Celebrating the awesomeness of food!

The absolute best food blog I found on the Web is www.iamafoodblog.com! It is written by a woman who is totally in love with food and photography. That’s what makes her blog so special - it looks soooo delicious! :D

By giving her readers the chance to see what the dish looks like, I think much more people are interested in cooking it themselves. She not only adds a photo of the final looking, but also from some further steps to check whether you got it right or not.
Her recipes are really detailed! It is absolutely clear which ingredients you need and in which way and order you have to put them together, so that’s a thing I really appreciate.
Sometimes she adds some personal stuff as well before starting to give instructions, like why she likes buffalos :D 

What you say? Why would you go around saying buffalo over and over again? Because: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a perfectly grammatically valid sentence! There are three types of Buffalo: the city, Buffalo, New York; buffalo, the verb to bully; and buffalo, the animal. What the sentence is really saying is: Buffalo-origin bison that other Buffalo bison intimidate, themselves bully Buffalo bison

 Another thing I really appreciate is that she kind of cooks for everyone’s taste, because you’ll not only find dishes including meat, but vegetarian and vegan dishes as well. Therefore anybody could use her blog as a cook book and use her recipes, because it will definitely include something for everybody’s taste! As I’m not that kind of person that needs to have meat in every dish I found in interesting what you can actually cook with just tomatoes, mozzarella and bufala mozzarella. Look at this deliciously looking food:

I actually found something Irish as well. It’s called “Beef and Guinness Pie Recipe”. A Guinness pie is a beef stew topped with a puff pastry topping. Aaaaalright :D
Well, she cooked this for St. Patrick’s Day and it really looks fantastic, like all of her pictures. If you have time to you could read through the whole recipe and discover why she is so fascinated about beef stew ;)

http://iamafoodblog.com/beef-and-guinness-pie-recipe/

I will absolutely try some of her recipes, like the ‘Tomato Basil Bufala Salad’ and the ‘Spinach Feta Egg Wrap’, but without egg. The pictures to the recipes are really fancy and they are inspiring. Maybe I’ll try the wrap on weekend ;) 

The singer and the hype girl!

Today I want to introduce Sophia Grace (8) and Rosie (6), probably the most amazing girls from England!

The first time I saw them they were interviewing the contestants from the X Factor UK 2 years ago and now I saw them on Ellen DeGeneres’ show performing songs from Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, Adele and Nicki Minaj. Their first time on Ellen’s show was because of their video singing Super Bass from Nicki Minaj, which Ellen discovered on Youtube. This was reason enough for her to invite them to her show and since then they reunited over and over again. 

The fact is, Ellen is the most generous person in the entire world - not for nothing is she called DeGeneres :) – and it doesn’t matter who it is: young, old, gay, bold, Chinese, popular or not, she always tries to help people in all ways possible and that makes her to an outstanding woman all over the world! This time she proved it again. Sophia Grace and Rosie are huge fans of Nicki Minaj and Ellen arranged a meeting with her. Not only did Nicki Minaj come to the show and sang with the two girls, she had a gift for them as well: necklaces and a shopping tour with her. It was incredible how happy these girls were!! 

So Sophia Grace and Rosie started to sing for fun at home, getting filmed by their parents. Now they’re singing on the Ellen Show, meeting famous people like Rihanna and Zac Efron, and even having an own show called “Tea Time with Sophia Grace and Rosie” in which they are interviewing celebrities, drinking tea and eating cookies with them. And who made this happen? Ellen. Of course it was Ellen! Because of Ellen the young girls were hosting people like Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Reese Witherspoon, Taylor Swift, Julie Bowen and the amazing Hugh Grant!

In almost every episode they’re asking the people to tell a joke and Hugh Grant absolutely nailed it, haha!
* What’s black and white and black and white? - A nun rolling down the hill.
* And what’s black and white and laughing? - The nun who pushed her.

Absolutely hilarious! :D And the joke Rosie always tells:
* Why is the banana going to the hospital? – Because it’s not peeling very well!

...alright haha

The point I want to make is that Ellen is the superwoman from the 20^th century, who’s not only able to help people financially, but also to help them in a way she does with Sophia Grace and Rosie. She’s giving unusual people a chance to explore the world, meet new people and just to have fun. Her show is kind of representing the modern American Dream, which is the total opposite of Benjamin Franklin’s view of it, namely by working hard and not by singing on a TV show. These two girls were ordinary kids in school, but now as Ellen discovered them by chance, they got famous within a short period of time. I think, or hope, that some people still believe in the traditional way of “From rags to riches”, or how it's also called “From a dishwasher to a millionaire”, but as everything’s changing, the American Dream changed as well and Ellen is nowadays a good medium through which people can receive help and get famous. In my opinion her show is also a good thing for upcoming Youtube cover bands/artists. By giving them the opportunity to perform on her show, she also gives them a chance to be seen by thousands of people, namely by everyone who’s watching her show.

