Never Too Old To Learn

And to happily accept help: Thanks to Sarah I now know that commenting was deactivated by blogger when I changed to the new design.
Which I did because my archive was gone.

I felt a bit "left in the rain" - is that a German saying? Well, left alone, kinda.
Pic from Monday btw. Seesh, it´s raining non-stop here!
Even now.
Did I mention it´s supposed to be summer here?

Ingo hates the new blog-design, btw. Thanks Flea for the positive feedback on this behalf!

I hope comments are available again...
Well. You can´t complain (too much) about systems you use but don´t pay for, right?

I also wanted the last title to be : Saturday Night Arvo Fever, but css isn´t allowed/accepted in the title anymore (with this layout).
But, well. As said, I don´t pay for this actually awesome, helpful, great service. Thanks, blogger - I say this sincerely!

Always try to think positive: "Thanks" to all the rain we went into a shop on Monday and went upstairs, too - now... isn´t this some cool architecture?

A clever design to keep part of the old and add the new .

The old... sunny pics of happy days a few weeks ago (always forgotten to post):

That´s me, in the sun, with a T-Shirt of my town, Henry, The Lion aka Braunschweig, and in my pocket my keyholder shwoing the word "Heimat", "home".

The other side:

saying "Braunschweig".
This is the place where we gonna spend most of our holidays - which start next week!

Sooooo... trying to conclude logical:
Keep a wee part of the old aka rain and add the new aka sun and warmth - right?

If you feel like commenting and it still doesn´t work... please let me know, ok?

Saturday Arvo Fever

Bro called on Saturday that they all come to our town, if we want to meet – sure!

There is a new kid´s-shop and there we went.

This is the wash-room:

Hehe, see this cute “Oscar”-bag?

Little Niece isn´t used to a large town, to many people and all this. She hardly recognized even me…

Ingo could bribe her with sweets but she really had a hard time.

Since she loves to play in the sand we went to Sonnendeck Süd - which has closed due to the great summer-weather we´ve been having all the time…. So we had to run all the way back, head to the car and drive to Okercabana.

When she saw the sand she sure was happy :-)

“Uncle” Ingo is relaxed…

Little Niece tries so, too:

Too cute, huh?

No, not Bro, the little roofed wicker beach chair and chairs :-)

There is a boat as well:

We had VW-Currywurst, Ingo and I, Bro and family went a bit more healthy. I have to add, though, that we shared one.

When we finally left this weird pig on the roof…

Niece really had had it. She even started to cry, poor thing.

Was still great to have them over for a change.

Meet Mike

Last Saturday I saw this cute little mower. He was the last one and I grabbed him, Mike. He can say 25 sentences.

Niece loves to help in the garden and now she can also mow :-)

Funny enough Bro´s mower is red, too.

My SIL didn´t kill me (yet), she thought Mike is really cool, especially when he says “ich düse über das Gemüse” :-)

He can burp, too, and then announces he´s full.

Niece mowed so hard, she really got hungry and ate all her dinner!

Usually she licks the cheese from the bread, this time she took the whole thing.

Hard work makes one hungry, huh?

Funny was… when I left the highway and came around the corner in Rhüden there was a noise, someone was talking through speakers. I thought, umm, do they have a party someplace here?

But the noise kept going when I was on the road again.

It was Mike!

See – I really put him in safely – still the vibrations made him talk!

I so had to laugh and remembered when a colleague was driving behind me when suddenly my umbrella opened up in the back of the car – my colleague really thought some bad guy is in my car getting up!

Boy, if that had happened in the morning when it still was dark… would´ve freaked me out!

We didn´t get much done yesterday, but now I understand why there are so few pics of Bro and I when we were little…

Our Dad had it all filmed!

Sadly we know no one who could digitalize the material nor did we find a projector.
But a friend told me where to get it done :-)

And all those slides!

You´d need to lose your job to find the time to take all of it into today’s media! (not that I ask for being unemployed!!)…

I was home late and had to park my car in the other quarter.

Ingo made me lunch for today – sadly I was in a hurry this morning and only grabbed my small digicam, but you get the idea:

Ingo put a rubber band around the place where I could put a bottle and added a note, “with guitar, try me!”

:-)

Four good things about this… “situation”:

- I get to spend time with Bro

- I see little Niece

- Ingo makes me cute lunches

… and…

- I usually come home with some treasure, this time it was this super-cool watch:

I could star in the old Star Trek series with this one, Scotty, beam me up!

And this magazine:

Our old BMW, the one my Dad taught me to drive with when I was 14. When I took the car for a short trip and came back to find the place where the car was taken and parked nearby, my Mum didn´t go at my throat but at my Dad´s – for teaching me.

Bro hence learned to drive at age 17 in a driving school ;-)

Next Thursday I´ll be back.

