A first birthday

and a party at the zoo.

This was actually a month ago now since she’s just turned 13 months old, but we’ve been moving and cleaning and busy and now sick, and so on.  Turning 1 IS a big deal, and we had fun throwing her a party.

The table and some decorations, with a view of the lake:

Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes (I made) and pieces of German style birthday “kuchen” – donauwelle (chocolate), apple cake, cherry pie, plum cake, cheesecake, raspberry-currant cake:

A small area we set up so the children could play inside:

Just outside, with lots of birds and ducks to feed:

The lucky girl got lots of presents, though she isn’t really interested in unwrapping yet.  (she still loves all her gifts) :

A few of her presents were more for me:

This toy has an English and Deutsch mode:

I really loved the idea of a party at the zoo and it turned out that, in actual execution, it went well (if I do say so myself).  The zoo staff was really helpful and the room was clean and the perfect size.  I think everyone had fun, whew!

A few more photos, just because.  Here is Baby A at the old apartment with flowers from the party. D says this shirt looks makes her look like she’s at a Renaissance festival.. :

Outside with her 1st year birthday present from mama and papa:

Weird Confession Friday

At this moment I have 5 pairs of shoes under my desk at work, not counting the pair on my feet.

I would like to excuse it by saying it’s because I need two different shoes every morning, sneakers for the bike (safety first) and normal shoes for the office. But since this is a confession, I will admit that the biking just makes this problem more pronounced. Normally it is 1 or 2 extra pair. Just in case my feet get tired. Or the weather takes a sudden drastic turn, or my plans for the evening change. I think I am a closet shoe person. I like shoes, but I’m too practical, too minimalistic, to want to own lots of shoes. If shoes aren’t being worn enough, and they are the kind that should be, I usually let me sisters check them out, or my cousins, or I goodwill them. Why the fascination with shoes? I guess I like the materials, the structure, the angles, the way they make or break a look, and the best part, they are something you need. Food, water, shelter kind of thing, no??

New to me

So like I said in the About section, I have relocated to Germany for the next year and a half. The company I work for has offices in lots of places all over the world, but the main offices (at this point) are in Montreal, the headquarters, in Tampa, Florida (where I am from originally), and in Germany (where I am for a contract now). So far it’s been different and the same. I would say about 4 months of pretty high stress were involved in transferring though. In the two months before I left, I got rid of my apartment, gave away a bunch of stuff, bartered off my desktop PC, my furniture, sold my 2006 car (ok it was a Civic, but still), and moved all the sentimental stuff I couldn’t part with, books, pictures, skis, etc.. into my grandmother’s house and garage, so all I came over here with was one box I shipped (full of shoes and a few books), and two suitcases.

After I finished in Tampa, I flew to Montreal for about 3 weeks, where I helped my boyfriend do pretty much the same exercise on his end.

Once we got to Germany, we had an apartment rented by the month, for the first month, taken care of by the company, thank god for this, as well as a car. We really wanted to get an apartment that was furnished since we knew our time here was defined and selling stuff after the fact is a pain. Alas, that isn’t done much here, and the apartments that were furnished were college dorm or retirement type places, neither fitting the bill.

So we found our apartment at pretty much the last week of our free month, and it happened to be pretty close to where we work. Nice. But it was empty. It had a kitchen though, an oven, refrigerator, and dishwasher, which is not common here. I guess most people take their refrigerator with them, even in apartments. So our next step was to find a bed, fast, and everything else a person needs, which turns out to be quite alot when you are starting at zero with no family to give you old stuff.

IKEA to the rescue. We set a $2000 budget and we kept pretty close because IKEA has all kinds of crap, and most of it is pretty cheap. Navigating IKEA, when you are buying wardrobes and dressers and light fixtures (yes people here seem to take these things with them when they leave too), and tables and couches and rugs, pots/pans, silverware and nightstands and shelves, mirrors and towel racks, etc etc… was insane. I think our new neighbors were pretty annoyed with us, for about 2 straight weeks we were up late, starting after work, with the power drill and hammer, putting together our wood/particle-wood furniture. We didn’t buy everything at IKEA, but I bet 90% is IKEA. The joke was that there is at least a couple other people in the world with the same exact apartment that we picked out.

Okay, apartment down. Next, transportation. We live roughly 3.5 km (2.2 miles) from work. There is the train, which gets close to work, but not that close, so we decided to get bikes. So we’re bike commuters now. Does 2.2 miles count as a commute? I’m not sure, but I will tell you this. It’s far enough that if it’s raining, you get wet. If it’s cold outside, you have to put on a jacket (or 3 in my case) and a scarf, and gloves and a helmet. But it’s actually kinda fun to bike to work. I have my moments, and I don’t suppose my hair ever looks perfect at work (sigh) but it’s different, and I like different.

So I could go on more, but that’s the most of that story. Sorta long post – against the blog guidelines, but this blog stuff is new to me too.