evening break at Lake Trappensee

 

i have been racking my brain all week long and today i said to myself to get my homework done, pronto! as soon as i was done with it, off i went out with my camera before sunset

 

the weather wasn't great, the skies was covered with thick dark clouds, a sign there might be heavy shower soon. the sun tried to pierce through and it gave me good lightings to my photographs, yay!

the photos above and below and all, were taken near our apartment and this small lake is called Trappensee.

lovely view isn't it...

the evening sun pierced through this side of the lake and i like the reflection...

this side of the lake have clear skies

autumn leaves falling on the ground

duckling grooming

autumn leaves float in the water

"Was ist das? Es ist ein Fisch". we used these words all the time in class and i kinda like it. i was saying "What is this? This is a fish" and that was actually a big fish!

NinaOA©

NinaOA is going back to school

when we arrived in Germany and have settled in our new home in Heilbronn in August 2008, we thought to arrange for my German language school right away. as soon as i have my visa stamped in my passport, i was asked to attend German Integration Course. i cannot explain to you what this course is until i am in my first day in class next week, September 25^th. 

it is a compulsory 600 hours course to attend for all foreigners who just moved to live in Germany. this course goes for 6 months and there will be an exam at the end of this course. i dread the word "EXAM", and it is CONDUCTED FULLY IN GERMAN LANGUAGE!

by the way, it didn't happen in the last 5(?) years, i take it is a new German regulation applied for all foreigners. i will take it positively and like the English idiom says “When in Rome do as the Romans do”, may it be a blessing in disguise. this is the book i was told to buy, it is called Schritte 1 (Step 1).

 

browsing through each page, i am sentence to a full German language, i was gobsmacked...! yup, that was why the school told me to get a dictionary (not in the picture) to help me to sort out the meaning in German-English. sounds like this is going to be brain-war, hope not, i will survive!

anyhow, i was anxious to understand the German grammar before my class even begins, and how to use the ‘gender’ to refer to a noun enough to drive me crazy! so there i go, going back to the book store and i bought Das Grundschul-wörterbuch (basic school dictionary). i hope it will help me, wholly...

being such a desperate housewife struggle to learn German, i also found a pocket size book “Deutsch-Englishce Ausgabe” a word by word German-English and i bought it of course, LOL... it is so handy that i carried it in my handbag all the time. so handy i could study it on a bus or while waiting for my bus :)))

but my problem is the pronunciation. the spelling is not like how it is pronounced in English. so, i started to make note how some German words should sounds like. my husband corrected me the sound of 'der' as i spelt it "dear" and he said it sounds like "dair"

now you get what i mean being a novice to a new language? German language is not WYSIWYG. Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache! that is, German language, difficult language!
and I WILL SURVIVE :))

My earlier blog linked to my school: Volkshochschule Heilbronn

NinaOA©

Enigma of the Green Planet - SOLVED!

not many people can get their lucky stars answered to their awaited question especially when it comes to the language of photography. i got mine responded within a month :))

remember last month i posted about my discovery of a mysterious "green planet" caught on my camera? it is now SOLVED. I have thought it could be a reflection after 3 nights in a row capturing this moon last August 2008.

My gentle Bloggers,

it is disappointed indeed, i didn't make history for myself that i thought i have captured a strange living object from outter space... LOL... but thatsokay, i will get my lucky star someday...

My many, many thank you to Gary Crabbe (wow! he is a pro photographer!) for your kind effort to take your time to explain how the "green object" was created by a bouncing reflection of the bright moon light going through the lens.

My many, many thank you as well to Phule. Yes! that was a spot on i had attached my UV filter on my lens and i was lazy to remove it.... but i like the 'mistake' i have made :)) a new learning curve for a junior photographer like me :))

Links to my 2 mysterious Green Object blog:

Caught on Camera: Moon and Green planet/object
See bottom 3 Comments Box left by Gary and Phule

Enigma of the Green Planet

NinaOA©

Photo Talk: Baptism of Fire

last weekend, we attended a friend 40th birthday party at an outskirt field outside this bursting Ludwigsburg baroque city. the evening temperature, being in the early autumn, was between 4-6° Celsius. this fire of soul warmed us up. while sitting by the fire, i took this photograph hand held on my cellphone: Nokia 6500 Slide. i'm so pleased to see it came out pretty well. thank you Nokia! :)

