Yeah, hard to believe, I am still talking about Twilight. But well, I just finally saw the movie on the big screen [as opposed to on the computer in not-so-great-quality *cough*]. So. I went with Tina and Jessica which was great fun!

Before the movie, Jessica and I went to Escobar to catch up and have some drinks and I dinner. It had been forever since we last met up and we had so much fun. I ♥ bloggy friends! Seriously, it is great that I met her and without my and her blog, we never would have met, so yay for blogging!

After seeing this movie for the second time, and seeing it properly [see first paragraph], I must say, I enjoyed it more this time around. I am sure it is partly due to seeing it on the big screen but also that I already knew what places and characters looked like, so I wasn’t too disappointed when they didn’t look like what I had imagined them to be like.

Edward’s sparkliness? Well, I finally actually saw sparkles, but I think he could have been a bit more shiny, less glittery. Hmmm …

The scene where Bella comes into the biology class room and Edward looks kind of disgusted? Well, I really have been reading too much ONTD [the internet's finest news source - well at least when it comes to celebrity gossip] because all I could think of was …

[For all you non-ONTD readers, this GIF along with some others regularly graces the comments section on posts about Twilight or rpattz. Tina was thinking the same thing, of course, being just as avid an ONTD reader as I am. I cracked up and had tears in my eyes after seeing that scene.

I think the people in the row behind us [and maybe Jessica, haha] must have hated us just a little bit for our commenting and laughing at sometimes not-so appropriate moments. Anyway, it was great fun! And there is so much male eye candy in this movie. Hello, Edward [obviously], Emmett and James [yes the bad guy]?! I don’t really like Jasper that much or Jacob. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like guys with wigs. [I mean, seriously?]

Something that bothered me already the first time around was a goof with the oxygen tubes Bella had in her nose in the hospital, because they kept being close to her eyes in the close-ups and then not in the scenes from further away. How can they not have noticed that?! [See GIF at the bottom of the post, that's the scene I am talking about.]

Also, you could see that the vampires were wearing contacts. I am not sure if you have to know what they look like [i.e. wear contacts] to notice, but I did. I wonder if there aren’t ways to edit the material so they don’t show [because it would probably be difficult to find contacts you cannot see close-up].

Oh, I read the other day there will be a Twilight perfume [I know, the merchandise gets more ridiculous every day], I wonder if it smells good. Maybe I’ll try to see if I can find it when I’m in the States in March. [Which I am so excited about, y'all!]

Enough talk about Twilight? Okay okay, I get it.

Wow, it’s already 2009, how did that happen?! My New Year’s Eve was quiet. We did raclette at Tanja’s & Julia’s place with a few friends, and then went out at midnight to meet up with Tina and watch the fireworks. I was back home by 1am, because it was so cold outside so we didn’t want to stay outside any longer, chatted with Tina here for a while and then eventually went to bed quite late. The raclette was really good and it was a fun evening! Here is a picture I took of the fireworks at the Isartor in downtown Munich, before my camera’s battery ran out.

For lunch we had met up with our relatives [my uncle, aunt, cousin, her husband, and their two kids]. We ate at Franziskaner, a good traditional German restaurant downtown. I had my ‘usual’ order at a German restaurant, which was schnitzel with potato salad. It was really good too! My cousin’s kids are getting so big. The last time I had seen them their new baby daughter was just four months old, now she is ten months old and still adorable. Their son is now a little over four years old! I remember babysitting him when he was just a tiny baby.

Another cool thing was that a former FC Bayern player [that's the local soccer team, you American heathens] was at the restaurant, sitting at a table next to ours. I even recognized him as he played for FC Bayern back when I still followed soccer. That was kind of cool, because I can’t remember any other random celebrity sightings in my life.

New Year’s Eve was fun, and filled with food, easily beating Christmas in that respect. I was stuffed by the time I got home.

Other than that, not much is new in my life. I’ve been hanging out with friends [saw Australia a few days ago, which was a bit cheesy but I enjoyed it anyway], and am planning to do more of that in the next few days. Somehow the past week flew by so fast. It is now Thursday, meaning I only have five days left at home. I just found out a local movie theater will be showing Twilight in an early preview on Sunday [it is coming out on the 15th] and I am really hoping I’ll be able to go. Tomorrow I’ll be visiting my sister and her kids. Saturday I’m meeting up for drinks with Sylvia, and hopefully see Eva sometime on Sunday or Monday. The good thing is I will be back here in just a little over three weeks, so if I cannot squeeze in everyone in the next few days, I’ll be back very soon.

Tuesday I’ll be going back to Heidelberg. Somehow it feels like the semester is already over, but I still have 2.5 weeks to go, and more importantly work to do, and I have yet to do anything during this break. Christmas break is so bad for being productive, for me anyway.

A week ago, I started having trouble with my laptop out of the blue, and it looked like my hard drive was slowly but surely going bad. So two days ago, I got a new laptop. [As mentioned on Twitter.] It is the same one my mom has, and it’s quite nice. It operates on Vista which takes a bit getting used to but I like it so far. I like the aero and swooshy effects on it, as well as how personal files are sorted, with the link bar on the left [once you get it].

Well, happy new year to you all, and I hope 2009 will be a great year for all of us!

