1.st of May

First of all happy 1.st of May. Wish you safe and well payed jobs 🙂 we were thinking of going to a demo bit decided that the kids are not in shape for that. Instead the kids wanted to barbecue. Ada is lately really fascinated by cake making so I agreed we’d make a cake together. So this morning she got up early to bake the cake. She had the honour to decorate the cake and she did:)

Next thing was going out for playing but after a while the kids where such a mess that we decided to go home for a rest.

In the mean time I continued my 100 days challenge of biking 30 min and until now I am keeping up the last two weeks. yes!!!

For the barbecue we had the perfect weather and the perfect barbecue master;)



After the barbecue we went again out to the playground. This time with happy kids….or not but at least the weather was perfect ?

Spring festival Karlsruhe / Proljetni festival u Karlsruhe

Frühlingsfest or spring party is a nice happening in Karlsruhe when THE one and only ferris wheel comes in town and my kids pass it by every time we go to the kindergarten. I promised them we will go there…of course. At last we went three times and enjoyed the different carousels. I also noticed how different children’s perception is in comparison to grown ups. My daughter loved the duck fishing where you pick up ducks with a rod. Every duck symbolises some points and the more points the better “gift” you get. I found it complete waste of money and time…while she loved it.

Proljetni festival je jedan lijep događaj u Karlsruhe kada u grad stigne i ringispil i cak i onaj tocak. moja djeca svaki put kad idemo u vrtic prolaze ringispil i naravno da sam morala obecati da ćemo ići tamo … . Na kraj smo otišli tri puta i uživali u različitim vrtuljcima. Primijetila sam isto kako je različita percepcija djece u odnosu na odrasle. Za mene potpuni gubitak i novca i vremena a mojoj kcerci se najvise svidjelo pecanje pataka. Svaka patka vrijedi neki broj bodova i što više bodova upecate dobijate bolji poklon. Ali sta se sve ne radi za djeciji osmjeh 🙂

Some of my impressions in US

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I went to US for a house hunting trip. I have some prejudices about US so it was quite interesting to go there with the goal to find a place for living.

One thing I got surprised about was that the standard of the houses is so bad. Ok, the houses are huge in comparison to the German and Swedish houses BUT the standard of the building and especially the bathrooms is much lower. For me it is difficult to understand the need of a palace with 10 rooms, 5 bathrooms and kitchens that are perfect for a Michelin chef (except that the fridge and freezer is worn out) instead of keeping it smaller but with higher quality.

The food in restaurants is excellent however every where we ate it costed around 100(!!) dollars for 2 people. This was some dynamite shrimp. It was deeeelicious.

Environment and Sustainibility

The use of plastic is everywhere, even in places one could avoid it. The mentality I feel is that “no matter what we do there is no environmental problem with our garbage.”

The car…
The use of car is essential. Without one car per person you are completely cut off from the society. The whole way of living is around the car. There are no or hardly any pavements for a walk. To take a bike would probably be considered suicidal:/

Bad drivers!

What I saw the Americans are really bad drivers (or I had bad luck). They were very aggressive and egoistic drivers introducing tons of dangerous situations.

The highways are really bad…at least where we were driving. I find the ways in Bosnia are better than the highways in NY and CT (except in US the ways are broader). There are literally huge holes in the highway that are life threatening when driving faster.
Then the absolute culture chock
At the high way they take over from both left and right side ending very often in very bad accidents. We were there 4 days and every day I saw one bad accident.

The flight

I was in US just for four days so the jet lag was an issue but I have to say that travelling business class made my days so much easier.

It was my first time flying business and it was an another dimension from my previous flights. All the space and the possibility to lay down and stretch out the legs…priceless (if you can afford the ticket) 🙂
The food was great in the business class, and one could watch movies and sleep. I am not a fan of flying so I took a beer to calm my nerves…

And the best thing is …we found a house 🙂

Visitors from Sweden visiting

Last week my sister and her kids visited us. It was so much fun. I really miss them a lot when they aren’t here around.
Ada didn’t know that her cousins where coming so she was exploding of feelings when she saw them. From that moment until they left the kids where inseparable. We went to the city, to the hair dresser, to Strasbourg, to the Zoo and enjoyed every moment.

