hello strangers! Yes it has been forever and a day since my last post. I would love to tell you that I was too busy with my business and it is partially true, just not the way I had hoped.

now I am writing because I need to get this off my chest: Life is not fair- where is the justice?!

Back when this adventure of my own business started, I must confess,  I was very starry-eyed. Sure that with my business background and my design degree it would be an easy ride. Well not easy, but never would I have ever thought I would stumble at every corner. And even now, I am faced with consquences that cost me money, time and sanity.

Back when this business started I was sure of my success. So much so, that my main worry was, what I would have to do to not get on the bad side of the fiscal institution.  And honestly, this was probably the first mistake: thinking that the tax office would be my biggest issue (don't get me wrong, it is a big issue for me - later more).
Based on my stupid assumption that I would easily sell shirts worth 10-15k using this to invest in the production of my dresses, I registered a trade. And I had read a lot about starting a business, but somehow I missed the relevant bits! And that is not saying that the universe is being cruel, it is me being a stupid moron.
I was advised that with a business registration I would get a lot of letters from fake business telling me I have to pay for registrations and so on and so forth. So when I got a letter from the "trade association" I was sure this was such spam. Still I read the letter and from the information in there I was certain, this was not applicable to me. I then got a membership package from them. Can you imagine! My first thought: Wow, they are very persistant scam-artists! the cheek to pretend I had returned to memership application! However, I asked the post to return the docs to sender and they put a stamp on it "recipient refused letter" thinking that they would take the hint. Then I got a magzine upon which I mailed them that I want them to stop spamming me as this must be against the law for sure.
By the time I had already given up on my business, I received the first invoice for a membership payment! How dare they! I was angry and again mailed to them stating that I had not entered any memebership and as such I detest the invoice.
Haver I ever received any response from them? Only a dunning letter threatening me with execution proceedings if I do not pay within 2 weeks! I almost had a heart attack! It took me probably one hour to calm down. (Well you only know this story so far you don't know the rest) I called them (unfortunatelly duing my very stressed/panick phase) but the woman on the phone was the most condecending, unwilling to help person I have come accross (among top 10). She basically said "Well, if you don't wanna pay, we can end this call now" How rude - I was (embarrisingly) hyperventilating and she just brushed me off!
Funny enough, now, that a read a bit more about it, I still don't think that what I did qualifies for a membership in any association, but if I had to be in one it would be one for retail or online business, but not "energy, textile electric, media production" I get that because in my stupid business registration where I said part of my business is production of clothing they contacted me. But I put that in there so if I ever want to sell one of the dresses I actually do make myself rather than letting them be produced by professionals, that I would not get into trouble.

Trouble, yeah... the whole thing started because I did not want to get into trouble. I registered th business in Mühlenstr. at a shared office place, because I did not want to get problems with my landlord. I even contacted the city of berlin to find out if I would be allowed to have a business at home. But because finding this out took forever, I had already registered the business otherwise - and spend money for nothing.
I registered the business in general because I thought I had to.
I got a bookkeeping online tool, so that I would sumit my monthly VAT-return to the tax office , only to get money back every month - stopping at once stage because I did not want them to return my any more funds. Guess, what - that brought trouble. I don't know how many letters I exchanged with the tax office (by the way: big shout out, they might not have helped me the way I needed them to, but they were always super friendly!) and how many times I tried to submit my tax return, my VAT statement and so on and quite frankly I am scared that I did somthing wrong and I will get draggedd to court for it. I have nightmares about it! I really hope that the final doc I submitted last week was good. Especially as I already noticed that I did not submit my medical expenses that I believe are tax deductable.

I wonder how long my t-shirts acutally stay sellable in the boxes, by the way- if you need carton for germna post "Maxibrief" I have plenty in the basement and using one box as a cushing on a self made chair - let me know.

It is interesting how I did everything during my business exploits in order to not get into trouble and yet everything was leading me to trouble.
Since I started the business I lost almost all my savings, I am sure that while I really tried to fill out my tax statement as accurate as possible, they will find a way to turn it around and do say i did something wrong that makes we guilty of something.

