Archive for Februar, 2008

We are here…

Montag, Februar 25th, 2008

Oui, we are finally here. All together. After 3 months almost without my family we arrived all together in our new home. Daggie, Fabi and Jona are now also in france. We had both our cars packed to the limit. My Cougar had an additional Bicycle Rack on the back of the car. That made our travel speed a little slower and also the gas milage much worse. Instead of using 7.5L/100km (31MPG) my Cougar sucked 11L/100km (21MPG). Dagmar in her A-Class was bored to drive behind me. But the Bicycle Rack was so shaking and made the milage so bad that we had to travel almost 10 hours including the breaks. But the weather was nice and sunny and the traffic was very easy. No real traffic jams and a quiet drive. Only around Lyon/Valence we had some more traffic due to construction and a accident.

After unloading the cars the kids powered out their energy with their bikes. They used the quiet  Area here to ride their bikes.

We ended our evening with a Dinner at the Restaurant here at the Hotel and enjoyed a delicous, we don’t remember what it was, meal. After that we had Crème Brulée. The Kids hat Steak Haché and fries. As a dessert they also had Crème Brulée and Mousse au Chocolat. But Dagmar and I had to finish the left overs.  Since we were all exhausted after the long day and the stressfull days before (Kids were sick and Dagmar too) we fell into Bed without problems and had a good sleep.

Today the weather was not as good, some fog and a steady rain, only 13C. But we used the time to go shopping for our kitchen and to empty the suitcases and sort the things in our apartment.

Tomorrow we should get better weather and then we will go outside. So have a nice day and A BIENTOT

I am back

Montag, Februar 11th, 2008

There I am, back again. Back with my family. After 5 weeks. That is so great to be back. My trip was „interesting“ . On friday I flew from New York JFK to Atlanta and then to Stuttgart. Prior the flight from JFK (Delta) to Atlanta I noticed two very heavy persons and I said to myself, hopefully they wont sit near me. Hmmm, not much to say. One guy sat directly near me (was a 2 seats on each side small plane) and the other one, a heavy tattooed and wide and heavy, Gang Member looking person was sitting in front of me. Not from the beginning. But the pilot said, some people have to rearrange due to weight distribution in the plane. Great. The man beside me was sitting on his seat and partly on mine ( I am not a narrow person either, but not fat) and the other one moved to the seats in front of me. Due to his weight and the fact, he put the seats in the back position I was pretty boxed. Not much room to move. It was only 2 1/2 hours from JFK to Atlanta. But not very pleasant ones.

The flight from Atlanta to Stuttgart was not better. Not heavy people, but egoistic. I don’t like those persons, that just move their seat in the back position without looking or doing it smooth. The small german lady in front of me moved her seat back very fast and my knee could not move as fast as it should have been moved. So the pain was there , but that would not change anything. I really hate those people. With 30 minutes delay we arrived in sunny, blue sky Stuttgart and my pain was gone.

At the border control in Stuttgart the waiting time was huge. That is so unfair. When you arrive in the USA, you have to wait at the immigration. Because from the for example 30 Booths with Border Patrol persons only half of them is poplated and most of them are for the US Citizens first, then for Non US Citizen. US citizen are gone fast through that, we always have to wait. Now in Stuttgart there were about 50 US Citizen and 170 germans. But there were 3 !!! Border Patrol persons for the US persons and only 1 !!!! for the germans. Great. The 50 US citizen were fast, again, and we had a huge lane. When the three guys were without work they allowed us to come over. How nice. At least the waiting time for the luggage was shorter. My luggage was already there and I could leave the Airport fast and hold my kids and my wife.. after 5 weeks.

With the kids we went to cinema on Sunday and watched the movie ASTERIX, very funny movie. It is so great to be back and spend the time with my family. More coming soon… enjoy

Bye Bye New York

Donnerstag, Februar 7th, 2008

Zooooooom, my 5 weeks in Upstate New York are over now. I had a lot of new stuff to test and to learn and it was fun. My new, old colleagues and friends made this time flying by. That is good, because I missed my family extremely. Tonight we went with 7 other colleagues to a italian Restaurant ROMA: Was great, but not very cheap. Anyway, Now I am going back and I can stay with them, go to france and enjoy family live again. I spent more time this year in the US than in our new home : France… But that will change. So the next weeks I will be in germany and then Montpellier with my lovely little family. I miss them so much… more coming soon in this BLOG 🙂

SUPER BOWL XLII – NY Giants win – what a weekend

Sonntag, Februar 3rd, 2008

Yeeeeha, wow, I never thought I would be that excited sitting in front of a TV and watching Super Bowl Football. Really, that was a blast. The NY Giants were the underdogs and they had to play against the so far undefeated (18:0 games) New England Patriots. Since I am a guest in the US and i am in NY State I am of course Fan of the Giants. 🙂 What else should I do ? The Giants were defintely not seen by anyone to be the winner of this match. The Patriots had a perfect season so far and won every game…But the Giants had Eli Manning, their Quarterback that made the impossible possible with the other team members. It was the 4th quarter. 2:59 minutes to play. The Patriots just got the lead 14:10…The Giants still had three outtimes and used them so perfectly, that they scored another Touchdown and Fieldgoal 30 seconds before the end of the game. The Patriots of coursed tried to get another Touchdown but it was not possible to get another Touchdown. No everybody was crazy and the Giants made the SUPER BOWL 2008 17:14 !!!!!! What a exciting game…

But the weekend was not totally controlled by Football, no of course not. I used this last weekend here in Poughkeepsie,NY to visit my very good friend Axel and his wife Kelli in Princeton,New Jersey. After having a cold friday with ice rain the saturday was nice,sunny and mild. So it took a little more than 2 hours to drive down to Princeton. Was a nice day with Axel and Kelli. We went shopping (for Dinner) and sightseeing. For Dinner we had Spare Ribs, wine and some delicious whiskey (provided by Steffen from germany…) Axel and Kelli have two dogs and a cat.  Hmm, usually that is a big problem for me, since I am extremly allergic to cats. But Tommy seems to be different and I had almost no allergy signs. Just a little bit after a day, but usually it takes a few minutes to hours to have me breathing hard and sneezing. So that was really good for me.

On Sunday we also did some sightseeing and we drove to mother nature to walk the dogs. After all the rain it was pretty muddy. The little rivers were wide and flooded some areas and the walkways were pretty wet and muddy. So we and especially the dogs were very dirty after that walk. It was really a funny weekend and I enjoyed beeing with Axel and Kelli.

A few more days and I am finally flying back to my family in germany. It was almost 5 weeks now and I am desperate to go back to Dagmar and the kids. Can’t wait to be back. I hope that there will be no more snowstorm or so this friday. Don’t want to spend any extra day here. Of course time went fast due to a lot of work, but I want to go home and finally go with my family to Baillargues in france. We are all excited about that… A bientot

 

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