So - Old!

Roland: From time to time I am getting reminders that I am getting old. One of them occurred yesterday when I drove up to Düsseldorf (a mere four hour drive away from the Black Forest) to join a Peter Gabriel concert by the title 'So - back to front' for a late 25th birthday celebration of Gabriel's 1986 album 'So' (the one with Sledgehammer and Don't Give Up) and the accompanying 1987 tour. Gabriel managed to (inserting Blues Brothers quote) 'get the band back together', and he actually performed with the same musicians that made the 1987 concert so memorable to everyone who had the pleasure of seeing it. 1987... 26 years ago... half a life ago...

I got the impression that it must have been pretty much the same audience, too, as it appeared that there weren't many people under the age of forty around.

Obviously the musicians aged, too (and actually Gabriel himself did not age too well...), hence there wasn't as much jumping and dancing as in the Eighties. Instead we were rewarded with a really beautiful light show with loads of impressive pictures.

It was a good concert (albeit not even close to the original), but the best feature of the event was meeting my old buddies again who were there back then in 1987! And if you think four hours is a long way to drive to a concert: the couple in the middle traveled down from Sweden!

Keep right, except to pass!

Saturday morning we took off to visit our families in NRW (North-Rhine Westphalia). Google map indicates that the selected route calculated 470km (292 mls) and 4h and 45 mins of driving time. We made it within four hours (and that included two pit stops).

Reason of going faster than the suggested time frame is that (some stretches of) the German Autobahn do not have speed limits. Yes, you can go as fast as you dare, and your car allows you to go. 

However, it requires a well maintained (and capable) vehicle, and appropriate driving skills and discipline from all traffic participants including oneself. It is not only about going fast, it is about anticipating within a split second what other motorists might be up to, and always be prepared to react without jeopardizing others and yourself.

The designated driver

In Germany motorists are obliged to keep in the right lane except to pass. If there are more than two lanes, the rule still applies, so please avoid driving in one of the middle lanes if you do not plan on passing. This simple rule will keep traffic flowing, will help avoiding traffic jams, keep everybody safe and also allow for emergency vehicles to pass quickly. 

Whoosh! Make way for us!

The compliance with this simple rule of defensive driving will ensure that traffic participants arrive at their destination in a safe and orderly fashion. Ignorance or inattention will yield to a notice or even be fined. Thanks to most traffic participants we were able to push the pedal to the metal, and made it there and back adding roughly one thousand clicks on the odometer with a total of eight hours of driving time.

 At a Mosel valley rest stop.

On our return on Sunday we arrived well fed thanks to our moms and spent the rest of the evening relaxing watching telly for a change.

A Trip to Lake Constance

We took the Vespas down to Lake Constance. More about the road trip can be found here.

Meersburg

 Pile Dwellings in Unteruhlingen

 Friedrichshafen

The Zeppelin Museum

Artsy statue.

 A storm brewing over the lake.

For those who are wondering...

... why we haven't updated on this blog much. Just klick over HERE or on the picture below, and you'll find out what we were up to lately.

Since Roland's Vespa Bella, a GTS250, is street-legal and back on the road we have seized every spare moment to venture off scootering.

Germany votes for Mutti

61.8 million voters, 34 parties, and a total of 75 Million Euro campain budget (for all parties that is). Germans have been called to cast the ballot for the federal election.

In Germany elections always take place on Sundays, between 8 AM and 6 PM, so most people will find the time to vote. For a federal election you actually have two votes, one for electing a local candidate directly, and a second one for the allocation of seats in the Bundestag in Berlin.

Usually the campaigns tend to be a bit boring, as there are not many show elements involved. This time there was one "TV-Duell" between Angela Merkel and her contender Peer Steinbrück plus there were quite a few of roundtable discussions with top politicians of the leading parties CDU/CSU, SPD, Green Party, "The Lefties" and FDP. The voter had lots of opportunities for an informed decision.

As usually no party in Germany gets a majority it is standard that there are coalitions between two or more parties to reach a joint majority. Although it was obvious for months that "Mutti" (Mommy) Angela Merkel would continue her leadership for another four years the big question was whether she could continue working with the liberal party FDP, because this junior partner was ailing significantly in the last few years.

