Small-Scale Hedonism

Having to live on a low budget sometimes is a very tedious affair. You start to envy those folks who don't seem to work hard (or at all) and have money to burn. But here's a little bit of wisdom I read in Teresa de la Parra's excellent novel "Iphigenia: Diary of a Young Lady Who Wrote Because She was Bored".

The theory is, that very rich people don't actually enjoy the expensive things they have, the good food and the hip interiors and all that - because they can have it all the time, and it seems normal, boring. They can't be excited by anything, because they have seen and had it all. And the worst part is, that they don't even realize that they suffer from boredom, the finest food and drinks may be flavorless to them but they hardly notice.
Think about it - your appartment right now might not seem very impressive to you, but even if there's nothing fancy about it, millions of people around the world would consider it pure luxury.

So here's my trick to get rid of those pointless pangs of jealousy of richer people:
Don't waste money on expensive luxuries or status symbols that don't mean anything to you personally. Why imitate vain people who don't even have enough of a taste of their own to get dressed without a stylist? Spend your money wisely, that is, on things that you really enjoy. Make a point of appreciating what you have. Share it with your friends.

Applying the above to the real world sometimes is hard. But I really believe that the key to being a happy budget hedonista is following your own style (because you cannot allow yourself to waste money on copying somebody else's and wouldn't be happy with it anyways) and really appreciating the glorious things that already surround you.

Lazing on a Monday Afternoon

That's hedonism, baby. Yeah.

Last week, myself and the lion had a little time on our hands before we were supposed to catch a ride that would take us from Berlin to Frankfurt. We indulged in donuts and huge coffees for breakfast and figured that three hours would be enough to visit the famous Berlin Zoo. Now visiting the zoo is a thing that families, tourists and tourist families do. But who said that locals aren't allow to enjoy the beautiful park and the amazing animals? :)

At the cash box I realized that I forgot the coupons that we got when we went on top of the TV tower. I pointed that out to the very friendly lady at the cash desk and - lo and behold - she actually believed me and gave us the discounts anyways! Yay!
By the way, I read this article on Creepy Queen Mag yesterday, and I agree: there's no shame in coupons! They saved us 6 bucks, you can translate that to "free breakfast". Yay again!

The animals at the zoo seemed to be putting on a real show just for us, it was incredible! The elephants were bathing and playing, the nandus displayed their plumes, the brown bears stood up on their hind legs for the camera. We found out that the Canadian wolves have a doggy door to the bears' enclosure so that they could go over, but the bears couldn't get into the wolves' bawn. The penguins came close enough to pet them ( We didn't though. It seemed wrong to just go and touch a wild animal. They have some mean beaks, too. )

But all of that couldn't stop me from nagging my boyfriend to go and see the lions. To see them passed out like this was pure glee to me :)


Technically, we could have just reached out and stroked that soft, fluffy fur on the lion's belly. But the thought of teeth and claws made us think twice... and in the end, the sign that read "Warning! Lion may pee through the grate at visitors!" made us change our minds. You really don't want lion pee on you when you're about to get in a car with well-meaning strangers for the next five hours. Then again, you probably don't EVER want lion pee on you. Excuse my ickyness :)

In the end, three hours weren't near enough to see all of the beautiful zoo. We resolved to go and see the zoo of every city that we travel to. I'm just afraid that in other zoos, the animals will have smaller enclosures and I won't feel anything but pity for them. I hope to prove myself wrong ...

And when was the last time you went to a zoo? :)

Budget Glam - The Frog Edition

The other day, I found this incredible brooch in a shop window:

Oh my... How could I not fall in love with this super-ugly, white-painted, glitter-adorned, over-priced pug?! But obviously, I can't just go and spend so much money on a brooch that I might wear once or twice and then hide in my jewel box. So I decided that what these kids at the store can do, I can do, too. And I went shopping for a plastic pug.
But, I was bewildered to find out, the plastic miniature pugs at my local toystore were sold out! A little confused (who on earth buys plastic miniature pugs ?!) I settled for a plastic frog. In the same store I purchased gold and red paint, a little brush and a bag of pins.

