Freepost: To all the chocolate lovers out there! Watch this!

Hellooo! :-)

Admittedly, I couldn't wait for sharing this with you, so now I am fully enjoying to tell you how to prepare the best chocolate tarte ever!
Because of my dad's birthday, myself and my sister decided to prepare a chocolate tarte and I'm gonna show you how it's done. The recipe neither is very complicated, nor does it take you long to prepare it.
So if you need a short time-out from studying try this out! Motivation guaranteed!

What do you need? (ingredients for 8 persons by the way :-))

Pastry

• 200 g of flour ( and a bit more for later)
• 1 teaspoonful baking powder
• 120 g of butter (plus a bit for covering the inside of the baking tin (have a look at the picture added below which one I used)
• 25 g of fine sugar
• 1 egg yolk mixed with 2 teaspoonful cold water

Chocolate cream

• 150 g of cream
• 150 ml of milk
• 250 g of dark chocolate (around 70% cocoa is optimal), chopped
• 2 eggs whisked

Topping

• 100 g of brown sugar
• 100 g of pecan (I didn't have any at home so I just used cashew nuts which worked well)
• 120 g dark chocolate (again 70% cocoa)
• 80 g amaretti (not the alcohol but the tiny cookies :-))
• 1 teaspoonful pure cocoa

How to prepare it

For preparing the pastry you need to put flour and baking powder in a bowle. Then, add the butter which you  have cut into cubes before in order to mix it more easily with the flour and the baking powder. Finally put sugar and the egg yolk into the bowl and mix it till it becomes one mass. You need to be quickly when you take out the pastry and forming it into a ball. Wrap it up in plastic film and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Prepare the oven by preheating it to 190°C. Roll the pastry and try to make it as thin as possible as it will rise in the oven (I was surprised!). Put it in the baking tin which is covered with a thin film of butter. The pastry will be baked for 15 minutes. Afterwards, change the temperature down to 180°C.
Meanwhile, prepare the chocolate cream. You need to heat the cream and the milk in a pot till they begin to boil. Remove the pot from the stove and put in the chocolate pieces for melting them in the mix of cream and milk. Don't stop stiring :-) Add the eggs. Spill the mix carefully into the baking tin and bake it for another 15 minutes. Make sure that it cool down before you put on the topping, otherwise the chocolate pieces will melt (which happened to me ;-)) So after spending half an hour on the balcony (around -10°C I guess...) the tarte will be covered with the nuts, sugar, cocoa and cookies :-)

As you can see the whole family loved it and I will definitely prepare it again eventually!

Are you going to try out that marvellous recipe? If you do so, tell me about your results :-) When something is unclear feel free to ask me!
I hope you'll enjoy it and I wish you good luck with it :-)

Freepost: The Kite Runner

Hello folks!

Yesterday I felt highly motivated to finally tidy up my room. I guess everyone knows that- you have been looking for one of your favorite items for ever but it just seems like it is vanished off the face of the earth?! Well, that's what happened to me yesterday- I found one of my favorite books again! I euphorically started reading it one more time :)

The book is called "The Kite Runner". Is is a novel written by Khaled Hosseini in 2003. I've also seen the movie which is really recommandable!
The setting is Kabul, Afghanistan, in the 1970's and the protagonist's name is Amir. He is one of the few kids who can call themselves lucky, as his family, rather his father, is well-off and they live in an amazing domain. Amir's mother died when she gave birth to him, what Amir's father unconciously is blaming is own son for. As this wouldn't be enough, "Baba" claims that his son wouldn't be able to defend himself and that he wouldn't be able at all showing strength, in other words, to be a real man. Amir feels desperate about this fact. Moreover, because his best friend Hassan, who actually belongs to the lower social class, is the braver one of them two. Whenever there is trouble because of the neighbour boys making fun of Amir and especially Hassan, he draws out his slingshot to defend himself and his best friend. Baba notices that Hassan is the one who acts more courageous and praises him. Amir feels more and more ignored by his dad and one day shows him his ability to be strong when he wins the great kite tournament. Hassan is running for Amir's kite as he comes across the neighbourhood's boys. They don't let him go. They are teasing him and punching him when one of them, namely Assef, starts raping him to "teach him a lesson". Nobody knows that this occurence is being observed by Amir, who is too afraid to help Hassan. He is just hiding behind the wall watching this best friend being humiliated. Since this day, everything is changing between them two and their friendship starts tearing apart. Some years later, when the Sovjets would invade Afghanistan, things will never be the same. Amir's life will become an uphill struggle for love, family and especially redemption.

I don't know many of these stories which immediately got me, but this is definitely one of them and I am curious if you can share this feeling with me! So if you have read the book or watched the movie, tell me how you've liked it! Do you also have read books or watched movies you'll never fortget? I wanna know more about it! :-)

Have a nice evening everyone!

