Weeeekeeeeend

Hey guys,

It's getting a little more quiet around here. As some of you might know, my company is organising the Vienna Book Fair. It's taking place in three weeks so of course there's an awful lot of work to do. Which means loooong hours and short evenings. I haven't finished my third Kira. I'm not even close as I didn't do any crochet for the last three weeks. There just isn't time. I know it will get better once the fair is over so I'm looking forward to that. 

In the meantime I'm packing my bags for a quick weekend trip with my big brother. My brother started the love for music in me. When we lived together, about four years ago, he introduced me to Dave Matthews Band and I've been addicted ever since. 

So for his thiertieth birthday in May his girlfriend and I gifted him not one but two concert tickets. As his girlfriend has to work I sacrificed myself to accompany him. So in about half an hour we'll start driving to Germany. Tonight we will visit the Dave Matthews Band concert in Munich, tomorrow we will drive up to Frankfurt to watch them again and on Monday we will drive back home. It will be an amazing weekend and I can't wait to finally start! A detailled post on the concert will follow! 

I'll leave you with some snippets from my appartment today. As I told you in my last post I wasn't really happy with my appartment and decided to clean it out a little. So here are some improved corner. But we plan to move next year to a nicer and bigger (and maybe even suitable for a baby - who knows?) and newer appartment. So there won't be much use for a lot of decoration and work. 

The sun is shining through the window and I'll finish my second coffee before I'll finish packing and make my way to Germany. 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend too. Take that, Autumn blues. You won't grt me down! 

the postcards are handpainted from my best friend. She let our wedding guest write something on every one of them and once a month she sends one of the postcards to us. I love getting them. They are such a beautiful memory!

nothing makes rooms more cosy than candles. Well, books, but they wouldn't look that good on the stairs!

on of our many cactus. The only plants that survive in this household. Which doesn't mean that we weren't also able to kill a few of them...

I love that pillow. Yes, I know, I could have easily made it myself, but let's be honest - that will never happen. The sewing machine and me will never be friends.

again - candles.

my ever growing mug collection. Each mug comes from a different country or has a special story behind it. 

Travelling Austria: Stift Vorau

It was fathers day last Sunday here in Austria. I thought long and hard about which gift I wanted to give my father as he is - as any man in my opinion - complicated when it comes to presents. He has everything he needs and the things he wants are too expensive for me to get him. So I decided to give him something that money can't buy: TIME.

I called him a week earlier and told him, that for fathers day, I wanted to do something with him. What we would be doing would be his choice. We could go to the cinema. We could get dinner. We could go for a walk or a swim or a bike ride. Whatever he wants. 
In the end he decided that he wanted to do a little road trip with me. Getting out of the house for one day, spending time together, just me and him. So we drove two hours to Styria, where we visited the beautiful Stift Vorau. It's an old monastery. My dad visited it about 35 years ago and since then always wanted to see it again. We made a tour around it which ended in one of the most beautiful libraries I've ever seen. If my man and I ever get around to build that house we are talking about all the time - I expect my personal library to look rather similar to this one. I'm already buying tons of books to get it filled. 
Anyway - enough words. Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Travelling Austria: Green Lake, Tragöß, Styria

Hello lovely readers. How are you? Did you have a nice weekend? I have to tell you, my weekend was absolutely fabolous! But let me tell you everything about it! 

My weekend actually started on Thursday! It was a holiday on Thursday which meant - no work! How nice to have only a three-day-work-week. I could really get used to that!
Anyway, since both my man and I had the day off and since the weather was absolutely amazing, we decided to visit his grandmother. She has an amazing garden - flowers everywhere! We helped her get her pool ready for the summer. Not entirely an unselfish act since we like to come to her to swim in the pool! But it was a nice and fun afternoon! My man's cousin and his girlfriend joined us in helping her. While the men worked in the pool, us girls picked fresh strawberries. Which were devoured right there, without washing them, still warm from the sun. No strawberry from the supermarket can compete with that. 

the pool and HALF (!) of my grandmother-in-laws backyard!

her amazing flowers!

and the best strawberries ever!

I took the day off on Friday because I really needed a long and relaxing weekend. My man had to work, so I had a whole day for myself. I spend the morning finishing the baby blanket for my sister in law (3 more days until she's due, I'm so curious if it's gonna be a boy or a girl!!) and decided to spend the afternoon at the lake. I always dreamed about living near some water (lake, sea, river...whatever!) and now that I do, I hardly ever spend time at the lake. Which is a real shame, since it's just a 10 minute bike ride (with my gorgeous new bike) from my appartment to the lake. So I packed my bags and a really big book and did nothing but bathe in the sun (and the water) and read and eat ice cream all day long. What a beautiful time I had. I should do this more often!

a little duck that waddled around me the whole afternoon!

My man fulfilled his life-long dream and bought himself a Harly Davidson motorcycle two weeks ago. He loves it and as I love riding along with him, we decided to make a quick weekend-trip to Styria. (route here).
So we strapped our tent and our sleeping bags to the Harley and drove off to the Green Lake. As we arrived rather late on Saturday, we decided to spend the night at a camping site and visit the Green Lake first thing in the morning.

"our" Harley. And everything we needed for our trip strapped on the sissy-bar.

The camping site was gorgeous! It was just a small lawn near a small lake. There were cows all around as munching on the green grass. We put up our tent, drank a nice, cold and refreshing beer and settled in early as we were really tired from the day. 

Next thing in the morning we packed everything in and drove 3 km to the Green Lake. The Green Lake is surrounded by the Hochschwab Mountains. The name "Green Lake" originated because of its emerald green water. The clean and clear water comes from the snowmelt. During the winter, the lake is only 1-2 meters deep. During spring, when the temperature rises and the snow melts, the lake reaches a maximum depth of 12 meters!! It is very popular with divers as during its peak seasons, wandering trails, benches and trees can be found under water!

We had a little stroll around the lake before we got back on our Harley and drove back home. I won't write anything further, just let the pictures speak for themselves!

Did you have a nice (maybe long) weekend as well? How did you enjoy this fabulous weather?