Ready for my Christmas vacation

It is just after lunch time here in Germany when I write this. It is cold here in Germany. Well, not cold when you compare it to Alaska, but below freezing anyhow. All the trees and fields are covered with frost and a little bit of snow here and there. My car is covered with ice every morning. I enjoy it. This is how the Christmas time is supposed to be.
Today is my last day at the office for this year. I almost finished all remaining tasks and we will have our company Christmas party this evening. And from tomorrow on I am on leave until January 2nd. I am so much looking forward to it. I feel ready for some days off.
Dave and I spend last weekend in Germany. It was very nice and we did a lot. On Saturday we decided to go our for breakfast. That is the easiest thing to do if you want to get a parking spot in downtown Essen during the Christmas shopping Saturdays. We had breakfast before the stores opened and as soon as they did we started some Christmas shopping. First of all we wanted to order the wedding rings. And we did! They will be ready in January and I can't wait to see them.
We also bought some presents for friends and walked along all the German Christmas Market booths. We had some Gluehwein (hot, spicy wine) before we went home.
On Saturday night we drove to a little town next to Cologne and went to a birthday party there. It was fun, but very late (or early in the morning, depending on the perspective).
Sunday was a beautiful and sunny winter day. Dave and I decided that after baking and eating cookies yesterday (yes, we did this after shopping and before the birthday party) we really needed some workout. So we drove to the Lower Rhine area and did some Rollerblading.
It was a fantastic day. The area is a winter site for geese from Siberia. So in addition to the workout we were watching geese and other fowl.

I also got almost all Christmas presents and most of them are already wrapped. No idea how to get Dave's to England. Some stuff is just to big for my small suitcase and the bigger suitcase is in England. Bummer.

We finally got some more information and a reservation form for the Motherlode Lodge in Palmer. This is where on March 15 the wedding will take place. Please, be patient with invitations. Hopefully I have cards for that ready by end of the year, but I can't promise that. I have no idea where to get nice cards in England. Anyhow, everybody should be aware now of the date and can reserve this special day in their calenders. Can't wait to see you all again.

You see, I am ready for Christmas and the new year. And I hope you enjoy this time as much as I do.
Merry Christmas to everyone.

Deck the Halls....

Isn't it surprising that it is already Christmas time? Why does it always come so unexpected?
During the last weeks we:

1. Had turkey (for Thanksgiving)
2. Had turkey (for the day after Thanksgiving)
3. Had turkey (for Saturday after Thanksgiving)
4. Decided to never eat anything again
5. Skipped this decision on Sunday morning (after Thanksgiving)
6. Picked wedding rings, but didn't order them now
7. Scheduled the wedding in Alaska to be the March 15!!!!!!
8. Ordered wedding invitation cards
9. Visited a lot of Christmas fairs (I love them)
10. Bought a large Christmas tree
11. Tried to get the tree to our house in England with a Mustang
12. ....... (why can't we have a more practical car)......
13. Needed to cut the top of the tree to make it fit into the living room
14. Wrote Christmas cards.
15. Sent Christmas boxes to Dave's family.

Seems with this short list you got a good overview about what we did the last weekends. The main time we spent discussing about wedding plans and Christmas plans. Al and Jane in Anchorage "booked" their minister for our wedding for March 15. All we need is a place now. We want it to take place at the Motherlode Lodge at Hatcher Pass (just a little bit outside of Palmer), but is seems to be difficult to organize it from England without being able to go there and having a face to face discussion. Hopefully it will work out.
For the church wedding in June we talked to my pastor here in Germany. So this seems to be booked now. I also asked my 7 years old niece to be one of the flower girls, but she answered "No, that is too silly". Well, maybe she will change her mind. If not this reminds me too much of myself, it is almost scary ;o)

Christmas was another thing we talked about a lot. My godson's birthday is on December 23rd and usually we combine the family Christmas with celebrating Nico's birthday on Christmas Day at Silke's (my sister-in-law) house. So the original plan was:

• Dave and Amber (the doggy) take the ferry on Saturday Dec. 22 nd
• We celebrate Christmas and visit Nico
• Dave will fly to England on Dec 26, since he has to work
• He takes a rental car. His car and the doggy stay at my house
• He will fly back to Germany on Dec. 30 th
• We need to go to the vet for Amber's health certificate (we need it every time she gets back to England and it must be no older than 48 hours)
• Dave and Amber take the ferry on New Years Day in the morning

Sounds complicated and expensive, right? But then Silke called me and said that their plans changed this year. They will celebrate the birthday on the 23rd and go to her sister's house on Christmas. And she asked whether I am fine with it. And yes, I am. Here comes the easier plan for our Christmas now:

• I fly to England on Dec. 24 th
• I fly home on Jan. 2 nd

Sound much less complicated, right? So we decided to go for this second variant.

I also talked to Corinne from Switzerland. She will be in Alaska in March, too and will be able to join the wedding. And the next good news is that she will come and visit us in England for three days end of December. I am very much looking forward to it!

Seems things are going well here. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas time.

Wedding preparation part 1

Again it is almost one month since I wrote the last blog entry. Beside the daily work, the coming fall and end of daylight saving time in Germany (which means early evenings) it was the time for our annual Halloween Party. This time it had a new attraction: Frankenstein's monster. Or better: Frank's monster. My engineering friend Frank adds a new animated display to every party and this year he added the above mentioned monster. We now have a ghost appearing from behind a gravestone, Dracula, a werewolf, a self opened coffin and this monster. Together with all the crosses and the gravestones my backyard looked really spooky. We served some soup and cut off fingers during the party. The fingers were really cool. We cut "Wiener Sausages" in half, added an almond as a finger nail and decorated this with some ketchup. I got this idea from the Internet. The woman who posted this said she prepared it for a kids' Halloween party and it looked so real that no kid wanted to eat one of them. Well, my looked real, too, but they were gone at the end of the night.

I also visited a trade fair with some friends. I wanted to have a first quick look at wedding dresses for the church wedding in June. When I talked to the people working there they all mentioned that I should seriously start looking and getting a dress 6 months in advance. Six months!!!! I didn't even think of this until last week. Now it seams I really should get going. I will meet with a friend next week and try to find what looks nice on me. I already showed Dave some on the Internet to find out what he likes or dislikes.
We will also look for wedding rings when he is Germany mid of November. We need the rings already in March when we will have the civil wedding in Alaska.
And I received some sample invitation cards. After showing them to Dave last weekend we have two to choose from. I will try to print everything we want to have mentioned on them and by next weekend we will decide which one we want.