If you haven’t seen her yet, you should check her out :)

Be kind to one another! :))

Meeting people from Wales :)

Okay, now I’m going to tell you about the most entertaining night I probably had in my life, so far.

It was in December and I was going to go to a small concert in Deutschlandsberg, where some local bands were playing. I was neither in a good mood, nor excited about the band, because I’ve seen them about a hundred times. Well, nonetheless I went there with Lena and we were hoping for a turning point that would save the night. As we arrived at the venue we encountered some English-speaking people and soon found out that it was a band from Wales, called Continents, that was playing there as well!

 

I immediately got excited about meeting people from another country and this was the turning point for me. After the concert, one of the Welshmen, named Ben, beckoned me over to him and it ended up in a nice chat and we arranged to meet in the bar Macinato after they put their guitars and stuff in the van. So we met at the bar and everybody seemed to have a good time and I even got a proposal from the cutest man on earth, Ben. Haha, we had such a blast! He even bothered about how to make the proposal and took the time to learn it in German :) such a cutie! After celebrating our engagement we decided to drive to a disco. As we went out of the bar and waited for a taxi to come, the people from Wales were sooo excited about the snow in Austria, even if it wasn’t really much! They told us that snow in Wales is rather rare and that it’s snowing once in 2 years, so they were thrilled to bits. I really needed to laugh when I saw that they were taking pictures of the snow and were posting them on Instagram.

At the disco they were dancing really crazy, were enjoying themselves the whole night and filmed everything with their cool GoPro’s. It was just an amazing night that I honestly will never forget! I even stayed in touch with some of them. Of course with Ben, after all he’s my husband ;) and I’m also writing with Tom and Rhys sometimes. 

Besides being the friendliest people I’ve ever met, they are making really good music as well, at least when you like listening to a bit louder music haha. So if you are one of the people that enjoy listening to heavy metal, go check them out! They even released their first album about two weeks ago. Here’s a video of my favourite song from them :)

If you like what you hear like them on Facebook :) http://www.facebook.com/Continentsband

But one thing that I found really impressive is the Welsh city Ben told us. It was so freaking long, it almost took him 10 seconds to pronounce it! Unfortunately I can’t remember it, but hopefully we have Google ;) Alright, it’s almost the longest name of a city in the world and the longest in Europe! There you go: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. That’s a name of a city, believe it or not haha. Here’s the link to the Wikipedia site if you are interested in how it’s pronounced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll

Alright then, I think that’s a good way to end a post :)

  

Probably the most charming lady :)

Actually I wanted to post about this video and this woman already a week ago, but unfortunately I didn’t have time. Actually I neither have time now, because I really should be studying the world wars and stuff. Anyway, it’s again a video from the Ellen show, which represents a woman that turned a 105 years! Can you imagine? That’s so so crazy and amazing! The absolute greatest thing is that she passed the driving test, which makes her probably the oldest living driver in the world!

Everybody is now wondering: How the heck did she manage to get this old? Well, clearly this is a question where everybody expects like a recipe for living a long live, but in fact it’s really simple:always be happy, if possible have a happy marriage, always think positive and don’t let you bring down by things you simply cannot change  :) sounds so easy!

I always adore these kinds of people that have a strong character, a heart of gold and manage to live a happy live. Naturally I’m trying to achieve all of the things mentioned as well, but somehow there are always things, that have the ability to bring me down and bother me, doesn’t matter how small and unimportant they actually are. Maybe I’m just too young to understand how to stay strong in every situation, well, hopefully I’ll find out when I’m old but for now I simply don’t get it haha!

Another thing to mention is Edythe Kirchmaier's birthday wish, namely to get 105.000 people liking the charity Direct Relief, whose mission is:

 

Here's the link to it if you want to support her and the charity in general :)

http://www.facebook.com/directrelief 

 

In general, I would totally love and appreciate it to live a life as happy as this old lady. Looking back at an age of 105 years and don't regret anything I have done in my life. Yeah, that's probably my lifelong task and challenge! And maybe I'm going to be the next oldest living driver or astronaut or something haha we'll see :)

 

are you against discrimination? then support this young girl!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJWKEFY7XhQ

Last week I saw this video on Ellen DeGeneres' show having an 11-year-old girl there, called Caroline Pla. This amazing girl plays football since she's 5 years old, having been inspired by her brother. She loves playing football so so much, but out of a sudden an outdated rule says “boys only!”. In my opinion this is not only discrimination against girls playing football but it’s also really unfair, because she became friends and even family with her teammates. Personally speaking, kicking Caroline out of her football team because of this new dumb rule makes me angry.