Why does all of this needs to be so complicated? or was it really complicated or was I the once making everything way more complicated because i was trying to save money (like not spending another 400 euro on a tax specialist, or not investing 1000 euro into advertising)

Worst part, only today I realised that I think I only ever changed the business hoping to downgrade it but never cancelled because I still have not yet understood if I am allowed to sell shirts that nobody wants or stuff I sew for pleasure without a running business. BUT, song story short, I just did un-register completely. so no more business for me.

Hi guys,
This year i was not as vigilant as I should have or could have been with updates on the Eurovision front. Right now I am sitting on a beach, sand in everywhere and more sunscreen than I'd like to admit. And after collecting some shells and enjoying the view I decided to at least give you some updates. So here we go.

Arriving in Lisbon went smoothly and it was nice to be picked up by the volunteer coordinator. However, frankly speaking I could have just arrived as I had initially planned as the mandatory training was not that big of a deal anyways. This would have saved me 200 euros that I'd have rather spend on something nice in Lisbon. In the bright side, it was nice to spend some time with the international volunteers (well, 3 German 1 Dutch and a Belgian). The all you can eat restaurant we went to was extremely meat heavy, however, they only charged me the drinks. So that was nice.

As there is a Portuguese law stating that volunteers are not allowed to work for more than 5h a day, the days were pretty easy going. Though I gotta say, I don't think I would like to be a commentator host again. It was nice to see how it works in the background and the accreditation gets you to a lot of places. Next time I think I'd like to be a delegation host again, or maybe working in the press or the production team. If there is a next time for me that is :)

On the second day we meet Peter urban. My encounter with him wasn't the mot pleasant. He and one of the volunteer coordinator were recording something while I was discussing something with another coordinator when they ask me to shut up. At first it was fair enough, however, the recording coordinator later stepped up to me and advised me that I would do good in general to keep my mouth shut as my voice in too penetrating and annoying for the commentators to work. You can imagine how I felt and naturally I couldn't bring the same enthusiasm to the job anymore as I had before.

And when we got home the next thing happened. I am staying at an Airbnb with two friends. Both took the bedrooms and I slept on the couch. That is until one of my friends (probably my most tidy, clean and accurate friend I have -maybe had, I am waiting for us to get home and him breaking off the friendship :D ) asked my to check out his bed because it was filled with bedbugs. Bedbugs of all stages and so many it was terrifying.
Our landlord was quick to sort this but with Eurovision on, she had no place else for us to stay. With that we changed sleeping arrangements. So for the rest of the stay mr. clean slept on the couch and I slept in a double bed with the other friend. Unfortunately, this double bed was not free from bedbugs either, however, it was not as infested and there was no alternative anyways. So at this stage I have quite a few bedbug bites and sleeping hasn't been as relaxing as it should have been. That in combination with the parties at the euroclub I am not surprised that I am now sick :(
 
Enough moaning, let me tell you about the semis. As predicted by the time we were at the live shows I loved almost all the songs-even San Marino. The first semi was earlier called the blood bath semi and for a good reason. The semi 1 was packed with bookies favorites and going in everyone know some countries would have to be eliminated that usually would easily make the cut. My personal favorite from the start (not to win, but just as a song) has been Albania. However, wth the overall reception of the song, I did not think they would qualify.

So here I was in the live show dressed in Irish flags (because I always support the Irish) enjoying the show waiting for the results. And then Albania was announced as a qualifier and I was over the moon, so much so that I actually missed the country that followed. My friend next was like, it's Ireland! multiple times before it set in. And I was so in shock that both my countries qualified that I had to look at Jon ola sand if there had been a mistake but he looked happy as usual. You can imagine how I celebrated that night. Let's say I shouldn't be too surprised that I am now sick with my voice in pieces.
Overall I am very happy with the results of the first semi.

On Thursday the second semi was not supposed to be that difficult and yet it was interesting to see the results differed from the expectation by a good bit. Nobody in the arena where thinking that Serbia would go through, but I was hopeful. My friend wanted Slovenia to qualify and low and behold both countries made it. And more than that every country that we expected made it. And with that this years final was definitely one of the best we had in the past years... At least that is what we thought.