I still need to talk to Jane and Al for the Alaska wedding. I hoped by today I could talk to my boss and confirm the date (March 18) and my vacation, but unfortunately he is on a business trip. I probably have the chance to talk to him tomorrow. After that I really need to call Al and give him more details on this.

The last weekend was a very long weekend in England. I flew out on Wednesday evening and we had four very nice days. After one year in England we finally bought a TV and DVD player. We don't really need TV, but for the long winter evenings watching a DVD every now and then will be nice. We also brought our mountain bikes to a bike store in Cambridge. We tried to have everything adjusted at the base, but for some reason they were not able to do it. We will be able to pick the bikes up next weekend.
On Saturday we went to the sea. It is only a one hour drive from where we live and we enjoyed the day there. Amber, Dave's Golden Retrieve, loved running at the beach and swimming in the sea. We enjoyed a picnic in the sand. It was really warm for November. Mainly because of no wind.













I hope that kept you a little bit up to date. Some pictures will follow (here or at flickr).

Back from Alaska

We are home again, wherever this is. The travelling month (September) is over and even here in Germany the trees show their fall colors.
The Alaska trip was great, as always. And it was different since we rented an RV instead of a SUV or car. When we picked it up I was not sure whether I liked it or not, but after a while I got used to the rumbling and I really appreciated the bathroom. I met most of you and I enjoyed it so very, very much. Visiting Alaska is almost coming home. And I feel very sorry for all the visits I didn't do.
We saw and did a lot during the short two weeks. First we sold Dave's house! Yeah, after one year this was a very good reason to celebrate. Then we headed up north to Talkeetna and looked for possible areas to buy some land for our future home. It is still some years to go, but we would love to invest some money from the house into a property there and then slowly build our own home.
After that we headed north again, all the way up to the arctic circle. The rental company permitted the drive on the Dalton Highway up to the arctic circle and all our tires and the windshield survived the trip. The only broken things were one cup and the mirror in the bathroom. It really was kind of an adventure. I've been at the circle in Norway and Sweden, but Alaska is different.
After that we drove south to Healy and Denali National park. That was good. I enjoyed spending 4 days with Evalyn and as always I was so sad when we had to say good bye.
Beside visiting Evalyn it was so good to see Ann and Terry and also Vic (the biologist). We also spent the days in the park and saw a lot of moose, two wolves and Dall sheep. We hiked a little bit and took pictures. And during our last night we were able to see northern lights. Perfect.
On our way home we again spent a day and a half in Anchorage and met with Jane and Al. When we told them about our wedding plans in Alaska they promised to help with the organization. Thank you.

Talking about the wedding. Maybe it is time now to plan everything in a little bit more details. The only things we did up to now are:

- decided on a day for the church wedding (14-June-2008).
- decided on a day for the civil wedding (18-March-2008).
Note: A civil wedding is required in Germany, otherwise a church wedding is not possible. And it can't be done at the same time.
- we booked a room for the reception in June
- I talked to my Pfarrer (minister, pastor) and we will visit him in November

Next things we have to do:
- Look at wedding rings (I love doing this)
- Visit my Pfarrer
- Finalise the guest list
- Design and send our invitation cards
- plan the Alaska wedding (simple ceremony and just a dinner)

It seems like the fall and winter weekends will be busy. So keep on reading.

World Traveller

Oh whow, it is one months since I wrote the last post here. Main reason is simple: Beside of travelling to England on the weekends nothing really exciting happened. But last weekend was different. It was the beginning of a travel months. The first trip was to Sicily and the next one will be to...Alaska! Okay, but Alaska is future and here is the Sicily story.

Dave had a conference on this south Italian island and I decided to go there too and meet his friends I know from last summer in Alaska. If you fly to Sicily the main airport is Catania. Which was fine, it was only 60km from the airport to the hotel in Naxos, close to Taormina. Should be no problem, except of:
- the rental car companies were not located in the terminal building
- I almost killed 5 motoroller driver, they drive like crazy there
- the roads are so narrow
- I only had a slight idea of where the hotel is located

But: I made it. I have no idea how, must be female intuition. But I arrived at 9pm. Unfortunately the first wine introduction was over and the hotel bar didn't serve anything to eat that late, but that was okay. It was warm and the stars were out, we met Dave's friends and had a nice evening.

While Dave was participating the conference I decided to go diving. It was my first time diving in nice and warm water. All I did up to then was some lake diving in the Netherlands, Germany and UK and of course the diving in Alaska during my winter stay. Not really warm water. Now I was very excited about everything. The diving itself, diving from a zodiac, the underwater life, the people... And it was great. They picked me up at the hotel (I pretended I didn't have a car...I didn't want to drive again ;o)) Then I had to walk down 133 steps on ancient stairs to get to the beach. The diving took place around Isola Bella. Look how it looks like:




And on Saturday Dave was able to come with me on one dive, which was fantastic for both of us.
We also did a geocache, like always when we are travelling. But this one, I really wish we didn't do it. As mentioned our hotel was in Naxos. This was the first creek town in Sicily. The next a little bit bigger town is Taormina, which is a very popular tourist place and also the place where the dive store was located. The two towns are easily connected by bus, but to find the geocache they recommended to use some further ancient stairs. The temperature this night was still in the 80th or so (33 Celsius) this night and we walked all the stairs. Oh yes, we found the cache and also enjoyed the view, but before we were able to go to a restaurant or bar we had to dry our shirts ;o)
Taormina by night was so beautiful. We went there twice and enjoyed the best ice cream and best pizza I ever had. We also had two very romantic evenings there.







We didn't walk home, but almost. It took some time until we found out we had to press a very well hidden stop button in the bus to make it stop. We missed two stops and therefore had to walk quit a bit.

On Sunday afternoon, after my fifth dive, we decided to relax a little bit at the hotel pool. And it was necessary. I felt old. Not just a little old, but real old. After the last dive I had problems with my right ear. It felt like the water wouldn't drain out of it. Two of my fingers were bleeding from getting in and out of the neoprene twice a day. On the last walk home from the bus stop to the hotel I first ran into a pole and got some not very nice bruises at a not very nice spot. And finally after walking with my nice summer shoes I got a huge blister under my right foot. Well, relaxing at the pool sounded great.
But we also found some time for a short round trip by car. We never saw Mt. Etna since the summit was always covered by clouds. But we saw olive trees, old farmers selling peaches, small country roads, old buildings...we saw a very beautiful part of Sicily. And we had summer for four days.

