2014 – Quite exciting year with a lot of new experiences. Thanks to all old and new friends who supported me during this very interesting, sometimes stressful, but never boring year!

I’d like to close this year with one of the first pictures of this year 2014, taken during the first minutes of January 1st 2014. (no Photoshop, real picture!) I think I’ll call 2014 the „Year of the Dragon“ or „Year of the Lion“
And I’d like to announce now a new project: I just signed the contract today, team WomenInCharge will participate in the „Around the world in 80 days“ tour with 100% electric vehicles in summer 2016 (yes, 2016, as some advance planning will be necessary during 2015). Nathalie Kayser and I plan to be the first women to travel around the world with an all-electric vehicle. We’ll be part of the „80edays“ organized by Carrera Electrica Rafael de Mestre.

Winter holidays = time to read. Crime story from Iceland – thrilling story in some sort of Agatha Christie style. And now „The Circle“ a novel by Dave Eggers who inspired me with his 826 Valencia „Pirate Supply Shop“ to start my @LittleShopOfScience This book is some food for thought about how much and what we’d like to share online (did not finish The Circle yet, but the first 130 pages are very good!)

Weiterhin noch schöne Ferientage! Happy holidays/weekend!

Merry Christmas – Fröhliche Weihnachten!

24th Dec and end of my Eco-Adventskalender suggestions: I wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Preferrably eco-friendly …

In our case with a local Christmas tree from Freising, bought at Odeonsplatz – the person who’s selling them is also the farmer who grows them! He’s in the business for 40 years – and we transported the tree to our home in our Nihola cargo bike. Bee wax candles (to avoid paraffin wax), glass „Weihnachtskugeln“ which are reused every year, glass/crystal, straw stars, a few wooden things. Below the presents – all wrapped in re-usable Christmas paper bags (which we got and collected over the past years) and some items are wrapped in fabrics or self-made bags made out of fabrics. We managed to down-size the number of presents in the past years and keep it now stable. Not an easy task nowadays…. (The Story of Stuff ...). The tree will stay in our room until Jan 6th, and afterwards everything will be stored for next year We will cut the tree then and use it as protective layer for our flowers on our balconies. Re-use … and then it’ll end up in the brown Biomülltonne after March/April to be processed as „Münchner Blumenerde“ re-cyle …

PS: A few days are missing in my „Eco Adventskalender“ due to „no-time-for-FB“, but I’ll finish the calender.

Beautiful, but at the same time a very bad overview about the light pollution on our planet. Not good for nature and us humans – and an incredible waste of energy to illuminate the sky. Don’t we have better things to do with all that electricity? 🙂 ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nShmgRiAKFU

ISS Timelapse – From England To Egypt Moonlighted (12 Dicembre 2014)
© All images are courtesy of http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/

15th of December: My „Eco Adventskalender“ suggestion for today: Whenever you buy items made out of paper, try to buy only items made out of 100% recycling paper.
Picture taken at „Fünf Höfe“ in Munich. For all who are concernced about money: I guess, 59 Cents for a DIN A4 „Schulheft“ is quite affordable (please do not ask me why several shops sell those made out of new paper for less money – I will never understand that!).And they sell nice „Schulblöcke (liniert/kariert)“ for 1,29 EUR. Color is almost white and it’s also suitable for fountain pens, no problem with the ink.
Another example for good use of recycling-paper is toilet paper: no need to have new, super-white paper there.

14th of Dec: My „Eco Adventskalender“ suggestion for today: Separate your waste, in particular paper and make sure to fill the bin correctly! Only put clean paper into the paper bins (in Munich blue paper bin).
Tetrapak is not paper, but consists of layers of paper, plastics, aluminium and must not be put into the paper bin (needs to go into bins for plastic). And of course, waste (like on this picture) must never be put into the paper bin. Waste can make the paper unsuitable for recycling. Depending on the amount of trash in the paper bin, they may also charge the normal fee for regular waste and pick it up with the other truck. This would be a pity, because paper can be recycled – which means that less trees need to be cut and recycled paper means also less energy and water consumption to produce new items.
PS: In Munich, you can also download the so-called „Trennliste“ in German and several other languages and stick it on the bins.

7th of Dec: my „eco Adventskalender“ suggestion for today: Use your power as citizen and take part in political decisions. Look up where and how you can participate locally, in your town, in your state, in your country. For certain topics, it simply may not be enough or may take too long to wait for individuals to change their habits. Dangerous substances will affect all people and will affect society, e.g. environment, health, financial matters. For a lot of things we do ( or do not do) today our kids and future generations will have to pay the bill ….

6th of Dec: My „eco Adventskalender“ suggestion for today: Try to buy „Mehrwegflaschen“ whenever possible. Best made out of glass, second best option reusable plastic-deposit bottles. Single-use deposit plastic bottles aren’t as good, as they need to be recycled – and as you can see on the picture, those bottles are collected in ….single-use plastic bags! (BTW: Do we know where the recycling of single-use plastic takes places? In Germany? In the EU? Or in Asia?) While the real Mehrwegflaschen are collected in a metal container and then put back into the reusable boxes for bottles. They will be cleaned and refilled. Reusable bottles can be reused around 60 times!

Reuse is always better than recycling! Apart from that, usually the Mehrwegflaschen come from a more regional area around where you live which helps to save energy for the transport.

Auch an diesem Samstag , 7.12.2013, vor dem 2. Advent ist wieder eine Weihnachtswerkstatt bei uns: dieses Mal bieten wir eine Kreativwerkstatt mit Experimenten und Basteleien bei uns für alle Kinder bis 10 Jahren. Während die Eltern die Adventsvorbereitungen oder Weihnachtseinkäufe erledigen, haben die Kinder bei uns die Gelegenheit, zu basteln und zu experimentieren, z.B. mit Bienenwachs. Da nachgefragt wurde: Es können gern auch Kinder (und ggf. Eltern) mitmachen, die erst vor kurzem nach München gezogen sind. Die Kreativwerkstatt ist auch für Kinder geeignet, die Deutsch lernen bzw. ihre vorhandenen Kenntnisse nutzen wollen. Kleine Kinder (unter 4 Jahren) dürfen gern mit ihren Eltern teilnehmen. Anmeldungen noch möglich unter kontakt@little-shop-of-science.de

http://www.little-shop-of-science.de/event/weihnachtswerkstatt-experimente-und-basteln/