It will be the 19th of July.

That day ten years ago Dad left.

Will be a tough day.

Care For A Kölsch?

I was on training this week in a town I have fond memories of.. "Cologne is an attitude to life" is the city´s new slogan, and I like it.

The way there not so much. The secretary forgot to reserve a seat and on Sunday evenings heaps of people are on the trains. So I sat on the floor with two others. Nice 4 hours, I tell ya.

From the train station I had to take the bus. I knew it was 1,80 € but since nowadays they have a machine only which takes coins… I didn´t pay, but stood in front with my 5-Euro-bill. That´s fare dodging! What a start, huh?

I didn´t get caught and the bus stopped right in front my hotel, how nice.

I was there ready in time to watch Yes Man with Jim Carrey. Hmmm. Good movie, maybe I should “yes” more often, too.

The next morning I got up early to go on a picture-hunt for Bro, who lived in Severinstreet over 10 years ago whilst studying, right here:

Despite I stayed a week there, too, when visiting, I had to call Bro, I didn´t remember which house it was, eww, getting old? ;-)

Obs un Jemös is still there:

They have a new bus, I liked the old one better...

I walked down to Clodwigplatz, here we celebrated Bro´s successful degree back then.

It all was familiar, this is the hotel we stayed in back then, Ingo, my Mum and I:

New is this denn´s, you find them here in Braunschweig, too.

And I could´ve bought some duct tape here! Have never seen this in Germany before (or elsewhere):

“My” store is still there, too:

Fun thing was: When you go into a shop and the shop assistant asks you something, you have to answer real fast, otherwise he´ll repeat the same stuff in English (cause it´s holiday-time?).

With knowing this I found it too funny to see this shop!

"butt wird schöner und grösser"

Ummm, really?

"butt gets more beautiful and bigger"????

Dunno if this is the right slogan to sell designer-clothes...

At 09:30 the shuttle bus picked me up and off we went over the river Rhine.

The guys at the place were really nice all was good, fresh coffe, washed apples - nice until … I was told I will learn to make an html-page.

Umm. No, I will so not! Our secretary had booked the wrong training for me!

Two other guys looked puzzled, too. The trainer and I went away to try and find out what went wrong and what can be done.

In the end they found someone who could do the right training and the other two guys joined in as well.

The new trainer did a great job, sadly this training was only two days, not three. HTML5 sure is a good thing! So much new stuff, I could´ve needed another day… And since it was 2 days only, I had to go to the city right on Monday.

On the way to the city:

I had no map with me and no idea where to get a T-shirt with “Köln” on it for Bro, hence I had to ask people. I tell ya… everybody was super nice and friendly! Yep, that town sure has an attitude to life!

Funny was this guy:



I strolled by a small grocery store, went in and thought, hmm, when I´m in Cologne, I really should have a Kölsch.

The cash out lady asked me straight away, should I open it up for you?

Hello? Funny. No, thanks I had two bags with me, plus who wants to drink a beer walking through the really crowded city?

I enjoyed it watching a new episode of Fringe:

Because… they were not able to set up Internet in the hotel!

The next morning I got up early to take a last stroll through the “neighbourhood”.

But first I had like a real yummy brekkie:

This Pharmacy promises you a paradise…

And this place offers breakfast “all day long”.

Ummm see their opening hours? 9 am to 7 pm.

I usually have my brekkie at 6 am...

Yah, I know, students-friendly it is.

Jim, a menshop…

And here you can find Paul´s sister, poor thing has no name ;-)

And this is where I had the training:

So sad I couldn´t make it to the chocolate-museum.

Funny enough, back home a colleague asked me how the training was. He was there last year and said, did you know there is a chocolate museum at the Rhine? I went there but it was closed.

Oh, really? Was closed every time Bro and I went there. Maybe in truth the FBI is situated there? ;-)

The shuttle bus brought me to a small trian station nearby, I took another shuttle to the main train station and was so good in time I was able to run and catch a train an hour earlier as planned!

I had no time to buy something to eat, though.

In Hannover I had 8 minutes to catch the train to Braunschweig.

I had no chance, we were 42 mintes late, fourty-two minutes! And I was hungry, too, and no, I wouldn´t buy their super-expensive food in the train!

But I had then time in Hannover to get a slice of life. Pizza Hut tastes different here, sadly.

The following train was… not late but had to wait for a train that was late. While waiting I heard the speaker announcing 4 more trains running late. The woman behind me cited the German song "sank you for träwellin wis Deutsche Bahn".

5 stupid hours it took me to get back! So much for Germans are punctual – not Deutsche Bahn!

And don´t you think they tell you why they´re late?

But driving by car is no option either…

Well, anyhows. It was really nice to be in Cologne again.