theinbetweenismine

just a girl living the expat life

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Archives for December 2006

Last post of the year…

December 30, 2006 filed under: my so-called life

No SPF on a Friday for me in a long time. I know. But I honestly couldn’t physically do it yesterday. I caught a bad cold. We went for a walk yesterday morning, but after that, I felt so exhausted – I slept for most of the day. I think I needed the rest. I feel much better today… ready to share my 2006 in pictures with you.

San Francisco January 2006

IMG_2305

Skiing with my Dad in February

IMG_2515

my sister’s and my birthday with my aunt in March

IMG_2633

with Ingrid, a dear friend, in April

Jon and I

Our wedding in May

@Sushi&Soul

Out for Sushi with my sister and Ira in June

sankim

Kim came to visit in July

Ira and I

with my friend Ira in August

IMG_4004

J came for another visit in September

Visiting the baby

holding my cousin’s son in October

Ilka and I

with Ilka @ Starbucks in November

Christmas day

back together with J in December

I wish you all a great New Year’s Eve and all the best for the coming year!
Thanks for having shared the last year with me. XOXO

14

The days in between…

December 27, 2006 filed under: holidays

Christmas and New Year’s, J and I are going to spend peacefully and quietly at home. J only works one day this week and I am looking forward to some quality time together ;) The last weeks have been kind of hectic and we’ll have a couple of days just for our leisure. It’s going to be great :)

Christmas with J’s family was wonderful. We arrived on Christmas Eve, went to see J’s Granddad and Great-aunt at the nursing home and then took J’s Great-uncle back home for a wonderful Christmas eve dinner. We had Scalloped Oysters, Cocquilles St. Jacques, Green Salad and French Bread. It was delicious.

Afterwards, we got together in the living room and exchanged our gifts. We had decided to do it the “German way” this year and open gifts on Christmas Eve :)

Mixing the holiday traditions definitely has its advantages. When J was kind of disappointed Monday night that Christmas was almost over, I could cheer him up with the fact that in Germany we have a second day off for Christmas, so there was another “holiday” for us to look forward to :)

Santa treated me well this year. I received three DVD’s, a gift certificate for Michael’s!, a gift certificate for Target!, a nice mixer [which some of you might have seen on flickr], a pretty new purse, a book, cosmetics and J and I got a huge food basked together. That was a great treat! All the groceries are awesome and the basket is going to be a nice addition for our living room!

Christmas day, we had a yummy breakfast and then I went for a walk on the beach with J’s Mom. It was warm and sunny, and there were so many surfers out. I was surprised. We went to see J’s relatives again in the afternoon and then went home for a yummy turkey dinner. We watched a Christmas movie afterwards and just enjoyed the time together.

Yesterday afternoon, we drove back to L.A.. But before we left, we got some pizza from our favorite pizza place in Ventura and went to the beach. The weather was kind of crazy yesterday, kind of windy, and the waves were huge. We spotted a tiny little baby seal on one of the rocks along the coastal road and I couldn’t help but wonder how the little fellow had gotten up there. The ocean was about 3 feet below and there was really no way he could have climbed up there, or could he? Anyway, there was no Mommy seal in sight. I really hope that someone called the police or someone to send someone out to take care of him.

Unfortunately, it seems like I have caught a cold over the holidays, so I took a long nap yesterday and I’ve been running around with a box of tissues all day today. I hope it’ll be over soon.

8

Merry Christmas!

December 24, 2006 filed under: holidays

J and I had a quiet last day before Christmas yesterday. We walked around at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, went out for a yummy breakfast at the Café 50’s and went to see “The Holiday” in the afternoon. What a lovely movie!
It was actually less busy out than I thought it would be on December, 23. Most people obviously got their Christmas shopping done on time ;)

We spent a cozy evening at home and exchanged our gifts last night, because we didn’t want to take everything up to Ventura to Jon’s parents house to which we’re going to leave in about 30 minutes.


Have a wonderful time with your family and friends today and tomorrow.

Love to you all.

8

SPF… it’s Christmas!

December 22, 2006 filed under: my so-called life

No Friday before Christmas without Stuff Portrait Friday hosted by lovely Kristine.. ahm, Shaun again.

1. One decoration.

One decoration.

This was given to me as a guardian angel by family friends before I flew over here from Germany. I think it makes for a nice Christmas decoration, doesn’t it?

2. One gift.

One gift.

A Christmas gift from friends. I know it’s candy [it says on the bottom], but isn’t that the cutest ‘wrapping’?

3. Something stuffed in a stocking.

Something stuffed in a stocking.

