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First Practice Run:

Friday, July 14th, 2006

Written by Matthias.

at the camp site

We had about a week to practice before Allison needed to go back to work on July 5^th. Some of things that we needed to find out were:

Is our air-cooled van capable of driving us long distances in hot weather through mountain terrain.
How are the kids going to hold up in a small space in hot weather?
How are WE going to hold up in a small space in hot weather?
How much stuff can we bring with us? Etc.

In other words, we needed to get an idea of what the Yodavan and we are capable of. We decided that the desert would be the perfect environment for our first practice run. Sounds pretty simple, but there was one more big problem to solve. SOCCER!We are in the middle of the soccer world cup and we are still in an emotional soccer high, after being in Germany during the beginning of the tournament and witnessing the biggest party in Germany ever (that’s even counting the reunification in 1989). We couldn’t miss too many of the games and definitely not Germany against Argentina. So it took a lot of phone calls to find a camp site where we could watch the games. The best place we found was in Oliver, BC. They had cable hook up and thanks to our friends the Richards family who let us borrow their TV we were set to go. We loaded up all of our Germany flags, jerseys, t-shirts wigs etc. and hit the road. Our first stop was at Lake Chelan. In order to get there we had to drive up a pass in 100 degree weather and the van made it without any problems and luckily the kids and us also did very well despite not having air conditioning.Then we went on to the desert in Canada? Believe it or not, there is desert in Canada. It’s part of the Okanagon Valley and it was pretty damn hot there as well. After Wallis (Switzerland), Alsace (France), Wuertenberg (Germany) it was one more wine region we got to see in the last weeks. In Oliver there was really not too much to do except visit wineries (alcohol in general is really expensive in Canada) or pick cherries, but it was still a place we (especially William) will never forget. William got his first girlfriend. Brittany! It was love at fist sight. No kidding! From the first time they saw each other they where inseparable. Both kids had the best time. We had the most kid friendly campsite I’ve ever seen. Everyone watched out for each others kids and all toys seemed to be communal. It also didn’t take too long until Allison and I were known to everyone at the camp site. It only took until we had all of our Germany flags, wigs, towels, T-shirts all over our site. People saw that we were serious about the world cup and some of them asked if we minded if they watch the games with us. That was exactly what we wanted. Watching the games by ourselves would have been boring. At the Germany : Argentina game we were about 20 people, but the next day when England was playing Portugal there where between 40 – 50 people watching the game on our tiny TV (despite our neighbor, who had a $300,000.00 dollar RV with a TV twice the size of ours). Unfortunately we had to leave the camp site after 4 nights and head on home, but we were very pleased with our practice run. There are only minor modifications we have to do to the car and maybe some to the kids, but overall we are in good shape.Life was good when we came home from our short camping trip. Germany was still in the world cup. It was still ok to eat pizza (damn Italians). Now times are different. We can only look back at the greatest party Germany has ever seen (thank you Klinsmann), and be happy that we have been there for at least some part of it. World Cup at the camp site world cup at the camp site 2

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May & June

Monday, July 3rd, 2006

I (Allison) was granted a 2 month leave of absence from my job at Microsoft to participate in an exchange sponsored by the Rotary Club. On this exchange I traveled for 4 weeks with 5 other Americans, one Rotarian and 4 normal people (ha ha!). We stayed with host families and the Rotarians showed us around their area. Some examples of things we did along the way: tour of the Munich airport, German war museum in Ingolstadt, Deutsches Museum, city tours of Salzburg, Regensburg, Ingolstadt, Augsburg, Munich, boat ride on Chiemsee, tour of the Ludwig castle on Herreninsel, tour of the abbey on Fraueninsel by a Benedictine nun, hike in the alps, trip to Kufstein and a tour of the Riedel glass factory, orchestra rehersal in Augsburg, etc, etc, etc. It really was an amazing tour and Rotary picked up the tab for the entire trip.

While I was on the trip Matthias spent one week with my parents in Woodinville and then he flew to Germany as well. He spent time with his family and did some traveling on his own – spent a few nights in, Switzerland. He took care of William and Julian on his own for those 4 weeks and I think I will be eternally in debt for that.

After the trip we all met up in the Allgaeu region of Germany. We stayed on a farm and took small day trips around the area. William and Julian loved collecting eggs from the chickens every day. The weather was pretty bad – mostly rainy and on the last day of May we woke up to about an inch of snow! We then spent some time with our friends Martin & Evylene in Switzerland. Evylene’s family has a mountain cabin in Wallis and we spent 2 nights there. It has to be one of the most beautiful places on the earth. On our way back to Germany we spent a night in France on the Wine Road in the Allsace region. There are lots of small/private vinyards and wine makers in this region, and the villages in this area have been preserved in the old style and it is beautiful. We stayed in Obernai in a hotel just above where the Tour de France will be starting on July 3rd!

Back in Germany we spent a lot of time visiting with friends and family and we also caught a lot of the World Cup soccer matches.

We didn’t actually get tickets for any games, but just being in Germany when Germany in hosting the World Cup is an amazing experience. In all major cities in Germany they have big screens set up where people can gather and watch the games. We watched the Germany-Poland game in Stuttgart. In the square where the game was being showed there were roughly 70,000 people – more people than fit in the stadiums the games are being played at. In Berlin 500,000 people were on the streets for that game. Germany won in about the 92nd minute, and the crowd went crazy. And after the game the entire city center was filled with people celebrating and singing and waving German flags. German flags are everywhere, which is very unusual for the Germans since they tend not to be very patriotic (understandable after their history). Experiencing the World Cup in the hosting country is something I think everyone should experience in their lifetime.

Acclimating to life in America has been hard for Matthias and I. However, William and Julian seemed to just keep rolling with whatever we do and wherever we go. We are writing this blog on the road – we’re camping for a week before I have to go back to work. We’ll be in eastern Washington and southeastern British Columbia where temperatures in the upper 90’s are awaiting.

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The Planets Are Begining to Align

Sunday, March 26th, 2006

We own a house and we've decided to rent it out. I (Allison) will be taking a lot of unpaid time off work and it will help us cover our mortgage if we can fine a ... [Continue reading this entry]

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