 

If you are agreeing with me and want to stop discrimination, then support her by signing her petition. Here’s the link to it:  http://www.change.org/petitions/let-girls-play-football-stop-the-discrimination-by-the-archdiocese-of-philadelphia-cyo-office?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=url_share&utm_campaign=url_share_before_sign

As you can see, she needs 75.000 people signing her petition so that she’s allowed to stay in the team, being able to continue living her dream. She ‘only’ needs 2,321, so don’t wait and help supporting her!

Share this link and not only help Caroline Pla, but help stopping discrimination in general!!

 

music as a journey ♥

I actually don’t know how the notion of a journey is defined, or whether there is an exact definition for travelling. When Wikipedia’s definition of a journey is “An act of travelling from one place to another”, then Festivals definitely are a voyage. In addition it has, at least for me, the same effects as a standard holiday, namely: relaxing, enjoying the sun, distracting myself from work/uni, having people around me I like and of course listening to music. The extra plus when being at a Festival is listening to LIVE MUSIC!

 I always loved concerts and hopefully always will. My mum once took my sister and me to a concert (it was Eros Ramazzotti haha, he was pretty good though) and since then we continued going to concerts together. I think this is the main reason why I’m totally in love with watching people perform live. I’ve been to 4 Festivals so far and to millions of concerts; I actually stopped counting and keeping the concert tickets. My first Festival was Nova Rock 2009, and yeah I was really young at that time, actually 14, that’s why my father accompanied my sister and me.

My first impression of Nova Rock was better than expected, because many people warned me that I would encounter some really drunk and aggressive people and well, I met loads of drunken people but no aggressive ones. The weather was another warning. Nova Rock takes place in July and I think it is raining at Nova Rock every year, at least for one day. The effects of it… well, you could guess haha – mud everywhere! But as you can see, nobody really cares and just makes the best out of it J. (the first picture was in the Austrian newspaper with the heading “Wellington boots instead of bikini” ha; the others I took myself)

 

 

However the weather was, nothing really changed and the atmosphere remained the same. The only bad thing that can happen because of bad weather is that a band cancels their concert due to bad conditions. And as you can imagine I was really sad as Sum 41 weren’t able to play because of thunderstorms L.
Anyway, when everything’s fine then a Festival guarantees me the best 3 days of the year!

Whether you’re standing in between thousands of people, dancing, or simply sitting in the grass and relaxing a bit, the best thing is to feel the music. Getting goose bumps all over my body, cheering in pleasure and simply enjoying the concerts are things I really like!
 I’m fascinated by bands that are live actually better than in studio. Bands like Foo Fighters, Rise Against, The Kooks, Muse, 30 Seconds to Mars, Pink, Eros Ramazzotti ;) haha, etc. When it comes to the question what my favourite concert was, my answer is Foo Fighters! Dave Grohl, the lead vocalist, is my absolute hero. He was perfect as a drummer in the band Nirvana but he is impressive as a vocalist now!

 

 I could write and talk about festivals and concerts and about how much I’m in love with them all day long, but it’s really late now so I’m stopping it here. But don’t worry, there are going to be many many more posts about music soon :D

Here’s a live video of Foo Fighters I filmed 2011. (I’m sorry for my filming, usually I’m really good at it haha) 

Hope you enjoy it J

And always remember: you can't overdose on music ;)

 

So, what's the biggest advantage of living in Switzerland? - Well, the flag is a big plus ;)

The country I would like to mention and talk about is Switzerland. I really appreciate its beauty, especially the mountains and lakes, as I'm totally into nature. I've been staying in a town called Wassen for 2 months and I worked there in a hotel, mainly as a waitress. Although it was the most exhausting thing I've ever done in my entire life, it was the best experience I've made so far. Not only was the job strenuous as hell, it was hard to understand the Swiss dialects as well. (it even rhymes haha)

So I lived in the back of beyond, mostly failed at trying to understand what the people were talking about and smashed some glasses – great!

To talk about the beauty I got to see I’d like to begin with these enormous mountains that made me forget about the remote town I was actually in. 

This picture I took from a bench that was placed under a huge tree. The first time I sat on this bench and looked at this gigantic mountain, I actually got dizzy because of its magnificence. The effect nature had on me at that moment was impossible to describe. I immediately lost my breath and felt small and helpless as anything. The weirdest thing was that I had a fear of heights, even though I was looking up – really strange.

Next I want to talk about lakes. I never saw something as beautiful as this!