I fell in love with this stocking at the World Market/Cost Plus store and I had to buy it. It’s the tiniest stocking I have ever seen and I am still trying to figure out if there is anything that will fit into it ;)

Happy Holidays everyone. And let me know if you played ;)

11

Oh no!

December 19, 2006 filed under: my so-called life

The last few days were kind of busy. I can’t even recall what we did, but we were doing stuff pretty much every day. I remember that it involved last minute Christmas shopping ;)
On Sunday we had Aaron and Maria over for dinner. It was going to be the last time before Christmas that we would see them [beside the fact, that we’re going to take them to the airport tomorrow night.] They’re going to visit Maria’s family back East over the holidays.

I know I promised you pictures of the apartment and I’ll definitely take them tomorrow. It’s dark already and they’ll come out much better in daylight, I believe.

Yesterday was “moving day”. Well, we didn’t move, we just moved stuff around… and picked up our new bed. We picked up a U-Haul Truck at 9 a.m., loaded our old bed and a couch onto the truck and drove to Ventura. We exchanged our old full size bed with a single bed in J’s old room at his parents house and then picked up a queen size bed inclusive bed frame from the storage locker :)

We had Chinese food with J’s Mom for lunch and then headed back to LA, just in time to miss rush hour. The rest of the night was all about setting up the bed and moving boxes around.

This morning, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up some sheets and pillows for the new bed. We had a gift card from our wedding and could finally put it to good use! Now our bedroom really looks cozy :)

I talked to my sister later and she confirmed what I already had worried about. I think I caught a cystitis. I wasn’t sure, because I never had one before, but my sister said that the symptoms were pretty clear. So, I’ve been drinking one pot of tea after the other, hoping that the bacteria won’t take up residence in my bladder ;)

15

SPF…

December 15, 2006 filed under: my so-called life

Kristine hasn’t been doing too well lately, so Shaun is hosting SPF this week. Thanks Shaun!

1. Your Roof

Your roof

Ok, this is my roof. There’s been a lot going on up there lately ;)

2.Your ‘hood (you can do sweatshirt, your neighborhood, your car…)

Your hood

This is the the view out of our bay window. It’s a really nice neighborhood with huge trees along the street. Westwood village with its shops and cafés is within walking distance. Nice!

3. Something you would not want to run into that is in your house.

Something I would not like to run into that is in your house.

This is the stupid simple “bed frame” [I am not sure if you can even call it a “frame”] underneath our bed. I hate it. I hit my foot twice and it hurt! We’re going to get a REAL bedframe next week. Yay!

Happy SPF, and let me know if you played ;)

7

Making a home

December 14, 2006 filed under: my so-called life

december 13, 2006 - day 69

Most of you know what this up there means :)
We went to IKEA yesterday. Finally. It’s only about 25 Minutes away, but the traffic in LA!, don’t get me started.
I had a really bad driving experience on Monday. I needed to go to the DMV to get my name changed on my Driver’s License. I also wanted to run some errands afterwards, stop by at Michaels for some Christmas stuff, do some grocery shopping, you get the idea. Well, it took me freaking 4 hours to do all that! I mean, that was a Monday afternoon and none of the places was technically more than a 10 minute drive away, but driving in LA is just simply insane. Some of the drivers were really aggressive, too. Like when I was trying to make a right turn on a green light and I was half way around the corner, the traffic stopped and then my light turned red, but I was already half on the cross street, but the cars coming from the left wouldn’t let me in. I mean, seriously, is everybody in such a hurry? I guess, everybody is.
I catch myself already thinking about when I can actually go somewhere without being stuck in traffic, and to be honest, there is actually only a time window of about 3 hours [between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.] when you can go drive somewhere relatively safely without getting caught up in traffic. There are so many people in LA, and even more cars! It’s overwhelming.

I really, really hope that I will find a job that I can walk to every morning. If I could find something on the UCLA Campus, that would be perfect. I really don’t want to spend precious time in the car every day. It would only add to our miserable parking situation, if we needed a second car.

Well, but I got distracted. Let’s go back to the more exciting stuff… IKEA :)
I just love this place. I always find something that I could buy and I just like a lot of the stuff that they have. I also enjoy assembling the furniture. I understand that some people might find that annoying, but I really like the idea of buying furniture and taking it home right away, instead of waiting for furniture to be delivered.