NinaOA©

Font and size Compose TOOLS disappeared

i was cracking my brain most morning because i couldn't find how to get all my Compose Tools back, especially the Font and the Size setting were not shown at all, so were the margin tabs :(

after many lucky clicks at Blogger Help Group, i finally found the answer i wanted. I actually have, accidentally pressed EDIT HTML (as per above image) and i should have had returned my tab to COMPOSE (as per image below) only then i could see all my tools are back on the board again, aiyaaa!

just wanted to share my little dumb thumb sight, LOL as well as a diary to myself to share with you :)))

Venezianische Messe in Ludwigsburg

this was my second time to watch this large parade of the Venezianische Messe otherwise, Venetian Masks and Costumes Carnival in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

the first time i saw it was way back in 2004 as a tourist in town!

now that we have moved from America to live here in Germany, i hope to see more of this carnival again which is held every two years. Next will be in September 2010!

the opening ceremony was last Friday, September 5^th and it went for 3 nights until Sunday. We were very fortunate with the weather, it was like a blessing from Above! it rained on Saturday and gloom on Sunday.

the parade kicked off at 6pm that lasted for an hour to the marketplace center but all the mask participants gathered near the train station.

the participants, the spectators and the photographers gathered at 5pm just so ready for us to photograph them. Plenty of time to photograph each one of them.

i take it as a stroke of luck opportunity to get another taste of this famous colorful event with a touch of Venice in the middle of Germany!

i understood from the press released saying there were 700 masked and costumed participants in this event.

as for the crowd, it was packed, everybody turned out and we thought it could be up to few thousands spectators plus both of us to add more crowd :)))

overall, the parade was worth a thousand times to watch, not only it was free of charge (€9 per adult entrance fee to the marketplace) but there were lots of time to photograph them when the evening was still bright light.

you were free to move around and choose who you wanted to photograph and this little girl in red, she was a charm and i cannot resist not to photograph her.

the mask participants were very willing to pose and happy to be photographed which made my day most blessing.

you can find loaded of photographs posted here, best view in slideshow: Venezianische Messe in Ludwigsburg

and you can also see them here, best view in slideshow:
in my favorite black and white with little touch-up colors


NinaOA©

signs of Autumn in Heilbronn

it's Wednesday, September 3rd today and September means Autumn is approaching and our tree knows it :))

i was walking home from town today and i thought to photograph them with my cellphone camera to share with you what i saw along the way

leaves fall everywhere and are found everywhere

more photos when we are into the Autumn season - i truly missed Autumn and here i am going to be with them soon, yay :)))

NinaOA©

my Sunday best

it was one lovely Sunday today, the weather was so kind to us and it was even lovelier to have my Sunday best spending time only with my dear husband after going through all the hustle and bustle transition from America to Germany. today was our first Sunday weekend spent together in Heilbronn. so we thought to make another walk to downtown, have a coffee or ice-cream. all the street we walked by was pretty quiet at noon, i think the local must be spending their family quality time together inside their house

we stopped at Bar Moderna and it is a restaurant also selling assorted ice-cream. i loved my iced-coffee with triple scoops of vanilla ice-cream minus cream toppings but today i opted for Spaghetti Eis (Spaghetti ice-cream)

i think it was purely vanilla ice, they just designed it like spaghetti to make it looked different but the taste of the vanilla was strongly there. another trick to the mind. it's not cheap though!

my colorful spaghetti eis

i like the transparency look through of this empty glass of a menu left on our table - only the cut lemon left in this empty glass of our sparkling water

we then cruised drive outside Heilbronn city centre and saw huge field of vineyard. these are purple grapes and they are not for eating but for producing red wine

up-close and personal look of the red wine grapes

not far from the vineyard, there is a castle tower - perhaps, it was once lived by Rapunzel hahaa...

the huge vineyard discovery amuses me as i always wanted to photograph it in Autumn. so my dearest gentle bloggers, watch out for my autumn vineyard photography - it is only few minutes drive away from our home, i say drive because i hate walking steep uphills :))

NinaOA©