Britta's Letters from her life divided between city-life in German's capital Berlin and life in a Bavarian village

Wednesday 8 August 2018

Tattoos

                                                                           

It is summer, and it is hot, hot, hot. 

So hot that people wear little nothings - men open their shirts and their huge bellies have the freedom David Hasselhoff was fighting for; and extremely well-nourished women wear mini-shorts, and thousands of them display huge tattoos. 
Everywhere you look at their generously exposed bodies. 

The University of Leipzig estimated that 
19 million people in Germany have Tattoos. (A third of the people under thirty has at least one). 
And these tattoos are not the teeny weeny Chinese ideographs (how come that I first wrote "idiograph"?)
(The photo above I found in a glossy magazine) In Berlin you can admire hole landscapes on legs, arms, shoulders, backs and sometimes even on  faces. 

Tattoos are not without risk. 
Everybody (!EVERYBODY!) in Germany who owns a "starter kit" is allowed to tattoo his victims prey  customers. 
So: 
- You risk an aesthetic disaster (just look around!!) 
- You risk your health:  There might be poisonous parts in the colours which are not designed for tattoos, but for car paint (honestly!). 

And if you want to get rid of "I love you, Annicka!" for "I love you, Babette!"? 

Well: You have to pay: sometimes thousands of Euros if her name was a long one (choose Babs instead next time!)

You can a) let somebody cut it out (iiiiih!); or b) let them use chemical etching lotions (ouch!)  or - and that will be the choice of most: c) laser. 

I hope that these three painful methods are used by doctors only. 

So, don't hum Bob Dylan's song "Don't think twice - it's alright!" when you enter my tattoo study --- it might be the wrong song.  
Better hum: 

           "Needles and Pins!"



Thursday 2 August 2018

Some Cannot Boil an Egg!





I saw it - and I wanted it.

It will save so much space  - and time - and it  looks so cute!“ 

Though I live on 180 square meters, I bought it.
In the Netherlands I had learned The High Art of Boiling an Egg.
Which implies not just boiling- oh no: boiling the egg for precisely 4 and a half minute - after asking  myself: „Am I -  just now - above or below sea level?" How come that at that point I always had to think of M.F.K. Fisher and her fabulous book: „How to Cook a Wolf“ ?
In Berlin I found a few flies in the ointment of my new kitchen device:
- it takes an awful long time
- the outside which you have to touch to stop the high pitched "stop!"-button gets really hot
- AND: it is not only designed for a dwarf´s kitchen (hope that I do not use a political incorrect word - I’m speaking of fairytale dwarfs) - it also needs dwarf fingers (for my 1.78 m I have astonishing little hands, and they are very capable for everything in craftwork),
- no: it also demands utter precision (also no problem for me - for some time I wanted to become a pharmacist because I like using pipettes and tiny scales).





But worst of all: It cannot boil a soft egg!
Golf balls: yes, thank you: here it manages well.
But soft eggs -  whatever I tried - NO.

When comes the day when you ask yourself:
Is it worth all the efforts?

In this case I decided after three weeks: NO!

(PS: Does anyone remember the hype in the Nineties (I think) about „Feng Shui“?
Change your fate by just moving some things around - and if you want a happy partnership, NEVER buy a single item, always (!) buy pairs.
A single-egg-cooker - I am sure - would have meant „bad Feng Shui“, even a thousand years ago.
Though I cannot verify that - I tossed out all my Feng Shui books a long time ago.

As I will do with that cute little egg-boiler!