Wonders do happen

We were prepared. We had two umbrellas, two jackets, two sweatshirts and at least two emergency plans for pouring rain at the wedding.
What we weren’t prepared for was the sun, the boats and the food.
But first things first.

When I go back to Hamburg it’s always a trip down memory lane. I grew up there, studied there, was in love there and had a lot of friends. Coming back always is remembering and meeting old friends - on purpose and without.

So I knew coming back to the church where I sang 7 years in the choir would ultimately end up in meeting old pals. So we weren’t even in the church when I met the first singers. And it is always amazing what time can do to some people and to others - they walk untouched by time (even though you hoped they might change). So it was a little bit the coming home of the prodigal son. But since they all had to sing the talking had to be after the wedding.

It was a lovely church wedding. Opening up with a canon Isaiah 60,1 sung by everybody as the couple entered the church: Up! let your face be bright, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is shining on you. So from now on this is a melody I will always associate with Julika and Volker. Family members and the couple were participating in the ceremony. It was double performed by two priests; the gay one was definitely entertaining and joyful, very important, because evangelic ceremonies don’t have the aura of laughter and joy.

After the Praise everybody was shaking hands and kissing in front of the church, it had a little bit the impression of the Royal Couple greeting the guests as it took more than half an hour. Then we went in splendid sunshine down to the river Alster, more sea really, and entered a boat already arranged for with coffee and cake.

Here I met Uta and Helmut again from the choir. We were good friends 15 years ago, and it was immediately a situation like last week, Uta and me arranging for the tickets and talking away like always. Do you remember my daughter? Yes I did, a tiny baby a couple of weeks old. My memory had nothing to do with the 19 year old beauty, ready for take off to Dublin on a 10 months Au Pair job, who stood in front of me. Yes we had a lot of fun on the boat and later on at the buffet.

But we had a few challenges ahead. We had to change the boat first. Therefore the tickets. And then we waited. The Photographer took a picture (not one hour, just one pic) and we waited. And waited. Finally the ferry arrived, we went on board - and had to get off the next station due to a change in schedule. Unfortunately all the guests piled up on the pier (now 3 ferries were already missing) looked like Hamburg was about to be evacuated this very minute on this very pier in exactly that ferry line. Some took the opportunity to have a little ice cream or snack while waiting again. Then the ferry came, there was pushing and pushing and pushing, then the door was closed. Ups. Later on we learned, not everybody made it on the ferry and had to wait for the next one.

Nevertheless the happy couple and the happy guests, oblivious to any missing members of the party finally arrived at the church where the couple planned a little greeting with champagne and orange juice. And some sort of game. The idea was somehow good but nobody really understood it, everybody was just doing what they were told and after another half an hour we finally entered the dinner room.

Fish Buffet. Yes it was a paradise of fish, mainly herring, in red wine, in sherry, pure, fried, linguini with salmon. I was in heaven. And Torsten in hell. Everybody who knows him knows: he hates fish, every fish, however cooked or prepared. So his dinner mainly consisted of fried potatoes and a little bit of tomatoes and mozzarella. We shared a table with Uta and Helmut and their two kids and had a lot of fun, at least talking, some also eating.
Jens

CLS will make me go crazy

CLS will make me go crazy

Does anyone besides Valley Boy know what CLS means? Well no – you don’t really want to know more than – it is eating up my time at work. All I do these days is sort out spread sheets write up drafts, check with my legal department if my wording is appropriate, set time times, make phone call, set up data bases… Sound fun? Yeah to an extent, but I have my “other” jobs, too.
Need to manage eight lovely staff members ( well seven really since one is more or less on maternity leave ) and answer to my boss and help wherever I can.

There will be a lot of work ahead of me since my company will change it’s name and it’s BIC-Code and thus will or already has produced mass confusion in the financial markets. We will have to wait and see how much more can go wrong.

In a few moments I will be driving Jens and myself to Hamburg, filled the car up this morning so that we don’t break down on the Autobahn like a truck yesterday morning. Crazy – it completely blocked the inner city Berlin highway – a silly truck driver that did not have enough gas in his truck. It would have been even worse but due to the summer holidays only 1/3 or the regular people are driving to work.

It is not too much of a drive only 280 kilometers, so hopefully we will get there in 2 ½ hours.

I will let you know if Jens was too cold, or I managed to warm him up – if anything else major happened.

So keep coming back to our blog and enjoy reading.


Toddy

Miscellaneous

I’m still confused about flying in the future:
No hand luggage, no books, no laptop, no cell phone, no drinks only baby food if you drink something - which is exactly how the terrorists planned to attack (bottles with double bottom), doesn’t make sense really. If you take a closer look: the companies are desperate, and have no solution really.

Business trips will be a lot more difficult in the future. If they implement that in Germany - that would save Telekom a lot of money. By the way, my company is losing money by the minute which doesn’t make my job secure, more to the contrary. And they just cut down 4 posts in my team, which fortunately only hit the vacancies.