But now I am looking forward to the trip to Alaska. Hopefully I will see most of you while in Alaska!

Busy in Germany

It is very strange. Right now it seems I am not really busy at work, but in my spare time. The last weekend again was a proofed it. It was a weekend in Germany. One of the few I spend here. And I spent it with Dave, Marcus and Eva, Juergen and Ingrid. I picked up Dave at the airport Weeze. Ryan Air (one of our cheap airlines in Europe) claims it at Duesseldorf, but Duesseldorf is an hour away. And it is also one hour drive from my house to Weeze. But that's okay for a Friday night.

On Saturday Juergen, Ingrid, Dave and myself first went to the dive store with Marcus and Eva. We planned on going diving in the Netherlands on Sunday so we needed to fill up our air tanks and get rental equipment for Dave.

But the main plan for Saturday was to drive around and look for a place for the wedding reception next year. I really want to make this decision together with Dave, but this gives us a very limited amount of time for it. And believe it or not, some places are already fully booked for next June. We looked at different ones: an old coal mine, an historic railway station, a castle, normal restaurants and a classical restaurant with a great view. The decision was not easy, but we think we will go for the classical place with a view. The owners have a lot of experiences with organizing weddings, the place is very nice and has a little stage for music and there are not roads around so that the kids can play outside. I wrote a note to them on the internet, but got no answer yet. I really hope it is available on June 14th.

Driving around, having a coffee or water at the different places, took us the whole Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday morning Marcus, Eva, Dave and me got up early while Juergen and Ingrid slept in. We wanted to go to the Netherlands on that beautiful summer day and go for a dive. That was fantastic. The visibility was good and there were schools of little fish everywhere. We enjoyed it very much and Dave did very well for his first "real" dive. But again, it was busy. Packing everything into two cars, drive for approximately one hour, assemble the equipment, go for two dives, disassemble everything and go back. Uff. We arrived home at 14:00. 4 Hours before Dave and I were supposed to meed my brother and sister-in-law for a Blackmore's Night concert. It was already 23:30 before we made it home on that night. And the night ended at 4:00 since Dave flew out on the first plane to make it to work on Monday morning. Believe me, I was more than just tired the whole Monday.

Monday evening Juergen, Ingrid and I went to the "Cranger Kirmes". A fun fair not far away from my house. It is a very traditional one (started 572 years ago and takes place the first week in August). I went there every year since I can remember. We got a little bit wet, because the weather changed from nice, hot and sunny to a warm rain. But it was okay.

The last thing to report was the first day at school for my niece Alena. I went there yesterday and we had a little family party for that. Now I am back to work and don't expect anything really exciting for the next weekends. Just relaxing, but this is good.

Diving UK

The last two weekends have been very busy with diving stuff. Well, that means they have been busy ones for Dave and kind of boring ones for me, especially the first when Dave had to go to the class room training and pool session for the Open Water Diving class. For me it meant I was able to work a little bit around the house, play with Amber and.... read Harry Potter. Yes, I bought the book. I didn't want to, because I didn't want to be part of the whole Harry Potter hysteria. But then I saw the book as a special offer at Tesco and I couldn't resist. I haven't finished it yet, so no need to ask me any question. I still have 1/3 to go.

But Harry was not the reason for this post. I wanted to share some diving experiences from the UK with you. Last weekend Dave had to do his 4 open water dives for his certificate and I decided to bring my equipment to England and go diving myself. The dive store where Dave booked the class said it is no problem, I certainly will find someone to buddy up with and so I travelled to England with all my stuff.

You may have heard about the flooding there. Well, we were lucky and didn't have that much rain, even if it was more than normal. But still we both were not very excited about the thought of going diving in the pouring rain. Not that getting wet is the problem, but sitting outside between dives, getting cold and having no dry place to change clothes is the bad thing. But we were lucky and it was mostly sunny on both days last weekend. The lake we went to is a little bit more than a one hour drive away and we enjoyed the drive very much (except of the drive home on Saturday, but that's a different story). Dave did his mandatory dives and on both days I found somebody to dive with me. So what did I learn during these days: First of all, almost every male diver in England has at least one tattoo. Second, they have changing rooms and don't change on the parking lot like we do at most places in Germany or the Netherlands. And third: the main attraction at the bottom of the lake is trash. Well, kind of. To make diving at that lake more attractive they placed a Doppeldecker bus, an airplane and a truck (or lorrie in British English) at the ground. All connected by ropes so nobody could get lost. And the ropes were very helpful since the visibility was so low (3m) and it was crowded under water.

We had a lot of fun and everybody passed the course. Did I mention that the name of the dive store is Scubadoo Divers? Therefore we bought a Scubidoo cake for the last day as a kind of celebrating the new divers.

I mentioned the drive home on Saturday. Well, the traffic on this whole weekend was terrible. First of all we ended up in a traffic jam on Friday night on our way from the airport. It took us more than an hour for one mile. It was late and we had to get up very early on Saturday morning so you can imagine that non of us were very happy with this situation on Friday. On Saturday we just wanted to stop by the base to get gas and something to eat before going home and walk Amber. It was a very quick stop, but then on our way from Lakenheath to Thetford we came to a stop on the A11. It seems that the road was closed, maybe an accident. After sitting there for a while we decided to turn around and use a different, much longer way to go home. That was no fun. Especially for the waiting dog at home. But otherwise the whole weekend was very nice. And now we can plan on going to some more diving trips together...

Blubb, blubb,

Anke

A weekend with Nico

We planned it for quite a while. Nico, my nephew and god-son asked me over and over again when he can spend a weekend with me. He used to do this more often before I was a frequent traveller. When he asked last February or so I offered him to come with me to England for a weekend. And now, finally, we did it. Since it is the time of school holidays it was a little bit easier for him arriving home late at night on Sunday. That was the main reason why we waited so long. I had no idea what this 10 years old boy expected. All I knew was that he is always to shy to even say hello to Dave in English when we visit them. So I was very curious to see what happened now that he couldn't avoid it. But it was fine. My brother brought him to the airport and after check in we went to a 10 years old favorite place for dinner: McDonald's. I also decided to buy him a new book to make sure he will not be bored.
The most amazing thing was his wish to speak English. Great! He already tried a conversation with Dave on our drive home from the airport. Nico also had a lot of fun with Amber (I hope this is also true for the dog) and geocaching. Yes, we introduced him to this GPS based treasure hunt. And even with not being very successful with the first cache (we walked around for almost 3 hours before we finally gave up on this) he wanted to do more of this.
We also went to the Air Force base, but the only planes we saw on a Saturday were the exhibition ones.
After some more geocaching on Sunday and lunch at Burger King we went to an old Anglo Saxon village. It is kind of an open air museum with an exhibition of Saxon, roman and viking stuff they found in this area. And Nico was interested in this as well. I translated the descriptions for him and he asked questions and wanted to see more. It was amazing, we had a lot of fun and when we came home he asked me to schedule the next visit. We will see, the next school holidays are around October....

