Family Weekend

Hello everyone :)

I hope all of your weekends were as great as mine was. On Friday my family came to Augsburg for the weekend.
After 2 hours of getting stuck in traffic my mum, grandma, sister and godmother finally made it and we went out for an amazing dinner at a very cute restaurant (might blog about that on Friday).
The reason the came to visit was my grandmas Christmas gift. 
We have a very famous author over here that wrote stories about the Wild West with his two heroes named Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. Winnetou being the Apache chief and Old Shatterhand his blood brother. 
The author is called Karl May and his books are amazing so if you haven't read them I would advise you to do so :D And since these books are pretty big over here in Germany people have turned them into plays that they perform open air in 2 places here. We had been to the ones in Bad Segeberg when my sister and me were little but they are just really far away. And since my grandma is almost 80 years old now we didn't want to put her through an 8 hour drive to get there.
So as we found out that they had the exact same thing in Dasing, which is about a 20 minute drive away from where I live, we just had to give that to her as a Christmas present. Because she loves those shows so much and has always wanted to see another.

Now as I said play most of you probably thought about a theater and a stage, but that is not at all what it is. 
They have horses, big fight scenes and people being set on fire. Oh and loads of explosions and stuff. 

We arrived at the Western City an hour before the show started and had a little walk around. 

It all looks really authentic and all the people in the stores and behind the bar in the saloon wore costumes which was really cool. I know you kinda have to be into those sort of things.
They even had a little museum about the creation of the Western City.

Fred Rai the founder of the Western City in Dasing

As the show was about to begin we made our way to the stand. The set up was a lot smaller then the one in Bad Segeberg but nonetheless very imposing. 

It looked especially cool after the sun began to set and they started working that into the show. 

I would have loved to get some actually picture of the performance but the horses were just to fast and the actors were moving around all the time so it was close to impossible to get a proper picture. But I did manage to find a clip about it on YouTube. 

There is a lot of firing guns and explosions involved but no horse seemed to care. It is impressive how well they are trained and how good all the actors are at riding them. Doing stunts with their horses and everything. 
We had so much fun watching the show although all the other people probably thought we were a bit insane.

At the beginning we didn't quite understand what was going on and then a dog just started running around the place. My grandma is quite and impatient person so when there was still no sign of Winnetou after the first 20 minutes she just had to speak up. So she said (quite loudly): Where is Winnetou? I came here to see him, what is this? Literally everyone that was sitting within a ranger of 5 meters of us turned around. And it did continue that way :D
When that dog ran across the 'stage' next time we ( my mum, godmother, my sister and I) started cheering because that is just how we are (and we did so every time the dog ran around somewhere because we just had no idea what it was supposed to do and what it meant for the story).

We had a couple of other things that we had to go crazy about, those being. Winnetou and his riding skills and the Comanche chief because we liked his looks :D

Winnetou

Comanche chief ( I should probably add that my mum and godmother liked his looks my sister and me just thought he really looked the part and eh had a cool horse)

We had an amazing time there and probably looked really weird with all the cheering and laughing we did at really inappropriate moments. 

If you ever get the chance to go to one of the Karl May shows I would suggest you do so. They are not that expensive and even if you are not a big fan of Karl May are very fun to watch. 

And they have cute signs at the toilet doors :)

x
J.

50 Shades of Grey

Hello you guys :)
I hope you have had a great Saturday and therefore a good start to your weekend!

I don't know if any of you have read 50 Shades of Grey or why you read it.
I did read it and I have some thoughts on it that I would like to share.
Firstly I have to admit I only read it because everyone said I should, not because I actually wanted to read it, simply because it is not my kind of book. I'm more of a Lord of the Rings person.

I started reading the first book which I got from the library and got given the second one and read the third whilst being in hospital. 
Although I didn't really like the first one (not for the obvious reasons but I will get to that later) I felt like I had to read the whole thing so I would feel confident to say I don't like them.

First off: I don't see why everyone keeps saying it is so kinky. What I found it to be was vulgar. I mean come on the things Christian says to Anastasia are just rude sometimes.
“I don't make love . . I fuck . . hard - Christian Grey”  
Seriously?  Please, who says something like that? That doesn't sound good and it surely doesn't sound like something I would want a man to say to me. 
Lets be honest here for a minute, because a lot of girls I asked said that they sometimes even felt turned on by it, I don't see how you could be. Really? 
I mean I don't think the sex scenes are particularly bad because of his preferences but because they are just so badly written. 