We bought a really nice shelf for the hallway and two dressers for the bedroom. And then we got some boxes and magazine holders [so I can start organizing the stuff that is still sitting in the bedroom in the moving boxes] and some other odds and ends.
We’re also going to get a queen-size bed from J’s parents [which has been sitting in the storage locker], and it will come with a nice bed-frame, too :) This is going to make our place look more like home as well. I am so excited.
I know you’re all waiting for photos, but I hope you can wait a couple of days longer, because we’ll get the bed on Monday and then, I promise I’ll definitely take photos and post them :)

8

Bread 101

December 10, 2006 filed under: my so-called life

Ok, people, so here’s a little quiz for you. What is wrong with the following picture:

Bread

[If you really can’t find anything wrong with this picture, click on it for further reference.]

I admit it.

I am a bread addict.

I am very critical with my bread, because bread does not equal bread.
I’ve been looking around at different stores and I have been somewhat successful in finding bread that is pretty decent. It’s nothing compared to German bread, but it’s pretty good. Anything is better than ‘white bread’ [= toast], right?! Please bear with me, my dear American readers, I don’t want to sound rude, but you just don’t have real bread in the US. Coming from the land of bread, I am just not easily satisfied ;)

This up there is my latest discovery. When it caught my eye, I was a little bit confused by the label? “Schwartz Brot”? What is that? But I didn’t want to argue over the label, because it looked, smelled and felt pretty good. It’s a mixed rye and wheat bread with a crispy crust and a dense texture. It tastes pretty good, too :)

I haven’t found a store yet that sells the flour that I need to bake my Mom’s “Schwarzbrot” [black bread = whole grain bread] which looks like this, but I’ll keep looking. Oh, it’s so yummy.

Schwarzbrot

Oh yeah, talking about baking, I’ve baked my first Christmas goodies this weekend. It’s the 2nd of advent and I thought if I can’t have my Dad’s homemade cookies, I have to bake some myself :)
We put up some Christmas decoration this weekend and it rained yesterday, so it felt a little bit more like winter! We spent most of the day with J’s parents yesterday and J’s Mom and I did some Christmas shopping. It was fun, but I am still not done and I do have to get my Christmas cards out this week… so be in the lookout, you might get one as well ;)

13

December in CA

December 6, 2006 filed under: friends, fun!

The last weekend was fun! Susi came to visit for 2,5 days, before she flew back to Germany. We picked her up Friday morning and she and I decided to go to Santa Monica to check out 3rd Street Promenade and the beach. It was the 1st of December, and people, we were walking around at the beach barefoot, enjoying the nice and sunny weather ;) It was strange!

Santa Monica

Susi treated me to a Vanilla Frapuccino, an evil drink!, afterwards… it was so yummy, and we sat at the Promenade and just enjoyed the time together :)

In the evening, J’s friend Chris came over from Pasadena and after some yummy Japanese food, we all went to the studio to hear J and Aaron perform a private concert for us. It was a great night and we all had a blast.

Saturday, Susi, J and I went to the Getty Center which is located in the Santa Monica Mountains, just a 5 minute drive from our apartment. It is a huge campus with a museum, library, research center and the Getty Foundation. The view from up there was simply gorgeous. You could see all of LA and the area where we live.

A map

Click here for more pictures!

We had a great time up there and later on I took Susi shopping. In the evening, we cooked some dinner and hung out at the apartment, because we had to take Susi to the airport really early on Sunday morning.

The last few days were kind of busy. We ran some errands, went shopping, did the laundry [we go to a big laundromat instead of using the washer and dryer at our apartment building, because there is only one, I think, and we usually have at least 4 or 5 loads each time we get around to doing the laundry] and I worked quite a bit on the apartment. There are so many unpacked boxes that I have to sort through. It’s fun, but also time consuming. It will take me a few more days before I’ll be done with this and I haven’t decided yet, if I am going to take any pictures of our place before I haven’t bought some new accessories that we badly need. Be patient ;)

P.S. Happy Nikolaus! It’s not observed in the US and I missed finding Nikolaus chocolate in my boots this morning, but I hope you German people have been treated well with chocolates ;)

10

W.O.W.

December 5, 2006 filed under: bureaucracy

Yeah, I am speechless. I received my Green Card in the mail today. Not even two weeks after getting here. I am pretty impressed ;)

My Green Card

Well, the “Green Card” is not really green. It has a green stripe on the back though ;)
I am supposed to carry it with me at all times now. Why? I don’t know, but I’d better do it.
Things are really falling into place right now. It’s a really good feeling. I hope things will continue to go smoothly.

15

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Hi, I am San – German native, dual-citizen living in beautiful Northern California. Runner. Knitter. Crafter. Reader. Writer. Proud aunt, sister, and friend.

I’ve been blogging since 2004 and don’t intend to stop any time soon. If you are looking for personal content and making a  genuine connection, you’ve come to the right place.

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