autumn around me

this bird was one of my lucky autumn catch!it rained the night beforeautumn reflectionautumn swanautumn leaf still standingautumn insect taking shelter in autumn leafto see more 32 slide autumn photos, click here

NinaOA©

autumn music: Desafinado

these songs are simply mesmerizing to listen when it's cold and raining outside... sharing these songs to all my sincere bloggers and i hope you enjoy listening to them as much as i do... i am listening to them while doing my German homework :)) very relaxing to hear especially in this autumn season....

i have watched Phantom of the Opera in Stuttgart, it was a fantastic 2-hours show... i thought i share this song along...

autumn day out

last weekend, we drove to Asperg and wandered in this beautiful little town. i took my chance to photograph where ever there is a life-time-opportunity...

NinaOA©

our trees tell it's Autumn

we know it is definitely autumn and i love autumnit is definitely, Autumn..the coolness in the night air -- not a chill, this is not Canada we had once lived, after all – it is enough to make me to snuggle in my cotton blanket over the sheet....yeah, it's autumn i have been longing for...no, we're not late, just hurrying out the door toward another winter, wondering, once again, where the summer went...

more photos here best view in Slideshow:
Autumn in Ludwigsburg

NinaOA©

Mentally drained - look out the window

i thought i take another break and blog a little bit than working too much on my homework. they are giving me migraine...while watching the evening autumn nature with my camera ready,
a fast speed train passed by
this course is quite stress if you are in my shoes. hence, this evening i gave myself a short break by looking outside our window to release my homework-stress rather than wallow in front of my computer translating each exercise.after that roundabout there's a bus stop i always wait
it was breathtaking looking at the natural scene, furthermore it's autumn out here and it's beautiful, es ist wunderschön :)on foot going east is where the vineyards are. photos to follow soon
well it's time to go back to do my hausaufgaben, my homework. Tschüss! that's all for now - i'm having some headache ....

NinaOA©

Volksfest in Stuttgart, Germany

last Friday, October 3rd, we drove to Stuttgart for Volksfest or folks festival = beers for adults and fairground rides for the kids...the fairground
my mistake, i told few friends that we were going to OCTOBERFEST in Stuttgart! it is indeed, a Volksfest, a “mini fest ” to Octoberfest that started end of September till the first week of October, for two weeks.Free fall "Powertower" height at 66 meters, dare to try? i'm proud to say i have done it and ONCE is enough at Jurudong Park in Brunei Darrusalem :)) we met up with my brother-in-law and his 11 year old son and the son's friend there. the kids had full of fun always eager to jump on to the next fairground rides. the adults just watched over them and enjoyed the atmosphere.the roller coasterwe were pretty fortunate with the autumn weather when we arrived at the fairground. it rained so much from late morning till afternoon when we were in Stuttgart city and it stopped around 4-ish. it rained again when we left the location at 8:30pm soon after dinner.

the fruit column
as you can see in most photos how these thick dark clouds rolling in ready to rain on us. Thank God it started to rain after we had finished with our dinnerthat was my first time to attend Volksfest in Stuttgart. i hope to be in Munich next year to witness this largest Octoberfest there.the fruit column

there were more than 70 stands ranging from shooting galleries to raffles, food stands everywhere and entertainments just every corner

all these photos they were taken from my cellphone.

NinaOA©

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©