As you know we did not manage to get tickets for the final live show but the jury show. This was okay as we had agreed to watch the show in the eurovillage until I was offered the chance to see the live show from the vip lounge. Yes, that is right. One of the volunteers won tickets and wanted to bring me along. But because at the time I did not want to leave my friend, who had no accreditation on his own I rejected. My friend did not mind at all to be left alone but he was also a bit of an excuse. Anyways, the guy wasn't too happy but for me it turned out for the best. Because I did get to see the final in the arena. And meet graham norton as well as pass by lordi. Interesting fact, it is amazing how you cannot hear on the telly how the audience is singing along. Best example is the UK. The arena went wild and at times you couldn't even hear surie. But I get it. The producers probably try to let the televoters built their own opinion rather than be influenced by the arena audience. Or they want the audience to hear the act rather than the screaming fans :)

It's stupid really , I just walked by Michael at the airport on his way home. I was wearing my German shirt, but still in volunteer mode I did not ask for a picture. Meaning I missed the chance to get a picture with graham Norton, lordi, and Michael Schulte...

On the bright side, as a thank you for our work in the commentators lounge, they coordinator organized a raffle and I got semi lucky. Why? I got the Russian promo bag...if anyone wants an "I won't break" polyester jumper let me know! however, in the bag was also Michael schultes promo cd as well as (I am so happy about it-you might already guess) the promo cd of mr bushpepa, Albania!!

Now I am back to reality with a cold and post-ESC-depression and my next post will be about my failed fashion again ;)

It has been a while since an update on my fashion world. So quick re-cap: I sent in my designs for sampling in November 2017 and due to various issues, I was only able to pick them up in April 2018.

Now that I did, I was hugely disappointed as the samples did not resemble my designs at all. I was crushed because I already envisioned my business going down the toilet before I have even mass produced my first collection (the t-shirts don't count - they were a failed means to an end). One my tantrum was finished I reached out to them, explaining how I was unhappy with the samples and to my surprise, they did acknowledge some of the errors and some of the changes are infact free of charge.

Unfortunatelly, that also means that my samples are now back in Ireland and the collection will not be ready for this summer as I had hoped.

On the plus side, I have now reached out to a manufacturer in turkey who is doing GOTS certified fabric printing for half the price that I am currently paying. that means I might actually be able to sell an organic dress for less than 350€ as I kind of want to be affordable.

While I do want to continue vlogging, it is not as easy as one might think and as  such I am writing this one rather than filming it.
That is, I have filmed 3 updates by now but uploading them seems to be a whole issue on its own.
Let me give you the most relevant ESC- related updates since the vlog:

I am a volunteer in ESC 2018! Well, that is as long as my security clearence will come through. But I see nothing in the way from that end. With that in mind, I am going to work in the commentators service section as I had hoped! It also means, I had to change my flights. And can I just ask: What are airlines thinking?!?! Why is it more expensive to just book a new flight rahter than changing the booked one? Is it not in the airline interest to have a full plane? Think about it, if I simply book a new flight and worst case I might have already checked in, the airline is now having a seat they could have sold so someone else empty.
In this case going with another airline I could have paid 80 euro for an earlier flight. however, this meant I'd either book an additional night at a hotel (on top of the night I alread need to book to be in Lisbon for the mandatory training)  or be to late for said training. In the end I did get my flight changed and it only cost 150€ to do so! :(

I did not get the tickets for the final as expected in the last wave. blueticket.pt really messed up in this sale as the side had crashed for many and a few (me included) had tickets in their baskets but could not continue to the checkout before the session timed out. Which in itself was highly annoying but I am over it. Afterall, I only had 1 ticket but I am in Lisbon with a group so what good does one ticket. And NOW, that I am a volunteer I will need to wait and see whether I will actually be able to go to the shows I have already bought tickets for.

There are a few updates on the volunteering bit I am not allowed to share just yet in regards to food, organization and clothing. But what I can say, is that volunteers will have to weat a certain outfit which will stop me from wearing some on my outfits for ESC! To me that is sad, because I put quite some efford into making them but again it comes down to what I really, really want and if I have to give up a few things for being a Volunteer at Eurovision, so be it. On that note, I still do not have the confirmation on my extra day off work. But I am willing to quit this job for ESC. I would not quite any job but in this case I would take it as a sign to leave :)

​All entries for eurovision 2018  have been selected and it's time for a quick review.
This year we are going to have a very strong first semi and a lot of good songs will loose a chance at the final because of it. Overall I don't like less than 15 of the total of 43 songs. Unfortunately some of my "most disliked songs" will surely be in the final, making me even more worried for the final. Having said that, even if the worst were to happen, and all least favorite songs get to the final I will still have some songs to celebrate.
But before talking about the final, let's look at various national finals. In a few of them my personal favorites missed out and I want to know what you think...