Ada celebrated her birthday with a cake that her grandmother Suada did. Ada and Princess Zoe then decorated the cake and it was really fun to see how much effort they invested to have it the way they wanted to.

We went for shopping also and the girls decided they wanted the blue and the pink boots for me AND they wanted to play Elsa and Anna from Frost. I bought the boots because they were surprisingly comfortable and well I loved the colors 😉

We enjoyed the time and we were lucky to see many impressive things at the Zoo for example. The bears where playing harsh, we saw the small kangaroo looking out from its mothers pocket. We saw monkeys breastfeeding their young ones. ..It is amazing to see how similar we are to the monkeys 😛

Cheese, our wonderful company at the zoo 🙂


Kangaroo baby looking out?
See the frogs?

A different way to use Läkerol…but it worked 🙂

One of the oldest (if not the oldest) carousel in the world in Strasbourg. It is beautiful as well as fun 🙂

Until next time 🙂

Mito i korupcija

Kako otići u Bosnu a da ne sretnem ljude koje sve neuspjehe svaljuju na mitu i korupciji? Prosto je nemoguće.
Ne kažem da ne postoji, naravno da postoji. I to svugdje. U Bosni je rijedak slučaj da baš nikad nije proslijedio novčić da baš njemu/ njoj ne bude bolje, barem u tom momentu.
Za sutra je parola ko živ a ko mrtav!
Samim tim nemam visoko mišljenje o dostojanstvu i ponosu na Balkanu. Spašavaju ga jedino pojedinci koji se svaki dan bore na svoj način.
A da ne pričam o formiranju jedne države na takav mentalitet ljudi…

Ali… objektivno me zanima taj fenomen.
Zanimljivo mi je kad osoba kuka kako nema posla jer je sve mito i korupcija a sjedi 15h na dan igra igrice, “pije kafice” na socijalnim medijama i.t.d. a da ne napiše jedan normalno kvalitetan cv ili da se bar educira na neki način da svoje kvalifikacije povisi onda moram reći da u većini slučaja koje sam ja srela je mito i korupcija jedan savršen izgovor za vlastitu lijenost.
Nisam ni jednu nezaposlenu osobu vidjela da se nešto aktivno bavi politikom. Mislim ako je već toliko s-e, a nemaš posla pa najmanje što možeš uraditi je baviti se politikom, nevladine organizacije ili tako to. Na taj način barem nešto možeš promijeniti.

Mislim dalje (moje iskustvo) da u Bosni vlada prilično veliko neznanje o politici u drugim državama.
U Bosni a ma baš ništa ne valja i sve je bolje vani.
Vani ljudi imaju servirane poslove, plate basnonosne. Mogu da vozaju skupa auta i žive u kućama od 250 kvm.
U Bosni će šefici lajati kad im kaže da će dobiti otkaz ako još jednom dođe na posao dugih lakiranih noktiju…a da radi kao (medicinska) sestrica. U Njemačkoj (ili Švedskoj) joj ne bi palo na pamet da dođe na posao takva…a da šefici prolaje pa to ne postoji. I kažu sređena država…

Koliko ih u Bosni uopšte zna nešto o politici u Švedskoj, Njemačkoj ili drugim državama.
Imam osjećaj da ih većina pojma nema da se u zadnje vrijeme Švedska trese jer je glavna šefica od Svenska Kraftnät, institucija koja je glavna za švedske električne mreže, dalekovode itd. zaposlila “prijatelja” da radi kod nje…sigurno nije džabe radio.
Ili onaj skandal u divnoj Švedskoj gdje su preko veze dolazili do organa.
A od starog ministerpredsjednika Bayerna (Njemačka) -Stoiber je kćerci oduzeta doktorska titula jer je kopirala dijelove iz tuđih radova.
Pa da ne pričamo o tome što je Stoiber pola familije zaposlio da rade kod njega.
Ili onaj skandal gdje CDU zvijezda Guttenberg ostaje bez posla kao ministar odbrane Njemačke i bez doktorske titule jer kopirao čitav doktorski rad.
A da ne pišem koliko još ima skandala… ali ipak niko ne bi došao na ideju da kaže da vladaju mito i korupcija i da zbog toga ne mogu naći posao…

Picture by By James Rickwood – By James RickwoodFlickr: P*ssed again!, CC BY 2.0, Link

Moja top lista zemalja što se tiče hrane!