 

It was an incredible feeling swimming in a lake surrounded by enormous mountains. You just can’t compare it to anything in Austria. Well, some would now mention Schwarzl Lake, but the huge difference is that in Switzerland you don’t have to pay to appreciate nature. You just get there, lie down on the green grass and enjoy your surroundings. People there have a totally different mentality in general. The town I stayed in, Wassen, has about 400 inhabitants and the majority was, well, old haha. (Btw, it was even a lot harder to understand them, because they didn’t even try to avoid their Swiss dialect, so that I would have been able to understand them – not very kind huh?)  Nonetheless I met some younger people as well and we became friends really quick. I’m already excited about visiting them again next summer  :)

The best thing about Switzerland has to be their national holiday. You may wonder now why I say that, because usually they are all but fun. Basically there are 2 reasons that make the first of August a special day: firstly, they almost celebrate it like New Year’s Eve. They set off fireworks everywhere! 

You can’t see it, but the fireworks were let off from a ship. It was amazing! And secondly, to top it all off, the first of August is my birthday! I really felt like they were celebrating my birthday haha and I actually pretended that they were :D I never saw a firework let off at a lake, it was astounding! There was great music and I celebrated it with nice people. In brief, it was an unforgettable birthday  :)

I could go on and on, talking about Luzern and its beautiful lake, the wonderful bridge there, the Blueballs Festival and the Kaiser Chiefs’ concert, but eventually that would get too long ha. Maybe I’ll talk about that in another blog post :)

I found you tube and you tube found me..

Just in case you didn't get the point, with the heading I mean YouTube, clearly. And well, unfortunately I found this tube, because it keeps me from doing important things, stupid tube. But at least I have always something to blog about. Yay!

First of all, I want to introduce you to my YouTube addiction. Besides being in love with music in general, I have a weakness for cover videos since about 6 years now and as I really got into it I started watching talent shows as well, especially X Factor UK/USA/AUS and The Voice UK/USA, since the participants are way better than in Austria or Germany. I actually don't know why I'm totally in love with watching people sing and perform and despite the fact that I always get jealous of how good they are, I somehow enjoy it more than anything. From the audition on I bubble over with excitement and am curious about how far the contestants are able to make it and always feel myself getting angry when some of my favourites didn't get through to the next round, especially when it's a young contestant, like the fabulous Rachel Crow. This young lady should really be a legend and I hope someday she will be. As I'm probably the most indecisive person in the entire world and can't decide on which video I should embed here, I'll simply choose a random one. 

Anyone claiming she’d not be good is a liar! She is an impressive young singer and by the way, she was 13 years old at this time. 

Another sensational point about YouTube is that it is not only a form of entertainment; it can also be very helpful in everyday life. I actually took benefit from YouTube to teach myself how to play the piano, just by watching YouTube tutorials. I'm still not able to read music, but at least I can boast about playing some really challenging piano playing now. There you go.

Everybody was impressed by my skills playing the piano; I forgot how to play it though. I had a lack of time and therefore no time to practice, but I’d love to start practicing again. 

Anyway, I have to admit another addiction of mine. It’s called Ellen DeGeneres. 

She’s probably the most entertaining person on earth. Whenever I’m sad or just before getting frustrated, I visit her channel and watch her videos, because in every single video she makes me laugh. She’s as funny as sympathetic. Incredible. Take a look:

Well, a note to each and every one of you - be careful about your choice of photos you put on Facebook ;)

ATTENTION - highly addictive!!

Ok, first of all I'm totally addicted to YouTube in general and since about 45 hours I'm permanently watching bloopers videos from programmes like 'How I Met Your Mother', 'Two and A Half Men', 'Big Bang Theory' and 'Friends'. Even though I didn't understand everything and therefore didn't get all of the points that were supposed to be funny, I literally laughed till I cried, haha. To give you a better insight of what I mean I embed here some of my favourites.

Friends

Notice how Courteney Cox pronounces Bar Mizwa ;)

I don't know what to do... or say.

Breaking Bad

It's a good thing we take this so serious.

How I Met Your Mother

You should really take time to watch the whole video, it's hilarious!

I really enjoy watching the outtakes, whether from a programme or movie. It demostrates that all actors and actresses are only people and in my opinion 'How I Met Your Mother' is the best example, because it really looks like they are friends in real life too.
Hope you enjoy it! And feel free to add some funny videos in the comment box :)

Gotta travel on :)

Hello everyone :) So this is my first blog and post and I hope it will work out!
This post will give you a short insight of two countries that I've been to and absolutely love.

Malta is not only THE party isle, but has also a very interesting culture.
The first time I visited Malta was because I made a language holiday there for three weeks. Basically I was there to learn English, but in fact I learned like nothing. Everybody was talking this strange mix of Italian-German-French, what they called Maltese ;)
The second time I travelled to Malta was after I graduated high-school. In a group of five girls we spent there a great week. 

Next I want to mention the country I really felt comfortable in - the beautiful Greece. Unfortunately I've been there only once, but I will definitely travel there again. The most impressive experience was that everybody was excessively friendly – a quality that is nowadays rather rare.
One thing’s for sure, the gentleness of Greece will always remain in my head!