The longest day of the year

Today is summer solstice, the longest day of the year 2008. From now on it´s downhill; every day is going to be shorter than the day before until we reach winter solstice on December 21st.

Back in Finland this weekend is an official bank holiday weekend. Everything is closed. In all official buildings and homes flags of Finland were hoisted at 6 pm on Midsummer Eve (yesterday) and flown all night till 9 pm tonight. Finland is full of festivals and happenings. People are celebrating the light. Traditional bonfires can be seen all over the countryside. In region Lapland people all over the world come to see the midnight sun.

I´m thinking all of this now, sitting alone here in our second home in Solingen. I came here a few days ago to work a little; Angie is on her way arriving later this afternoon.

We´ll get visitors from Finland tomorrow morning. My sister Maukka and brother-in-law Arska are coming to a late honeymoon. The wedding took place in Salo, Finland, on February 16th but only now could they take some days off from work and kids. The all-inclusive trip was our wedding gift to the newlyweds.

It is really nice to have my sister here. Too bad the visit is so short, they´ll stay with us only five days. We will pick them up from Düsseldorf Airport tomorrow at noon, staying here until Tuesday afternoon and then drive through Germany to Leipzig to show our real hometown. Thursday evening I´ll take them to Berlin, only an hour and half’s drive from Leipzig, where they stay a few days by Claudia. She´s the German exchange student who spent a year in Finland by Maukka´s home a couple of years back and is now considered as one of her own kids, sister for Aino, Venla, Santtu, Eero and Lauri. Maukka and Arska are flying back to Finland from Berlin Sunday week from tomorrow.

Claudia is by the way the only German I know who speaks perfect Finnish! She´s finishing her school this week (abitur in German, about the same as A-levels or High School Diploma, or YO-tutkinto in Finland). Maukka and Arska decided to come now so they can have a few days with us and then celebrate with Claudia.

I like my sister a lot. I think in Arska she found a real soul mate. I´m really happy to have them here.

Have to start cleaning, Angie arrives about 3 pm.

Welcome Maukka & Arska!

Hyvää juhannusta, as we say in Finland (have a great midsummer).

YES! Angie comes home!

Eyesight is back, a ten-day sickleave is over. Work keeps me busy. Life goes on, summer is really here (see the picture).

Angie called a few minutes ago. She´s seen enough of Rome to last a while so she starts late tonight or early tomorrow the long drive back home, arriving here in Solingen late tomorrow or early Wednesday.

I can not describe how much I´ve been missing her. And, according to her, she feels likewise. This past two weeks was ment to be a holiday for her, to let me to concentrate for my work so I could have a full week off when my sister Maukka arrives here with her husband. They´ll be here Sunday 22nd for a weeks visit.But like almost always with our plans, this one backfired when I got ill. Angie offered, of course, to drive straight back here when she heard about my eye infection, but I said no. She had plans for this holiday, a lot of friends to see, a lot to do. I had all the help I needed here. Not only my cleaning lady made an extra effort to assist me when I couldn´t see a thing, but also my friends and neighbours here helped me a lot with cooking, cleaning and shopping.

Now I can see myself. Tomorrow is a preparation day for operation "Welcome Home, Honey!". Shopping and cleaning, preparations for a romantic candlelight dinner.

Old cliché, but so true: I´m only half without my Angie!

Alone again

The weekend was as nice and relaxing as I had hoped. Angie arrived late Friday afternoon and left yesterday to Rome, Italy. She´s back here in about two weeks, and then we´ll drive home together. My village here, this small second home, is really a nice place to be and to work but enough is enough. I miss home in Leipzig. Sunday lunches with my mother-in-law, my friends there, the most beautiful Zoo, the pulse of a big city after weeks of small village life and intensive working.

Like I said, we really enjoyed each others company. Bobi from Paparazzi cooked us a marvelous dinner Friday night, as well as Pedro from Casa Pedro on Saturday. Nice walks and talks, a good movie (DVD) with a couple glasses of heavenly wine. Long periods hand in hand, close. Quality time together; I even managed not to touch my computers nor made I any work related calls during the weekend. I know Angie likes that.

Our village had a also special happening this weekend, the 11th "Classicar" old timer race. It is a meeting of old timer enthusiasts, organized by a local automobile club. Here´s some photos:

Nice weekend ahead

Over a week now without Angie. Because of my work situation, I´ve not been home in Leipzig in three weeks. On the other hand, Angie´s mother has been needing her help and care there. We´ve met weekly, of course: two weeks ago two days in Nijmegen, Holland, and last week she was here from Monday to Wednesday.

The project I´m working now keeps me occupied until mid June. Angie could now have a couple weeks off, so she said yes when an old friend from Rome asked her help. She wants to move back to Germany and Angie goes to help packing.

But first we have a full weekend together. She drives here (Solingen) tomorrow, bringing back my laundry which she took home to be washed after her last weeks visit. Doing the laundry is always a problem when I stay here longer. Home in Leipzig Angie keeps always an extra stock of clothes for me so I just change my luggage when staying home before returning here.

I guess you can see that basically I have nothing to say now. Cant´t concentrate, can´t sleep, can´t read, nothing in TV. Always the same feeling when waiting Angie or closing this "home away from home" and heading towards the real home; I love and miss "Mein Schatz" (literally "my treasure") very much and can´t wait to see her on the doorstep.