One more thing I want to share with you. Monday was a very interesting day at work. No, not because of interesting work, but because of a big fire on the other side of the road. My office is in a building next to an recycling company which stored a huge amount of all kinds of recycling garbage on their property. They had a 40 x 90 meters storage room with plastic stuff and on Monday morning this started to burn down. Now, on Wednesday, the firefighters are still busy and you are still able to see some smoke, even if it is white now and not black as on Monday. Here are two pictures taken with my cell phone. One on Monday morning, the other on yesterday afternoon:

"Ape Saturday"

For those who wonder how the latest terrorist activities in London and Glasgow influences us: I expected it worse. The weekend when all this happened (the car bombs found in London and the Jeep crashing into Glasgow airport terminal) was the time I returned from Canada. Of course I heard about everything on the radio, but since we didn't go to London it didn't affect us. The only thing: I wanted to go to the airport earlier than usual. This is what they recommended on the radio. From outside Stansted airport the difference was that the road in front of the terminal was closed by police and only shuttle buses were allowed to use it. Inside the line at the security check was very long so we decided to skip the Sunday dinner and say good bye immediately. But it was worse than it seemed. It took me 50 minutes (which is more than usual, but less than expected) and they didn't do any further checks than normal. And actually, this was the only flight within the last 9 months that left in time.

Let me also complain a little bit about summer here in Germany. Really, up to now you can't call it summer. It is much too cold, at some days the temperature was only 55F, which is not nice for Germany. And it is grey. Like November, except of the leaves on the trees. Sigh. But last weekend we got a break from this. If you don't count the one shower on Saturday it didn't rain at all and Sunday was actually pretty nice with temperatures around 75F and sun. Dave visited me in Germany and we spent the weekend with Juergen and Ingrid from Cologne. They came visiting and Juergen wanted to visit a kind of "ape town". Do you have any idea what this is? It is a tree climbing area for adults and they are very popular in Germany though I have never tried it before. We paid 22Euros per person and got the equipment like ropes, gloves and all this climbing stuff. Then we had to wait for an instructor for explaining how all this stuff works. After the theoretical part everyone had to climb a small test round while the instructor was watching and deciding whether we were ready for the real adventure. And this adventure waited for us in the trees, 8m (26 feet) above the ground. We started by climbing up a steel rope-ladder to platform. From there the trees were connected by different kinds of "bridges". For example one was just a steel rope, another one was a log etc. I never had problems with heights before, but when I stopped and looked down for too long it really felt funny in my knees. The bad thing was the only rain shower (I talked about it before) of the whole weekend. Of course it took place when we were in the middle of the round. The scariest thing was the thunder I heard far away. Well, I didn't want to sit on a tree with a lot of steel ropes around when a thunderstorm is going on. But good luck there was no lightning and the rain lasted for only 10 minutes. Enough to make the ropes slippery and us wet, but not enough to make us end this adventure early. We had fun. And since we only had time to climb one out of 5 rounds I am pretty sure we will come back.
In the evening we had a nice dinner at a local micro brewery. Juergen and Ingrid invited us as they promised on my birthday back in April. We had a lot of fun. And we started to discuss some first plans for the wedding next year..... It seems so far away, but time goes by so quickly. We are pretty sure about the church part. Most probably it will take place on June 14th next year (when it is nice for every visitor from the US to travel Europe and summer school holidays for Dave's nephew). But we have no clue about the legal part. In Germany this is completely separated and we can't do the churgh thing without a legal wedding prior to that. We have some ideas, but nothing really planned. I will keep you updated ;o)

Vancouver

Here I am again. It seems like I really travel a lot this year. This time it was a business trip to Vancouver. Everything had to happen on short notice, everything is always urgent and so I tried to rearrange all the private London flights and get my business flight to Canada booked in that way that the whole trip covered my London flights as well. This is a very interesting thing: If I book the flight to Vancouver from London, I mean: London - Vancouver - London it will cost almost twice as much as a flight Duesseldorf - London - Vancouver - London - Duesseldorf. Even with a stop over in London for the weekends. I will never understand how these airfares are calculated. Anyhow, Nokia now paid for my England trips on two weekends plus the parking fee at the airport. All in all this saved me almost 400 Euros!!!! Well, not really that much. The British Airways flight they booked for me went to Heathrow. That meant I had to take the bus to Thetford. Heathrow is appr. 3 hours away from "home" and so Dave didn't pick me up there. Anyhow, what I wanted to tell you is that last week I spent some time in Vancouver.
And I tell you, the weather was nice, warm and sunny when I arrived. Yes, we had meetings during the day, but in the afternoon I drove to the mountains went for some short hikes with another colleague from Germany. It was very nice. We even saw a black bear next to the road. It almost felt like being in Alaska ;o)
The whole meeting was scheduled for three days, but I was done after two days. Wow, I thought, that gives me time to explore the town a little bit before going to the airport and fly out at 17:45. My hotel was located downtown (by the way, a very nice one which I probably will never be able to afford to stay on a private trip) and so I walked to Stanley park. I found a geocache on the way and decided to visit the Vancouver Aquarium. Around lunchtime I got a phone call from BA, telling me my flight will be late. Actually delayed until next day 1pm and I should call their hotline. I did it immediately and had to wait for 15 min before I got connected to a real person. And that all from a German cell phone (that means a 800 number is not free!). They didn't give me any reason for the canceled flight, but they tried to book me on the same day late evening flight. Even with this booking they asked me to show up at the airport early to make sure I can fly out on that night, because everybody wants to be rescheduled to that flight rather than to the next day one. So I decided to stop the sightseeing and take a taxi to the airport. I waited in line for maybe 2 hours, I don't know. It felt awefull long. But I was lucky, they booked me on the same day flight and after 4 more hours at the airport (which by the way is very nice) I was able to board. Of course I missed my bus in Heathrow, but that was no big deal neither. They go every two hours and I made it home to Thetford only a little bit late.
Let me also complain a little bit about the weather. It is cold! It is wet! It is definetly not summer, even if the calender tries to tell me so. My backyard is a mess with all the weeds and grass growing and I am not able to cut it or do anything against it. Yesteday I clipped the hedge, which was enough work, but I am not really satisfied with the way it looks. I wanted to do it fast before the next rain started. I really hope that England has some nicer weather during this weekend. I need some sun.
Dave subscribed for a Scuba diving class! So he will start going underwater in three weeks. Maybe I am even more excited about it than he is, but I can't wait to go diving with him. Hopefully he likes it.
So, I am ready to leave again. I am almost on my way to the airport for the usual England trip. Just wanted to let you know what was going on. Take care!