Albania... The first to announce their song for ESC 2018 Mall remains one of my favorites. Even the cut version (the original was too long for ESC regulations) gives me the chills and I think this song was the best choice from the national final. Unfortunately Albania is in the first semi and therefore is most likely to miss out on the final.  The song will still stay in my playlist...

Armenia... Qami is a beautiful "Balkan ballad" (probably not technically correct term, but it best describes the feel of this song) and possibly the best choice from the national selection. Though I did like "get away with us" and "you and I". Again, I am not sure if this will qualify.

Australia... Jessica Mauboy is back and her song (internally selected) is really catchy and a strong contender for the final. It is in my top 15. We got love!

Austria... Nobody but you is again an internal selection and while I was not too sure about the artist at first, I really like this song. So much so, it slowly crept up to my top 10.  This just has to qualify...

Azerbaijan... X my heart was internally selected and I am quite impartial to it. Azerbaijan has a good track record and this song might qualify though I am hoping it won't.

Belgium... One more internal selection. And like the previous years I think this is a strong contender. Belgium has been doing so well those past few years and they deserve to win. I don't think this will be their year though.... It would be shocking if this wouldn't qualify. 

Belarus... forever was the best choice in this national selection, though I keep on going back to adagio. I am happy though that adagio did not make it, as I believe forever has a better chance at qualifying. Still I don't think Belarus will qualify unless their live performances improves significantly for the show.

Bulgaria... I really like this internal selection. Bones has a slightly eerie vibe to it and I hope it translates well to the audience... I think it will.

Czech Republic... Now this is still top 3 for me. If this does not qualify I am angry. I understand my personal top songs will have a hard time to make it, but this just has to make it to the final. It is too mainstream and good, not to qualify.

Croatia... I am not crazy about this one. This can stay in the first semi.

Cyprus... Again not a fan. Unfortunately this might be one of those songs that beats one of the songs I like :(

Denmark... Higher ground! I love it. It is so Vikings :) but this was not my favorite in the national selection. "Music for the road" lightens up my mood, every time I listen to it. In anyway I think higher ground could qualify.

Estonia ... La fora is very hyped at the moment and while I do like it a lot, I don't care if this qualifies or not. 

Finland... Okay, I won't make friends with this one: what is the deal with saara Aalto? I am listening to her live performances and I don't think they are that great. They are good, but not great. Having said that I like the song monsters... Though I prefer the radio version of domino.

France... This is one of those songs I don't like. It is repetitive and the refugee story does not feel sincere to me. When I listen to this, I keep on rolling my eyes and I should feel for the story instead. And the national selection had some great gems. My personal favorite has to be I'll be there followed by rêve de gamin.

Greece.... What are you guys doing? I laughed so hart when one after the other song was disqualified for funding reasons. That said, I think the song is brilliant. My top 10

Georgia... I'll be honest with you. I listened to it once and now I don't remember what the song was like.... So I am guessing it is not one of my favorites 

Germany... I've said it already, I am saying it again. Walk this road alone was the best song by far from the national selection. But that does not make it a good song. I like it. It is very emotional. Good news is that I strongly believe we are going to get at least some points with this

Hungary... When I first saw the artist for the national selection I was so happy to see Leander kills again. I looved them last year, but the song was a bit of a let down compared to last year- still great! Personally, I liked yesyes and yes, AWS as well as Leander kills. So I am happy with AWS. And I would not be surprised if this would gather all rock fans behind them to qualify.

Iceland. I dislike it. This is cheesy and dated. Better songs were left behind in this selection. I loved battleline and I stormi.

Ireland. This is exactly like last year. High pitched voice, beautiful balled. This one I actually like even more than last year, it is so sweet and yet Ireland, we have no chance of getting to the final with this. However, it is one of the songs I'll keep in my playlist.

Italy. I like non mi avete fat to niente. This is taking a current topic into a beautiful song (France, watch and learn). Sanremo had some good songs this year, but I am happy with this choice.

Israel... Okay. W. T. F. Okay... Yeah... Okay.... I hate the start but love the rest. Qualifier for sure.

