8 years in Germany

On February 27, 2000 I moved to Germany, expecting to stay 6 months. I spent a week at a bed and breakfast in Westend before starting my internship at McCann Erickson. My friend Camilla from Amsterdam came to stay with me and we explored Frankfurt and environs.

My first day at McCann was March 6th and that's when I met Daniel - the main reason I am still here :)

Twins turn three

Daniel and Dennis are godfathers to Florian's twins who turned 3 yesterday. We went out to Butzbach for the party. They got lots of cars and trucks (and books from us).

Happy Birthday Anton and Oskar!

Afterwards, Daniel and I went to Bornheim with Dennis for dinner at Pistazie, the Persian restaurant we discovered back in October. Very delicious - and always a delight to get to hang out with Dennis.

Semi ready for the Oscars

Daniel and I just got back from a free early screening of "No Country for Old Men". The funny thing is we didn't know it was free. I saw on the cinema website that there was a preview playing and when we showed up we were told that to attend, we had to have won tickets from Stern magazine, which we didn't. But they were nice enough to give us tickets that someone decided they didn't want. Free is always good!

Anyway, that means I have seen 4 of the 5 best picture nominees now after having seen "There will be Blood" last Thursday. The only one I haven't seen is "Juno" which won't come out here for another month.

I actually have a pretty good track record over the past 10 years when it comes to having actually seen the best picture nominees.
Let's take a look shall we?

1997 5-5
1998 3 1/2-5 (Saw half of The Thin Red Line and none of Life is Beautiful and do not plan to)
1999 5-5
2000 4-5 (Never saw Chocolat and won't go out of my way to do so)
2001 5-5
2002 5-5
2003 5-5
2004 5-5
2005 3-5 (never saw Munich or Good Night and Good Luck though I'd like to someday)
2006 3-5 (never saw The Queen or Letters to Iwa Jima and probably never will)

Not sure if I will get up in the middle of the night to watch it this year like I usually do or if I will try to record it on the Slingbox my dad has hooked up to his cable for me to access since last week. Such a cool thing - I can even watch Jeopardy from here! So far Daniel and I have watched two Lost episodes and I watched "Dreamgirls" on demand. Thanks dad!

Detox Diet and Fave Foods

Daniel and I only have 1 week left in our 3 week detox diet meant to break our sugar addiction. This type of diet really gets you thinking about what you eat - what is healthy and what is not and thus should be eaten only sparingly. I asked Daniel what his 5 favorite foods are, and this is what he said (in no particular order):

1. Steak
2. Cheesecake
3. Sushi
4. Potato Dumplings
5. Gummi bears

And these are mine:

1. Okra
2. Lentils
3. Green Beans
4. Nectarines
5. Chocolate

The only thing Daniel is allowed to eat from his list during the diet is #3 while the only thing I can't eat is #5. That makes the diet a lot more difficult for him, although I REALLY crave chocolate. The idea is that even after the "strict" part of the diet is over, we'll still follow it 70-80% and keep our healthy eating habits like cooking more at home and eating way more veggies. And hopefully we won't eat sweets every day but only as an occaisonal treat.

Meet Emmy

Today Daniel, Tracy and I drove down to Stuttgart for a cat interview with a Birman breeder. The kitten's official name is Arien von Duesterwald, but since we've been talking so long about getting a magic cat (long story) we're going to call her Emmy. The little ball of fluff is only 1 month old, so we can't take her home with us for another 2 months. But isn't she cute?!

In other news, we bought a navigation system for the car and used it to successfully navigate our way to Duesterwald and Stuttgart Main Train Station (to pick up Florian on our way back home).

I’m tolerating it!

You've all heard McDonald’s slogan “I’m Lovin’ It”. Well this is what www.bestweekever.tv had to say about it on their blog yesterday:

Since when has anyone over the age of 7 actually LOVED anything they put in their mouth that came from McDonald’s? Even for an ad jingle’s forced positivity, this is really stretching it. More appropriate slogans might be, “I’m Eatin’ It” or “I’m Joylessly Chewin’ What’s In My Mouth Because I Lacked The Time Or the Finances To Find Any Better Dining Option”.

It got a big laugh out of me! I haven't eaten at McDonald's probably since I was in Japan 10 years ago. It just doesn't appeal to me ... well, except the egg mcmuffins ... and those only because they remind me of all our family road trips to Kansas when I was a child.

stay in bed

Daniel hijacked my blog to bring you the following daily drawing (which he did for Chris to encourage him to stay in bed instead of going to work - per his request).

Planet "Sleep"

We've been watching the BBC series Planet Earth that Daniel got from my dad and Sandy for christmas. We really love watching it - only we tend to fall asleep toward the middle of an episode. So the other day when Daniel mistakenly said "Let's watch Planet Sleep", I had to laugh!

Happy New Year

We spent New Year's Eve at Tracy and Marshall's with Weina, Dennis and Kirsten in tow. Also invited were Debra and her husband and Max.

We grilled steaks and all brought a side dish (mine was pasta salad) and some wine. Max, Marshall and Debra's husband rushed away to set up the fireworks at Max's and the rest of us dipped fruit into chocolate fondue.

Here's a pic of the fondue group:

Over at Max's we threw firecrackers off the balcony and shot off rockets. The air was full of smoke and driving home, the scene looked like one of world war three - explosions and trash everywhere and people running around at 3 am.

Tracy and me with our firecrackers:

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