Recklinghausen Leuchtet - Recklinghausen lights up

Hello beautiful people!
A few days ago I've been to this really cool event in one of the bigger cities near my hometown and this city is called Recklinghausen. Every year in fall the whole city center is light up for about two or three weeks. The buildings glow in the prettiest colors and there are not just colors but also pictures or little texts on them. I've been to this event at least once a year for about four year now I think and they always create some new art with the lighting. This year I've actually been there two times. One time there was a DJ at the town hall square and the town hall itself was kind of the canvas for an awesome light show. The second time I've been there for the big firework which signed the last day of this years 'Recklinghausen leuchtet'. Ok, so now that you know what this whole event is about I want to show you some of the pictures I took.

Okay, so I know I was actually there for the firework there that day but I'm really bad at taking photos of fireworks so....
Nevertheless I hope you enjoyed this post and maybe I'll see you there next year (if I should be in Germany next year but I won't tell you about my plans now) I'd love to see how what the theme will be next year and how they present it.

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Forcing others to become vegetarians?! - Life as a vegetarian (4)

Hello beautiful people!
A few days ago I saw something that made me think about the way other people see us vegetarians. At a public place I saw this sticker. (I thought I'd find the sticker online, so I didn't take a photo. The problem is, that I didn't find a picture of the sticker, so that I'll try to describe it to you.)
The sticker was devided into two parts. The fist part was a photo of dead pigs and above was written: "If you don't want this." The second part was a simple photo of bacon and there was written: "Don't eat this."

As I saw the picture I was shocked. Why would people stick those pictures onto doors at public places? Or simply anywhere? I do understand, that some vegetarians want to convince other people that this is the right way or at least a much better way. But is this the way we should talk to others about this topic?

Are those shocking photos the right way to convince others?

I personally don't think that this is the right way to talk to others about being a vegetarian. We should try to talk to them about it without saying that we are doing it right and they are wrong with what they are doing. This way they will maybe only feel bad for a moment, but that won't make them quit eating meat and in the worst case the will be mad at us. I mean it's true that this could seem arrogant even though we probably don't want to sound arrogant. Also being vegetarian doesn't make us that much better. There are many things we have to think about if we i.e. Want to produce less CO2 and not eating meat isn't everything.

That's probably the reason others always think they have to explain themselves for eating meat. 

People I know often try to tell me that they don't feel bad for eating meat and our body needs it and basically search for arguments so that I won't say anything against their meat consumption. The thing is that I don't even want to say anything against it. I think this is what some people think we are like though because of stickers like the one I saw or people who talk like this. I always tell others that it doesn't matter to me if they eat meat. If they want to eat animals then they should, but they should also accept that I won't eat any meat. Accepting and respecting each other is one of the most important things and we should never forget that. As long as we keep that in mind it's much easier to talk to people about being a vegetarian or vegan.

I woul love to hear about your opinion in the comments, so don't be shy. Also if you're a vegan or vegetarian, what do you think about convincing others to try the same?

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

I tried out... not blogging for a month

Hello beautiful people,

I don't know if you noticed it but I wasn't blogging for a whole month. At first I have to say that in the beginning I was just not motivated to write and I also knew that I wouldn't have time to write because I had to write many exams this month. But the more I thought about it, the more interesting I found the idea of trying not to blog for a month. So without further ado here's what I experienced in that month.

So as I already said my first thought was that I could concentrate more on my exams and different things, if I didn't have the pressure of uploading a new blog post every week. During the first week everything was fine. I really didn't have any time to write, so that I was happy about my plan.
But this changed really quickly. A bit more into the month I had a little free time and didn't know what to do. My first thought: Oh, I should go and write a blogpost. But wait, I wanted to keep myself from writing for one month. And after only one week I already wanted to write again. I wanted to do something I really love, which is writing.

Since I somehow had to keep myself from writing, I decided to buy some new strings for my guitar, so that when I'm bored I could just play some songs and not think about the blog anymore. I don't know if this was the best idea. With playing the guitar the idea of writing songs came into my head and so I was again writing something and thought about my blog.

A different plan I had was that even though I didn't want to write anything on my blog, I could still change the layout and design. Okay, you can probably tell that this isn't the best idea I've ever had. If you want to keep yourself from something, you should totally commit to it and not just do something that still has something to do with the thing you want to keep yourself from. I don't know if this made any sense to you but maybe you can understand what I mean.

To come to an end I have to say that I had a really hard time trying not to blog anything for a month. And as I'm always honest with you, I have to tell you that I didn't have the ambition to get through this month and the day I'm writing this post is actually a little before the month will be over. In this month I came to realize how much I love blogging and connecting with you beautiful people. But I also have to say that this month had something good. I tried out different thing that could keep my busy so that I don't get too bored. Also I spend less time on my laptop than I normally do and this is something huge for me.

