Dreiste Übersetzung

Gerade nachgeguckt, was Firmpate auf Englisch heißt - und was lesen meine Augen da, was ich bald sein werde? Ein “sponsor”! So war das aber nicht gedacht!

bisher 3 Kommentare 14. Juni 2007 Tina

Nina Leni Wilding

I know, we’ve been pretty lazy regarding the English section of our Blog in the last couple of months, but this occasion certainly deserves an entry: on Christmas Eve, 24th of December 2006, at 11.35am our beautiful baby girl Nina was born. Mum and Baby are fine, she weighed 6lbs, 4oz and is 19 1/4in. We’ll try to keep this section alive in the future, in the meantime have a look at the first photos of the cutest baby girl in the world!

bisher 1 Kommentar 30. Dezember 2006 Markus

Start spreading the news…

No, I’m not leaving today - not yet - but still I have some news to spread:

If everything goes well we’ll make sure the population of New York will increase by 1 around December 26. After all there are really not enough people living there yet.
And maybe one day we will be able to tell your little one that the year he or she was born Germany won the World Cup…

jetzt kommentieren? 22. Juni 2006 Tina

World Cup: Stand up for the socceroos …

Yesterday, we went to Augustiner beergarden to watch the England game. When we arrived, we saw hundreds of yellow shirts and thought they were all Swedish fans as Sweden was playing last night as well. But it turned out they were ALL Australian warming up for Sunday. It was crazy, there were honestly hundreds if not thousands. The beergarden holds a few thousand people (it’s really big) and half of them were Aussies. They were all wearing the same shirt and cap. But 99,9% were against England.
BTW, I updated the World Cup photo gallery. More to follow next week.

jetzt kommentieren? 16. Juni 2006 Tina

World Cup: My first World Cup game

Wednesday was the day: My very first time in the new Munich soccer stadium and also the first time I’ve been to a World Cup game. Unfortunately, we only got tickets for Tunisia vs. Saudi Arabia but it was still good. The train to the stadium was packed and some people had to let go several trains before they got on. The way to the stadium alone was very impressive. You only walk along some field path but you alway walk towards the stadium that’s getting closer and closer. Although there were so many people I only had to wait for 2 minutes at the security check, so getting in quickly was no problem. The best moment was then to walk up the stairs and see the bowl open up in front of you. The game itself was okay. However, in order to get to the German game on time, we left 10 minutes earlier … and thus, missed 2 out of 4 goals. That was a bit annoying but it was nice having been there at all.

jetzt kommentieren? 16. Juni 2006 Tina

It’s coming home

… no matter if Ballack will be playing for Germany in the first match or not (it’s almost like the Rooney frenzy in England) - I hope our guys will kick some butt tonight. I even bought a footy shirt and - for the first time in my life - face paint! I just wonder why there are no nice football shirts for women, at least for German shirts (might be different with Brazil …). But I think I found a nice one. It’s not really a German footy shirt but more a general one with a little football and “Munich” application.

I’m very excited, almost as if I had to go onto the pitch myself.

There are some photos in the photo section of the World Cup eve I took last night in town. The album will be updated now and then in the course of the following 4 weeks. I hope to have a nice collection in the end.

Please keep all your fingers crossed for us tonight!

jetzt kommentieren? 09. Juni 2006 Tina

Apartment hunting in NY

From friends who were moving to NY as well in March (hi Lisa & Myles!), we heard horrible stories about the hunt for a more or less decent apartment in Manhattan. All the places they had seen were really really small and for that well over-priced. We, too, had to learn very soon that we had to cut down on our demands. Ideally, we wanted to have an apartment in a rather quiet area with 2 bedrooms, not too small, bright and with a private or at least some sort of outdoor space. Oh, and the apartment had to be affordable as well.

