Moving time!

Carola and I recently moved to a new apartment on the north side of Frankfurt. Carola now has her own study room, and I have my view. We are both really happy that we found such a place that meets our needs so well. I think we are going to be really happy here. Many thanks to my parents, Carola's Mum, Björn and Diego for all the help!

Because of the way the timing worked out, it was best to move on a Tuesday. So I took a day of vacation and we decided to try and do all the physical moving in one day. I went early in the morning to Europcar and got our rental moving van. It turns out that left turns are hard to find in Frankfurt (where otherwise I don't drive so often). I wouldn't use the word "lost", but I got dead-ended quite a few times before I was able to make it to the new apartment to meet up with the others to get the key to the new apartment. It was all work from then on. Diego and I had the first load loaded by 1:00 or so and then Carola and I went back to Affentorplatz for a second and final load. I think we finished somewhere right before 10:00. It has been quite a few months since I have been so tired. But with the help of friends and family, we did it.




This big boy caused a good deal of pain getting up and down narrow staircases.



Diego was not looking forward to this guy.


I think this is me fairly early on in the process, I am not sweating too much yet. I was anxious that we would not get it all done in one day. Carola was thankfully more relaxed than me, and took some time to smile and take photos.




Thanks to Mutter, we not only had a Europcar van, but also a VW Minibus. This was very helpful for all those things that do not pack well in a big moving van such as plants, cowboy hats and other awkward items.


As we moved out, Affentorplatz started to slowly empty out. Many thanks to Dad, who removed all the window coverings, and patched all the holes. Without all this help, moving would have been much harder. This apartment served us very well for the close to two years we lived there, and so I will not say anything too bad about it. Nevertheless, it was time to move on.


This is the study. We are completely out of boxes now, but we still have a bit of work to do hanging pictures. Since Carola is away in Estonia, I have been holding off on this project for awhile.


Despite being on the north side of the house, the Study/Guest Bedroom gets a good amount of light.


Finally Carola can have all her Phd-related texts all in consolidated in one bookshelf. Another good point about moving.



Because the kitchen does not have so much cabinet space, we are using my old wardrobe (straight ahead) to keep dishes, vases etc. It is so tall, it would not have fit anywhere else very well. In fact, it almost did not make it there as the breaker box is almost covered by the wardrobe.


Thanks to Diego's hammer drill, I was able to hang the coat-rack. This is our own personal staircase. Our front entrance door is at the bottom of the stairs. Many thanks to Carola, who wired up the globe light you see hanging. It took some acrobatic skills.


It seemed like a natural choice for us to put our living space next to the good view and all the southern sunlight (valued like gold in the winter). I have been using my old iBook (that I got from Aunt Ardell) as US-DVD player and also this way I can listen to my music and Colorado radio this way.


This is our skyline view. The Magnolia trees have just started to bloom and they are very impressive. Many of the other trees are just starting to bud out.


Same view, different angle.


It is difficult to see without a before picture, but a part of the balcony used to be quite green with algae that had grown on over the years. I took a bleach-water solution and scrubbed alot of it off. I need to do a bit more work before summer gets here, but I like the idea of having a balcony that you don't have to think twice about going barefoot on, and don't track green algae back into the apartment.


This is looking back in toward the apartment. While the balcony is the cool thing in the summer, the stove/fireplace is the nice thing for the winter. Next fall I need to do some research about what kind of wood/sawdust bricks we use in the thing, without spending a fortune.

A German Thaw

After a wet, dark and cold winter, the first signs of spring are starting to slowly creep into our consciousness. Flower stands are selling bulbs and the light arrives at a steeper angle, one we have not seen since the sun deserted us for the southern hemisphere last autumn. It is not yet time for restaurants to start their annual tradition of erecting the mazes of tables and chairs on any outdoor surface that may catch even a sliver of the promised spring sunlight. But it is close. One can feel it.

Nevertheless, the Winter Games continue to play out in Vancouver and also on our TV. It still makes me a bit sad to see the snow start to melt away, because I still have hopes for cross country skiing, tour-skiing, downhill skiing, snow-shoeing and everything that an open snowy meadow has to offer. It will happen and we will for sure make it out at least one more time this year, but the thaw has started. Granted, as soon as I write this we will get hit with a spring blizzard, but no matter how we get there spring is on its way.


This winter we have already had so many good ski days, many more than our count of null last year, I have nothing to complain about. Still, it would be nice to someday have a car with good snow tires, a ski rack and at least a nearby cross country ski area. We will work on that.

Carola and I went out among the hoards of Frankfurters and did some shopping yesterday. The book store was full, particularly with people huddled around the travel guide section. Keenly and methodically, the locals were weighing how to re-balance their endowments of sunlight (too little), warmth (way too little), vacation days (ridiculously too many) and euros (never enough).

