Stripes.

One of the reasons why I decided to write this blog again is that I wanted to chronicle my decoration adventures in the new apartment. We plan to stay here only for a year or two, so I guess it would make sense not to invest any money or time in this apartment, but this is just not how I roll. I don´t feel good unless I really like the space around me. In this apartment this is not difficult to achieve - we really lucked out with the flooring and all the built-ins and the stove - but still I needed to make it my own. In this regard we have accomplished quite a lot already and I am happy with the majority of the rooms. I plan to show you around in the next weeks and months and tell you what we did.

What you see here is our bedroom and behind that is my room with which we hadn´t done much so far. Can I tell you how much I love our bedroom? It´s huge! Our apartment used to be two apartments once, and our now-bedroom is one of the former living rooms, so that explains the size. One of my top priorities for our new apartment was a bigger bedroom - check! We have built-in wardrobes and shelves in here and while it´s not the brightest room, it´s perfectly cozy for a bedroom. I´ll show you more pictures soon.

When we first moved in I loved this view you can see here, but I thought the back wall in my room needed "something". I thought wallpaper first, and then stencils, but as we have the omnipresent German "Rauhfaser" wallpaper in here, neither was an option. Painted stripes, however, look like wallpaper and you can even get them right on Rauhfaser if you invest some time (I used this trick and it worked out really well).

So, here you are! Stripes! I love it.

Berlin.

Hello. I´ve lived in Berlin for almost five months. Time flies! It was an exciting but challenging and very, very exhausting time. I would guess that I´ve aged a year or two in these five months. Turns out that living in  two different sublets (one lovely, one disgusting) for 2 months while commuting to Vienna on the weekends, starting a new job, adapting to a new city, searching for and finding a new apartment, then finally doing the big move and settling into the new apartment is actually quite exhausting. Oh and we went to Paris for three days inbetween all this. That was nice.

Don´t get me wrong, it´s not that all of this was bad. On the contrary. We found a lovely new apartment which we love, we like what we´ve yet managed to see of our new city (which is not much though), work is good, the husband found a new job without any complications and the cats have decided that the new apartment is actually safe enough to leave their hide-out under the bed.

Still, we miss Vienna. And our little house by the woods. A whole lot. We contemplated doing a weekend trip to Vienna end of January to celebrate our first wedding anniversary (as I said, time is flying), but we both felt we weren´t ready for this. I assume I would weep all the time. So many memories! Maybe next year.

At times during all the busyness in the last few months a thought came to my mind: I live in Berlin! I really do! You know, I always wanted to live in Berlin. I always thought that one day I´d come here, even though jobs are extra rare in this city. I was really lucky. That being said, onwards! As of Friday I´ll go on a christmas holiday - two weeks off. I can´t wait!

Stripes.

The weather is not acting as if it will be summer any time soon here in Austria (it continues to rain and rain and rain) and this even more annoying because I want to wear summer clothes finally. Last week, I had on my winter jacket all week, as it was freezing. Oh my.

But here´s some summer shoe eye candy at least. I love stripes and I love ballerinas, so a combination of these two is just wonderful. I had my eye on the black/pink ones for a while but they´re just too expensive - all the better that there´s a budget version now! In blue, my favorite color at the time being. Left, right.

Also, sorry for the radio silence. My life continues to be busy and chaotic and stressful and I think this will go on at least until Mid June. Until then, I won´t be around here much I´m afraid. I just hope that all this is worth it in the end.

Oh, and if you have crazy weather as well where you live, buy this book. I just got it and love it, and will try some of the recipes over the weekend. I don´t mind you rain! I´ll be in my kitchen all weekend anyway! Take this! Ha.

Greece.

We finally booked a holiday yesterday night. We won´t be going to Croatia/Slovenia/Italy anymore because we feel what we need right now is pure relaxation and a camping trip exploring three countries is just not that relaxing, face the facts (or I´m just old).

We still don´t have much money so we settled on Greece, Crete to be exact. I can´t wait to go. Life has been a bit rough the last few months and I desperately long for two weeks in which my only worry is what I´ll have for lunch.

PS: If you are a regular reader of this blog you´ll know why I smiled when I spotted that plastic chair.

(Picture by Flickr member astly´s).

A Note.

In the light of recent events we´ll need to talk a bit about privacy here. This is a semi-anonymous blog. I don´t really mind if you know my name and my job etc. - just if you do, keep it to yourself.  There´s a reason why I don´t put my full name out there: Because it´s just not of any interest for this project. This is a blog about my personal likes and dislikes and thoughts and I don´t necessarily want my colleagues to read it for example. Not even all my friends know about this blog because I feel they won´t understand why I do this and it´s just easier this way. I feel that this blog is a way to reach out to people out there who understand the "blog" thing and share my interests. I write this for you, and not for my friends or family and especially not for colleagues who will only make fun of this.

So, please. Don´t make these worlds collide. And please don´t make me uncomfortable in this space, or I am just going to shut it down. Thank you.