Meanwhile we prepare for our Hamburg Wedding; weather forecast is rain, rain, rain and 18°C. Shipping on Alster and Elbe and always walking from one point to another is a nightmare for me to look forward to. I’m open for wonders. We’ll tell the story.

Now I got to go to fetch my husband
Jens

Red Alert

Red alert, terrorists trying to sneak bombs in their carry-on onto an airplane? No more hand luggage to be allowed? I don’t believe the headlines that I am reading this morning. Looks, like we have to be all scared again. I just read that the US even won’t allow anything liquid into the passenger cabin… No more drinks, no hand gel, no lotion nothing… SIGH!

Have you ever tried to pass the security in Berlin Schönefeld leaving on Easyjet? Last time we went to London it took lots of time to go through security. I had to give them my belt. I think my husband had to give them his shoes… They scanned everything! And then in London Gatwick they did not even want my mobile phones (yes, I know, phones - do not even dare to leave a comment here!) or my wallet – almost waved me though like that. Still, I am sure there is a threat somewhere.

On a brighter note – we are off to a wedding to Hamburg tomorrow – wait did I say brighter note? Jens isn’t all too thrilled about it. It will be cold and rainy over the weekend and our friends have a boat trip planned that will go through the Hamburg harbor. And those of you that have met Jens know that he can be what we call in German a “Frostbeule” – someone that can not tolerate cold weather. Well we will just have to see what will happen. See ya, Toddy

One day and thirty years later

One day and thirty years after I started going to elementary school – time is fleeting…

I never thought that keeping up with a blog would be an idea in my mind – but here I am with my second entry. I think Jens and I will just add whatever we think is on our minds separate from each other rather than wait for the other to sit down and decide what to write…

For the past two weeks we have been feeding four kittens and their mother in the back yards of our apartment complex. The mother does not seem to have a real home and she has been pregnant before but never manage to actually grow any of their kittens up. Now here we are with four adorable little cats about 8 weeks old and we wonder how long should we continue to feed them, what should we do about controlling their reproduction? I mean within half a year we might end up with dozens of cats… That is not a bad idea for us in the first place, but nothing that you would want in a residential neighborhood.

Any ideas?

Otherwise – this weekend Jens and I will be in Hamburg to attend the wedding of a dear friend of ours. Actually she is already married, but they will have their church ceremony this weekend and the actual party – couldn’t miss that now, could we? And after having spent a weekend in England to attend Valley Boys wedding we are still in a bit of a festive mood and it will be interesting to see if we can actually compare the two.

Weather – does anyone know what is wrong with the weather? For most of the World Cup Germany and especially Berlin we “under attack” by a heat wave unseen in Berlin, for a long time. Mind you Jens loved the hot, hot weather – I only do to a certain degree as we don’t have AC unit in our apartments sleeping in rooms that have only a little under 30°C (that is 86 of these Fahrenheits) becomes just a bit uncomfortable! And now? Rain? Cold spells? This is supposed to be summer. I am at work wearing long-sleeved shirts again – something that I would only do in September maybe or in October… Oh well global warming… Oh wait – warming? It is colder than it should be – how do we call that now?

That’s it from lil ol me
Talk to you all soon… T

Hurray my first entry

• Hurray, my first entry.I still wonder why we write in English although we are Germans. On the other hand all our friends stand a chance to understand it because everybody knows a little English. (Do Englishmen really know other languages? -Sorry folks, but I think it’s true!).And we are not limited to English and German.Torsten speaks French, I still try… - Bienvenus les Françaises


• I speak Portuguese - Bem-vindos aos Portugueses


• Because of my year in Israel doing social service near Haifa I feel with all the Israelis and Arabs there ברוחים הבאים


• And Torsten adds in Dutch - Een haartelijk welkom


• Ach so und natürlich ein Willkommen für unsere deutschen Freunde

Hasn’t been that difficult - I love grammar correction by computer.By the way, our fourth time New German Rechtschreibung (correct spelling) has now come to an end (in every way I may add) on August, 1st. You can now write everything how you like it because you have several alternatives and no one knows the right way to write anymore. Günther- our old friend in Hamburg, best man and former German teacher - gave me the advice: just write “dass” with double ss instead of ß and everybody believes you are using New Correct Spelling and doesn’t bother anymore.So for now -bye Jens

First real entry

Now this will be OUR blog.

Inspired by our friends from the Valley of the Trolley Dollies we will now venture out and inform you about what is going on in our lives.
Us… Tor is Torsten and Jen is Jens - we are together for almost ten years now and we have been married since 2003…
I wonder if we will be able to post something here everyday but let’s try it…

We learned yesterday that our dear friends J,W and S from Pennsylvania will finally be flying to Germany to visit us. I have been penfriends with J for like 20 years and over the years have visited her and her family numerous times. Now it is time for the three of them to come and visit us. We are very excited.

Smiles - T and J