Yesterday I baked my first pumpkin pie. Of course I had eaten pumpkin pie before and loved it [hence the incentive to bake one], but it was the first time I made one. The reason is mainly that making one from scratch is a lot of work, and you cannot usually get canned pumpkin in Germany. This past fall, I found imported canned pumpkin at a store in Heidelberg so I stocked up on it. I finally decided to make it for Christmas for my family, because making one for just myself isn’t really an option, and I think most people in Germany are a bit wary of finding pumpkin in a pie, especially as the main ingredient. I personally love pumpkin in all shapes and forms but many people are not really accustomed to eating pumpkin much.

Anyway, the pie turned out nice. It won’t win a beauty contest any time soon, but it does taste good [at least in my opinion]. I was a bit wary of how liquid the filling was and double-checked if I didn’t miss any ingredients but I think it’s supposed to be that liquid as it turned solid in the end. I have learned some from this experience which is mainly to make the crust a little lower, which will also help a bit as it is really really thin [or maybe I'll make the crust a little thicker]. The crust sort of melted [because of all the shortening in it] and fell on top of the pie around the pie in some places so it looks really irregular but oh well.

Anyway, I thought I would share the recipe, especially for the non-Americans reading my blog. I used the recipe off the can of pumpkin for both the crust and the filling. I will put the US and converted measurements for everyone who doesn’t use cups [and who really does, besides Americans], as well as a German translation.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Christmas Day, which means here in Germany the most important part of Christmas is already over. My brother came here yesterday afternoon and I decorated the Christmas tree, while my family was off doing other things. I must admit, I didn’t mind too much as it gave me the chance to decorate it like I wanted, without having anyone meddle with my creative vision [haha]. After I finished decorating it, we put the presents under the tree. This was what it looked like. [The blue shimmer comes from the TV, the ornaments are actually all silver or glass.] I really like how the tree looks, and we were all very happy with the tree dad and I picked out.

Afterwards I took a quick shower and we played a round of Risk, which I won. Then my mom and brother made dinner, which turned out something else than planned, as apparently my brother had already been told he would be able to cook fried potatoes, and so we moved the Sauerbraten and Knödel to today. [My pumpkin pie has been moved to tomorrow. :(] But dinner was good anyway, and afterwards we all exchanged presents.

I had gotten my parents the new season of a TV show they love to watch [and there was a funny moment in the afternoon when my parents asked me if there was anything else I wanted for Christmas because I had not really voiced any wishes yet, and they jokingly suggested they could get me a season of that TV show on DVD. My brother and I just looked at each other trying to keep a straight face, because he knew what I got our parents, while they didn't have a clue]. I got my brother a book and a DVD, and I hope he enjoys them. He’s not as avid a reader as I am, but I hope he’ll enjoy the book [A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which I actually own but haven't read yet, but I read and loved a few other of his books].

My brother got me a purse [which I think is really cool of him, as a guy to give his sister a purse, I don't know if I would know what to pick out, but I actually really like the one he got me, it goes with my winter jacket and is a nice style, size and color], and The Dark Knight on DVD, and my parents gave me a notebook cooler pad for my laptop [it is a pad with fans that cool down the notebook externally, which is a great idea, as mine likes to get hot quite quickly sometimes and I have become careful since the 2007 melting incident]. They also gave me a calendar of a local park with pictures from a photo contest [my parents are in the society for that park, and my dad was the one to suggest doing a photo contest]. I also got some money.

The night before Christmas Eve, Tina came over so we could exchange presents, and she gave me a cute guardian angel keychain and an Eggling. I will wait to start it until I get back after finals at the end of January [so I don't have to ask my mom to take care of it so soon], but it is a really cute idea!

After we exchanged presents, we played another round of Risk which lasted till after midnight, and only ended because I didn’t want to play anymore so I ‘committed suicide’ which was just what my brother needed to win - defeat my troops. That game can be fun but not if you play for three hours and haven’t really gotten anywhere [and noone else has either].

Anyway, I think dinner will be ready sometime soon [the Sauerbraten finally!], so I will end this here.

I hope you all had [are having] a nice Christmas. What did Santa get you?

It’s just the evening of the 23rd, but as we celebrate Christmas here tomorrow, I figured it is close enough.

So, as I just said we celebrate Christmas here tomorrow. We will be decorating our Christmas tree tomorrow afternoon, and have some yummy dinner together [Sauerbraten und Knödel, y'all, Christmas hasn't been this Bavarian in years!] and the unwrap presents together. I love the excitement of unwrapping gifts. [I also love wrapping gifts!].

On the 25th, I will probably try my luck at baking a pumpkin pie. I have never made pumpkin pie, but as I love it and finally got a hold of some cans of pumpkin [you can usually not buy that in Germany, I just found imported canned pumpkin at a store in Heidelberg]. I hope it will turn out nice. Originally I wanted to make it tomorrow but my parents said that would be too many calories for one day. [I know, who's counting calories on Christmas?! Clearly my parents are.]

In a bit, Tina will be coming over, so we can exchange our gifts to each other, so I hope you all get to enjoy the holidays with your families and loved ones.* Hope Santa brings some nice presents and enjoy the food. I know I will.

* These are not mutually exclusive.