Germany, Part Four, Faces and Facades

Wow, what a tough time it's been the last few days. First blogger locked me out of this site with a notice telling me that my blog was considered a possible spam site. I almost had a heart attack when I read the notice that they had the right to erase my entire blogging history. Thankfully though somebody did a review and they released the blog back to me.

Friday night we lost power to half of our house, how strange is that? The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that the kitchen still had power so we could make coffee :-)

Today's post is a total mix-up of faces and facades. For my family members reading in Germany, a facade is the "face" of a building.

The opening shot shows the facade of the Parliament building (Rathaus) in Hamburg and the face of my brother Michael.

A totally different facade caught both Michael's and my attention when we visited this delightful looking building only to find out that it housed "Wok In", the Chinese restaurant in Geestacht. Really, with me living in New York and Michael in Southern California we thought we had cornered the market on Chinese restaurants.

The facade of this church was a "must take" photograph because this is the symbol Michael would like to have as a tattoo! Well, only if he got a tattoo...

Another face and facade, a farm house in the small town of Krukow. I wish I could take this photo again without the gray boxes blocking the little boy on his toy tractor.

Michael and Mom against a pretty awesome structure in Hamburg.

Another farm house in Krukow, I totally fell in love with these red tile roofs.

Michael again, yes, in Hamburg...

What's this? Another charming farm house in Krukow. Just look at those ivy geraniums spilling out of the window boxes.

Michael and our cousin Andre'. These two men had met just three days before this photo was taken and I think it was instant karma, they look more like brothers than cousins. My wish for them is that they can spend time together again some day.

Back to Krukow, if memory serves me correctly, this is my aunt and uncle's, neighbor's front door.

Finally, a few messages here. To all you gardeners, don't despair, there is lots of gardening information building up in my head just about ready to bust out of my ears. Here's a sneak peak at one of the upcoming gardens I visited my second week in Germany.

To Edith and Andre', I love getting your comments! If you have a chance, please send me an e-mail using the address on my card. I don't have your e-mail address with me here.

Last but not least, to all of you who have been writing, calling and e-mailing, thanks for the good wishes. Our flight to Germany was a long trip made worse with a 2.5 hour delay here in New York. My mom developed a blood clot in her leg from sitting so long and it's been just the first sign of a number of health issues. Luckily mom is a trooper, and has always been careful with her diet and faithful to her exercise so I just know she'll get this all straightened out.

Back again soon (going to go out to photograph some summer flowering shrubs).

Melanie