And the rest was rather easy! First I painted the belly of the frog and let it dry. Then I applied two thin layers of colour on the upper side of my frog, making sure I don't smear over the structure of the frog's skin. It didn't even take very long to dry. I had to bend the pin a little bit so it would sit flat on the frog's little tummy. I used my gem glue to attach the pin. That glue survived just about everything so far, pulling and tossing the brooch, just not the washing mashine. But heck, I just glued the pin on the frog again and that was it.
I wear my little frog as often as I can and already bought more brooch-material.

The turtle will be sparkly and decadent when I'm done with it. For the crayfish I have to go and buy silver paint. Oh yes, I'm serious. The sealion is not going to become a brooch, it's too heavy and bulky. And that weird green shape at the bottom of the picture is a seahorse... I already got started on painting it gold, but will add some serious glam with gems :)

Now, regarding the budget...

Original Pug Brooch : 85 €

Plastic frog : 1,80 €
Gold paint (enough for 20 brooches!) : 2,59 €
Brush : 1,50 €
Pin: 0,25 €

Total : 6,14 €

And I get to use the paint and the brush again, of course. The sea animals I got even cheaper than the frog, they were 75 c each!
Getting a little creative about things like acessories is easy and saves money, and you have the priceless feeling of wearing something unique. Who knows, you might even start a mini-trend and be THE local fashionista all of a sudden :)

What Matters Most ...

... at a festival: the concerts and the party of course! :)

That's the Hangar Stage. The name sort of makes sense, as it used to be an actual hangar on a soviet aerodrome and there were hangars all over the place, all decorated and rebuilt as stages or dancefloors. Some of my favourite decorations :
Part of "Neuland", a random clearing in the trees that surrounded the camping area, which had been decorated to the max to look like a weird scene from "Pirates of the Caribbean Abducted Alice from Wonderland". I swear I saw the Mad Hatter too. They also had a glitter stand there, where you could get your face all glittered up and decide afterwards how much you like it and how much you want to pay.Some random decoration and the Willow Dome, an area for jazz concerts, hanging out in the relative peace and quiet and the massage tents. Yes, you heard me. Massage stands! Halleluja! Of course I was lucky enough to have my own masseur (the lion) but I loved the stands anyway.
Moonwalk to Mekka! Obviously myself and the lion had to go and watch this!!! So many people showed up, about 200 (!) did the actual Moonwalk around the Tower Stage, and hundreds more watched it and cheered! The vibes were incredible, but I have no pictures to show for it. Damn.
The organizers of the festival encouraged spontaneous outbursts of creativity, so we ran into these two amazing musicians who took "drum&base" very literally. We also saw a group of 12 incredibly talented drummers (more than half of which were girls, by the way) and they really got a big crowd dancing and partying on the spur of the moment. I was impressed! :)

So in the end, we walked from stage to stage, staying whereever we liked, enjoying the all-vegetarian catering and the diverse styles of music, talked to friendly strangers and danced our tushies off :)

Sunday morning came way too soon. I look half dead here, but that's a good thing because it means I had a blast before :)
Now I can't wait to go to Fusion next year and I'll make sure to pack a bunch of friends! Camping is even more fun if you have your buddies there with you!

Sports and Recreation at Fusion Festival

I love trying out new things. Really. And at Fusion Festival I had the great opportunity to try lots of fun new sports and artistry, like climbing up those long red cloth things (I'd appreciate if anybody could tell me what they are really called :) ). It was supposed to look something like this:

I tried. I really did. But it's a LOT harder than the instructor made it look. I managed to get one knot right, and that was about it. It was fun though and I'd give it another shot anytime!
Apart from that, my boyfriend showed me how to juggle, I molested just about everybody with pois because I forgot to bring my own, I tried out slack-rope walking which is SO hard to do when you get started, that I got a little frustrated and so much more. And then I found my new obsession, fairywings. They work just like pois, but look even better. I spent about an hour at the stand, trying out the small and the HUGE ones. The big fairywings were a little more complicated to handle because they get tangled easily but I had the time of my life. Oh, and I realize that I look rather grumpy and clumsy on the picture and that's exactly why I'm not so happy with most candid shots of me :)

These are the small fairywings, by the way. I want the big ones, that you can see in the background here. So as soon as I got back from the festival, I did some research and figured that 40+ euros are not in the Budget for silly toys. Of course I'm not going to give up that easily - I'll make my own fairywings, with fabric that I bought for some other project that I never finished (shame on me...). They will be very hippie, very girly and hopefully a lot of fun. Can't wait to get started, really :)

Of course I didn't play and juggle all through the festival (although I wouldn't have minded that so much). The most important thing was the music, obviously, and the party and the great crowd. I'll tell you all about that later today, including the reason why I don't get to add any candy to the Cash Jar this month.

