FranceBlog in English

Last friday was my trip back home. With the currently largest Airline, Delta, I did this trip. Hans drove me to the Airport and I was ready to go back to Germany via Paris. I had to unpack 2.5kg (5pounds) books and my razor to make the 50 pound (22.6kg) limit for my suitcase. I also got a nice seat near the exit and toilets. With lots of legroom and good entertainment system.

Since I had only 55 minutes between the flights I was lucky to be near the exit. But due to some delay I had only 45 minutes time. Was tough, but I made it through passport control (was a pain) and from Terminal E to D (long way to walk). In the plane I had a DejaVu experience. Like 7 years ago on a flight from Atlanta to Paris and then to germany I was sitting at the window near the luggage compartment. So I could see the guys loading the luggage. I also saw my suitcase arriving . I thought, great, my luggage is with me, but they again were not able to load it. I talked to the flight attendant, but it was too late. No chance. So I already knew that I will arrive without my luggage in Berlin. At the lost luggage desk they already knew when it would arrive that saturday. Since we had to do something in Berlin anyway it was ok. Daggie picked me up with Grandma Hella, Fabian and sick Jonathan.

We picked up a dog for my mother (Grandma Hella) .A 7 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. A nice little, smooth lovely dog. Good for older people and they love kids.

In the afternoon we drove back to the airport and picked up my suitcase. The whole weekend went by fast. We met Grandma Hella, Uncle Axel, Nadin and Laura and Grandpa Hans-Juergen and Helga.

Today we drove back to our „old little“ Home in Stetten. Nice to be back. Saturday we drive back to France.

A bientot

It is my last night in Atlanta. Very soon I will be back home with my family. So it was time to go to a very good BBQ Restaurant with the colleagues Phil, Marty, Dave, Hans and Phil’s son. We went to Williamson Bros BBQ. I guess it was good, that we went to this place now, after three weeks. Otherwise we would have been there more often, and that is not good 🙂

Work was done and we took off. Driving north on Cobb Pkwy. and right at the hug Chicken from KFC. A few hundered meters on the left was the BBQ Restaurant. It was already smelling delicious on the outside. You could smell the smoke… hmmmmm. After getting inside we also saw the tons of meat in the BBQ grill.

It took just a few minutes to decide what we want to eat. No big discussion. I ordered the full rack of Baby Back Ribs. Hans as well. The others had some smaller portions. But that was ok. We only had a small breakfast and only salad for lunch (yes, only salad, I know that is pretty unbelieveable for someone like me, but I am not 25 anymore 🙂  )

When the ribs came it was soooo delcious. I finished them in a short time. They just disappeared and only some bones were left over. After we payed our bill we drove back to the Hotel in our 3L V6 SUV Mercury Mariner. Good car, but the 200HP are not enough for this big car.

I packed my suitcase and I am not glad to go home tomorrow. I hope that Delta and Air France will be on time and my luggage will arrive together with me and not a few days later. Next stop – home

C ya

To kind of celebrate the end of our second week here (I had halftime last wednesday), Hans and I did a little BBQ at the Hotel. We went to the Kröger Supermarket and bought some deliciuos, tender Steak and Shrimps, BBQ Ribs, Vegetables, Wine and Beer. Since the weather did not look that stable we only did the BBQ at the gas grill near the pook and had the dinner itself in the apartment. It was pretty warm and mild (24C / 74F) but they expected some rain that evening. It was not just rain. In a neighbour county they had a Tornado Warning and we had a severe Thunderstorm warning. It was raining like crazy. Stormy, rain… The night was not that quiet. But anyway. It was weekend, so I wont complain.

After a nice breakfast we just decided to make a easy day. Instead of going to Stone Mountain we decided to not go in this wet weather. We went shopping into some big Malls. That was more relaxing.

The night from Saturday to Sunday was not good at all. I could not sleep. Not because of rain or a couple that celebrates their honeymoon. No some neighbour next room had some severe Healthproblems. In the night I suddenly heard around 4 am a woman shouting and a man breathing not very healthy. Some minutes later I heard the ambulance coming and then they helped them. I don’t know how the person is doing, but this experience kept me awake a while.

After a nice talk with my family (I miss them soooo much), Hans and I did again a breakfast in his room.

