I think I mentioned in my last post that I have a trip coming up for the day job. There are a couple of cool things about this trip and the coolest is probably that it means I get to go to Germany. That’s where the ‘home office’ for my day job company is. I’m excited.
And here’s where you get a little background. When I was a wee child, my biological father was in the US Military (Air Force to be specific). We were stationed in Germany for three years. I was just old enough to remember bits and pieces of it. Things like the ironing lady Frau Brindel. Or the German teacher who came into our classroom periodically to teach us German. I also remember bits of camping trips, and trips to castles. I even remember a little bit about picking some plums. Mostly I remember a big bug that came out of the sack when we got home. I don’t like bugs.
We returned stateside and I remember we got a care package of sorts that contained Gummi Bears. At the time, these weren’t easy to come by in the states, and they were a favorite. They still are. I can’t wait to get some “REAL” Gummi Bears. Yes, I know I’m mixing my German and English. Which leads nicely into, I have been trying to learn German since I was a teen. The first high school I went to didn’t offer it, just Spanish and French. The second high school did and I jumped at the chance to take it. The fun bit, was that my German teacher was the husband of my sister’s Kindergarten teacher.
Anyway Herr Z not just taught us German he told us about the year he spent teaching in Germany. Unfortunately, I only got two years under his tutelage before I graduated and started trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I took German in community college two more times, they were two different schools. I finally got determined after working at my day job for many years and seeing ‘home office’ emails in both German and English, and I started with an online course to learn German. This is one of the best things that came out of the pandemic lock down. I got consistent. I did the Duolingo course and even finished it.
This past summer, just before I finished the course, I was at multi-day meeting for the day job and a couple of our colleagues had been invited. I got brave and made a few comments to one of them in German which caused further conversation and a generous offer to practice with me on video chat. And now, I get to actually go to Germany, and have an opportunity to practice my German even more. I’m excited, it will be an adventure.
Not only will I be going for the day job, I will be staying longer to do a little touristing and sightseeing. I’ve narrowed down my destination for that time to Hamburg, with the possibility of a short trip to Berlin. But with the recent weather, I’m not sure if I will be wanting to change any of those plans. I was just reading that both Berlin and Hamburg are artist cities, like say New York in the States. So that will be cool.
I found that Hamburg has a big concert hall called the Elbeharmonia (I think I got that right). It’s not even ten years old. It is a concert hall built on top of an old warehouse and the top part is designed to look like waves of glass. And the photos of the inside of the main concert hall look just amazing. The acoustics have got to be awesome. I’m hoping to get to do a tour of the place much like I did when I saw the Sydney Opera House.
There are so many places to see and choices of things to do that I’m still a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. Fortunately, some of my colleagues have agreed to help my make some decisions, and maybe even have some recommendations. I’ll be taking my camera, and a sketchbook. I expect to have lots of pictures and hopefully some will be art worthy.
So that will be my adventure the next couple of weeks. I’ll post some pictures on Instagram as I go so if you follow me there you’ll get to see them before I get them here. But do come back because I’ll post a bit about the trip here, when I get back.
And quick before I go, I’ve included some pictures of some things I’ve worked on recently. Some will be going up on the store soon and some will need a trip to the photographer when I finish them.
Cheers!