A personal Comment on my Transcription Review of the PONS Dictionary

On this rainy sunday afternoon I am occupying myself with my review transcription of the PONS dictionary!
So here is what I said about it:

We're going to describe something about the PONS dictionary. We chose of course the languages English and German, but you can also choose different languages. You have actually a wide section here that you can probably change from Portuguese to Spanish or something like that. But we do now German and English and we chose the word "go". So first of all you have here the base form of the verb, you have the pronunciation, the phonetic alphabet and the description of the word, if it is a verb or a noun or whatever. Umm yeah you have a huge description of the meaning of the word, they have also phrases here that it is not so dangerous that you can confuse the word which- what you want to say acutally. Here is also a description if it is a slang like informal or formal, you have the loudspeaker here that they read out phrases… what else do we have... we have especially-… if this word is used in the USA or in GB, the same with if the word is typical for Austria or sometimes even for Swizerland and yeah. This is why we like it.

... And here is my personal analysis:
I want to say something about my pronunciation and the language. I think my pronunciation is not the best but I am quite content about it. I am definitely going to work on it. When it comes to language, I've noticed some things which I wasn't aware of during speaking. Although it sounds quite naturally how I am talking, I often make word repetitions or even use words in a wrong way. Apart from a lot of "uhmmm" I sometimes stop in a sentence and begin a new one. Another thing that calls my attention is that I neither express myself accurately nor I use adequate vocabulary. That's why I am not satisfied with the language. I need to think more carefully about what I want to say and to structure my ideas better before I am talking freely.
What I am pleased about my part of the video is that I gave all the information which seemed important to me.
Analysing this transcription, I came to the conclusion that I need to work harder on my vocabulary and that I need to structure my ideas before I want to explain something.

"Me as a Language Learner"- Homework Correction

Now, I will correct my English homework which I got back on Wednesday. So here we go...

I want to tell you something about me as a language learner. As I took an extra course in English in primary school, my interest in languages started to grow and turned into enthusiasm when I've been improving. That is why participating in class seemed to be the most natural thing in the world for me. Our teacher asked us to study hard which turned out to be helpful for my further use of languages.
I chose translation studies because I am passionate about English and Spanish. I want to know more about them and to steadily go on improving.
I am capable of quickly memorizing and using grammar rules. However, sometimes I feel uncertain about the many different meanings of one single word. It often makes me wonder how to use the word. I also hope that I quickly get used to this new way of studying at university.
My major aim for this term is to extend my vocabulary. I would like to reach this aim by using media like reading books and watching television. The internet also provides great help when I need to look up new words. Another important thing is that I want to express myself better in English. As I want to get to know English speaking people and to talk more, I will try to go to the English Stammtisch as much as I can.
I hope I could give you an insight into me as a language learner!

Freepost: Bruno Mars concert in Vienna

Hello on this nice sunday afternoon!

Last Thursday I went to Vienna with my sister to go to the concert of Bruno Mars.
Half a year ago- during my stay in Spain- I came to Graz for celebrating my sisters confirmation. As she chose me to be her godmother, I decided to buy her tickets for the concert of Bruno Mars what she has been very pleased about. So the 23rd of october had arrived and we packed our things to stay for one night in my friend's house who had provided us to crash so that we hadn't had to book a hotel.
I didn't expect the concert to be that special, as I don't really consider myself to be a fan of Bruno Mars, but I was surprised! Nowadays, singers unfortunately don't perform live. He, on the contrary, did so! Indeed, the entire Stadthalle was thrilled by the brilliant performance given by him and his band. I found it very entertaining how they were dancing choreographically and playing their instruments at the same time without one single mistake- at least I wouldn't have been able to notice it ;) By doing all that, they conveyed the impression that they had a lot of fun on stage which animated the audience to dance and to sing along with the band. Of course, there were a lot of teenage girls, who- as Bruno performed a ballad- started crying ;) My sister and I, we were a bit unlucky because right beside us there was a whole group of young girls from abroad who pushed more and more to the front so that I felt that I had to take care of my sister. Another thing which irritated me a bit was, that Bruno kept us waiting for 2 hours so we all started to become inpatient. However, when he appeared, our mood was gone and we were simlpy enjoying it!
After the concert, we went to my friend's house. We were chatting until early in the morning before going to sleep because I hadn't seen her for a long time. So we had a lot to talk about :)
I am glad that my sister liked my present! I for one enjoyed our short trip to Vienna and I would do it again immediately :)

My first post

Good morning!

So, in my first post I'll introduce a student from our English group.The girl I am writing about is called Meli, she has just moved to Graz from Fischbach. She is 19 and now is living together with two friends nearby the university.She has already been abroad in England, Studland, for working in a hotel when she just had 17 years. This was obligatory by the school she was attending- the HLW in her village. Moreover, she has experience with exchanging programs, as once she stayed in Barcelona before a Spanish girl lived at her place.