Kako sam bila u Bosni ne mogu da se ne nerviram oko nekih stvari ali isto tako uvijek kukam kako su svi negativni i tako odlučih da (dok ne napišem post sa konstruktivnom kritikom :P) zapišem dobre stvari.

Mnogo mjesta i država sam prošla i posjetila i samo su mi par, zbog hrane, ostale u sjećanju a to su Island, Tajland, Italija, Rusija i (da ne povjeruješ) Bosna!

U Islandu smo probali kitove i islandskog konja. Meso od kita je bilo od neke vrste što nije (još) ugrožena. Jeli smo fantastičan dezert. I sve to platili toliko da ko poželi ići u Island slobodno može na vrijeme pripremiti poseban budžet za hranu. Gdje smo god jeli hrana je bila izvrsna.

 U Tajlandu isto tako.
Najbolja hrana je bila u najobičnijim restoranima da ne kažem po uličnim štandovima. Samo sam jedan put otišla u “eksluzivni” restoran da proslavim svoj 25.i rođendan da bi eksluzivno zaglavila (srećom brzo prošlo) da izvinete na šolju.  Tu sam isto prvo put vidjela da na meniju stoji jelo od vjeverice. Nisam se smjela osuditi da jedem vjevericu. Otvorena jesam što se tiče hrane, ali…nije to za mene…

 Nekad se bilo mlado 😀

Kad sam otišla u St. Petersburg imala sam neku čudnu sliku o Rusiji, pogotovo što se tiče hrane. Probala sam njihov specijalitet – boršč. Supa od cikle! Nisam mislila da će nešto posebno šmekati ali je bila stvarno ukusna. Što me najviše začudilo je da su obožavatelji palaćinaka i samim tim su imali predobre palaćinke. Slane i slatke 🙂
Isto nisam nigdje jela bolju mozzarella salatu što me začudilo jer nema toliko sastoja u toj salati da je baš toliko teško napraviti…Ali bila je izvrsna…Možda doduše zato što smo jeli u ekskluzivnom Four seasons hotelu (bar jednom u životu).

U Italiji sam jela najgoru pizzu u životu u nekom malom selu Bertinoro.
Ali zato sam fantastičnu hranu jela u Milanu. I nigdje nisam pila bolji cappuccino i jela bolji sladoled nego u Milanu. Hranu koju smo jele je isto bila fantastična ali i poskupa tako da kad toliko platim i onda očekujem doobru hranu.

I onda ova naša Bosna. Za ovu razklimanu državu gdje svi uvijek pričaju kako ništa ne valja trebaš biti maher u lošoj sreći ako nađeš negdje lošu hranu. Hrana nam je blago rečeno fantastična u poređenju sa drugim državama. Isto tako i kolači. Ovaj put sam dodala novi “tojač” (kolač kako kaže Adrian) dževrek u listi favorit kolača 😀


Imate li vi neko mjesto što vam je ostalo u sjećanju zbog hrane?

Visit from Sweden / Posjeta iz Švedske

Last week I had visit from Sweden. My mom, my niece and my nephew came for a visit. We visited a couple of places and a couple of highlights where the Halloween
the visit in the Naturmuseum / Posjeta u muzeju prirode

Baumwimpelpfad (and especially the slide) in Bad Wildbad/ Šetnja kroz krošnje (i pogotovo tobogan)
The Karlsruher Zoo / Karlsruhe Zoološki vrt We had a busy week and enjoyed the time a lot…Having four kids in an apartment is like having a tornado in the house but still moments of silent could appear 😀

Weekend / Vikend

On Saturday we planned to go to Bad Wildbad but instead our friends came to Karlsruhe so that we ended up spending time in the zoo. I wonder if in the future there will be something like video cameras that can actually save the feeling one experiences seeing something for the first time or seeing something that is overwhelming. For example when Adrian saw the small alligator he started to sing “Arne Alligator” and danced while pointing towards the alligator. Ada on the other hand was sticked by a wasp for the first time so she screamed like the girl from the movie American psycho. U subotu smo planirali  da idemo u Bad Wildbad, ali umjesto toga naši prijatelji su došli u Karlsruhe, tako da smo završili provodenje vremena u zoološkom vrtu. Pitam se da li će u budućnosti biti nešto poput video kamere koja u stvari sačuvaju osjećaj kad vidiš nešto prvi put u životu ili kad vidiš nešto što te oduševi . Na primjer, kada je Adrian vidio malog aligatora, počeo je pjevati i plesati “Arne Alligator” dok je prstom pokazivao prema aligatoru. Ada je, s druge strane, bila prvi put obložena ospom, tako da je vrištala kao devojka iz filma američki psiho.