Weekends with visitors

The last weekends were really full with activities like sightseeing and having dinner in nice restaurants. As mentioned in the last entry Dave's parents were visiting from Kansas City and while they spent the weeks exploring England and Scottland the weekends were reserved for activities with us.
One highlight was the long weekend in London. I don't know why, but I love and hate this town. I am always very excited going there and I make plans what I want to see and do this time, but as soon as I am there it seems like there are too many people and especially too much traffic. This is the time I would like to go to one of the nice parks and stay there until we can have sushi and go home.
But this time we had a very full schedule. I arrived on a Thursday night. Dave just got promoted to Lt.Col. and we wanted to celebrate this during this weekend. They all picked me at Stansted airport and we drove to the hotel. The place we stayed was located in East London, which is kind of colorfull area with a lot of immigrants from every culture you could think of. The hotel itself is located in the soccer stadium of Westham United, which was fun. It was only a 5 minutes walk to the next underground "tube"-station. We had almost three full days in London, but this never seems enough. On Friday we did a bus sightseeing tour. Then we had "High Tea" at the Savoy hotel. Well, not a place to wear jeans and sport shoes, and not a place to expect a lot of food for 60$ per person ;o), but a very high society atmosphere, tea of all kinds (even if I don't think they know how to do it properly) and some nice little bits and bites of different things. After this we went to a show: Billie Elliot, the musical. Have you seen the movie? It is mainly about a 12 years old boy who comes from a workers family and instead of boxing he became interested in ballet. That was hard to exept for his dad who was on strike for keeping the coal mines in this area open and therefore had to fight every day for surviving. Really, it was amazing what the 13year old boy who played the main character showed. Great.
The next day we had time to go on a "flight" on the London Eye. Look at my flickr page to see what I am talking about. It is the big wheel. After this ride Dave's parents and we separated for a while. They visited Westminster Abbey while we went to the Aquarium. I've seen so many churches, abbeys and cathedrals since I am a frequent visitor to England that I already have a hard time remebering what I saw where. Well, and I am always intersted in animals ;o)
We also went to Buckingham Palace. All the roads around the palace were closed since they had a test run for the Queen's birthday parade. What else? A drink at the Sherlock Holmes Pub (where Sir Doyle wrote one of his stories), another church visit (St. Pauls cathedral), some shopping at Oxford street, a quick visit to Hyde Park and nice Sushi at a Japanese Restaurant. The last day was dedicated to the British Museum. We managed to see maybe half of the exhibitions there. We looked at the Assyrian, Greek and Egypt area as well as at the mummies. The also have the stone of Rosetta there, which helped to translate hieroglyphics. The best thing about almost all museums in England is: the entrance is free! They ask for a donation, but that is up to you. But I think it is a great idea to bring these things to everybody, so I of course donated some money.
That was my long weekend in England. Together with Dave's parents we also spent some more time in Cambridge and in the Norfolk countryside. Now they are home again and our weekends will be back to normal...whatever this means.
Maybe we should start thinking of some more details regarding the wedding next year...and Dave needs to learn Scuba diving....I want to go mountain biking....and then there is the business trip to Vancouver next week...
Well, I don't think I will be bored during this summer ;o)

Ely cathedral

It was a family weekend. Dave's parents arrived in England and will stay for 4 weeks. They plan on touring England during the week and going on trips with us on the weekends. So be prepared to read from England short-trips from me during the next blogs.
Our first trip let us to Ely. As most English towns the main attraction there is the cathedral. And this is exactly what we visited first. You want to learn a little bit about the history? Okay, I try to give a short overview:
It all started with the Saxon princess Etheldreda, who was born AD630 near Newmarket (not too far away from Ely). She knew that God wanted her to live a religeous life. For political reasons she had to marry twice, but during the whole time she maintained her virginity! Her second husband gave her Ely Island (an island in the Fenns) as a gift. The same husband eventually released her from the wedding vow and she moved to Ely island and in 673 she founded a monastery for monks and nuns. This monastery was built at the spot of the current cathedral and Etheldreda became the first Abbess there.
She died on June 23, 673 from a throat tumour. When the tomb was opened in 695 her body was found well preserved and the tumour healed.
After 200 years the monastery was destroyed by the Danes and refounded as a Benedictine community in 970.
Work on the current building started in the 11th century and the in 1109 the church became a cathedral. In 1539 Henry VIII dissolved the monastery and Etheldreda's shrine was destroyed. So were a lot of carvings and stainless glass. In 1541 the cathedral was refounded as the King's School.

Enough information? I hope you got some ideas about the long history. After visiting the cathedral we walked around Ely. As so often we tried (and finally managed) to find a geocache that showed us many interesting places around town.
Enjoy some more pictures on flickr (as always).

Snow

No, the weather is not going that crazy. But I thought "Snow" is a good title for this entry following the sun and rain. And actually I had some snow this week. On Wednesday evening I was skiing. Yes, you read right. We can go skiing around the year.... we have an indoor skiing slope. You might think something like this only exists in Japan, but we have two of them not too far away from my house. The one we went to is the longer one. It is still a very quick run and a long time waiting to get uphill again, but with some friends it is fun. Barbara, Eva, Marcus and me tried it last Wednesday. Since Thursday was a day off many people left for a long weekend. So we found ourselves at the skiing place with approximately 20 more persons. It was really empty and a lot of fun. You pay 19,90 Euros for an evening ticket and this includes dinner and all soft drinks.



The danger sign was new. It is anything else than dangerous. The run is a very easy one and if you are not fast enough you have to walk up a little hill to get to the lift again.

The temperature is around freezing, maybe 30F. It is a special fun to go there in the middle of summer, wearing skiing pants, gloves, hats and sweaters with you while others walk in shorts and shirts.


