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Wedding Meike & Jörn

The wedding of Meike and Jörn was a beautifull day at Ahrensburg close to Hamburg. We're very, very happy for you guys.

The bride and grooms car gets usually a flower bouquet. Since they both work for the HSV (Hamburger Sport Verein - Hamburg sports club) they had the logo as their bouquet.

The groom and René

Some people have a special pose... And Owen is one of these. His girl-friend Meike
(photo below) is usually not that happy, if he does the pose, because he is doing this in each
and every picture ;-).

Sometimes she can't help herself and just joins the pose.

And, we couldn't wait to do so, too!!!!

Since Ownen was able to export his pose, Julie needed to give the Ugly Face to the UK as well.

Hm, later at night René found an air guitar to play with ACDC...

Hamburg

For Jörn's and Meike's wedding we drove to Hamburg and since we were there one day early we had some hours to visit the very beautifull city of Hamburg - 255 miles north of Düsseldorf.

In addition to René's mom and Harald we visited Hamburg with Bertine and Francis - very good Belgium friends that René's mom knows from childhood.

City hall of Hamburg.

Sunny Sunday in Düsseldorf - The Japan Day

Düsseldorf is a very international city and it has for example a huge
Japanese population (people say almost the biggest outside of Japan).
Check this out: http://www.japantag-duesseldorf-nrw.de/

Appendix cooking duell

Even though Morgan sometime gets some people food in addition to her cat food, but this time she also got some Shiny Cat from Henrike and Christian which looks almost like "real food".
You can see the shrimp and tuna, amazing for cat food.

Ok, the cat on the cover looks a little bit retarded.

Cooking Duell for the 1st time

Since 2006 René "plays" with Henrike, Christian, and Andreas the "cooking duell".
The rules: Someone will be the host for the duell and provides his/her kitchen and drinks for the night. The hosts is also responsible for creating the dinner for the people who are invited. The guests have to bring the groceries for the dinner that have will be prepared by the
host. Of course, the main point of the duell is that the host doesn't know which
groceries the guests will buy and bring to the cooking duell.
Even the guests are not really allowed to coordinate with eachother! It is allowed to talk a little bit about the ingredients, but just in the way that they don't bring kilos of meat or fish or just carbs. The host should be able to prepare at least a four course dinner! This time Julie joined for the first and we played for the first time since fall 2007. Host was René.

The starter: Zwieback with grilled goat cheese
and marashino cherries...

Rabbit butt ... preparation of the fresh rabbit that Julie bought.

Orange-trout filled with garlic sprouts and peaches.

Self made spring roles

I guess the rabbit was delish

For a good meal you need also some goooood wine, of course.

The green hell - 24h race

The Nürburgring, a racetrack, with a distance of almost 16 miles per lap is also called "The green hell", because of its more than 70 turns and shape like a rollercoaster.

During the 24h race more than 200 cars/teams compete with each other. Professionals and amateurs on the race track try to win or even finish the race - it is exhausting.

This car (number 43) is a continuation model of the famous Ford GT40 from 1966. Unfortunalety, after thrilling, leading laps a technical problem made it stop and a new Audi R8 won the race.

In this race you can find modern-, rare-, spectacular- or just cars that you know from the past and some have a special cliché. This car (number 120) for example is a Opel Manta which was a "sporty car" in the beginning of the 80th.
Every Manta driver/owner used to wear cowboy boots, had a blond hairdresser as girl-friend on the co-driver's seat and a fox tail on the antenna... Of course this kind of car has not chance to win the race anymore but it was a competitor of the winners between 1979 and 1982 (Ford Capri and Fort Escort).

Convertible Tour

Timbered houses (Fachwerkhäuser)

With a co-worker of René we drove to the Siegerland (area 20 miles south of Cologne)
and had a very nice day at one of the country sides of Germany.
Cute villages with timbered houses and small winding roads.

After a long period of hard winter-training...