I really hope you enjoyed reading about my experience and that you can forgive me for not uploading any new posts for a whole month. But now that this time is over...

.... I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Pumpkin soup

Hello beautiful people!
Today I thought I'd share one of my most favourite recipes for the fall with you. This recipe and some others I'm gonna share with you are probably one of the reasons I love fall. I'm not a person that loves the cold, but coming home after a walk in the forrest to some lovely smelling soup or dish are some of the happy moments in the year.
This soup is really easy to make and is not only vegetarian but also vegan. I hope you enjoy trying  it out and that you love it as much as I do.

 600g Pumpkin        200g Carrots         1 Onion                 Spice/Broth/Wine

For the Spice/Broth/Wine mix you need: 200 ml White Wine
                                                         300 ml Vegetable Broth
                                                         1/2 tbsp Salt
                                                         1 pinch of Sugar
                                                         Worcestershiresauce
                                                         Nutmeg
                                                         Pepper
                                                            

Besides this you need: 30g Ginger
                                 2 peppers
                                 1 bunch of basil
                                 some butter
                                 pumpkin seeds (optional)

First of all you basically have to cut all the bigger ingredients into smaller cubes. Then you have to lightly sauté the onion, the ginger and the peppers in a bit of butter. Afterwards you add the pumpkin and the carrots into the pan. Next you add the mix of spice, broth and wine and let it cook for about 20 minutes. You can use this little break to roast the pumpkin seeds.

After the 20 minutes you'll need to puree everything, so that it finally becomes a soup. Now it's time for you to taste and add some more spice if you want to. Be creative and make the soup taste as good as it can!

In the end you can decorate your soup with the sliced basil and the roasted pumpkin seeds.
If you want you can have some bread with it, which I personally always really like.


There you have it! A fast and easy recipe for fall. If you try it out make sure to tell me about in the comments or tweet me. I'd love to hear your results.

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx

Global Goals

Hello beautiful people!
A little time ago I found out about a project I want to share with you today. The project is called "The Global Goals" and there are many celebrities supporting it. Through the campaign the 17 global goals shall get more attention by people posting photos or videos about the goals that are most important to them. Most of you probably know that I want to take part in making the world a better place and so I thought that taking part in this project is the perfect chance for me to get my voice out there.
(If you want to find out more about the project you can visit the homepage here)

All of the goals are really important to make this world a better place but if I'd have to choose three goals I'd probably choose number 2,4 and 5. I thought I could just write a little bit about those three goals and share my opinion with all of you. So without further ado, here's what I came up with.

Zero Hunger

Hunger has always been a problem in this world but it can't just go on like this forever. Nobody should die from hunger or have to feel hungry all the time. We can't just use the excuse that there isn't enough food in this world because there definitely is. The reason is that it isn't distributed in a fair way. In some countries people have too much to eat. Their cupboards are full of food and still the supermarkets have to litter tons of food that nobody bought. So while we have tons of food we don't even eat, other people have nothing to eat. I think that we have to change this inequality and give people the chance to have enough food to live a healthy life.

Quality education

A big step to afford everyone to get a good job and to make them understand the inequalities in this world is a quality education. Everyone should have the chance to go to school and learn how to write or read. There are still about 780 million analphabets in the world and we can't just accept that. Just imagine that you wouldn't have the chance to go to school or college. Imagine that you didn't know hoe to write, read or solve the easiest problems in maths. What would you do? How would you try to earsn money and live your life? The thing is that those people don't really have a chance.
No education = No (well-paid) job
If those people don't have any education at all then they can't do anything about their situation. They can't do much to stop hunger or do something about any other inequalities. We have to change this and give everyone the chance to go to school, so that they can learn how to better their situation theirselves. This is also requirement to make the other goals sustainable.

Gender equality

Gender equality is not just a problem in developing countries but a problem you can still find in every country. It shows in the differing wages or in domestic violence. There are still so many prejudices against women. Some say we aren't as smart, powerful or strong as men. But let's be real, haven't we proved that we can be just as good as men over the past few centuries? Men and women should be treated equally. Maybe it's true that there are differences between men and women but there are also differences between one man and another man, so what's the point in treating people differently? The human rights say that everyone's the same and I totally agree to that. Nobody should be treated differently and we should try our best to treat people the best way possible.


This project is very important to me and there are still a few days left for you to share the goals most important to you and get ather people to think about those.
Please let me know which goals are most important to you and share this project to make those goals more popular.

I really hope that this makes you think about the situation of the world these days. Even if I can get only one person to think because off this post it's enough. The more people think about it, the more they discuss it with others and this way we can all do something to change this world.

I will talk to you soon,

Norina xx