I told you yesterday was a day off in Germany. Marcus, Eva and I decided to go for our first scuba dive this year. Diving after skiing. Fun. After loading all diving stuff into the car and even find a place for Senta to join us we managed to be on the road to the Netherlands by 13:00. The lake close to Nijmwegen is an one hour drive away. The weather was not too bad, at least dry in Essen, and when we arrived the sun came out. The water temperature was 15C in 6m depths, which was surprisingly warm. Nevertheless we put all neoprene that we have on.

The dive itself was fun. We saw some freshwater crabs and a very huge pike. Diving in a lake usually is not very exciting. Most of the times the visibility is very poor and even if you see some fish they are not colorful. But diving is all about experience so we try to do this even here in our lakes as often as possible. If it is not too hot we take Senta with us. She loves playing in the water when we are done diving.


After diving Marcus get rid of remaining water from the BCD.









Now it is time to pack all the wet stuff into the boxes and find a way to bring it home. Diving needs a lot of equipment.








After we had fun it was playtime for Senta. She enjoyed it, especially since we were the only ones there. The only problem is: she was too wet to drive in on the back seat of the car with us.

No we didn't leave her there and she didn't have to run home, we used a towel. Cute!!!

That was my week, well, the fun part of my week. Of course I had to work and did some routine things, but who wants to read about this.
Take care!

It's raining again

Did I say it is nice and sunny the last time? Well, now I can't complain about too dry weather: It is raining again. It started maybe a week ago and it already feels like it rained forever. The local farmers are very happy about it and I was too...for a day or two. But this is something I can't change. So lets review the last week commuting between England and Germany.

The last weekend in Thetford was a busy one. Dave's parents will come and visit next Thursday and we arranged one bedroom for them. You would think this is easy, but most rooms in our house in Thetford are just not big enough for two beds. But somehow it worked out. And I even convinces Dave to get rid of some old clothes. He thought the t-shirts he wore at college were still good, but honestly, this is some time ago and I completely disagreed with him. I wouldn't care if it was not for needed space.
We finished working some time during the afternoon and took Amber for a walk. The day started out being cloudy and grey, but the afternoon was sunny. We went to the old ruins of Thetford Priory. It is a nice place to play with the dog and in addition a new geocache was just recently placed there and we had to find it.

We also explored a Pizza Express restaurant in Bury St. Edmund. It sounds like a chain restaurant, but I doubt it. Actually it was a nice Italian one. The only problem was we had to change our order at least three times. Whenever we placed it the waiter came back to our table and informed us about a change in the menu taking place next week and that therefore they ran out of this and that. We enjoyed it anyhow.

Sunday was short as ever and I flew back home to Germany. This is also when it started raining. Some heavy winds caused a lid on my chimney hanging down and banging against something the whole night. It was annoying. But I found a roofer taking care of it.... for "only" 165 Euros!!!! But there was absolutely no chance for me climbing on the roof and fix it by myself.

Did I complain about the weather? Well, there is one really good thing about it: I have an excuse for not cutting my hedge or doing any other work in the yard. The disadvantage is: it doesn't look very nice right now. But I guess I can live with that. And the forecast for next week is... more rain. It will be very relaxing.

Not very much to say or write. Make sure you check my flickr page for some new photos. And I would like to read comments on them ;o) And if you also have some pictures to share: Flickr is a great place for doing it! I would be more than glad to add you as my new contact there.

Have a great week and a very good mother's day to all the mothers of you.

Enjoying summer in May

It is warm, it is dry, it is ... May.

Yes, summer is still here. The only thing that changes is the temperature. Some days it is really hot with 30C during the day and 18C during the night. On others the day time temperatures reach 25C and the night time temperature drops to 9C. What all the days during the last 3 or more weeks have in common is the blue sky and sunshine. The local farmers are already complaining about the dry April. And they predict very high prices. On the other hand this expanded the asparagus season. The white asparagus can be harvested from maybe May until June 21st. This year the season started in April and I already had my first Germany asparagus.

The other thing I wonder is: why does everything growing on the fields die (same with all plants I planted) while all the weeds will grow and grow and grow? Any answer to that?



May and June in Germany have a lot of holidays on Thursdays. With the 1st of May (our labor day) on a Tuesday that gives a lot of opportunities for long weekends. So was the last one.

One of my friends here in Germany had a birthday party last Saturday and therefore I decided to fly to England on Sunday morning and stay until Tuesday afternoon. That also gave me a very relaxed Saturday. After sleeping in I decided to take my inline skates and drive to the river Rhine in Wesel. This is my favorite place for skating. It is not a round trip, but even so I enjoy going one direction, having a break and going back the same way. Here are some impressions of the area:












Also back to England on Sunday I worked a little bit in the back yard. I planted some flowers and we bought a table and umbrella (as sun protection). And even if it is just a small yard it is good to have some green.

Now I am back to Germany before I will fly to England again tomorrow. Could it be that all my flights cause this unusually dry and warm weather? Here in Germany the CO2 reduction and the climate change is one of the biggest topics during the last weeks. We have one political party who wants to allow a flight to Mallorca (a very popular Spanish island) only every 5 years....
Don't get me wrong, I definitely think we have to act now and I try to do my best (turning off the computer when not needed, avoid using the car whenever possible which also gives me some exercise, etc.) but I really don't want to abandon the weekends in England. One day....

I am not old, am I?

It is summer in Germany! Well, at least it was summer last weekend and ... on Monday! With 30 degrees Celsius it felt more like a day in August than in April. And this was very strange, because I am pretty sure it was still April. And I have to know it, Monday was my birthday! And it was great. On Saturday night I met Dave at a highway rest stop to guide him to my house. He has been there before, but this time it was the first time he went there by car. He will spend this whole week in Essen and so does Amber, his dog. The two took the Ferry from Harwich in England to Hoek of Holland in .... Holland. First we met with Senta on a neutral field. Well, the first moment didn't go very well. Both dogs were barking and got into a little fight. Mainly because Senta saw me, wanted to run to me and then Amber had the idea of defending me. But after a few minutes everything was ok and they also accept each other in my house!

As mentioned at the beginning, the weekend was unusual warm. We even took a short bath in my pool, but this really was a short one since the water is still a little bit chilly.
I took Monday off. I always take my birthday off. Dave, Amber and I went to a nice area with a forest and a lake where we went for a hike and Amber was able to swim a little bit. It was very relaxing. We also went out for dinner and actually were able to sit outside while having pizza at a very good Italian restaurant.