Afterward we stopped by the market for some home-made sausages and apple juice. While we were enjoying these culinary arts, we noticed an uncommon sight. An American evangelical missionary was loudly yelling about the Bible in accented German. This is, actually, quite a common sight in downtown Frankfurt. However, some young Muslim women took issue with his characterizations, it seems in particular with the book of Matthew. They got into a heated discussion. It was great to see this intercultural mix embracing freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But I was also left with the feeling that exercising a freedom is a messy process and results squeeze out in so many directions. When the young women withdrew and continued on their way, one had the feeling that the two parties do not really understand each other any better, but perhaps only used the occasion to deepen the suspicions and stereotypes previously held. We wondered a bit more around the market, absorbing all the sights, sounds and delicious smells. Then we got on the train and headed home.

This weekend we were both finally free to enjoy a weekend at home. We hung the paintings that my parents gave us as a wedding present. We picked them out on our trip to Colorado.



We also had some Carnival people go past our window...

One of the coolest presents I received for Christmas was a beer brewing seminar south of Munich. The first weekend after we came back from Colorado we headed toward Rosenheim so I could attend the brewing seminar with Carola's dad.

It was a good time, and we learned alot. We started off the morning with grinding wheat, barley and all the necessary ingredients. Then we had a weißwurst breakfast with some of the house beer. We went through the whole process of brewing the beer, ending up pumping the beer into a big barrel to cool and interact with the yeast.

The bucket of yeast had to be "woken up" by drawing it into the air and stirring it around.

Jakob arrived after our Colorado Christmas, and we headed up into the mountains. Above Cripple Creek, I took this photo of Carola with the Sangre de Cristo Mountians in the background.


After some more enjoyable days in Colorado Springs we headed up to Winter Park for our ski trip. Cousin Jenna organized a very cool condo at the base of WP. Above is the view from our balcony.

Once we arrived in Colorado, it was time to celebrate Christmas with my family. Ardell and Grandma Franson came down from Denver to open presents with us. Unfortunately, George was not feeling well and could not make it down.


Jet-lag held at bay, we really enjoyed relaxing with family. I enjoyed being so far away from the work place.



Dad was having a good time...and Grandma was evidently quite good the past year, because she had quite a few presents.











I, with some artistic direction from Carola, made my mom a photobook of our wedding events in 2009. She was happily surprised.

The end of 2009 brought with it some success at work. We are working on a project that is well described here:

http://www.ebrd.com/projects/psd/psd2009/40986.htm

My firm's website is here:

www.finance-in-motion.com

After a strenuous time at work, it was time for Christmas. Carola and I headed toward Rosenheim to spend the holidays with Carola's family. It was wonderful to spend time with Carola's brothers, sisters and many other family members. It was cold and the snow sparkled in the moonlight. Happy moments were mixed with sadder ones, but that was appropriate and to be expected this Christmas. I personally enjoyed singing Christmas carols that I knew (even though all the lyrics were in German).

We came back to Frankfurt afterward and prepared to leave for Colorado.

Dear Blog Readers, it has been a long time since my last blog entry, again. I have been very busy at work tying to get our new energy efficiency fund off the ground and running. I am hoping the new year brings time to do some other things, like updating my blog. Carola and I have been busy making our apartment a bit nicer place to live. Carola got some evergreen branches from her mum, and we have attached these to our ladder. It looks something like a Christmas tree now. Carola found some ornaments to put on it. Yesterday we got a wine rack to put in our shelves. I put it together last night and now, sometime, we need to get a small collection of wine going. Also you can see a photo of our new electric piano. We got a bit of tax money back from the German government, and we traded this for a piano. It gives me something to play very simple songs on, and Carola can play very nice, complicated songs already.

Jam Making!

Carola decided a few days ago that it would be a good idea to make apricot jam this weekend. So, she went to the farmers' market and got some apricots. They smell good. Part of the recipe is to crack the seeds and boil them with the fruit for added flavour. It seems to have worked out good so far.




A rundown of our other urban farming activities:



Tomato plant

Green beans

Dear Reader(s) of my blog. It has been awhile. Since Carnival time I have gotten married. Hitched, as they say. It was a wonderful wedding. Of course not everything went exactly as planned, but it was planned that something would not go exactly as planned. I must say that those things that were unexpected only added to the flavour of the event. Furthermore, there were so many wonderful surprises that I can safely say that our wedding was something way beyond what we had dreamed of. My parents, Grandma Jean and Glennys were the first to arrive. They flew into Frankfurt and we immediately put them to work folding church programs. As so many hands made such light work, we very quickly had time to explore Frankfurt a bit. Ken and Kevin Oltjenbruns joined us as well for our explorations. It was a very busy time, particularly for Carola, but we had a great time, and really enjoyed showing people around Frankfurt. Frankfurt also seemed to enjoy it, as she was showing her best face with respect to the weather. It was warm and sunny, with many spring flowers popping up everywhere they could. This was not the Frankfurt one knows during a rainy/snowy/sleety winter day. I am glad everyone else got to know the better side of this bi-polar city.

Over the next few days, we accumulated various Americans who had made their way across the pond. To this day we remain so pleasantly surprised by the number of people who made such an effort to find their way to this corner of the world. Furthermore, between the boat trip, polter abend, ceremony and reception, the two cultures and languages came together amazingly well and I have heard only positive comments about how nice it was to meet such kind and interesting people from so far away.