Theweather was fantastic today. Blue sky, just some little clouds and temps in the mit 50s. It was very windy but that was ok. After the nice drive to Stone Mountain Park we walked around. Stone Mountain is the third largest Monolith worldwide and solid granite. See Wikipedia for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Mountain

The park is nice with a little historic town, a train, cable car… After looking around we took the train to get to the walk up trail. That is also a nice little ride around the rock with some very nice views. After we arrived we started to walk up the trail. It is a 1.3 Miles trail up to 1683 feet. We had also a funny experience. A young couple was walking in front of us. The girl just had a very short skirt. Due to the high winds this skirt was more up than down, so they changed the skirt to short. Was funny. See a short Video from the Top of Stone Mountain

The view was spectacular up there. We saw the skyline of Atlanta and the surrounding areas. It was beautiful, very windy but worth the walk. After a little rest up there we went down with the Sky Ride cable car (swiss made), since our Adventure Pass covered all that. We walked around once more and wathced a hammersmith doing his hard work.

Was very interesting. Outside the historic town you could also see a Monster Truck. It was possible to take a ride on the back also. But 10USD for a 2 minute ride around the parking lot was too much for me. I took some pictures, took a video of the truck taking off with the nice V8 Sound and that was it. We finised the day at the Outback Steakhouse (with blooming onion and Steaks). See a little Video of the Monster Truck

Picture are here in this new Slideshow: STONE MOUNTAIN SHOW

C ya soon

Finally I was at a carshow again. I drove with Hans to a small town 45 minutes north of Atlanta. At a Church parking lot a small carshow was held and 20-30 cars showed up. Not a huge amount but some nice cars were there. From a new Scion XB to a 1930s Ford, Mustang, Camaro, Corvette… Everything you need for a show. Even the sun came out and we were happy, because we haven’t seen it for a week or so. Yesterday they also cancelled a NASCAR race near Atlanta due to the bad weather.

The pictures from the carshow are here starting at Atlanta159

We also drove around today and went shopping in the Mall of Georgia. We bought some nice stuff for our families and of course some stuff for us. I was also able to buy some of my favorite KRISPY KREME Doughnuts…yeahh 🙂

Eating is not everything but a important thing here. We were of course hungry tonight and decided to have a evening in the Sal Grosso (http://www.salgrosso.com ). That is a Brazilian Steakhouse. Yeah, more steaks you think. Sure. But it is a kind of All you can eat Steakhouse. But not the cheap type of All you can eat restaurant. For about 40 USD you can eat as much as you can. Saladbar and meat in 16 different variations. So you fill your plate with Salad and you sit at the table. YOu have a little card on the table. You must turn the card to the green side when you want some of the delicous Steak, Filet Mignon, Lamb… If you do not want more meat you just turn the card to the red side until you are hungry again. That was really delicious and worth the money.  So we had a good weekend and let’s see what the next week brings

A rainy week in Atlanta is over. We had no bad April 1st fools day jokes so it was a easy week 🙂 Since there was no snack available in the Hotel on Friday we went shopping and got some Shiner Bock (my favorite beer from Texas), Wine from France and Chile and some delicious steaks. So we finished them in the room, drunk some wine and beer.

The plans for Saturday were either going to a nice car show near Stone Mountain Park or going to the largest Aquarium in the world in Atlanta. Since the weather was wet, very very wet (they had a drought for a long time) it was obviuos that no car show on our list today. We drove downtown to the Aquarium and it is really a breathtaking experience. The largest tank hold 6.3 Million Gallons of water. Different themes are there for the Rain forest, arctic… Really a very good experience. Kids can do a lot, they can touch fishes and learn a lot. I’ve been to several Aquariums in the world and they were all great. But this Aquarium kicks a..

Most Aquariums have seahorses, tuna, penguins… but this Georgia Aquarium is one of the few Aquariums in the world that has Whalesharks and Beluga whales. Whalesharks are the biggest fishes in the world. They are names whaleshark because they look like a shark and they are as huge as a whale. So when you walk through the huge glas tunnel and see the Stingrays, sharks and finally the huge whalesharks you can’t shut your mouth. But those huge fishes can’t eat big fishes or even humans…no, they can only open their mouth as wide as quarter in diameter.

I shot lots of phots and also videos. The pictures are available here, but the videos will take a while. 

The other fascinating animals are the Beluga Whales. Those white whales swim in a 900000 gallon tank and it is also breathtaking to see them . Trust me, it is really worth to go there to this Aquarium when you are in Atlanta, it is a MUST. Forget the Cola Museum, it is not worth the money.

