Category Archives: Personal

Good-bye 2006 – hello 2007!

The year 2006 is almost over. André and I spent the last week visiting with our families and friends as usual (and celebrating my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary!) and will drive back home tomorrow, after celebrating the beginning of 2007 with friends, good food and playing RoboRally.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas (if applicable).

Happy New Year! See you in 2007.

Life in the countryside

You know you really live in the countryside when you meet two tiny toads and a blindworm (Anguis fragilis, aka slowworm, Blindschleiche in German) a few hundred metres from home on your evening walk. Considering that I grew up in a village of less than 400, it’s surprising that it was the first blindworm I ever saw. (I have seen toads before, though. Really.)

Here’s a photo of the toad (Bufo bufo, Erdkröte in German) I found while working in the garden on Saturday. It was about the size of my palm.

toad in our garden

For the record, Saturday was the first day since our move that the weather was decent enough to work in the garden, mow the lawn and so on. Afterwards, we did what Americans do according to our cliché: We grilled burgers. It felt so stereotypical: On a Saturday you work in the garden, mow the lawn, have barbecue. We should also have had some beers to complete the picture. ;-)

Still here

Hi, we’re still alive. We made it through the move alright and managed to renovate the old apartment and unpack most of the boxes before I had to go back to school this past Monday. André started his new job yesterday, and I mowed the lawn for the first time last night. We only got DSL a couple of days ago, so I was barely online before that.

Let’s see if we manage to unpack the rest of our stuff this weekend…

Have a great one, everyone, und viel Spaß am ersten Schultag, Christopher!

Ready, set, go!

We’re moving. The kitchen was disassembled and moved yesterday (and will hopefully be assembled today so we have a functioning kitchen again), the rest will follow tomorrow. See you on the other side!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I used the same title twice almost exactly two years ago when we moved to Andernach because I got a job at a school near Koblenz. This time around it’s André‘s new job that requires us to move yet again. He handed in his diploma thesis yesterday and may now officially call himself a Diplom-Physiker (a diploma is equivalent to a master’s degree). In September he is going to start working on his PhD – in Mainz (Link zur deutschsprachigen Seite), the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate (dt.), about 100 km south of Koblenz on the Rhine.

As a civil servant I’m not allowed to transfer to another school right now, nor would I want to. I picked my school for lots of good reasons two years ago and want to stay there if possible. – Besides, it’s possible I’d have to transfer yet again once André’s finished with his PhD and gets a job elsewhere.

Of course it’s too far to drive to Mainz everyday from Andernach, so we have to move again. We looked for a place about halfway between my school and André’s new job and decided to move to the Hunsrück (dt.), the mountain range south of the Eifel (dt.) and the Moselle (dt.). We found a house to rent in a small village near Emmelshausen (dt.). This remote location has several advantages, however: It’s only a few minutes’ drive to the next Autobahn on-ramp, a great bike path (another converted railway, ideal for inline skating; Schinderhannes-Radweg) runs right behind our garden, and when we go down to the Rhine, we arrive right in the middle of the picturesque Upper Middle Rhine Valley (pick your language in the upper right corner after the intro) which has been inscripted a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2002.

We will be moving in less than two weeks on August 12th, but are not sure if the phone and DSL line (for internet access) will work right away. Also, we’ve got a lot of packing to do until then, so don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while.