Well, balconies or gardens are not very common in Manhattan. We looked at one place that had a garden, and the garden was really nice too, but the rest of the apartment was shite and actually exceeding our budget anyway. No matter how expensive the apartments were, apart from this one none of them had private outdoor space. Okay, so we had to cut that one. The next thing was the size of the rooms, especially the bedrooms. We did see one or two apartments which weren’t that bad, but the rooms were so small that the bed often would’ve just fit but to open the closet with the bed in the room you would have had to do be inventive.

We looked at one place right next to a park which was not bad at all apart from the problem with the bedroom. But for some reason it did not really ‘click’ when I imagined living there.
The problem was, although we were prepared to spend a small fortune for the rent, our real-estate agent only came up with 4 apartments that supposedly matched our imaginations. And it turned out that most of them didn’t even match our imaginations at all. They were either really dark or too small. That’s the thing though with many places in Manhattan. As there are buildings everywhere, most or basically all apartments are quite dark, at least some of the rooms.

But apparently, there was a bit of a misunderstanding with our broker as she had only looked for places on the Upper West Side which would’ve been our favourite area. But we were fine with the Upper East Side, too, at least up to a certain point in the north (above that it get’s a bit dodgy). While we were looking at one last place on the UWS on Monday evening, the broker rang us that two apartments on the UES had just come up and we had the chance to look at them spontaneously the same night. One of them was a dungeon with windows with iron gates and really really dark. The other one though … was great!! It was really spacious, the master bedroom was huge and also the second bedroom was quite big. And it had closets over and over in both bedrooms and the hall. The apartment was on the 7th floor of a building right on the East River. It was facing NO other buildings (apart from across the river but that doesn’t count), so all of the rooms were really bright. The living room had 5 windows alone overlooking the river and it was very spacious, too. The size of the walk-through kitchen was fine, it wasn’t very big but certainly big enough with lots of storage room. The only small room was the bathroom but then again all bathrooms in Manhattan just have the basics like a toilet, a sink and a bathtub with shower. But it was in a good condition (we’d seen really disgusting bathrooms too), so it was alright. The 2 only negative things about this place was for one the missing outdoor space, however, it had a rooftop which is opened in the summer. From what we saw I think it’s not that great but maybe good enough to go up there once in a while in the summer. The other thing is that there’s a freeway running between the building and the river. This might sound absolutely horrible but in the apartment you actually didn’t hear that much of the traffic at all to our surprise. Living on an avenue or near an avenue in the city is a lot noisier. Well, we left the apartment with a really good feeling but wanted to come back the next morning to check on the traffic once again. So we did, and again we found it alright (although we are used to living in a very quiet area in Munich).

So, we told our broker that we wanted to move forward with an application. The good thing over here is, the rule is: First come, first served. All our paper work had been approved (we had to bring lots of stuff, from employment confirmations, savings statements and salary sheets up to tax return statements and a passport with a valid US visa) and as we were the first ones, we got the apartment! I’m pretty sure, for the money we are paying we got one of the nicest and largest apartments you can get in Manhattan. We do pay quite a lot but then again the price for the apartment is justified – by Manhattan standards that is. In New Jersey, we’d probably get a really big house with a big backyard for that money or even less. Who knows, if Manhattan is getting on our nerves after two years or so, we might move a bit further out for the rest of the time we’re staying here. But for now we are Manhattanites.

P. S. We can’t offer any pics of the apartment just yet as the current tenant is still living there but we took some from the area around the building and of the building itself. Check them out in the ‘Photos’ section. I commented them but I think you can only see the comments when you are NOT viewing them via slideshow.

jetzt kommentieren? 19. Mai 2006 Tina

Safety hazard Europe?