Unfortunately I was not able to take the whole week off. So now Dave has to find things to do by himself. I feel a little bit guilty for that, but I can't change it. The weather is still nice and very sunny, but the temperatures are back to normal again (maybe 18 C). Let's see, what else happened. Oh, Dave bought inline skates (rollerblades or whatever you call these shoes on 4 rolls). He wanted to try them yesterday and I took him to Lake Baldeney, a very popular lake for bikers, hikers and skaters. And I made him go around the whole lake! He was very brave ;o) and therefore we went out for Sushi after that. Yes, we found this great Sushi restaurant in Essen. I looked it up at the internet before and now we finally visited it. And we will come there again.

The next days will be filled with working in the back yard and cleaning up for my little birthday party next Saturday. I also want to prepare some cakes. But I have some help, which is good. As always, time goes by so quickly. Hope this kept you updated a little bit. Keep on reading!

Tokyo

I have no idea how to start this. I just returned from my first trip to Japan and there are so many impressions I brought home. Not souvenirs, impressions ;o)
But all started with my bad influence on electronic devices. Maybe I have the wrong job. But first of all my digital SLR camera died and I was no longer able to switch it on. And then, after I finally found out that I can't send it to a service center in Europe, but have to ship it to the US, my iPod had the same problem. And I can tell you, an 11 hours flight without music or audio book ....NO I DIDN'T WANT TO GO THERE.
But then the nice guy at the BA counter at London Heathrow looked at me and my printed out boarding pass and shredded it. My luck. I still had to go to Tokyo, but since the economy and economy plus classes were fully booked and maybe because my iPod was broken he re-booked me to business class with my own entertainment center and video on demand and a real bed. Wow.
After a very short flight I arrived in Narita airport Tokyo and took a shuttle bus to the hotel. It was only 13:00 but I decided to take a nap before meeting with my colleagues from Finland at 16:00. I went to my room and there it was: my first contact with Japanes high tech. I looked at the toilet and there were much too many features on the control panel. Yes it really had a control panel. You don't believe me? I can show it to you:

But I figured out how to use it. I did the same with the chop sticks (well, I used them before) and I somehow managed to use the underground and train system to get to places of interest. You think the last one is easy? Well, maybe at bigger stations where all the stops are also labeled in English, but at smaller stations you can only find signs in Japanese. So it is not so simple to find out where you want to go and how much to pay for the ticket (and use the ticket machine which is also only available in a Japanes version). Or how easy do you think it is to find all this from the following sign:

As you know the whole trip was mainly for business reasons. I met with my manager colleagues from Canada, Finland, Tokyo and England. This also means that most of the time I spent in our office there. But it has a nice view to enjoy with Mt. Fuji at the horizon:

By the way, I will post most of the pictures to my flickr page. Make sure you check this as well to get some more impressions.
But even with all the work I had one extra day there and so I explored the city for one day. These are the things I found out:


Tokyo is of course very big, buildings and lights everywhere. And it has my shopping paradise: Akihabara with all kind of camera and electronic stores. Especially after dark it is very impressive to go there and see all the lights.

I did some shopping there too, it was too tempting to buy a camera flash and battery grip after I compared the priced to the lowest internet rates in Germany.

The next day I took my little guide book and some geocaching printouts ( You still don't know what it is? Check out www.geocaching.com ) and decided to go to the Meiji shrine located in Yoyoga Park. It was mentioned as a place of serenity in the hectic city and yes, this was exactly what I wanted. The shrine itself was build in 1920, destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in 1958. Meiji was a emperor who lived from 1852 until 1912. For me it was a little bit strange to see people going there and pray. Well, it was just an emperor, not a god, but this is one of the big cultural differences. But the whole thing is located in a beautiful park. The even clean of the trails from leaves! Before you come to the shrine itself there are special places to clean hands and mouth before going in to say a prayer. And in the shrine's yard is a wall with a lot of little wooden plates people write down their wishes. These plates will then be collected and used as prayers. Almost everybody bought a plate for 500 yen, not only Japanese people.
This place is also very famous for getting married there. And I was lucky enough to see part of a Japanese wedding ceremony.

This park was kind of quite.
I also went to a Ueno Park, which was the complete opposite. In Ueno park there are many different museums and also the Tokyo zoo (which I didn't visit). And they have many many cherry trees there.

So now, during the blossoming of the cherry trees, it seems that everybody goes there to spend the spare time sitting under the trees.
Everywhere are large, blue plastic covers on the ground where families, students, friends with kids or whatever group is sitting and having a picnic. Very amazing to see, but to many people for me.

I sat down somewhere and read again in my tour book to decide where to go. Somebody stopped by and talked to me in English. Yes, I mention this because even the younger people in Tokyo barely speak any English. Which surprised me, I expected this to be like a second language in a high tech country. So I was even more surprised to hear English words and I looked up. There was this bum talking to me in fluent English! He lived somewhere in the park in a tent and this is exactly how he looked like. I asked him where he learned the language and he talked about his travels to Europe where he also learned some words of German. But, he said, this only happens because he stayed in hostels or at private houses. "Never stay in expensive hotels like most western tourists do". Well, he also talked about which places I should visit and where better not to go after midnight. Not that I even planned to go somewhere all by myself that late. It was a very interesting experience for me.
After visiting some more places I finally took the subway home, stopped at a Sushi bar and took the shuttel bus from the station to the hotel where I met Cristian, my colleague from Vancouver. We shared our experiences of the day at the hotel bar (yes, it was a very expencive hotel) and talked about Japanese culture. There are so many other things I could share with you. Things like having dinner with my colleagues at a Japanes restaurant where nobody understood any English and we didn't get what we ordered. Or how all the little dogs in Tokyo are dressed for example in Jeans and T-Shirt. Or the way the people try to create their own little private space listening to music from an mp3-player or cell phone everywhere. Or that they play a different melody at every railway station.....or...or...or. But this will take much too long. All in all, it was a very interesting place to see and I would like to go back again. But then visit the countryside a little bit more of the traditional Japan.

P.S. Nobody shredded my ticket on the way home so I had to take my place in normal economy plus class ;o)

I am back to blogging!

I am sorry. I didn't write for such a long time. Actually, I was somehow aware I didn't write, but then I didn't notice it was so long. So what happened in the meantime. Pretty much, but where to start? Yes, of course the "normal" trips to England. But beside them I also did some travelling to Austria for skiing, Finland for business trip and South-England for a long weekend. Let's start with the skiing adventure.

