One TV commentator called the German soccer team the “bright young things.” I agree with him – that game today against Australia was action packed and pure delight.

Congratulations for a well-deserved 4:0. Now keep it up, will you, please?

The opening game (South Africa v. Mexico) for the FIFA World Cup was reason enough to have breakfast at the Vinoteca. Never mind that it was 6.55 AM – there were plenty of guests who did not mind to crawl out of bed early for this event.

And it was all worth it: Good game, lovely atmosphere, tasty breakfast. Not bad for a Friday morning.

Oh, and the two teams tied 1:1.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

This is a Riley Elf MK III, a variation of the Mini. These cars were only build for four years (1965 – 1969), the total output was 30.000 cars and today only 800 are believed to be still around.

And one of them lives right here in the neighborhood. Fantastic!

This is just one of the companies in California converting Diesel cars to vegetable oil burning ones.

If I were not so much in favor of smaller cars, I’d get one of those.Have a cup of coffee and a sniff of bacon while driving – now that’s a thought for breakfast.

I bet that the driver of this car is female and was pretty excited when Daddy presented her with the car.

Somehow I do not see males declaring their affection for the sponsor of the vehicle they drive on their license plates.

But then again,  I might be wrong.

Fiat started building the Fiat 500 in 1957 and continued this model until 1975. Minor modifications were made, but basically the Fiat 500 stayed what it was planned to be: a cheap, tiny car with a 2-cylinder air-cooled motor with a maximum speed of about 70 miles per hours. In short – and that can be taken literally with a length of less than 3 meter (116.9 in) – it was the perfect city car.

And not only that, people traveled in these little cars. Not the distances one is used from the US, but I remember that an aunt of mine came up to the North of Germany from near Munich with one of these tiny little things; and that would have been a distance of roughly 500 miles.

So imagine my delight when I saw this cutie today in front of a Trader Joe’s:

Somehow it gave the expression “mint condition” a totally new meaning; and reminded me of those days of my youth when a Fiat 500 was not a rare exotic vehicle, but an everyday car you saw at every corner.

Ouch. Yes. That is indeed a nasty habit: to arrive on time, when one is invited for a sit-down dinner somebody has probably spent a lot of time planning and cooking for. Those Germans. How dare they!

There are cultural differences in the degrees of politeness. In my opinion somebody arriving 20, 30 (or even more) minutes late when the invitation was explicitly for dinner would be extremely impolite. That same person would probably consider me a rude German, because I would then usher all guests immediately to the table, before the food is overcooked/cold/tough; you name it.

And then I stopped my musings. All our friends know that I am German. They all turn up punctually for dinner invitations. They all must either know how Germans cherish punctuality – or they are simply afraid of my wrath.

In any case, I wave my orchid of peace like an olive branch (after all, it is nearly Easter) and vow not to slip into prejudices about Americans and punctuality.

Winter brings something else: clouds. The usually picture postcard blue sky takes on a new life; one can see changing panoramas, from delightfully fluffy white clouds to massive towers of billowing clouds in all hues of grey.

This is my cloud/winter picture of the day, complete with palm trees and a facade thrown in, because the composition looked so nice:

Could I resist? No.

This has to be my new favorite.