Back in the saddle

I have defied the laws of physics and gotten my home computer up and running. I have no idea how my speakers are working as they are not supposed to run on German power. No explosions yet..

The Spartan Life

This guy (Jim Caple) writes for ESPN Page 2 and is spending the week in East Lansing. He is documenting his stay by writing every day and putting it on ESPN.com

He talks about Crunchy's (my favorite bar) as well as staying at a house on M.A.C.

Click on the following link to read on..

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/050330&num=0

At home on a rainy day

Well we have received all of our stuff and things are being put together slowly. I am trying to figure out exactly how to plug in all of my gadgets and Kelli is feverishly placing all of her nick-nacks in places everywhere. It is starting to really feel like home.

I am stuck at home today as I had to return my GM rental and get my Lincoln loaner tomorrow. It is a beautiful Ford Focus! I told them to bring some grease to get me in to it. She thought I was serious. Apparently Germans don't have a sense of humor. My company car will be ready in 10 WEEKS! Apparently, Audi is selling a lot of cars. Kind of strange to be in a country whose cars are in demand....(sorry Kell)

I will be posting throughout the day today, let's see if I can set a record.

By the way, some people have called asking what we did with all of the old pictures. They are still here! On the middle right side of the page, there is a section called ARCHIVES where you can get all of our old posts including all the pictures.

tschuss

Springtime in Paris...

We loved Paris! So romantic and inviting; it really is a top notch city. We could easily live there, though extremely expensive. The weather was wonderful - about 60 degrees and only rained on Sat. night, which made it truly feel like Paris! The people were actually nice, though we did experience a bit of rudeness from a waiter or two.

Arrived on Fri. and took a boat cruise along the River Seine. This helped map out the city for the rest of the weekend - the best part of the ride was at the end at 7:00, the Eiffel Tower sparkled for about 5 minutes before the actual lights came on - it sort of felt like Disney Magic!

Sat. we walked over eight miles! First to the Eiffel Tower and realized that we were in the line to WALK up the stairs to the top! Luckily you can only walk up to the first & second platforms (each about 20-30 flights of stairs!) and then could take the elevator to the top. The "stairmaster" experience was totally worth it as you can see by the pictures. In the afternoon we walked to the L'Arc de Triomphe, walked along the Champs Elysees (the bag you see is a shirt I bought Dan as a belated b-day present). We went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa (much smaller & darker in person) and Venus de Milo. Then walked in the rain to our hotel and had dinner at an amazing French restaurant.

Sun. didn't really feel like a holiday, but it was beautiful with the green grass and flowers blooming. Went to Notre Dame - at least say we were in a church on Easter Sunday....traveled home and watched State beat Kentucky. We are true Spartan alums and fans as we stayed up until 4 am our time! Actually, Dan is the best Spartan alum in franchise history - we had internet at the hotel but it was just a small phone booth on the main floor to check email. Dan actually watched the entire game at 2 am in this small booth!!! If there is an award for State superfan, Dan deserves it! Final Four bound Spartans...who would have thought?!

We get our sea shipment tomorrow....the over/under on how much will be damaged is three pieces....bets anyone???

The Eiffel Tower

The "Eiffel Tower view" from our hotel room 

Looking back at the Tower during our Seine River cruise. The statues are on the Concorde de Paris. 

D&K 

Ants 

The view from the top of the Tower. The Louvre is on the left along the Seine River. Notre Dame is in the distance. 

The Eiffel Tower and I 

Arc de Triumphe 

Kelli on the Champs Elysees

The Louvre 

Venus De Milo at the Louvre 

Kelli and the Seine River  

Seine River 

Cathedral Notre Dame 

Paris

Since we have tomorrow as well as Monday off, Kelli and I have decided to head to Paris for a few days. Here is the link to the hotel that we are staying at:

http://www.paris-hotel-londres-eiffel.com/index.html

They have free internet service so we will be able to catch the State game at 1:40 A.M.