... the Marathon-day came and we had to run. We ran the 42,195km (26miles 385yards)
with Debbie and Sue who came all the way from the US. Thanks for the special support of René's Uncle Klaus (pictured above), Aunt Maria, Mom (Gisela) and her boyfriend, Harald.

Harald, Maria, Klaus and Gisela - our special support! (from left to right)

Thanks mom for running a part of the marathon and handing me some Gu.

Sheep on the Rhine in Düsseldorf

Sheep in the middle of the city?? Can you believe this ... one day during a training run on the Rhine, we almost tripped over a whole flock of sheeeeeeppp!!!!

They are so, so cute!!

The Space Needle of Düsseldorf and the Sheep of Düsseldorf. Almost every
day they can be found grazing on the banks of the Rhine.

Impressions of Masstricht (Netherlands)

René went for work to Maastricht. Just to give you some impressions of this nice city in the Netherlands very close to the German border here you'll see some pictures:


Sometimes you find statues... that remind you of something...

Easter egg search at 'The Red Lion'

On the morning after The Red Lion, I found this Easter basket with delicious Reeses peanut butter cups - thank you, Julie!! I got an Easter basket!!!

The gang at The Red Lion, the ole favorite. Of course Julie and René met here, so this will always be the favorite place to go.

Ki, June and Libby. (Strike a pose.)

Suds!

Another round!

A beautiful day in NYC

After our night out at IZU for karaoke and our horrible training run in Central Park we were able to enjoy a beautiful April-day in New York. We went shopping and Julie spent most of her "vacation money" at Duane Reade....

Anna - Thanks again!!

Next Stop 'The Red Lion'

NYC Easter Karaoke

Inevitably, during a marathon training schedule, one reaches the point at which the dreaded long runs begin...15 miles, 18 miles and of couse at some point the 20 miler. As a birthday gift for Julie, we flew to New York (it was the weekend of one of our 20 milers), and so we decided to do the run in Central Park. We had to run 4 times around the 5-mile loop in the f%c?! cold, freezing rain...

Upper 5-mile loop (http://www.centralpark2000.com)

Jeff, Janine, René

Ok, there was the horrible run, but before that we needed to make a visit to our favorite karaoke place in NYC. Here we're getting ready for an evening of singing at Anna's.
Thank you, Anna!! Thank you so much for the accommodations!

We were with Robyn (above) and
Janine, Jeff and Debbie (below) at Quattro Gatti on E. 81st Street for a delicious pasta refreshment ante-karaoke.


Jeff, Debbie, René, Janine, Julie and June at IZU - favorite karaoke place in NYC.
So good to see you, June!!!!

Rock it Janine!!


Woo hoo!!!
"Excuse me..." and who is a teacher - now? ;-))Debbie and Jeff

The cat is doing good!!

Since everybody knows what kitty litter in German means it couldn't be that difficult to figure out what the German word for cat is. Any idea? Let us help you a little bit...

Any idea? Hm?
Btw: We have these Post-its all over the apartment to learn the vocabulary.;-)

Wherever you look - there's a nice, cozy place to hang out; to sleep, clean or watch what is going on...

Some kitties like cat grass or special cat nip treats - Well, our Morgan prefers weeds.
After the winter we started cleaning off the balcony, removing debris and dead plants. Within one big pot of old, dried-out flowers and other botanical species, a small, fresh weed was found growing. During Thumper's short tours out on the balcony, she started to nibble away on this particular weed. Every time she went out, she went straight to this little, growing weed and nibbled its leaves, and so we decided we had to keep it. Nowadays, you'll find that the weed has been transferred to a brand new big pot, and it's the tallest plant on the whole balcony - yes, the cat's weed!

That's my tree!!

Bavaria and Castle "Neuschwanstein"

A week long seminar for René's job, brought us to Bavaria. The little village where it took place was very close to the famous, fairytale castle „Neuschwanstein“ (the model for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle) built by King Ludwig II who died in 1886 seven days before the castle was opened to the public. His death is still kind of a mystery.

http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/palace/index.htm

In front of the castle, there was a small snack shop. We laughed at the menu which was presented in at least three languages...
How do you say "Schnitzel" in Japanese? Or is that Korean?