Unfortunately, my kids started coughing like Russian smokers again we decided to go to Bad Wildbad on Sunday. Unfortunately, Adrian got sick so Ada and I ended up going alone to meet up our friends. It was a beautiful day and the landscape is stunning. We saw a paraglider have a crash landing when he touched the tree crowns and first I thought that was it… but the guy was tough and lucky and could walk away in one piece.
The hit of the day for the kids though was to just run and throw the leaves at each other. It is funny how grown ups forget how much fun it is to do such a simple thing…Nažalost, su mi djeca počela kašljati kao ruski pušači, pa smo odlučili da u nedjelju odemo u Bad Wildbad. Nažalost, Adrian se razbolio pa smo Ada i ja same srele naše prijatelje. Bio je divan dan, a pejzaž je zapanjujući. Vidjeli smo čak jednog paraglajdera koji je imao neplansko slijetanje kada je dodirnuo krošnju od drveta pa se razbio pri sletanju … Ipak je imao više sreće od pameti pa se nije teško ozlijedio.
Hit dana za djecu je, da ne povjeruješ, bilo trčanje i bacanje listova jedno na druge. Smiješno je kako odrasli zaborave kako su ponekad jednostavne stvari tako zabavne…

Tea party, tea cups and a connection/ “Čajparti”, čajne šolje i veza koja spaja

Some times ago I organised a tea party for my daughter and son. My daughter got absolutely overwhelmed by it and now wants to have it every evening. Since, it is one of the things I love I decided if we are going to have teapartys we can as well have proper ones with beautiful tea pots. Said and done I went to an antiquity store and bought two tea cups from 1950-s.
Ada loved the green one so she got it as a gift from me. It is something with cups I find. I have a couple of cups that I got as gifts from people I really care of and every time I use the cups I remember them. I hope that it will be like this for Ada 🙂

Prije nekog vremena sam organizovala čaj “parti” za kćerku i sina. Ada je bila oduševljena i sada hoće svako veče da ima čajnu ceremoniju. S obzirom da je to jedna od stvarih kojih ja volim, odlučila sam da ako već imamo ceremoniju da je barem imamo lijepim čajnim šoljicama. Tako sam otišla u prodavnicu antikviteta i kupila dvije čajne šolje iz 50-ih.
Ada je bila oduševljena i odmah je izabrala zeleni. Ima nešto sa šoljama Kai poklon!  Svaku što sam dobila me veže za tu osobu. Imam par šoljica koje su mi poklonjene od ljudi do kojih mi je stalo i svaki put kad koristim šolje sjetim se njih. Nadam se da će ovako biti za Adu 🙂