After the wedding, Carola and I spent several days with Cousin Jenna and Cousin Christian touring through the rugged beauty of the German-Austrian Alps. It was very relaxing and it also allowed us to catch up on some sleep.

Jenna and Christian dropped us off at the main train station in Munich, and we started our honeymoon journey. Carola did not know where we were going, so with each mile, her curiosity was fulfilled or invigorated. You will have to ask her which one was dominate. After switching trains and walking through an underground passageway, we were able to take in the skyline of Halle (an der Saale). The skyline is impressive – for how ugly it is. Mind you, Google Maps in Germany does not yet have the ability for one to view the skyline online. Therefore I was a bit lost as we emerged to behold giant communist structures, empty and forlorn, through years of depopulation and neglect. Mind you, the infrastructure was wonderful. The roads were perfectly paved and the sidewalks newly reconstructed – as the former GDR has had plenty of money for public works for quite some time. But however well-built the roads and sidewalks were, the train station and surrounding area maintained a mist of depression and listlessness that could not be scrubbed away.


With much happiness, and after much trepidation, I can say that the area surrounding the train station is not representative of Halle as a whole. As we walked toward the city center, new life was breathed into us as we began to see how pretty the city could be. The downtown has a wonderful square with a lively market. The university brings a youth to the city that can be felt in the cafes and shops. However, the city is also unlike any that can be found in Bavaria or Hessen. In many ways it reminded me how Tallinn must have felt 6 or 7 years ago. Less that one block away from the Halle’s main city square, remain a few abandoned buildings that look as though they have not been occupied – though they surely have been – since 1944. This contrast made Halle a very interesting city to relax in and wonder around. We took a tour of the main Lutheran church. This church was unique because it has four steeples. Previously, two church had stood on this spot, with two steeples each. However, a long time ago, the four steeples remained and a new church was built between the four existing steeples. In one of the two taller steeples lived a family whose job it was to watch out for fires and alert the fire department so that they could take the necessary action. The steeple was occupied until the beginning of the 20th century. It was a very relaxing few days in Halle and Leipzig, days that Carola and I will never forget.




Now I am on a high-speed train from Rosenheim to Frankfurt. A little while ago we were traveling 300km (187mi) per hour. Carola and I are returning home after spending a long weekend in Rosenheim. However, I have had a bit of a longer journey to Rosenheim than Carola. I first had a layover in Serbia, Novi Sad to be exact. I was there for my employer’s annual meeting. After months and months of working for the European Fund for Southeast Europe, I finally had a chance to see the Balkans in person. It was completely engrossing. While I learned a lot about microfinance during the meeting, I tried as hard as I could to learn about the Serbia outside the conference hall. It was not so easy as my knowledge of the language is somewhere between null and nada. However, I was able to get a good impression of things from talking with some of the locals, and listening to our tour guide. It is way to early for me to draw any real conclusions, but from what I saw, I have the impression that Serbians are very honest and proud.

Well, hello everyone! Happy Carnival time (Fasching)! It has been a while since the last post, and unfortunately, not a whole lot has been happening. I was sick last week, as a new cold bug seems to have been going around. But now I am back on my feet and ready to go. Where is the party?




Today it was in downtown Frankfurt. As Tuesday is Fat Tuesday, and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, this weekend is the big celebration before Lent. The celebrations are meant to scare away the evil spirits before we go into Lent. Well, I must say that if I was an evil spirit, I would be scared. All these normally reserved and somewhat quiet Germans were throwing candy around and screaming "Helau!!!" There, as far as I can tell, seems to be no theme or code to the dressing style. It must be colourful, weird and hopefully warm. For some reason, Mexican sombreros and cowboy hats seem to be popular choices. In a pinch, a water can will also work.



I find this tradition to be very nice. In my life, there seems to have always been a long period of duldrum between New Years and Easter or Memorial Day. Naturally, with the exception of Arbor Day. Now, in the middle of a long grey cold wet winter, we have everyone dressing up in colourful clothes and screaming. Not bad. A good way to lift the spirits.



Another interesting tradition of the day is that the mayor hands over the keys to city hall to the Carnival MC. It symbolises the right of everyone to celebrate without fear of a repessive state (allthough it is a bit of joke today). Nevertheless, the tradition continues with some sometimes stark criticism of local and national politicians. This usually takes the form of huge paper mache effigies of the notorious politicos. However, it need not always be politicians. There was also a huge float made making fun of a local lady who brought a noise complaint lawsuit. The legal action was brought against the main square of Frankfurt, asking for the legal right to issue a noise complaint shutting down singers or anyone making noise on the square. The local citizenry seem to be not so happy with this one lady.



As perhaps you can see on the photos, it was a cold day out, and we decided to come back and hole up in our apartment (only a 5 min bike ride away). Now we are watching the parade on the TV and it is still going on. It seems like it takes most of the day to get all the parade participants through.

Until next time,

HELAU!!!