Christmas holidays

Now that holidays are over and everything settled down again I found some time to report back. It was relaxing on Christmas and New Year's Eve as this time we weren't bound to go anyway but instead got visitors. My girlfriend's parents decided to stay in Germany for some days so we had an interesting mix of Spanish and German style celebrations, without hurries or obligations and quite the only (European) inhabitants of the dorms around this time of the year.

On Christmas Eve we lighted some kind of brush-wood flares as it's supposed to be customs in Jijona.

We were quite lucky because it snowed from the 25th on.

We've reserved a table in the traditional room of Stuttgart's finest Japanese restaurant for a change - we've had enough of raclette sweets and pizza.

Last but not least we've had a great time on New Year's Eve, not only because we bought a whole bunch of fireworks but mostly because it started snowing heavily just around 11:45pm. So while we watched the fireworks and fired off our own, everything - including ourselves - got covered in snow.

During the celebrations I also spent some time in the workshop to get my PC water cooling system solution to work. As there were some complications and thus it ain't complete yet, I'll rant about it another time.

Trip to St. Blasien

Having grown up in an area doesn't necessarily make you have seen it all. After spending the first 20 years of my life in the southern region of the Black Forest I moved to Stuttgart and just happened to have come back today to visit my parents. More out of necessity but out of interest we drove to a remote town in the black forest, called St. Blasien which I regret not having seen earlier.

St. Blaise's Abbey

The St. Blaise's Abbey is, of course, absolutely worth seeing (which doesn't mean that the rest of the town should be left out). It's a pity though that I couldn't hear the organ playing, the acoustics must be awesome. Perhaps another time.