Latvia... Why funny girl? It is one of my least favorites this year.  A lot of good alternatives in the national selection. Personally I would have loved running red lights or  esamiba or even rag mama rag instead of funny girl. And this might actually qualify.... I don't get it.

Lithuania ...nah... Nothing to say about this... Next.

Malta... I liked heart of gold and we can run better but I like taboo. I don't need it to qualify though.

Macedonia... Internal selection that I do not care for much. I don't care if this qualifies or not (except that it will kick one of my favorites out)

Montenegro... I like inje. Good choice. But I am afraid this will not qualify with the competition. But I am not too sad about it either.

Moldova... I have listened to the national final and almost everything is batter than this dated 2005 song. 

Netherlands... As a country fan this is my top top top song this year. Now, it won't win Eurovision (imagine that though-awesome) but it has to qualify. Has to.

Poland... Yeah, a good song. Possibly the bet from the national selection.

Portugal ... Let's not talk about Portugal, they are in the final and nothing I can do about it.

Romania... I like this. I don't love it though. I am oaky with this qualifying or not.

Russia... Instant dislike. Did not like her last year and this year the song is even worse. Please do not qualify. Unfortunately this has good chances :(

San Marino.... You had a good thing going and the perfect song in the final and then you screwed it up and selected who we are... Out of the twilight should have won. Followed by stay.

Serbia... I have not listened to the national selection, but I do like this song. It is in the second semi. So it has chances.

Slovenia... Hvala, ne, ne, no, no. Not my thing.

Spain...this is bad. They say the new staging is way better, less cheesy but I have not even attempted to listen to it again. I do not understand why some actually like this.

Sweden... Melodifestivalen had some good songs. Icarus, every single day, LAST BREATH,  min drön, shuffla but dance you off won. It will definitely qualify but Sweden deserves a non qualifier just once for letting these songs slip through.

Switzerland.... I like the song but I also liked the others. So any song winning the national selection I knew I would be disappointed for the others. Compass and a thousand times and redlights specifically.

Ukraine.... I know this is crazy but I wanted them to send fire. I love it. Well. Under the ladder will have to do.

United Kingdom... I think from the selection the uk was given this was probably the bet choice. Personally I preferred the little mix song by goldstone. I expect a mediocre outcome..

Sooooooo, do you agree or strongly disagree? Let me know ;)l

Germany has selected their entry for Lisbon 2018. Trying to turn their luck around, Germany has changed their national selection format. By revamping the selection process, Germany is hoping to finally get onto the right side (meaning the left side) of the scoreboard.
A lot happened before the show on the 22nd of February. An international Jury (including 4 former ESC contestants: Iceland 1986, Norway 2013, Slovenia and Spain 2014,) searched for perfect candidates. And they came up with 6 artist. Those artist then went to “song boot camp” and the results were released on the 20th and now performed live on the 22nd.

I was in the Studio for the show. The hosts did a mediocre job, with jokes ranging from half-intelligent to really bad. The overall show wasn't really entertaining, but better than the last years. NDR, please check out how the Swedes are doing it… you might be able to learn some.

But the most important part is of course the music.

First of was Natia Todua. A Georgian singer, who failed to succeed in X-factor Georgia and Ukraine but went on to win the Voice of Germany 2017. Opening a show is always a tough job, and she did okay, but vocally I was not impressed. The song “my own way” about her struggles just did not translate well to the audience. The staging was also minimalistic and all in all quite forgettable. Most memorable was the white suit Natia decided to wear, whether that was a good thing or not, you need to decide for yourself.

Next off, Ryk performed his piece “You and I”. The singer from Hamburg sat at the piano with an acrobat dancing on the piano. The dark and partially moody song was sung well enough. However, due to the artsy style of the song it was difficult to connect and see this as an ESC song. Highlight was probably the dancer in this act, leaving the audience with little hope for the rest of the show.

Germany’s favourite was the third entry. VoxxClub is a Bavarian folk/rock band- the only band in the competition. Prior to the event a lot of people had their song “I mog di” as a favourite to win. But with a Bavarian German song and an international jury doubts about the success rose. The song had a "ballermann" vibe to it, that was a disappointing song choice and again the audience was let down by a mediocre performance (at least they danced a bit) and bad vocals. While VoxxClub definitely heated up the Studio, their vocals just did not match the hype.

