many contrasts in London, and they can very close together.
As with loos and laws:

or on Piccadilly Circus, where all kinds of things clash with each other and hordes of tourists, and the red bus for the tourist snapshot tried to escape but didn't make it in time:

...but really, who knows what is Right and Wrong?
Entries with other ways of Looking Right will follow. But you knew that anyway.

My First Sweater

I finished my first sweater! And it fits! Perfectly!
And now I'm even glad that suddenly, it's cold again -- it seemed a little silly to finish this right after winter was almost over, but the evenings can still be cool.
And I will now be a bit more patient with spring. If it chooses to wait until it hits Hamburg, then that's okay with me now.

People seem to agree that it does not look selfmade, and much less like a very first attempt at something wearable that isn't a scarf, and I take that as a compliment (and agree). 

still unarmed

My first sweater is almost finished! After a very, very long time - I got the wool for my birthday two years ago, and happily made about a third of it, only that then, christmas was approaching rapidly, providing a deadline for all knit gift ideas. So the sweater-to-be went into a year-long waiting stage, what with the hot summer that didn't make thick wool a tempting element of your free time, and time-consuming new jobs, and so on.
But now! Over christmas, it finally took shape. Now, only one sleeve missing and it will be done! Done! Done!

almost winter

Winter in Hamburg may be considerably less freezing than winter in Berlin, but still the idea of something to protect my hands from icy ocean breezes seems quite excellent. So I completed the first Knucks glove (and I hope I'll make the second one before winter is over again because last weekend I also started a somewhat complicated, vaguely lacy scarf that will also keep me busy for a while). I kind of like the idea of decorating the fingers with some kind of eight letter (or two four letter) word(s), but alas, I'm still completely uninspired as to which word that could possibly be that I would not get tired of after a week or two. And I don't want to use anything that was already suggested in the instructions.

blue Hallowig

That's the second wig I made - my first, pink one inspired a friend to loudly announce her wish for her very own, Yves-Klein-blue version of it. And since the one that was made according to the pattern was a little small, this one is knit on bigger needles. And even months after the actual birthday, it was still welcomed happily.

The pattern can be found here.