Nowadays people are very open about their sex life's and preferences whether that is SM or bondage or vanilla sex. So I don't think that people can actually be shocked about what Christian wants from Anastasia at least I wasn't. 
Another thing that I didn't like about this book is the fact that it is so badly written. I genuinely believe that I could like the idea of the book and I don't even think the story itself is bad I just don't like the way it's written.
Story wise I can only say that it was to cheesy at the end but I guess since it was  originally a Twilight Fan Fiction I saw that coming. 
And I would really like to know what other people think about this. Maybe I just don't get the book for whatever reason. Or maybe I need to be enlightened? I don't know.
And another thing I'm quite curious about is: Is there men out there that have read 50 Shades of Grey?

And I would never ever judge someone who is into that kind of stuff simply because it is who they are and as long as they find someone who likes that too I don't see why they shouldn't live that side of themselves. 
So seing that he is into SM wasn't something that shocked me at all, I just thought I would go with it and see were it takes me. 
The thing that did shock me though was that the author obviously doesn't actually know anything about SM. She has no idea what she is writing about and the fact that she makes it look like people who had a terrible childhood like SM is just plain wrong. 
A good friend of mine had an amazing upbringing and his parents are such lovely people and he likes a bit of SM here and there, nothing wrong with that. So I just think the way she describes it, throws a very bad light on people who get pleasure from smacking their partners bottom and all those kind of things. 

When people told me I had to read this book because it was so kinky and stuff I was like: Ok I'll give it a go, it must be good if so many people read it. 
And I was so disappointed by the time I had finished the first book. I couldn't believe that so many people read it and thought it was good. 
I have to say though that the language is very picturesque which is probably why some people get turned on by it. But I don't really knowm it's a bit disturbing to me.  I simply can't get off on a book (maybe something is wrong with me :D)
And I don't want to offend anyone here but I thought the writing style was very low-brow. And some of the things that were displayed were just vile because they were badly described. 

I do believe though that the author really had a good story on her hands she just didn't make the best of it. Sadly to be honest. 
If any of you feel very creative and want to take this challenge: Rewrite it please and I will buy a copy for sure!! :)

For me it just felt like a porn gone wrong.  



x
J.



“I am Fifty Shades of fucked up, Anastasia - Christian Grey” 
Yeah right :)

I read the Book

Found this video on facebook, a friend posted it and it got me laughing :) And after that thinking. They are right, not many people seem to read anymore. People watch movies and then tell you all about them und you are just like: ok did you know that it was based on a book? It's kinda sad really. Okay I have to admit I watched the first Lord of the Rings movie before I read the book but hey I was like 13 :) And I read all the books afterwards and I still think it's one of the best movies that's based on a book. I mean look at Eragon the movie they made was soo bad they didn't even make a second one even though there are 4 books. Or other series like Legend of the Seeker there are books too. And a lot more than they could have possibly put in a series. But I think they did kinda well :) 
But it is a lil sad that a lot of people dont read that much anymore. There are so many great books out there that no one made a film of yet. And books that are probably better off without being turned into a movie. But never the less they are great books. I know back in school I hated my teachers for making me read all those really old books and plays but come to think of it now i really appreciate what they did for me or tried to do haha. I thought about why I had to read them a lot back in school and couldn't understand it but now I finally get it. Books are a huge part of our culture. So many things can never be shown in a movie or put in a song you just have to read it to understand how the person felt that wrote it or what was going on in their lives. This 'older' books like stuff written by Goethe or Shakespeare is something that left an imprint on our culture, some of them are our culture. And every country has its own.  
Books are great in so many ways :
1. Everything you read gets turned into pictures by your mind. Like suddenly you have that picture of a character in your head as if you had met them before. And I guess everyone knows the feeling of reading a book and having that vivid picture of a person in your mind and then you see the movie and you're like: that's not how he is supposed to look like. And that is the great thing no one can read a book like the person that read it before them. Everyone has a different background and has experienced different things so it is impossible for someone to understand and feel the book like another reader or even the author.
2. You get to escape your life. By reading a book you get sucked into this other reality of the story world or even a completly different world (if you are reading fantasy). It's like for the time being you are part of that world. I remember that one time I was reading a book and my flatmate came into the room and I didn't realise it until he started talking to me and that made me jump actually. I got so freaked out that I started yelling at him why he didnt knock and shit, which turns out he did. I just didn't hear it cause I was being somewhere else (meaning in the book).
3. You get a sneak peak into someone elses mind. Isn't it great what some people can come up with? Some stories are so mind-blowing it's crazy. Like lets take Lord of the Rings (yes I am a fan =D) J.R.R Tolkien must have had such a vivid imagination. I would have loved to see how he thinks, the way his mind works. I mean to come up with a whole different language and such an amazing world is just incredible. Something I would love to be able to do myself. 
Well since I can't I'll have to stick with other peoples great ideas and amazing thoughts.

So lets read more it's such a beautiful thing to do. 

And I'm not saying I'm not a fan of movies cause omg I am but reading a good book is sometimes even better because you get to make your own movie in your head :)

x
J.