Following this upbeat, fun number, was another Bavarian. Xavier Darcy, singer songwriter was born in Scotland but grew up in Bavaria. His song Jonah was the first song of the night that actually had some potential. However, the performance reminded of a Busker or Pub singer in the streets of the UK and again, one was left wondering, if this is really a good option to represent Germany. His voice, however, was really enjoyable for sure and I would not mind hearing some more of it in the charts.

Fifth entry was Ivy Quainoo, winner of the voice of Germany 2012. This entry finally provided some good quality. The staging was great (let’s not argue about the burning house – it did match the song) with some pyro to add to the dancing and the overall drama of the song. Vocally Ivy performed very well, unfortunately the song itself “House on fire” was not memorable enough to have a winning chance. Ivy, next time please choose a song, that matches your talent and does not leave us underwhelmed.

Last but not least was the performance by Michael Schulte. A German singer songwriter, who came in 3rd at the voice of Germany in 2012 (where Ivy won). Michael is a successful youtuber and performed a song about his dad who had passed away when Michael was younger. The song “you let me walk alone” has an Ed Sheeran vibe to it, but also so much emotion, that a few audience members were actually moved to tears. The staging was simple but effective with pictures of sons and dads as well as some of the lyrics. Before the start of the song I was worried that the smoke of Ivy's fire show, could potentially impact his vocals, but Michael was on point. By the audiences’ reaction, one could tell, this was now the favourite.

The voting could start. Interval act was Mike Singer, the poor German answer to Justin Bieber. Dear NDR, what were you thinking??? This was not a good choice, as Mike Singer usually has a much younger audience and was misplaced at the ESC event. I could see audience  members looking at their neighbours with a plain WTF impression on their faces.

The time till the voting results was ill-filled and felt like forever.

This year the points given were split. 1/3 came from the international jury of experts, 1/3 were given by 100 selected Eurovision Fans and the last third came from the tele-voting. Each group gave 5,6,7,8,10,12 points. The tele-vote was presented by no other than our beloved Jon Ola Sand. He was briefly interviewed earlier during the show, about this opinion on the new format and even replied in German (well re read it off a promter, but still impressive) – which was one of my highlight of the show. One just has to love Mr. Sand.

The presentation of the votes ended up not beeing as interesting as the NDR would have liked. All three juries agreed, that Natias’ song was not good enough compared to the others. The Fan and Expert jury was pretty much aligned in their voting and so was the tele-vote. One (not surprising) exception was VoxxClub, who got 10 points from the tele-vote and only 5&6 points from the juries. But everyone agreed on the Winner of the evening. Michael Schulte got 12 points from everyone.

With this Germany now has a contestant for 2018 in Lisbon: Michael Schulte with a beautiful, sad ballad about his father. I like the song. In this selection it was by far the best option, but will it work at ESC? I am not sure. BUT even if we come in last again, I can still be proud of the song choice. With the songs choosen so far (we are number 14), I could see us getting some points. At this stage I would bet on 19th place.

What do you think of the song?

Most of you will not even be aware of this but Eurovision 2018 is in full motion. Already 7 songs have been chosen and presented so far (the broadcasters can still change their minds, but most of the time we get a close enough version of the song).
Spain
France
UK
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Albania
Malta

Listening to the national finals I am surprised at the songs that were selected. Mostly not my personal favourites. But with 7 songs we already have a good variety of styles. We can expect a diverse show if the trend continues as it does at the moment.
Personally, I am not a fan of the choices made by the automated qualifiers (Big 5) so far. From the 3 songs the best is the UK entry (I really dislike the Spanish entry and I don't like the abuse of the refugee topic by the French). Overall I am still a huge fan of the first song presented for 2018, Albanias' Mall.
It won't be long before the next songs will be announced and I am excited to see the results (especially Norway and Hungary). Naturally, I am also looking forward to the 22nd of February, when Germany will select their entry and I have tickets for the show.
I will keep you posted.