Dave and I had a one week skiing trip planned for end of February, beginning of March. We called in spring trip since there was not very much snow in the Alps. Is it already the climatic change? Maybe. Or at least partly. The whole winter was much too warm here and we had no snow where I live. This meant for our skiing we didn't expect too much. We stayed in a nice little village in Austria. Vent is located on 1900m and therefore we expected at least a little bit of snow. But when we arrived there were only a few patches, the rest was muddy brown or grey. Yes, maybe we were a little bit disappointed. But not very much. It always depends on what you are expecting. And honestly: it started snowing the first day we stayed there. In the valley the snow was rain ;o), but from maybe 1500m it came down as the beautiful white stuff that makes a dark winter's day lighter. We enjoyed our time, did some hiking and sightseeing and also skiing.

We visitied "Schloss Neuschwanstein", Innsbruck and Rattenberg. And we had great 4 course dinners every night.

Shortly after that it was Dave's birthday. Since it is St. Patricks Day we originally planned to spend the day in Ireland. This is what we discussed last year when we celebrated it at Humphy's in Anchorage. Well, we were told mid March is not the best time for Ireland and in addition the flight would have cost us almost one complete day. Therefore we went on a long weekend trip to Southeast England. Dave picked me up at Stansted airport on Thursday morning (well, he was late so we left the airport at noon ;o)) and we drove to London. I found a good hotel close to the London subway and we found it after circeling for a while.

After a short break for Dave (driving is not fun there) we took "the tube" and visited The Towers of London. We also had some time for a short shopping trip to Oxford street (the only thing we bought was a cooking book) and after that we had dinner at our favorite London Sushi place. Well, actually it is the only Sushi place in London we know, but we like it.

The next day we drove to Stonehenge and Salisbury. Both were very interesting. Stonehenge...well...it is an old ring of stones as you know. Some people told me that it really is nothing more. But for me it was very impressing. I won't forget the first view from the highway. Salisbury has a very nice cathedral and some beautiful historic houses. We enjoyed a very fancy dinner at our hotel and a beer in a pub.

The next day (Dave's birthday) we headed on to Bath. My first impression was: I don't like it here. Too many big houses and no trees or any other green. But after we got familiar with the architecture and the history I think it was a very interesting place. The original place was an old Roman bath (or hot spring) but later on, long after the Romans left, in the 18th century it became a bath for rich English ladys (and their husbands). It was the time when the English Queen said that everybody has to take two baths a year, if necessary or not ;o)

For all the trips you should have a look at my flickr photopage.

Okay, since I am writing this while I am still at the office I should keep it short. I promise to be a better blogger and write more often. I would also like to hear from you whether you read it at all or not ;o)

Therefore my last announcement for today: Dave asked me to marry him. I said yes, I think this means we are engaged now! Hope this is happy news for you as it was for me!

Love from your friend in Germany (who will come to Alaska on September 11th).

Anke

As time goes by...

I didn't recognize how much time went by since my last post. January is a very busy time at work as well. Twice a year I have talks with each of my team members. We discuss what has been achieved during the last 6 months, what are the targets for the next period, we talk about the individual performance and make development plans. As you can guess this is really time consuming especially since it happens in addition to my "normal" work.
We also had a team building workshop appr. an hour away from where I live, and a meeting in Finland. Finland reminded me of Alaska, at least it had some snow.
At home we only had wind. Maybe you heard of the big storm "Kyrill" that hit Germany really bad 1.5 weeks ago. I was lucky, all that happened was that 3 trees are now standing in an 45degrees angle and have to be cut down. Unfortunately my insurance won't pay for it. They would if the trees were already completely on the ground....
During the last two weekends in England Dave and I explored the northern coast of East Anglia. It is a little bit more than a one hour drive away from Thetford. I love the ocean. Especially in the winter. It is rough and windy and not too many tourist are around. We walked there, had coffee at a nice cafe and took some pictures. The little towns along the shore are very nice, but I can imagine how busy they will be in the summer time.
Do you know about my photo pages (yahoo and flickr)? I added two links to this blog so you can look at my pictures there.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you! Sorry for the late blog, but it was a busy time. We were all looking forward to the holiday season and suddenly it is all over ;o)
It started all with fog in England. For some days it was not possible for planes to leave Heathrow or Gatwick. Good luck that Dave flew out of Stansted on Friday before Christmas. But the fog was nearly everywhere in the London area and so I spent 3 hours at the airport Cologne/Bonn waiting for him. The really bad part was that it was in the middle of the night with only one kind of diner open. But I found this place, had something to eat and drink and a nice place to sit and wait, and wait, and wait.....He finally arrived at approximately 2am. It was 3:30 until we got some sleep. The original plan was to meet Juergen and Ingrid, two friends of us, in an amusement park near Cologne the next morning. We wrote them a message and said we won't be there before 1300. And somehow we made it. I forgot my motion sickness pills, which is really bad if you like rides like I do, but get sick like....I don't know....I mean, really sick. So I called Juergen and asked him to stop by a pharmacy and bring these drugs for me. And it worked. We all had fun, enjoyed the Christmas decoration and lights and had a nice dinner before going home.
Christmas eve was a little bit more relaxing. We slept in, had breakfast with Marcus and Eva, drove to a my favorite little forest here and went on a hike with Senta. We went to church twice. First to my normal one and than later, at 2300, to one we discovered last year. We opened presents, sang Christmas songs and had dinner.
Christmas day we spent at my brother's house. December 23rd is my nephew's birthday and traditionally we meet on Christmas day to celebrate this. It was only a short stay for Dave and me. The next day started very early at around 3am since we planned to spent 5 days in Minneapolis. I was a little bit nervous. It was the first time I met Dave's parents and his brother's family. But it was a great time, everybody gave me a very warm welcome and I got more present than I ever had. We really had problems getting everything home. Beside spending time with his family we also took half day trips to Owatana (where Dave grew up) and St. Cloud (where he went to college). And then we had a lot of things to organize for Amber (his Golden Retriever girl) to move to England beginning of January. In the meantime she arrived there savely, we are all back to Europe and work and already had a very rainy weekend in England together.
The weather is still much to warm for January. It is scary. At the house in England I found the first flowers peeking out of the ground! This usually happens in March. And I don't believe in the coming spring. I am pretty sure the cold weather will come late as it happened the last years. And if not: Hopefully we can go on skiing vacation in the Alps end of February and see some snow there.