After the visit we walked around in Atlanta a bit. We saw the Skyscrapers covers in clouds. Rain was there from time to time. To satisfy our little appetite we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. Also some shopping was done. That was our Saturday. Let’s see how Sunday and the next weekend will be.

A bientot

So, my first night is over and my Jetlag kicks in again. I had a good night and a nice breakfast at the Hotel. After talking to my lovely family I headed to the Atlanta Airport to return my Rental car. I only rented it for a day since I stay here in the same Hotel with my colleague and good friend Hans. We also work on the same project. So no need for two cars. I waited at the Hertz rental in the cold air. After the lots of rain and thunderstorm the temperature dropped 10C / 15F to only 41F (7C) . Hans got a nice Mercury Mariner SUV with 3L V6 and 200HP. Funcar. 🙂 So we drove to the Hotel and Hans got his room.

We then drove to our little shopping tour. We need food, drinks and so on. Around the corner is a ALDI. This supermarket chain is very well known in germany for the low prices.The store looks the same and many products are also the same as in germany.

Since we have not found all we need, we continued a bit. We went to the Mall  where I got a haircut. A better one than the one at my last visit in Poughkeepsie. We finally found also all we need in another supermarket but we could not buy wine today, because it is sunday. On Sundays you can not buy alcohol here in Georgia.

So we will see how the weeks continue.

What the heck am I doing again in the USA ? Well, I moved to france and I am once more in the USA. In Atlanta to be precise. It was already planned a while ago, but the schedule has changed a few times and I had to change also from Poughkeepsie to Atlanta. It is not easy for me to get away from my family because I already spend a long time without them due to the move to Montpellier, but we are used to it and it is only 3 weeks this time.

I had a easy trip from Montpellier to Paris. I was happy to have a E-Ticket, because Air France only had one person for about 70 guests with normal tickets but 3 for E-Tickets.

Anyway. Paris is always a pain in the …. Yes one of the worst Airports you can think about. Huge and not guestfriendly. So I had to go from Terminal 2D to 2E. Sounds easy, but E is still under construction and a BUS transfer needs to be used. In the Terminal itself you have to go through the painful security checks. At least I had enough time. At the Gate E67 itself it was easy. This part of the Airport is a new Terminal. I was surprised to see that my flight was in a Airbus A340-300. The past years I always had a Boeing 767,747 or 777,  some other Airplanes also. 777 is the best Boeing, quiet and huge. But the Airbus was a pleasure, quiet too, inseat Entertainment, roomy seat (compared to 747 or 767). The food was also very good this time, I was very pleased.

In the 10 hours flight I was able to watch 3 1/2 movies. Enchanted, Juno, Beowulf and only half of We own the night (with Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendez…). That movie was the best, but the entertainment System was reset about 2 hours prior landing and the film stopped and never started again. Well. We landed on time in Atlanta and I used the lazyness of most Guests to get in front of the crowd. Everybody was using the Escalators, I was the only one using the „normal“ stairs. Voila, I was at the immigration line and … there was almost no line. in 5 minutes I made it out of the plane and through immigration. It was easy and the staff was very friendly. In the next 5 minutes I picked up my luggage and went trhough customs. Also a record for me. Another 5 minutes to get through the strange security check at Atlanta Airport. I haven’t had that in New York, Minneapolis or so. Here you must go through Security again when you already did all other checks. You even have to transfer your luggage again to the South Terminal Baggage Claim.

In this case it took me 15 minutes to get out of the plane, get trough immigration, customs and security check and then it took another 30 minutes to get my luggage back. It is so rediculous. But thats Atlanta.

After this experience I went through the rain to the Hertz bus. Heavy rain. Thunder, Lightning. Even the bus had a leak and rain dropped onto a seat inside the bus. The seat of course I tried first, eaahhhh, wet jeans.

At Hertz I pciked up  my Ford Focus and drove to the Hotel in about 25 minutes. Was easy. Hotel is ok and room is nice. After I brought my luggage in my room I went Shopping. I needed some water, toothpaste and so on. I found a Wal Mart. But that was a bad choice. The store is under renovation and they have not much available. At least it had the right stuff I needed. I was totally wet while going from car to the store. Whatever. I went to the Applebees restaurant to get some Dinner. Riblets with fries. It was close to the Hotel, so not a long drive. I could have wlaked, but not in the rain.

So I am here now and come back in 3 weeks. A biento

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

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 🙂

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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