You're probably wondering why I haven't written on here in like four months. Well, I'm back in Barrie of course, so it doesn't make so much sense for me to update you guys with what I'm doing, because chances are I'll be telling you about it or showing you pictures in person.
Svea, on the other hand, is 6443 km away from home, so she's been updating her family and friends with everything that's going on. So if you want to see some pictures of our house, Oktoberfest, Thanksgiving, Halloween, or to check out her new web design, I send you over to her site Cutie Bum.
It's official, we're moving to Canada on September 14th. We'll be getting an apartment somewhere in Barrie.
Svea's planning to volunteer at the MacLaren Art Centre to get some museum experience under her belt before starting university back in Berlin. We'll stay at least 6 months but possibly a full year, depending on Svea's visa situation and everything else.
I'm going to start freelancing full-time, so if you know someone who needs a web site let me know. :) I'm really looking forward to being self-employed, it's something I've always wanted to do.
Anyway, we'll have lots of time to visit you all, and since neither of us will have a real job, we should have the flexibility to do anything any time! See you then!
My friend Lyndsay came to visit during the last week of June. I was honoured that she chose to spend her birthday with us. To celebrate, we took her out to the Q-dorf, a bar themed as a German village with over a dozen mini-bars within. We met up with some Danish people and had a really fun night.
Besides that, I took Lyndsay out to see all the sights including the Reichstag (German parliament building). Everything was super crazy since it was during the World Cup.
Lyndsay has a blog at lyndsays-world.blogspot.com, so you can go read her side of the story.
Since I'm on holidays in Canada, I figure I should do some catch-up and show you all the photos I've been neglecting. First off, here are our pictures from our trip to London on Easter weekend. Yes, three months ago. Better late than never.
We managed to see a lot of sights while we were there, and luckily we had hardly any rain. We didn't make it to any museums except the Sherlock Holmes museum, as you can see.
Svea finally has a web site! Presenting CutieBum.com. It's in German (though she said she might write in English occasionally) but she put up a ton of new photos from her prom, her trip to Spain, and other parties. So since I'm so lazy to actually put photos online, go there for all the latest.
I know I haven't put pictures up here in some time. I still owe you all photos from London, Hamburg and Wiesbaden. But right now it's the World Cup so I should talk about this first.
Things to note about the World Cup:
- In German it's called Weltmeisterschaft 2006 (WM 2006)
- The games last a month, so we will be in Canada for the playoffs (care to join us, anybody?)
- It is impossible to get tickets to the game. They had a lottery system to give them out, and that was done a year ago.
- I've never seen so many German flags in my life. Normally it's not cool to do anything patriotic in Germany (for fear of being considered Nationalist aka Nazi) but to cheer for the sports team is different
- The games are spread out all over Germany. (The first Berlin games were today).
- It was expected that Berlin would be super crowded with tourists but this hasn't happened. It is pretty crazy around places showing the games, though.
- In almost every shop there is some football-related display to cash in on the hype. Even the cafeteria at work is covered with flags and posters.
It will be weird when the games are over. I think Germans won't know what to do with themselves. Okay - I will leave you with some photos of the Olympia Stadium in Berlin. These were taken some months ago when I saw the local team Hertha play. Enjoy.
I just bought the flight to Toronto. We'll be arriving in Toronto on Friday, June 30th at 4:34pm, leaving on Saturday, July 22nd at 1:40pm. Hopefully 22 days is enough time to go to Wonderland, go camping, cottages, beaches, garage sales, visit all the museums and other tourist stuff in Toronto, see fireworks for Canada Day, celebrate Svea's birthday and, of course, see all our friends and family. See you then!
Last weekend, we did the touristy thing and took a boat tour through central Berlin. It was nice to see the backs of these beautiful buildings, so many carvings and details put in that you rarely get to see up close. The 2nd last photo, beside the giant sculpture of people wrestling, is Berlin's largest sky skraper, the Allianz building. Yes, it's not very big at all. As you can imagine, I took a million pictures.. this is only the best 1/4 of them.
A couple of weeks ago, Svea and I went to a costume party, the birthday party of Janina. I dressed up as Marty McFly from Back to the Future, Svea as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Svea won first place of the girls, I won second place of the guys.
We shopped all day for the pieces. I got some women's vest, the sunglasses and the suspenders from Woolworth's, and the jacket and shirt from a used clothing store. Svea made her dress herself, painted the shoes, and bought the basket and a toy Toto. The real dog was somebody else's. :) I also added the original movie photo for comparison.
Saturday was St. Patrick's Day. It's not nearly as big in Germany as it is in Canada, but I still made sure it was celebrated in style. We went to an Irish pub and drank Guiness and watched an Irish (actually German) band. Svea met these real authentic Irish guys too that were there on holiday. If you look close, you can see our friend Henni wearing my Maple Leafs hoody...
I know what you want me to talk about. You want to hear about the differences in toilets. Right? Ok here goes..
Toilets here flush totally different. There is only a small amount of water in the bowl. Any water in the toilet automatically goes right down the drain, so you can't get plugged or overflowing toilets here. Nobody even owns a plunger. But, the downside, most toilets have a little "shit shelf", so your business doesn't actually sit in water at all. Every time you take a shit you have to scrub the bowl with a toilet brush. There, I said it. This is as gross and offensive as it sounds. I'll never be completely used to it.
The toilets here are very environmentally friendly, though. With so little water in the bowl, flushes use much less water. Actually, the lever either works one of two ways. Either there are two buttons, a little and big button, for little amounts of water or big amounts of water (for #1 or #2). Or, there is a lever that you can push back when you want to stop the flow of water. This let's you flush just a little if you want.
Okay, that's enough of that topic. I'll stop now. Just be glad I didn't include a photo!
