Urban Jungle Bloggers | Plants & Art

It’s officially been two months since I’ve moved into my new apartment. The dust has definitely settled and everything has more or less found its place. While I still owe you the “after” post to match the empty “before” one, first I thought I’d offer you a sneak peek in the form of this month’s Urban Jungle Bloggers challenge — plants and art.

For my birthday I received some gorgeous plants which help make my apartment warm and inviting. One of them was supposed to go to my office, but I gotten way too attached and have kept them both at home. :)

Urban Jungle Bloggers: Plants & Art | No Apathy Allowed — Sleater-Kinney influenced dining table

One of the benefits of finally having my own place is that I have plenty of space to hang up all my art and prints, both old and new. One of my new prints (above) is a silkscreen from Sleater-Kinney’s show in Berlin not too long ago, kicking off their European tour. I love how all the green leaves make the colors in the print just pop! Below I’ve paired another birthday plant with two older pieces of art that I’ve had seemingly forever: a painting from my trip to Nicaragua in 1998 and a gorgeous map of Uganda that I bought while I lived there in 1999.

I don’t want to give away too much of the apartment just yet, but I hope these two photos give you a good idea of how my plants and my art just naturally pair together. Curious to see what other Urban Jungle Bloggers have to share? Check them out here...

September 5, 2015

Klavierabend | An Evening at Musikfest Bremen

Musikfest Bremen | No Apathy Allowed — Eine große Nachtmusik: the opening night of Musikfest Bremen. Photo by (c) Musikfest Bremen – fotoetage.

When I lived in New York I went through a long phase where I attended classical concerts at Carnegie Hall at least a couple times a month throughout the entire concert season. So I find it highly ironic that since moving to Germany, the birthplace of some of the greatest classical composers in history, I’ve only been to a handful of classical concerts at most. I was quite happy to remedy that situation during Musikfest Bremen — a three-week long music festival celebrating its 25th anniversary and featuring performers from around the world, big names as well as the rising stars of everything from jazz to classical, from world music to opera.

Die Glocke: Klavierabend Musikefest Bremen | No Apathy Allowed — Die Glocke

Just a few nights after the festival kicked off, I attended a fantastic concert by the famed pianist, Sir András Schiff at Bremen’s Art Deco concert hall Die Glocke. As we arrived, normally casual Bremer were dressed to the nines and streaming into the concert hall. The Großer Saal was completely packed. Of course photos weren’t allowed, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that our seats in the 11th row offered the perfect view of Schiff’s hands as they graced the keys of a 1921 Bechstein concert grand. The concert focused on variations from Mozart, Haydn, Schumann, and Beethoven, with my personal favorite of the evening being “Variations sérieuses” by Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

It was so meditative to watch Schiff play and to listen to the sounds of the piano. I haven’t felt so relaxed in ages! Although I’m no classical expert, judging from the thunderous applause and stamping of feet afterwards, it seems my fellow concert goers enjoyed themselves as well! Schiff responded in turn by playing a brief encore — which I didn’t recognize, but would love to identify in case anyone happens to know what he played.

Klavierabend: Musikfest Bremen | No Apathy Allowed — Klavierabend with András Schiff

The whole evening was fantastic and inspired me to get back into my old New York habits once the concert season officially starts up again. But in the meantime, the Musikfest Bremen continues until September 19th, so there is still plenty more time to get a few more concerts in, classical or otherwise!

* Many thanks to Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen / bremen.online for the complementary tickets! The opinions shared here are solely my own. *

August 30, 2015

Bremen Half Marathon | Week 7

This past week was the last hopefully for a while that I had to combine a full-time job with big freelance projects and intensive training. I definitely need a bit of a breather! With too much stress and not enough time, I’ve fallen into a terrible cycle of too much coffee, sugar, and processed foods. So I’ve been reading It All Starts with Food and thinking about Whole30. I’m not interested in losing weight at all, but I am looking for the reset button on my nutritional habits (after the half marathon). I’m just starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together and connect my nutrition to some issues related to my immune system. Anyway, has anyone had any personal experiences with Whole30? Is it all just a fad or can it actually serve to reset your health and nutrition? I’d love to hear!

Monday: Rest is good.
Tuesday, yoga: Was suffering from a seriously stiff neck and some neck pain, so I traded my speed training for yoga focused on the neck and shoulder. Wise decision.
Wednesday, speed training: 10-minute warm-up, 2 x 1200m @ 6:40, 6:42, 4 x 800m @ 4:17, 4:19, 4:20, 4:27 (2:00 RI), 10-minute cool down. I was so exhausted afterwards that I collapsed into bed at 9pm.
Thursday: Rest.
Friday, strength training: Again, the Seawheeze strength training workout.
Saturday, run: Just a standard 5-mile run, plus some strength training with the Nike Training Club app.
Sunday, long run: With 8 miles on deck, today was supposed to be an “easy” long run day, but it felt so much harder and it was so much slower than last week’s 10-miler. Part of it definitely has to do with the 100% humidity since I ran directly after a thunderstorm, and part of it probably has to do with Saturday’s run. But still.

That’s it from me! How was your week? Any thoughts on Whole30?

August 23, 2015

Bremen Half Marathon | Week 6

Ok, so I spaced on posting about Week 5, but let’s just jump on ahead and talk about Week 6, shall we? I was super pleased with my running this week, although I think my cross-training left something to be desired. The pool near work reopens in September and I’m going to have to integrate weekly swims back into my schedule.

Monday: Love me some rest.
Tuesday, strength training: Used my NTC app again to do a 25-minute workout.
Wednesday, speed training: 10-minute warm-up, 3 x 1600 (1:00 RI) @ 8:50, 9:07, 8:47, 11-minute cool down. Clearly was a little tired in the middle there, but otherwise felt strong.
Thursday: Rest
Friday, tempo run: Or rather, this should have been a tempo run, but ended up being just a casual 5-mile run.
Saturday, yoga: I tried out the Seawheeze yoga video from last year and didn’t love it as much as this year’s video.
Sunday, long run: A strong 10-mile run, 1:44:21. Although I’ve been participating in the Bremen Half Marathon or 10K for a few years now, today was the first day I participated in one of their informal preparation runs. One of the local running stores organizes three runs leading up to the race — with a marked 5K course that you can run around as many times as you like according to your training plan, plus food and drinks, for free! It was a great way to discover a new course in the same park that I run in every week. Plus there’s just something awesome about being around other runners training for the same event as you — it was definitely the motivation I needed to have a strong run!

Ok, that’s it for this week — I’m totally exhausted! What are you up to these days?