In the distance behind us, you can see the castle on the mountainside
(look right above René's head).
... not Jägermeister ... This is a house of one of them ;-)

Helau!!!! Street Carnival and Parade on Rosenmontag

More than 70 floats were built over the last 10 months and now lots of bands, Carnival groups and people wearing costumes and running through the streets of Düsseldorf.

Everybody is screaming "Helau" as the carnival greeting to scare the winter away!!

After 6 hours of Street Carnival we were very happy to find the a outdoor heat lamp at a nearby bar...

Later we switched to another bar in the Altstadt to finish off our Street Carnival day.

Who's the real statue??

The 5th season being continued....

After our 1st two days of Carnival 2009 we went to the Pauls (the Bar where we celebrated Andreas's birthday a few weeks ago) to continue the celebration of Carnival - it is Saturday night and unfortunately just two more days to go...

Superman and Maya The Bee were also with us...

Ice, Ice Baby!!

Even a pilot needs his "guitar" in the cockpit...

Nothing but haaaiiir......

"Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party time! Excellent!"

The 5th season of the year... Old Hag's Day "Altweiberfastnacht"

On Old Hag's Day called "Altweiberfastnacht" which is the Thursday of Carnival celebrations.
The pilots are waiting to board in the hallway...

On Carnival Thursday the women enter the Town Hall to capture the Mayor and take over the administration of the City ;-). That marks the official start of the "street carnival" in Düsseldorf.

Impressions from Düsseldorf

The Burgplatz

Fear not! Starbucks is here as well...

Düsseldorf's main train station area at night

Andreas's 40th birtday bash

Everybody was required to show up with a 70's costume at Andreas's birthday party at the Pauls. A very smal New York style pub.

Let's rock everybody let's rock

everybody in the whole cell block

was dancing to the Jailhouse Rock

Grrrrrrr....

Huuhhuu

Dieter and Alex

Lenny forgot his guitar ;-)

Chair dacing

Katzenklo, Katzenklo ja das macht die Katze froh....

Morgs' new German potty or "Katzenklo" (including a peek at our bathroom).
Check out this song:
/Katzenklo.mp3

European Vacation: The Gairs

We met up with Maria, Martin, Ian and Max at Saskia´s house outside Frankfurt (highschool friend of Maria´s). The Gairs were at the tail end of their holiday travels in Europe including trips to Scotland, Austria and Germany, and the timing allowed us to spend an afternoon together.

My new home town

There was snow all over Düsseldorf for the first couple of weeks that we were here. Snow is actually quite rare here even in winter, but a big storm brought a record 20 centimeters just days before we arrived.

Here are some shots of the snow-covered city...

TV Tower (the skyline's most iconic structure)

View of the Rhein River and the Altstadt with the old Rheintower

The Altstadt is also called "Die längste Theke der Welt!"

Welcome Party!!

René's friends threw us one fabulous Welcome Party just days after we arrived in Düsseldorf. They cooked homemade classic German dishes, such as Haxe, Erbsen Suppe, Bretzeln, Weiss Wurst, and Mettigel. Unbelievably delicious! They brought over warm food, plenty of beer and festive German-themed decorations to make me feel welcome in my new home... it was a wonderfull night.

"Looping Louis" - a children's game which has dangerously gotten into the hands of these adults. When mixed with vodka or other liquor, this game can provide hours of entertainment and fun for the whole family.

Alex & Dieter

Marta

Tom

Andreas

Rob

Want some chicken? (actually Haxe)

Surprise! They brought me a costume to wear throughout the evening.... a traditional Bavarian "Dirndl" for girls.










Evelyn

Christian

Henrike (affectionately known as "Ike")

Andreas and Christian

Mettigel dish demolished... by the end of the party only the snout of the hedgehog remains.

Welcome to Düsseldorf!

René's mom, Evelyn and Christian gave us a warm welcome at Düsseldorf airport.