ghost of nature.

we visited sondershausen castle at the beginning of my november vacations, and it was seriously one of the most beautiful castles i've visited yet. i say that a lot of times. but this castle is really a gem. i especially loved the museum ( about its history and also about several other topics ) and the architecture everywhere. stucco ceilings with mythological figurines? yes! another plus was the ' hofküche ' - they served excellent pie and cocoa / coffee! the weather on that day wasn't stellar at all so the time we spent in the castle was spent wisely. we also had very nice guides explaining the castle with funny details and great knowledge! one of the many hallways. this corridor led to the stucco arch i mentioned above. and here is a part of the stucco ceiling. unicorns! it was really amazing astonishing. this must've been a lot of work when it was created. and definitely still is - seeing that the stucco need constant refreshment from time to t...

i had a week off at the end of november - so heading to my homeland thuringia was on the plan. little did i know that this week would contain heartbreak, loss & nostalgia. my grandmother called us midweek to tell us that my cousin died, we couldn't enjoy our vacations any longer. the rest of the week was spent with visiting family, to give sympathy to all that were effected directly by the death of my cousin. i kind of felt lost and out of place most of the time, it did touch me, but it also made me feel hollow inside. it was a strange week - full of nostalgia, sadness, solidarity & the occasional beautiful moment - in a time were you feel disconnected this can be something that keeps your spirits up a bit. the garden i grew up with. my mother and me visited weimar ( to visit my gynecologist ) - and we made a short walk through ilm-park. we discovered a russian war cemetery - relict of word war II & gdr history. there were squirrels everywhere, ...

in november my schlumbergeras started to develop at least 30 buds each and little things like these always get me excited. i love when my plants start blooming. on that very day i needed to get out of the house badly, the walls around me were too tight. and what better thing to do than to drive up into the mountains to get some perspective. i walked a short excursion around kelkheim-ruppertshain . baby buds! it was really cold up there, but unfortunately, no snow in sight. a few horses eked out in a lonely existence. orchard meadows. the sun made a small appearance. autumnal pathways. i tried out another effect on my camera - really emo looking. little mushrooms!

so november rolled around quickly and brought unpleasant & heartbreaking happenings with it. when i made my walk through the vineyards around johannisberg castle at the beginning of november things were still in some kind of neat order. a few weeks later my little world was unsettled by death. a cousin of mine died of cancer after 4 years battleing it. i had a hard time realizing i wouldn't meet him again, ever. i still get teary-eyed when i think about the month of november and of him and his family. i think our family grew a little bit closer after his death - isn't it strange that people huddle together as soon as someone leaves our world - when in other times you rarely see each other? it makes me sad that i am so far away from my family - the distance kind of numbs me sometimes, and it's not what i want to feel, this numbness, i want to actually feel the pain and ache that comes along with a loss. but sometimes all that is left when bad things happen around me is ...