2018 has started at it seems to continue just as 2017 had ended. I wrote an entry about 3 weeks ago. This post was somewhat never saved, except for the headline.
Trying to figure out what I wanted to write about, I can only come up with the 2nd week of january.
As it contains everything involving travel, fashion and Eurovision :)
Now a month ago I flew to Manchester. But if you now ask me what I think of the city, I cannot say. I did not see anything of Manchester really. How is that possible you might wonder? I arrived rather late on a monday and planned to leave early tuesday. Why was my trip only that short? I went there to help out a friend. He has a chat how about eurovision and in the beginning  he  had asked me if I would be willing to be a guest on his show. Naturally I would. Firstly because I will always try andhelp friends when I can and secondly we are talking Eurovision. Unfortunatelly the trip did not go as smoothly as anticipated. It was raining cats and dogs, my friend made me feel like I was not really welcome afterall and that I basically invited myself and the recording reveals how my English has made a turnfor the worse. From my Irish accent with a bit of German, living a year in Berlin I now sound like  full on German with a bit of Irish influence. I will see if I can link at least one of the audio sets at the end of this post.
The best part of the trip, however, was us having to pass by the BBC Radio city where they have Daleks and a proper Tardis on display and I got to take a picture with both - whoop whoop!

While I left for the airport at 10am, due to Ryanair delay, I did not arrive home before 6pm. The next two days I went to the Ethical Fashion Show, Premium as well as the Panorama here in Berlin. Most beneficial was the Ethical Fashion Show. I attended two presentations, one about alternatives to leather and the other about the care lable in clothing.
Did you know that we overwash our clothing? As it turns out, most of the care lables in todays garments are still on the standard of the 60s and 70s but washing machines and detergent have had huge improvments over the last few years. And most importantly: instead of putting your garments into the washing machine after every use (we are not talking underwear), hang them out into the fresh air. this is just as cleansing as a wash but more friendly not only to the environment but for the garment itself.
And did you know, you can make leather substitutes from plants as well as bacteria? Well, I think the idea of growing a garment out of bacteria is somewhat disgusting, but I have seen and touched it and it is a really nice fabric. Now, I still prefer the vegan options that use the by-product of the Olive Oil and Wine production. At this stage the alternatives are quite expensive but definetely something to consider, especially for embellishment on my garments. Let's wait 2-5 years and see how this develops. Especially waiting on the environmental impact of those alternatives.

It is really time for 2017 to be over. While I looove the christmas season (christmas markets, my christmas decorations and sweet christmas music nonstop), I am happy when we say bye to 17 and hello to 18.
In my last post I wrote about getting dresses produced in Ireland. Well, everything could already be done would it not be for stoffe.de. Now, usually I love stoffe.de because they have a great selection at an affordable price and offer organic fabrics too. So when they had a 20% deal going, I ordered all what was needed for my new collection. However, their payment provider messed up and my order had to be completed manually. This was done rather quickly. Unfortunatelly, the customer service screwed up the order details. Instead of using my Irish delivery address, they send the whole lot to my German invoice address. When I got the shipping confirmation, I saw the error and contacted the Customer Serivce again. I was advised to refuse to take the delivery and send an email confiming the correct shipping address. But a few days later I got an confirmation that my funds have been transfered back into my account as I returned the ordered items. Despite reachingout to them again I have not received a decent solution as I am not willing to place the order again without the 20%discount given. Afterall, it is not my fault that they messed up the shipping details and I did exactly as I had been told - at this stage Iam wondering, if I should have just accepted the parcels upon delivery and send them onwards myself. It  would have been less hassle, thefabrics would already be in Ireland and the manufacturer could have finished my garments before their christmas break. What do you think about that?

And then there is the whole Eurovision ticket thing... yes, it is time for eurovision again... Honestly, it seems like it is Eurovision time all year around but I don't mind one bit :)
So the first wave of tickets was released on 30/11/2017. In anticipation I had created an account prior to the event and had agreed with 2 other fans that whoever got in first would buy tickets for all of us. While I was the first on the website, I was queued in by the system at 20685 as it had not let me enter the queue for about 20 seconds into the sale. yes, you read that right.... in total about 23000 queued to get a ticket. How is that fair? And what worries me the most is that the arena only has a capacity of 20000 people. With that there is a realistic chance I will not get a ticket for the live final at all. All of that because everyone is hyped about Lisbon and people that are generally not even that much into Eurovision are now trying to get tickets. It is truely annoying, especially after missing out on the fan package by just a few points) But what am I supposed to do but try till the end?