Arrived in Colmar. Check.
Got keys to apartment. Check.
Realized that apartment was indeed in the center of the town. Check.
90% IKEA furniture. Check.
Hey, I’ve got the same water pitcher! Check.
Remembered to ask for bed sheets. No check.
Bought bed sheets. Check.
Bought nice enough bed sheets to use at home. Check.
Found unsecured network. Check.
Took pictures from the living room window. Check.
Uploaded picture. Check.
Logged in to WordPress. Check.
Voilà . Here we are.
I almost forgot… yes, of course there will be a short vacation this year as well. This year the planning more or less fell into my hands (again, I’d say), with a few basic requirements. Not too far away, but nice. The not too far away mostly was a requirement because again we will only be gone for one week and we wanted something that we could easily get to in a few hours. A suggestion was France with an idea of the Netherlands thrown in casually somewhen, but I stuck to France, because it still is what I first think of when you talk vacation. (Due to my parents insistence that France is the country you go to on your vacation, an insistence, I might add that I never found fault with.) Plus, I’m thinking good food.
The first idea then was Burgundy, some apartment in the country, because it’s close enough but also seemed pleasant enough from what I could gather from the catalogue I got for vacation rentals. I dug around on the Internet some more and – I don’t really remember how it happened – I stumbled upon some apartments in Colmar, which is not Burgundy by a long shot, but Alsace. Then I looked at some pictures of the town and my-oh-my does it look pretty. Also, Alsace means wine, Flammkuchen, Spätzle, kugelhoupf and whatnot, so gastronomically it sounded like a gold mine.
So, to make a not-so-long story even shorter I found a place (which I discovered with delight was furnished heavily on the IKEA side of life) right in the center of Colmar for not even that much to pay for. So, from what I could see from the contract and pictures the landlord sent me, I think this is about what we’ll be looking at when we walk out the front door. So if you’re jealous right now… it’s okay, you should be.
These past days I’ve been thinking about (re-)decorating the apartment. The re- you could probably omit (hence the brackets), since the problem right now is exactly the lack of any decoration so far.
Mostly I want to paint some walls, and I was thinking a dark red for the dining room, some nice light brown for the bedroom, dark grey for the living room and maybe some dark green for my room. The latter would be perfect for the print of Bill Murray (Broken Flowers phase I think) I have got but haven’t framed yet.
We also still need a couple of lamps for the dining room, living room and kitchen. Since the dining room and kitchen are one room we’re talking about a whole bunch of lamps which also serve all different kinds of purpose ranging for mostly decorative to pretty much functional, which doesn’t make anything easier.
Then to make our life just a tiny bit more complicated, we realized that the way we had set up our dining table wasn’t the best one. It was just a matter of making room to test out the husband’s newest toy, a remote-controlled model helicopter, so he pushed the table right back to the wall, rotated by 90 degrees and today we both though that this actually worked a lot better. But we’re not sure yet. The way the table was before seemed like the most natural way and now I’m not so sure. Which of course wouldn’t be so bad, given that we can easily move the table around, but… if we really decide on a lamp for the dining room, we need to know where the table should be and stick to it. Damn.
In less complicated news I spent last evening applying various leaf and flower stickers to one of the walls and moved the little palm tree which served as the decorative element for that wall until then to the little hallway upstairs which does one hell of a job atmosphere-wise for the „room“. Had I known that effect I would have done that a lot earlier. I’m just not so sure how the plant likes it, since this is the only room that gets nearly no natural light at all. Poor plant. Maybe I can make up for the lack of sunshine by patting it once in a while. Might work.
I’m usually not a big fan of long books. But recently I found that all the books on my nightstand were over a thousand pages (although I managed to slip some short ones in, Matt Ruff’s Bad Monkeys and Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea, which I finished in no time). It started with Against the Day which I decided I couldn’t concentrate on long enough to actually make some sense about what the hell was happening, so I switched to Follett’s World Without End, which I liked more than I expected.
That gave me the perfect opportunity to finally read The Pillars of the Earth, one of those books that everybody has read but me (mostly because I usually shy away from books that everybody has read, I figure that these books don’t urgently need another reader).
