Heiko Mülfarth Photography

And there I was thinking I'd gotten my evening nicely planned. A little innocent art theft followed by hot cocoa and steamy chick-lit.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi and Heiko - Part 584

It looks like the next heat wave is beginning with temperatures around 30 degrees right now that are expected to reach 35 by the middle of the week. It has just been two weeks since the last heat wave ended and left a lot of people really exhausted.

Once again we will be looking for colder spots and try to refresher ourselves as much as possible. This week we show you one example that we might have shown you before. If it doesn’t heat up too much a fountain is a great possibility to put your feet in and refresh a bit.

The first picture from Munich shows a fountain that you might sit at and just put your feet in or put your hands under the flowing water. The second picture shows a fountain in Cologne kids can play in. But also a lot of adults walk through it to freshen up. From my own experience, that water is usually cold and refreshing. Plus, there is a cafe nearby you can get cold drinks from.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi and Heiko - Part 582

Last week Stephi showed us the emptying rivers of our cities. That mostly means it’s hot and we are hopefully by the end of a more than week long heat wave with temperatures up to 40 degrees.

I haven’t followed the temperatures in Munich but Stephi told me about the brutality of the heat. And looking at today’s forecast, it says up to 36 degrees Celsius. The first picture from Munich shows the consequences when grass and trees get no water.

Cologne had up to 40 degrees and that has been building up for more than a week. The flat is up to 30 degrees and everyone is hoping for the heat to fade away. Everybody tries to cool down, goes to a swimming pool if possible, gets an ice cream or whatever helps.

With the second picture I show you an alternative that is actually meant for regeneration, after an injury and whatnot. It’s a cold chamber that cools down to minus 85 degrees and you sit in the there for three minutes. I haven’t followed no idea if it works but it sounds not too bad at the moment.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi & Heiko - Part 580

After ten years we still have untold tales. And I am pretty sure we didn’t have this week’s topic before. Obviously we are not talking about the World Cup. This week is more or less a children’s topic as we are talking about teddy bears. Yet, it’s a topic for grown ups after all.

The pictures show repair shop for teddy bears and these shops are usually for older models that people my age and older used to have. Today’s stuffed animals or plushies are usually super cheap very low quality. You get them for small money and when they are done with you put them in the trash.

Older teddy bears are usually of higher quality and not from mass production. They have some value and even it’s just sentimental value. They are worth something and often worth fixing. To get them fixed properly you actually do need specialists. These shops are absolutely rare.

Steph I put the first picture in our Dropbox maybe two to three years ago. I haven’t found a matching shop until about a couple of weeks ago when I went through a part the city I am rarely in. That shop you can see in the second picture.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi and Heiko – Part 578

It’s almost summer and time for some vacation, road trips or city trips. Hence, we are not reporting from Munich or Cologne today but will introduce you to two other fine cities form Germany, namely Heidelberg and Göttingen.

Stephi visited Heidelberg las week, which is where the first picture was taken. The river you see is the Neckar and the building to the right is the Palace of Heidelberg built during the Renaissance. According to Stephi, Heidelberg is a beautiful city in which she fell a little bit in love with. When I think about Heidelberg, I mostly think about the 60ies song by Peggy March “Memories of Heidelberg”.

The second picture shows you university of Göttingen, for which the city is known for and which you can see in the second picture. I visited the city twice, once about 15 years ago and the other time maybe seven years ago. Both were short stops on road trips, and I just saw the university and a little bit of the inner city.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi and Heiko - Part 576

Last Sunday it was Mother’s Day and it is rather a coincidence that Father’s Day was last Thursday. In Germany it is on the same day as Ascension of Christ, a religious holiday.

While Mother’s Day is more or less a holiday for the industry, especially flower shops, Father’s Day has some kind of weird tradition, when you think about it. When I was young, there have been gatherings of fathers, who simply met to have as much alcohol as possible. That was a time when fathers still did what they wanted to do while their wives took care of work at home. As if they needed another excuse to go out drinking.

Some people still live in that fantasy bubble and I even saw some of them on Thursday. Nowadays and in the past, fathers took a pull wagon, loaded it up with beer and went on a walk. It most often ended at a pub or a home of the fathers where they had a barbecue and more beer. It was basically all about drinking.

You can see some of them fathers in the second picture from Cologne. The first picture from Stephi simply shows one bootleg beer that can be found on one of these pull wagons all over Germany. (I am wondering why Stephi has that kind of beer at home.)

I spend Father’s Day with my family, went on a walk without a beer and had a great meal, with beer.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi and Heiko - Part 574

We are now entering a phase where we will present you post with seasonal content. This week will start with the beginning of May, that sees several customs in Germany. Politically May 1st is a worker’s day with protests for worker and social rights. But there are also a lot of festivities around the beginning of May.

Today we will show you maypoles that are put up in villages and cities. Most often there are May societies with long traditions. These put up quite different maypoles as you can see in the pictures.

The first shows a maypole from Munich that is actually a real pole. The second picture shows a maypole from Cologne that consists of a birch branch colorful ribbons. (To be honest, that is a rather poor tree we put up at work. Usually they are much bigger when May society puts one up.)

At least in Cologne you also see a lot of birch branches with ribbons and hearts with names put upon them at the houses. These are put up by the men for their loved ones. That is a tradition for a very long time. By looking at the names this year, it looks like young women have rather strange names. Or the boys only know the ticktock of their “loved ones”.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi & Heiko - Part 572

I am at a point in our series where I have no idea what we have posted or what we haven’t. I am aware that we are repetitive when it comes to the seasons, stuff like carnival, Christmas and stuff. But now I am no longer sure what other topics we wrote about.

For example, I took a picture of a skate park a couple of weeks ago, put it into our Dropbox folder and was happy to find something new. Then, for some reason, I checked what we posted over the last couple of months. And yes, about two years ago we posted about skate parks and I put in the exact same half pipe.

This week, I am at a similar dilemma. I looked into our Dropbox folder and found a picture of a painted junction box/ electricity box/ power box (there are so many nice words for those usually ugly boxes) and I remembered that I have a nice picture of a power box as well. Then I thought about it and I am sure that we posted the exact same pictures in the past.

But since it is Saturday evening (I am writing right now) and have to work on Sunday, I will posted the pictures anyway.

The first picture shows a painted power box from Munich with faces, while the second picture shows a power box from Cologne, painted with the logo of a local beer.

The Tale of Two Cities according to Stephi and Heiko - Part 570

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are having a good time, if you celebrate or not. One upon a time Eastern was about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But in a secular world, a lot of people have no idea what Easter is actually about. Maybe they read in the news about the pope doing “urbi et orbi”, but that might only be the case in a Christian society. For Christians it is still the biggest holiday of the year.

Our pictures are also not about the Christ Ian aspect of the holiday but rather about what it has become. I grew up in a Christian community but also lived with the secular customs.

One custom was coloring eggs, I always did with my mom. The first picture from Stephi shows an Easter basket with colored eggs. The eggs, sweets and maybe even presents were hidden in the garden and the kids had to search for them. That was always fun and it’s still a tradition where I live.

The second picture shows the commercial aspect of Easter with huge decorative bunnies surrounded by all kinds of chocolaty sweets. Of course you will also find lots of these chocolate bunnies, just smaller. The prices of these bunnies and chocolates have risen significantly in the last two years. Three years ago you got at least two bunnies for the price you pay for one today.