My ode to Bavaria is a big giant Bretzel (as they call it in German). I LOVE pretzels but who doesn't? And over here they are delicious. So different than American pretzels. And Germans make all kinds of versions: sticks, croissants, rolls, etc. All out of pretzel. The pretzel symbol is one of my favorite things here. You see it everywhere. At Oktoberfest it was on earrings, phone charms, necklaces (which I had to get me one!) and so many other things. I had been looking for a unique something to put on my front door when one day we passed a Bavarian shop full of Bavarian things and they had huge giant pretzels in the window hanging by the easily recognizable Bavaria/Oktoberfest ribbon (see here). I had to have them! The shop owner said they were not for sale but I could have the baker two doors down make them for me. So I did and at only 4 euro each! And now a few days later of them drying out and me shellacking the crap out of them with spray varnish, they are ready to hang! I just need to get some blue and white check ribbon and I'm set. I had two made just in case one breaks or doesn't preserve well.
The chalk board banner has been up since before Christmas (posted about it here). And a couple of weeks ago I decided to make it look nicer by printing out parrishplatz and some stars on printer paper, taping it to the banner and shading it in with regular chalk. Then I took off the template and filled it in with a Chalk pen. It's still looks really messy and not curved and just overall bad but so much better than me free-handing it! I will continue to perfect it but it's ok for right now. I do hate the seem in the middle of the banner but I don't know yet how to make projects bigger than 12".
I love it!