There’s two things I have to say about The Pillars of the Earth: One, it’s either not as well written as World Without End or I actually have reached that stage where reading English feels more natural to me than reading German (which is a bit scary). Two, it’s basically the same book as World Without End. Or actually the other way round, but since I read World Without End first this is how it feels to me. You basically switch out a few characters and slightly alter some of the storylines and jump a little bit in time and there you are. Same book. I haven’t figured out whether I really care, though. I guess not. It’s still a good enough read.
As seen at Srah’s.
Here are the rules…
1. Put your mp3 player or music player on your computer on random.
2. Post the first four lines from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song (Skip repeat artists).
3. Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
So, let’s get going… leave your guesses in the comments and I will try to keep up with telling you when you were right. (Not sure how hard this will be, but try to stay away from Google.)
1. One and one-half wandering Jews
Free to wander wherever they choose
Are travelling together in the Sangre de Cristo
The Blood of Christ Mountains of New Mexico
Answered by Srah: Hearts and Bones by Paul Simon
2. I’ve got my work cut out with you
You tore bits out of me
Your carpet burns and bruises blue
And there for all to see
3. I’m gonna tell you what you need to hear
And I’m a little too late
By three or four years
And it may not make much sense
4. Lucretia walks into a room.
Because she does it’s not the same room
The one she wanted to be in
She says, „Everywhere I go, damn! There I am.“
5. Nobody inside
Could there be another world?
(I’ve got to) let nobody inside
Could there be another world?
6. Well I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
7. Well they’re out in the yard
Said it took them all night
Over the hill on a prayer and a pill
To the fifth one down on the right
8. Do you ever think of me
When you’re through thinking of you
Do you ever think of when we met
Do I ever cross your mind
9. I’m just looking for someone
To have a good time with
I’m just looking for someone
To have a good time with
10. Red tail hawk circles the sky
School bus has come and gone and I have waved goodbye
Nothing new in the morning light
Nothing new â??cept another stop light (on the corner)
11. Johanna drove slowly into the city
The Hudson River all filled with snow
She spied the ring on his honorâ??s finger
Oh oh oh
12. Hello, tell me you know
Yeah, you figured me out
Something gave it away
And it would be such a beautiful moment
13. Day was dawning
Almost sounded like warning
Wind rushing through the trees almost roaring
Just see what Iâ??ve become
14. You give me that look that’s like laughing
With liquid in your mouth
Like you’re choosing between choking
And spitting it all out
Answered by Caitlin: Falling is Like This by Ani DiFranco
15. He said I’m a lover not a fighter
As he came into the room
The people clap and they laughed
And they handed him a broom
16. It takes a uniquely fucked up man to break his own heart
And the right girl at the wrong time to make him do it.
So if I am the guy and you’re the girl and the time is now,
Then I’m as broke as any man could be.
17. Help me out said the minnow to the trout
I was lost and found myself swimming in your mouth
Help me chief
I’ve got to plans for you and me
18. Didn’t I make you feel like you were the only man?
Didn’t I give you everything a woman possibly can?
But with all the love I give you it’s never enough
I’m gonna show you baby that a woman can be tough
Answered by Srah: Take Another Little Piece of my Heart by Janis Joplin/Dusty Springfield
19. City’s breaking down on a camel’s back,
They just have to go ‚cause they don’t know wack,
So all you fill the streets it’s appealing to see,
You wont get undercounted, ‚cos you’re damn as free
(Not sure about the lyrics, and the internet can’t agree on one version.)
20. You can tell me anything
You are a true exception in my life
It sounded like she said she was in love
These posters are awesome. Unfortunately at the moment all the ones I’d really want are sold out. Meh.
Probably the best video ever. It makes me happy.
If only I had enough money, I’d buy a few of Carlos Ramos‘ paintings. But I don’t. So I can’t. Damn. (Doesn’t seem to work with Firefox 3. Or at least not my Firefox 3.)
Whoever guesses what I just changed around here first, will win… pretty much everyone’s admiration, I would suppose.
You were in my dream
You were driving circles around me
Kristin Hersh – Your Ghost