Milano

Me and my sister went for an energy boost weekend in Milano. We had 2 days  just us two sisters.
We met at the Malpensa airport and from there we took the bus to central station. The taxi costed 94 Euro one way ticket and the bus costed 8 Euro. Since we just had hand luggage we decided to save the 200 Euro and went by bus.
In Milano we had a great hotel called the Biocity hotel that was very close to Central Station. It was clean, had great breakfast and absolutely heavenly cappuccino. Altogether this made me and my sis sit and eat breakfast for two hours. All the things we had planned to see we kind of missed. We just felt we want to take it easy and enjoy the food and the ice cream. U septembru smo ja i moja sestra spontano otišle u Milanu. Dva dana samo nas dvije sestre. Koji luksuz!
Srele smo se na aerodromu Malpensa i odatle smo autobusom išle do glavne stanice. Taksi je koštao 94 eura u jednom pravcu, a autobus je koštao 8 eura. Pošto smo imali samo ručni prtljag, odlučile smo da uštedimo tih skoro 200 eura i idemo autobusom.
U Milanu smo noćile u fantastičnom hotelu Biocity koji je usput vrlo blizu glavne stanice. Bio je čist, imao je odličan doručak i apsolutno nebeski kapućino. Sve ovo je učinilo da ja i moja sestra ujutru dva sata doručkujemo. Sve stvari koje smo planirale da vidimo smo nekako propustile. Osjećale smo da želimo da se opustimo i radimo ono što nam je želja ergo uživamo u hrani i sladoledu.
We went to Duomo, the cathedral. It was beautiful. Considering it took some 500 years to make I am more impressed of the persistence. 500 years of planning and working on one building is quite an achievement. I notice though that I have seen a lot of cathedrals and feel that they all look more or less the same so I wasn’t impressed at all from the outside. The inside I didn’t want to see because I would have had to wait in the queue for at least 2 hours.
Prvo smo otišle do Duomo, poznate katedrale. Bila je predivna. Uzimajući u obzir da je trebalo oko 500 godina više sam impresionirana sa upornosti. 500 godina planiranja i rada na jednoj zgradi je doista dostignuće. Primjetila sam da sam vidjela mnogo katedrala i smatram da one sve manje više izgledaju iste, tako da nisam uopšte bila impresionirana spolja. Unutra nisam htjela da idem gledati jer bih morala čekati u redu najmanje 2 sat, a za to nisam imala vremena.

Close to the cathedral was the Gromo ice bar. THAT is a must to try. It must be the best ice cream I have ever eaten. It was celestial.
Blizu katedrale je bila Gromo slastičarna. Ako odete u Milano taj sladoled MORATE probati. To je najbolji sladoled kojeg sam ikada jela. Nebeski!!

We took a walk to the famous outlet DMAG but wondered if people really are that stupid to pay this enormous sums for such crap clothes. I mean there where a couple of things that were unique and I would have bought them if the pricing was more realistic, but the rest. It is, as Bosnians say, tax on stupidity. This jacket costed around 1500 Euro…on sale!

Otišle smo do poznatog outleta DMAG-a, ali smo se pitale da li su ljudi zaista tako glupi da plaćaju ove ogromne sume za takvu odjeću. Da razjasnim. Bilo je fantastičnih stvari koje možda i vrijede taj novac ako se krećeš u takvom društvu, ali većina stvari samo budale kupuju. To je, kako bi se kod nas reklo porez za budalu. Ovaj kaput je jedan od onako cool stvari koji košta oko 1500 evra … u rasprodaji! Ludost!

After strolling the wonderful streets we decided to go to the Porta Genova where there are a lot of restaurants. We had been recommended “the white rabbit” or “Osteria Al Coniglio Bianco”. The food was deliciiiiious.
Nakon šetnje prekrasnim uličicama, odlučile smo da odemo u Porta Genova gdje ima mnogo restorana. Preporučeni su nam “Bijeli zec” ili na talijanskom “Osteria Al Coniglio Bianco”. Hrana je bila savršena. Samo zbog hrane bih opet nazad u Milano otišla…

Next trip was to the modern quarter Lombardy. There we saw the amazing and impressing building the vertical forest designed by Stefan Boeri Architects. This new way of architecture that is filtering the air with 900 !! trees was for me absolutely breathtaking. For me personally far more impressive than the Duomo Cathedral.
Nakon ručka smo otišle modernoj četvrti Lombardij. Tamo smo vidjele nevjerovatnu i impresivnu gradnju vertikalne šume koju su dizajnirali Stefan Boeri Architects. Ovaj novi način arhitekture koji filtrira vazduh sa 900 !! stabala(?) je za mene bilo apsolutno nevjerovatno. Za mene je mnogo daleko impresivnija ova gradnja od katedrale Duomo.

The Sunday we spent at Micam looking at the spring collection of all possible kind of shoes. It was so cool to experience that.
Nedjelju smo provele u Micam gledajući proljetnu kolekciju svih mogućih vrsta cipela. Bilo je tako kul i to doživjeti.

Looking back now the weekend passed so fast and I really look forward to our next adventure…
Vikend je tako brzo prošao i već se sada radujem našoj slijedećoj avanturi ..