Have a great day :)

A Little Planning Goes a Long Way

I am probably not the right person to preach about how "planning things" will reduce stress, save money and all the rest of it. It's true though, and before the Fusion Festival (June, 25 to 29) I put my planning skills to the test. With only a week to go and still no tickets, no tent and no clue as to where exactly the festival is, I thought I was facing quite a challenge.

First, I got myself and my boyfriend tickets for a bus that would take us to the festival. A lot of luck was involved, because the original tickets had been sold out or reserved but I managed to get my paws on two that hadn't been paid for yet. However, I paid a little more than necessary because I got my tickets so late, which annoyed me a lot. Planning could have easily saved me 20€ and a lot of phone calls there. Next year, I'll learn from my mistake and book the damn ticket early. The same happened with the actual festival ticket. Booking it early could have saved me and the lion 20 bucks each. That might not seem like a lot of money - but it's 8 beers at the festival and we were pretty broke to begin with :)

But as we got on the bus friday morning, we regretted nothing. The people were very sweet and excitement about the upcoming weekend was in the air. The lion and I had a few lukewarm beers, chatting away happily with the others or (in my case) dozing off as I watched the tiny villages go by. When we arrived there was a massive queue of cars waiting, but the bus simply went past them and we could enter the festival without a second of waiting or standing in line. I absolutely recommend taking a bus to festivals, because it's comfy and air-conditioned, you get to meet other festival-goers, police is less likely to stop you (it's a hassle, even if you have nothing illegal on you!) and you get to enter the festival without waiting around as you still carry your heavy festival gear.

Speaking of festival gear: I was so lucky that my parents still had a tent and sleeping bags. Before buying new stuff, ask your friends and family if they can help you out. They might even be glad to get rid of that old stuff that's been taking up space in the cellar/attic :)
Here's our glorious tent that we actually set up in no time at all (I was very proud of us, yay :) )It was packed when we arrived, as you can see ... we hardly found a place to camp!
More stories of the fantastic Fusion Festival coming up later, now it's time to go back to the real world :)

It's been a while...

... but now I finally have enough time to tell you all the new little stories. Let's start where we left off, the theatre.
I absolutely loved the performance, and I was very impressed by the actors. "Waiting for Godot" is so very abstract that it seems almost impossible to empathize with the characters, while at the same time they are, of course, very human and you might even recognzie yourself to a certain point. The four (and a half) actors however made the performance look almost easy, and you may call me biased just because my boyfriend was up there on stage too :) but I hardly remembered I was in an amateur theatre at all.
The lovely interior probably helped, it didn't have the vaguely dull off-theatre-feeling to it that I've seen in Berlin.I'll admit it was small, but that made the after-show-party all the more comfy and fun. As I was being introduced to everybody it dawned on me that people were actually looking forward to meeting me beause they'd all heard of me from my boyfriend. I felt like such a VIP, even though this whole party was not about me, obvously, but the cast and director of "Godot" :)
We left rather early, around 1:30 a.m., after the champagne, wodka sour and the delicious buffet had been depleted. I only broke two or three glasses during the entire night and got a handful of very sweet compliments for my emerald green pumps. I think I can call that a success :)

So, what now?
Do you remember the last time that a friend (or family member etc) performed anything on a stage? I'm sure everybody knows somebody who is in a band, a amateur theatre group, does fire shows, catwalks or something else on a stage. So why don't you just go and cheer them on? I'm absolutely sure your friend is going to appreciate the support - and you probably get in for free, reserved seats waiting for you. How VIP is that ? :)

Have a great week-end, everybody !