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Clearing Your Mind: A Path to Inner Peace
In today’s busy and noisy world, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We often find ourselves overwhelmed by our tasks and the constant stream of information coming at us from all directions. It’s important to take a step back and clear our minds in order to find inner peace. One way to do this is by spending time in nature. Being in nature can help us disconnect from our daily routine and reconnect with ourselves. It can be a powerful tool for finding inner peace and clarity. Why Nature is Important to Clear your Mind Nature has a way of calming our…
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Capturing the Beauty of Everyday Moments
As a product designer, I am always looking for ways to capture the beauty of everyday moments. I believe that the best way to do this is through photography. Photography is a powerful tool that can help us to see the world in a different light and appreciate the little things in life. One of the most important aspects of photography is lighting. When we take a photo, we are capturing the light that is reflecting off of the objects in the scene. This is why it is so important to pay attention to the lighting in our photos. By using natural light, we can create beautiful and realistic images…
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Berlin Bike Tour – Thurs 16th Nov
Today we had a bike tour with Berlin by Bike. It was their highlights tour, so the idea was for us to get a good overview of the city history and sites. Berlin has very good bike infrastructure so this was a good way to see the city. We started out at Prenzlauer Berg. Our first stops were back in the area we’d been the night before, but this time it wasn’t raining and we even got some blue sky. We got to see a part of the wall memorial we’d missed the night before, where you could look through a mock-up of the inner wall to see what the…
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VW Wolfsburg – Wed Nov 15th
Today was the first of several factory tours we have booked for this holiday at the Volkswagen Wolfsburg plant. Wolfsburg is about 269km from Berlin, an easy train ride of 1-1.5 hours. We started at the Volkswagen Autostadt. This is a complex of buildings, seperate from the factory with a museum, pavilions for each of the VW associated brands, restaurants, gardens and the car towers where cars are stored for the people who are picking up from Wolfsburg. We started at the museum which traced various important milestones in car design. Following up with the Skoda and Audi pavilions before going to the Tachometer for lunch. After lunch we had…
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Berlin – Tues 14th Nov
I’m skipping forwards to Tuesday because Sunday and Monday were travel days of trains and planes and a lot of rain in Munich on our way to Berlin. We did have an excellent Turkish dinner on Monday night at Osman’s Tochter in Berlin. Highly recommended. So Tuesday morning we headed out bright and early to meet our son, E, who flew in from Melbourne. We caught the S-Bahn out to the airport and he arrived very soon after us. Collecting him we headed back to our apartment where he had a shower. E said he felt alright so we headed out to the Eastside Gallery. This is the section of…
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Italian Days Food Tour – Sat 10th Nov
We had an early start today for our bus tour to learn about some of the food specialties of the Moderna region. The 7 am pickup in Bologna was necessary so we would arrive at the Parmigiano-Reggiano factory in time to see the production. Parmigiano-Reggiano is made every morning with the previous evening’s milking and that morning’s milking. It only produced in the provinces of Parma, Emilio Reggio, Moderna, Bologna to the right of the river Reno and Mantua to the north of the river Po. The milk must come from these areas and the cows must only eat grass or hay from the area. They cannot be fed silage…
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Bologna Pasta Class – 9th Nov
Bologna is famous for three things—the oldest university in the world, food and its porticos which are UNESCO World Heritage listed. In planning our two full days here I had the food side pretty much covered and then planned to hit the other two in the gaps. Our first day I had booked a pasta making class. Bologna has several pastas that it is known for, tortelloni, tortellini, tagliatelle ragu and lasagna verdi. In our pasta class we would make and eat the first three. That would start later, this morning we went for a run. Had some breakfast. I’m off coffee due to migraines but most bars do fresh…
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Brescia, Italy – Wed 8th to Thurs 9th Nov
After our delayed flight to Milan we finally arrived in to Brescia mid-afternoon. We checked into the hotel and then headed off to the Roman ruins. Since we were so late, G’s client meeting was moved to the following afternoon, so he was able to join me sightseeing. Brescia is a bit off the normal tourist route. It is about 40 mins by train from Milan to the west of Lake Garda. The monumental area of San Salvatore – Santa Guilia Monastery and Capitolium Temple Archeological area are part of the UNESCO World Heritage site: Longobards in Italy. Places of Power. On a previous visit to Brescia I had spent…
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Walking the Highline then off to Italy – Nov 7th
Our last day in New York (☹️)… but we’re off to Italy (🍝🍦) We checked out after breakfast and left our luggage at the hotel. We headed over to the Highline, a linear park on the old elevated railway. Although the wildflowers were well past their prime, there were still some blooming and the seed heads and autumn leaves were really beautiful. We walked to the Chelsea end, then popped down and doubled back along the river to Little Island. This little park has a very cool design and more wonderful natural style plantings. We crossed back to the old Nabisco factory which now houses the Chelsea market. We had…
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Another Food Tour and some Blues – Mon Nov 6 2023
Yes, I know another food tour … this time in the Lower East Side. We started at Katz Deli. Made famous by that scene in when Harry Met Sally. We had the specialty, pastrami on bread with some deli mustard. It was good. Melt in your mouth and so tasty. Not far from there is the original Russ and Daughters store. Appetising since 1914. It was packed inside but I got a few photos and had a look at all the different foods they were selling. We had another rugalech. It was still good. Walking through the streets we got a good look at the old buildings. Most of the…