We'll be sure and take a bunch of pictures

D

Sunday

Sunday afternoon and we are cleaning in anticipation of our sea shipment. Cleaning...lots of fun, right? Our sea shipment should have docked someplace in Europe today and we hope that it clears customs and gets here by Thursday. If not, we are out of luck until next week due to Good Friday and Easter Monday being serious holidays. We have been without our belonging since February 17...
Spring has arrived and it was 70 degrees and sunny on Friday! Absolutely beautiful. The rest of the weekend it has been cloudy, but about 50-60. Friday we went to dinner at the American Sports Bar so we could watch the NCAA tourney. Afterwards, we decided that we would check out the part of the Casino that we can get into which is the slot area. From the outside it looked Huge, but inside it was a disappointment - same machines you would see at home, but not very many of them. But they do have video poker, Lori!

Did some shopping yesterday and we found out that contact lens solution can only be purchased at an eye doctor and of course, it is expensive. The brand that I use at home is about $5 something a bottle at Target. The same brand here, but in a smaller bottle, is about $17 USD!! Looks like we need to stock up or get laser eye surgery! We also looked for a TV and dryer - Dan will go purchase this week as air drying our stuff just isn't getting the job done (not so soft!). I would say that our clothes have never been this clean - it takes 2 hours and 12 minutes for each load to be washed.

We booked our flights today for Jenna's wedding and are so looking forward to being home in about a month (Jenna and crew, we arrive Wednesday morning and depart Sunday morning). Keep Saturday, April 23 open as that is the day we fly home and would love to see as many people as possible that night. We will be staying on the east side either with Jay (if his condo is complete) or my parents....so west siders, be prepared to cross over the Oakland/Macomb dividing line...east side (shout out to AT&T , Rebecca, and Nat)!!

Thanks to all for the cards, pictures, letter, newsarticles, etc. It's a great feeling to get mail! Even though email is wonderful, it's nice to get real mail....

We have started calling people this week, but the time change makes it a bit tough during the week. We are typically in bed by 10 our time, 4 at home, so we will just keep trying.

Please keep checking the blog and feel free to post...

Sunday Morning

Hey everyone,

Dreary Sunday morning (Cloudy 4deg C). Nothing is open on Sundays so we are reduced to cleaning the house and going for walks.

I have been able to watch most of the NCAA tournament through the internet. I watched the whole State game on Friday night (Saturday morning - 3:30 A.M. here!) Actually, I've watched more of the tournament this year than I did when I was in Las Vegas last year during the opening weekend.

I don't know about today's game. Vermont is actually pretty darn good. Their big man (Taylor Coppenrath) is going to give Paul Davis some problems.

Kelli and I have short work weeks the next two weeks. You get Good Friday as well as Easter Monday off in Germany. We are debating a weekend trip to Paris as the weather is supposed to be pretty nice. Pretty cool to have that option.

We have made our flight arrangements for our trip home next month. We will be in Detroit from Sat. April 23rd to Tuesday April 26 and then off to Vegas for Jenna's wedding Wednesday the 27th through Sunday May 1. We fly back to Frankfurt from Detroit on the 2nd.

We are looking forward to staying in Jason's new condo when we get home! He is moving in within the next few weeks. It will be great to see my old TV :(

miss you all,

D&K

TV

Just got our "bootlegged" satellite service box from the U.K. We would have the NCAA games this weekend but need someone to "rig it" up for us. The guy that does that here says he will be here "sometime early next week"

This place is soooo shady.

the krokette 

Dutch Food

Please do not laugh at the picture. The Dutch take their food VERY seriously. This is called a Krokette and it is a common Dutch lunch meat. It has some sort of weird gravy in the middle. I had to eat these all week at lunch at the Lincoln plant in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

I do not like Dutch food.

Temperatures have been near records this week. (20 C) Right now all of the windows are open!

GO GREEN! Unfortunately the game starts at 3:30 in the morning but you can be sure that the alarm clock will be set. I have bought a service on cbs.sportsline.com that gives me streaming videos of any game I want to watch.