Almost everything is ready. Fridge full, tables for dinners for Friday and Saturday reserved, apartment cleaned. Tomorrow only fresh sheets, fresh bread from local bakery and some flowers. And a long wait: she can leave home about noon and 500 kilometers on Friday afternoon traffic takes almost five hours; no speed limit is a nice theory but on Friday and Sunday afternoons autobahns are really full.

Sunday afternoon Angie starts her two day drive to Rome, where she stays at least 10-12 days. I am missing her already. I hope I don´t ruin our weekend by thinking the next two weeks separation too much. I must really work with myself to prevent that feeling to come between us this weekend.

I want to have fun with my wife this weekend!

Schwebebahn

The Schwebebahn (schwebe = suspended, bahn = rail, railroad) is something to see when visiting this part of Germany. It is a suspended monorail tram in Wuppertal, neigbouring city to our Solingen. It´s track is build above streets of Wuppertal and the river Wupper that runs through the city.

Photo here shows the Vohwinkel Schwebebahn station.

Here´s a video I shot a couple of weeks ago on my way the to the Main Railway Station of Wuppertal.

Official opening of Summer 2008

Past weeks the weather has been really beautiful here in Gräfrath. It´s been like in the middle of the summer. This weekend when our village had it´s annual 3-day fair, the weather gods decided to show we people should never take nature and weather for granted. Temperature dropped 15 Celsius grades, sky has been gray and rainy these past three days. Fair ends tonight, forecast shows warmth and sun are back tomorrow.

Early this morning. Cold and rainy, people still in church or home in the bed.

An hour later looking out from Kaffeehaus, my local pub.

Gray sky. Bier, bratwurst and brass band. So typical German!

I am really happy these ugly bear stands and tents disappear tomorrow.

I also made a short video with my mobile phone. If interested, click the video to play it. Video is quite big (86 MB), so you need a good, internet connection. First minute or so shows only the brass band from behind, so you might want to skip it. (TIP: With a slow internet connection, videos can be quite jumpy. When you pause the video, your computer continues to download it to a buffer. The longer you pause, the longer you can then watch it without annoying breaks.)

Hello again

I just noticed I haven´t updated this blog in over a month. Have been working really hard, slept more nights away than here at home.

This time at home in Solingen. Looks like the right place to be right now. My computer´s weather station showed this information a couple of minutes ago, 21:10 o´clock (9:10 PM, see the picture):

Helsinki 7 grades Celsius and cloudy. Our former hometown and still our mutual favourite Rome 16 grades and rain. The other hometown Leipzig 18 and sunny, but here in Solingen 21 and a beautiful sunset. Keep in mind I am talking about 9 o´clock in the evening!

Summer is finally here!

No time to write more, our village market square with it´s pubs is calling.

Eero & Teemu in Germany

Finally some time to update this blog. I´ve been quite busy these past two weeks. First Eero´s and Teemu´s visit, then this week a lot of work.

My keenly expected guests Eero and Teemu have already been back in Finland over a week. We had very intensive and fun four days. I really enjoyed, I hope I get guys here quite often. The best part for me was how natural it was between me and Teemu. I hope he is happy, too, but it is not my business to tell how he feels. I am expecting nothing, just happy of this new found contact. Thank you, Teemu. And Eero, of course. It was really nice to have you here.

The visit started well: First drinks in a bar at airport, beers for guys and a cappuccino for me (I had to drive) and I was so confused that I forgot to pay. Next day Teemu asked if I had noticed that we didn´t pay. No, I had not noticed. Anyway, next evening the same happened: visiting a local pub to meet my friend there, we had a couple of drinks and left without paying. Let´s not make this a habit, guys. Next time we will pay!

To find words to describe how good time we had is really difficult. We saw Schloss Burg and the Cathedral of Cologne and quite a lot more. Domenico, my best friend here, heard about Teemu´s first visit to see me and invited us to a superb first class Italian dinner in his Paparazzi restaurant, 50 meters from my door. We had some nice Alt (local dark beer) in my local Kneipe (pub) Kaffeehaus. We talked a lot, Eero watched Salkkarit a lot, we slept incredibly little. My guests ate almost all of the Finnish sausage and bread they brought for me. And of course, we saw the Cebit!

Here´s some photos of those days. Like I´ve mentioned earlier, I am not a good photographer, so please no comments about the quality of my snapshots. Click a photo to see it full size.

To start, here´s Teemu telling a Good Night-story to Eero, first evening.



Next day, in Köln (Cologne in English). Teemu and Eero having a coffee outside Köln Hauptbahnhof (main railway station). Behind the guys the "Kölner Dom", Cathedral of Cologne where we lighted candles.



Of course Teemu wanted a photo of him standing besides a German police van.



Following day was the main event, Cebit-fair in Hannover. Teemu on the wheel, driving on the highway A2 between Dortmund and Hannover. According to him it was his first time legally over 200 km/h. Eero´s comment to me during a coffee break a bit later: "Over 200 is OK, but rather when you drive!" I don´t know why; Teemu is a good driver. I was feeling a bit ashmed to think that I have to know him better before letting him drive. Sorry Teemu but next time it´s no beer for you: you will drive, I´ll sit back with Jekku.



First thing to do was to take a photo to send to Angie, to show we were where we were supposed to be.



For some reason we stayed here longer than planned... To check this company´s products, of course.



Nice car ;)



Teemu found a new keyboard.



Going to have a break in a truck with a cabin bigger than my apartment.



Back home, I promised Teemu can take my smaller car to look a bit around...



Düsseldorf Airport, about one and half hours before the flight back home.



Thank you for you visit, guys. Already planning the next one.