Steffen

On our balcony we can regularly observe little birds – turns out they are house finches. The male species have nicely colored red heads. Previously I saw them sitting on the railing hopping around and then taking off again. This time I was observing them from a different angle, and I noticed that they are […]

Most recently we visited our granddaughter – she is now two and a half months old. It is an ongoing wonder to see her grow in between our visits. This time our daughter put her on her belly, and we got to see how she can prop up and already hold up her head.  She

One never thinks about the fluidity of movements during the execution of daily chores and activities – like making breakfast or taking a shower. Due to an unforeseen injury, I find myself on crutches these days. They have been sitting in the closet for a long time after a previous injury. Reviving the basic motor

We have given up on the daily newspapers in true paper form quite a while ago. Now we read online versions, and we are getting better to adopt the screening, leafing through and browsing approach to the new media – mostly via scrolling combined with headline reading. So, it came as a surprise to us

Traditionally we have not been frequent visitors to Spas and Saunas. On a trip last year, we used a rainy day to check one out – in Kochel am See in Bavaria Germany. Since we enjoyed it, we took advantage of the presence of a wellness area in our hotel in Austria on our most

What would be the draw for children to visit the Mozart Museum? Would their interest be sparked by their first music lessons in school with reference to the little boy playing so proficiently and making playing music his career eventually? Or would they be more nudged into the museum by ambitious parents to awaken their

We were standing in front of Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg. To take a full-size picture, you must move away from the building into a courtyard. Far enough away I took my picture but noticed a sign on the front of a building lining the courtyard in its far back corner. Every American can recognize this

On a day trip to Salzburg, we bought tickets for a tour of the dome church which included a 30-minute concert on the organ of the dome. It turned out that the dome church does not just have one organ but a total of five – built a different time reflecting the way music was

Common wisdom and beyond that very much my personal experience guides me to be measured in judgement and commentary and to seek understanding of the situation and circumstances. And even then, start out with questions rather than with statements. Today was a reminder to stick to that approach. During our stay at Jackson Hole, we

In the tail winds of the visit by the new US secretary of state to El Salvador its president offered the United State to take in criminals – both out of the cohort of illegal immigrants as well as regular Americans for the purpose of hosting them in prisons in El Salvador for a fee.