And indeed, when the first prognosis was presented at 6PM it was clear that the FDP would not reach the necessary 5% of votes to be allowed into the Bundestag. A second party (AfD) got close to 5%, but did not make it either, and there were a few other parties with a total of 6% that did not even get close to that threshold. So all in all almost 16% of the votes did not have any impact on the future seating in the federal parliament which was unheard of before in Germany! This situation had the strange effect that the CDU/CSU - although "only" at 42% of the votes - was close to reaching the majority.

In the end they did not make it though, and now there will be a very difficult phase of negotiations between Merkel and the SPD (or the Green party). In theory there could be a coalition of SPD, Lefties and Green Party, but this seems highly unlikely. If no majority can be found within the next months it could happen that there might be another election. The next weeks will be very interesting!

A Mini-Trip to Sweden

Roland: My first international business trip had originally been scheduled to be held a few weeks ago, but due to the host having fallen sick the meeting in Sweden had to be postponed. This week a few colleagues and myself met at Frankfurt International Airport for a two hours flight to Stockholm, and another 80 minutes limo(!) drive to our destination in the Gävleborg area close to the Baltic Sea. The car turned out to be a two years old Audi A4 with 304,000 km down! According to the driver who drives an estimated daily distance of 700 to 1,000 km the car still feels like new, and it definitely looked new!

The scenery was typically Swedish, and the city looked like a typical Swedish town. After eight years in North America, where somehow one city looks like the other, it is still surprising how different landscapes and cities look in Europe within a flying distance of one or two hours...

The hotel (see above) was just fantastic, without a doubt the best I ever had in Scandinavia! Great rooms (albeit small), fantastic bathrooms, great dinner buffet and even better breakfast buffet. They even put my name at the door of my hotel room! Obviously the quality of the hotel is linked to the fact that the whole city has evolved within the last century around the plant that has been founded here some hundred odd years ago. There is more or less only one employer here, so you better make sure that you provide a great service!

The meeting was held in one of the classic Swedish buildings, and lunch was served in another one. We almost felt like in an Astrid Lindgren novel! The highlight was the tea room we visited after lunch: It catapulted us straight back into a time where the company's founders would settle with a cognac and a cigar to discuss business.

Unfortunately there was no opportunity to further explore the area, but next time I will make sure to get a closer look at the surrounding lakes and, of course, the ocean.

A Field Day in the Woods

Roland: Once a year my company organizes an outing where people from three plants in two countries (Germany & France) meet for a 15km hike close to one of the plants. This year the task of organizing the field day was given to the colleagues in the Frankfurt area. At 5:45 AM we boarded a bus to the German state of Hesse, to the Taunus area to be exact, where the Feldberg hills were waiting for us.

Unfortunately the closer we got to our meeting point with the other colleagues the worse the weather conditions became. Anyway after a hearty breakfast we were off to conquer the 300 m difference in altitude to the top of the Greater Feldberg.

A pitstop between Roman ruins.

On top of the Greater Feldberg

No view!

It rained continuously, but the group of 160 did not let that fact affect the mood. We walked through puddles of mud, conquered steep climbs, beared phases of heavy rain, but we never gave up! So after net four hours of walking time, a couple of breaks to water our insides as well - one of them, of course, at an old Roman garrison at the old Limes wall -, a lunch break on top of the Feldberg, and a few material failures (e.g. soles that came off their shoes) we arrived at a well-deserved Hessian buffet that even had various choices for Sonja and the other vegetarians in the group!

At some point things became very interesting when the French colleagues from the area of Alsace (close to the German border) started singing songs in the Alsatian dialect which in fact is much closer to German than it is to French. We have to admit that we understood only every second word, but we pretty much have the same problem with the "badisch" dialect that is spoken in the town where we live now.

After a long bus ride back south, we arrived home Sunday morning at 0:30 AM where we were greeted by a long hot shower before our bed was calling us! Today we suffer a mild muscle soreness, but we enjoyed the rainy day in the woods very much!