Can somebody please tell me why it’s strictly forbidden for more than two people to meet in the aisles or in front of the toilets on a nine-hour flight from Munich to New York, while at the same time it’s perfectly alright that a throng of people gather in front of the toilets drinking wine and chatting away for hours at a six-hour flight from New York to San Francisco?

bisher 1 Kommentar 17. März 2006 Markus

Peepshow

Check out Morns’ new website 25peeps! It’s completely useless, but fun: everybody that sends him a picture of himself will have this picture published - the most attractive 25 stay online, most attractive meaning being clicked on the most. Naturally my picture got replaced after a day, naturally Tina still is on a top position. So again: check it out, register yourself, but whatever you do - click at Tina’s picture! *g*

jetzt kommentieren? 16. März 2006 Markus

Australia pics

Whoever is interested, our gallery now also includes pics from our holiday in Australia in January 2002.
They are split up into 4 sections (Sydney and on the road up to Brisbane; Brisbane and Perth; Kangaroo Island; Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road). You will find them at the end of the gallery (as we list them by year).
Check it out!

jetzt kommentieren? 13. März 2006 Tina

Beer crazyness

After reading Rolands’ advise in the commentaries of Beer Grief I immediately paid my supermarket of choice (called Gristedes btw) a visit. They sell Molsons alright, but not really twelve bottles for 9$, but six bottles for 10$… I think I’ll have a look somewhere else first. But while searching for Molsons, I saw a beer that… uhm… well, have a look yourselves:

St. Pauli Girl?! From Bremen?!?!? I, for one ran screaming out of the store. The night after, I dreamt of big-breasted, dirndl-wearing waitresses, trying to sell me 0,2l Cologne Pilsner for 99$ a glass…

bisher 2 Kommentare 10. März 2006 Markus

Recycling - the American way

Something I really don’t like here is the waste separation. Yes, I have never been an eco-warrior, but I always separated my garbage and really believe it’s a good thing to do. The US has always been world champion in producing waste, the best thing so far is the coffee machine at our headquarters: next to it, rows upon rows of at least a dozen flavors like vanilla or cinnamon are to be found. But how do you get your coffee? Oh, that’s easy! For each and every cup you take a little plastic cup with a built-in filter, put it in the machine and get your cup-o-coffee. That’s 5×5x3cm of plastic waste per cup, that this machine miraculuously disposes as well. Or is it just dissolved into the coffee? It sure tastes like that… Anyway. In our office or everywhere else you just throw away glass, paper, food leftovers and everything else in the same thrashcan - isn’t that just great? But not in our appartment hotel you don’t! Characteristically every floor has its own thrash room, where garbage is disposed of via thrash chute, but at my place it looks like this:

In an absolutely high-techy way you first have to choose which type of garbage you want to dispose by a press of a button, before the cover opens! Just why do I have this nagging feeling that down below there’s still only a single container…?

bisher 2 Kommentare 09. März 2006 Markus

Beer Grief

It’s bad enough that the beer in this country is rather unfulfilling. Watery fluid like Budweiser or Miller is totally undrinkable, but even the rather decent Samuel Adams stands no chance against good old Augustiner. But at least you can drink it. Or could, if you could afford it. Preparing for Oscar night, I just bought my first six-pack of Sam Adams - and paid 10,50$! For 6x 0,33l beer! Back in Munich you’d get almost 20x 0,5l Augustiner for that much money! Now that’s what I call depressing. Well, time to live even healthier from now on… *sigh*

jetzt kommentieren? 06. März 2006 Markus

… and enjoying the sun

And that’s how Central Park looked this afternoon…

bisher 1 Kommentar 05. März 2006 Markus

Drowning in Snow

Help!!
It has snowed SO much since Thursday night and it hasn’t stopped since. Apparently, Munich hasn’t seen that much snow since 1942. People are walking on the street, the sidewalks are just too deeply covered with snow. And even on the streets it’s hard to walk. Yesterday, I often sank in up to my knees. But it’s also funny, you can tell that it’s something special and that people also kind of enjoy it.
I’m curious about how this is going to continue, it hasn’t stopped snowing yet …

bisher 4 Kommentare 05. März 2006 Tina