European Lifestyle

Waterproof your digital life

I am a digital nomad (some call it digital boheme). When I visited Zurich in May 2010 my backpack fell apart. I am not a typical backpack user but a backpack is very convenient for me. My laptop, camera and phone with all the charging devices and adaptors for Europe need to travel with me. The backpack I used was not really great as it would not be water proof and that’s not at all good when you carry electronic devices with you. How did I solve this problem?
Luckily, I happened to visit a tradeshow for outdoor fashion and sports and came to the Ortlieb booth. At the booth a messenger bag from Ortlieb was in a container and a water jet constantly sprayed loads of water on it. I thought well that’s a cool bag. I asked the sales staff and it turned out that the Ortlieb messenger bags are waterproof and very handy indeed. I have not heard about Ortlieb before. Ortlieb is a German company founded in 1982 and located in Southern Germany which designs and manufactures products for outdoor use.
Back in Zurich I bought two of them one in black (see photo below) and one in silver. The silver messenger bag is so cute that I have actually not used it yet.
What I like about the messenger bag is that it is 100% water proof, does always look good on me and can be used both in the city as well as for outdoor sports. As you can see on my two photos I have two dogs and ride my mountain bike with them so that they get a really good work out. With my messenger bag I have everything I need with me all the time. In my next blog I will tell you how I use it and why I need it. In the meantime check them out on Ortlieb USA

my Ortlieb messenger bag in action

my Ortlieb messenger bag

waterproof and top functionality: the Ortlieb messenger bag

European style interior design

Modern European interior design is simple and straight forward. Functionality is important. Lots of space is good. A hallmark of European design style is to have fewer but top design articles and objects. Objects are supposed to looking good from all sides, no hidden bad side are allowed. For example, you should not place a sofa against the wall just to hide that its rear side does not look beautiful. That particular tip shows your visitors that you understand what you are doing and that goes a long way. The choice of the non-color white inspires luxury yet reduced to its minimum. Black is possible too but needs more space to radiates its richness. Accessoires and object have to match that idea. I recommend to choose great design products, fans, lightening, furniture from Lumens.com. In my experience they have an ideal selection of European style objects and articles that work well, are stylish and of excellent quality.
Good look from all sides	European design: functionality
To add some personality to the room, I recommend to make a photo-gallery or show some real paintings perhaps mixed with pieces made by yourself. Great European style interior design benefits from large pictures or photographs in contrast so a series of smaller one. Now let me come back to the topic of style and quality. You probably have all hear about Ikea, the Swedish company. I will write about that in the next blog post. Just to let you know, they have great design products, yet, when it comes to being a true European style interior design lover, I have met few people who would actually buy Ikea for that purpose. There are several reasons for that, and I will cover them on a different occasion.