Kelli is very proud to have BOTH of her alma maters in the tourney!

Later

D&K

The Weekend

Hey Lori (everyone), We finally got internet access on Thursday and we couldn't be happier! Also, my email at work is now fixed, so feel free to send stuff there, too.Have had a nice weekend. It's Sunday morning, so we have had breakfast and are going to go walking thru the park and then take a drive, maybe to a winery down the road - one of the few things open on Sunday. Friday we had dinner and then went to the american sports bar and they had one of the big 10 games on but weren't going to play the state game, so we came home and Dan listened to the game from home. I was exhausted, but when he told me that they lost when he came to bed, I was shocked and disappointed. I just can't believe how poor they performed. This group of seniors are a lot like the Michigan Fab Five - they accomplished nothing! I've got hope for them in the tournament, but not sure how far...It wasn't the same not being able to watch the game with you and the rest of our friends....Yesterday we went to the market in Wiesbaden, which happens every Saturday. We bought some fresh produce and a roasted chicken that we had for dinner last night and was delicious! We then walked around and shopped - I actually bought my first clothing purchase, which was a shirt for Vegas for Jenna's wedding. We need to buy a TV and some small appliances, so we also went to MediaMart which is like our Best Buy. Dan was in heaven! It was nice just to look around at all the technology, but they don't have high definition TVs here. I guess they have better things to do with their time

Friday Night

Heading out to dinner in Wiesbaden tonight. Thought about going to the English speaking theater but all the movies that are out right now kind of suck. We are also going to go the the American Sports Bar that we found and try and find the Spartan game that starts at 12:40 A.M.!!

GO GREEN!

We are online!!

Well, it took nearly 2 weeks but we finally got internet access.

I spent Monday and Tuesday in The Netherlands at Lincoln's plant there. I found out that I will be spending time in St. Petersburg, Russia as well as Croatia and Slovenia. Should be interesting.

The posts will be coming fast and furious now so check back often and leave comments!

D&K

Whole lotta pictures!

Wiesbaden - 2:55p.m. - 29 degrees and cloudy

Hi everyone!

I am sitting at an internet cafe right now as we will not have access in our house until the 10th. Internet cafes are these shady places where people smoke a tobacco plant worth of cigarettes and they charge you 2 euro per hour to connect.

We are learning that the Germans are not too keen on making appointments. Everything is VERY laid back and never set in stone. The most common phrase we hear is "in a day or two" which ends up being three.

I did end up getting my luggage on Wednesday afternoon! Let's just say I threw out my socks.

Kelli went to work yesterday (Thursday) and I begin on Monday. She drove to work all by herself yesterday and made it pretty easily. There is a portion of her commute on the autobahn where there is no speed limit. When we picked up our cars we got up to about 160 km/hr (~100mph) but had to get back in the right lane as there were a whole lotta people in faster cars on the road.

I am flying to Dusseldorf on Monday for a 2 day meeting. My boss lives in Barcelona and this will be the first time I see him face to face in about 5 years. He used to work in Cleveland and is now running Europe.

There is an awesome Thai place that we have been told about, I think we'll be heading there tonight. Gotta go for now but please post some comments when you check out the site. Enjoy the pictures, I took them on my walk here today. It may be easier to scroll all the way to the bottom and then up. That is the way I took them!

Take care everyone and we will talk to you soon!

Tschuss! (Bye)

D&K

The first thing you see in our house when you come visit!! 

Kelli sorting her stuff 

main drag in Wiesbaden...der Willhelm Strasse

hit me! 

my roman numerals are a little rusty but I think this says 1810. I don't know the history of this arch but I am assuming it is still there from the bombings during WWII 

the biergarten in the park and the back of the casino 

they have jazz in the park in the summertime, on the right is the back of the casino 

cool (literally) little pond 

the park is about 100 yards from our gate 

our house from the park