Final!

Oh man! What a great match... Germany 3, Turkey 2! And we are in the FINAL of the European Soccer (football) Championship! I really wish to be back home to see the crowds on the streets celebrating. But because of the different time zone I am stuck in my office and supporting our team from my desk!

Lucky enough is the final on Sunday... 12.45 my time. And I'll find a German pub in Denver to support our team. You bet :o)

Deutschland vor noch ein Tor!!!!

B-BBQ

Well... I am not stuttering... B-BBQ simply stands for Birthday BBQ which I had on Saturday! Thank you everybody for showing up and enjoying my world-famous Burgers ;-)
For the readers of my blog... here is my secret: Read carefully, I am not typing it again :o) The secret ingredient is... fire! Lots of it. Without it you would eat a pad of raw meat! And it wouldn't look as spectacular as it does of course ;-)

Despite some of my guests might have had second thoughts about my extensive use of the special ingredient especially on the roof (just kidding!) we had a great time. Even the youngest visitor with sweet 6 months was enjoying herself and stayed up till late.
But I am still not sure why she refused to try some of my fantastic burgers... it seemed like she was more interested in the beer bottles on the table. Kids start drinking early these days ;-)

And have a look at this fantastic birthday cake. Unfortunately you don't really see the 'fog' coming out of the middle... this special effect was archived with dry ice which kept the bigger boys entertained for the rest of the night! Thanks Christine for both, the yummy cake and for the entertaining ice :-)
If you are counting the candles right now... I turned 18 that night and I am officially able to drink in public... except in the US of course :-)

Close encounters... revealed

Who doesn't know the movie 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'? But is it once again just a Hollywood story created for the box office or is there more about it? The last stop of our road trip through South Dakota brought us a good bit closer to the truth... because as we all know, the truth is out there ;-)

So Justin and I went to the Devils Tower just across the boarder to Wyoming to look for ourselves if there are any traces left. As we had seen in our previous investigations in the cave, this process of revealing the truth takes some time and is sometime painful. So we chose the longer trail around this impressive stone formation towering tall over the Wyoming's plains.

After half an hour of tiering search for the truth something unexpected happened... no worries nobody got abducted... but we found evidence for the violent force only a spacecraft can inflict to the surrounding trees.
With the good feeling that at least Steven Spielberg is telling the truth we went on our journey back to Colorado :o)

Happy Birthday

Thanks to all of you for all your fantastic birthday wishes! I received lots of text messages, emails, IMs, ecards, postcards and packages of you and I would like to thank all of you for making this day a special one for me. My flatemate Justin even backed a cake (picture below)! I truly had a great time... celebrating once again my 30st birthday ;-)

Stay tuned for the birthday BBQ at the weekend!

Hidden Treasures

For everybody who has seen the movie National Treasure 2 this is obvious to you as it was for us... we were very confident to find the big treasure in South Dakota, even though you have to wonder how the Incas (or Aztecs) got that far up north just to build a golden city in North America... oh well. Apparently it is hidden in a vast cave system behind Mt Rushmore... and guess where we were... in the second longest cave just a stone's throw away from Mt Rushmore. Coincidence? I don't think so!


By booking the 'historic tour' in the Jewel Cave (coincidence? I don't think so!) with just a small petroleum lamp we thought of maximizing our chance of leaving the group quietly and getting to the digging part undisturbed.
Needless to say that it all didn't really worked out the way we wanted...


Even though we had a nice deviation... on one of these small ladders an elderly couple had too much and had to get brought back by the tour guide. We were left in the dark (coincidence? I don't think so!) and started to look around. We even discovered strange carvings and letters on a wall (coincidence? Oh well... I think you know what I mean) but unfortunately the tour guide was back too quickly! But next time we are back to discover the last secrets of South Dakota... this time with dynamite :o)

Heads on the Rocks

The first obvious attraction in South Dakota is a little mountain which was totally unknown just 70 years ago... Mt Rushmore. Today everybody around the world knows the astonishing 60 foot (18 m) stone monument of the four US presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln (seen from left).



Originally it was planned to carve the presidents from head to waist (like seen on the original work miniature on the right) but unsuitable stone and lack of funding finished the project 1941 in the stage as it is seen nowadays. An interesting fact is that the first plan was having Jefferson on the right and Lincoln on the left of Washington. After finishing half of Jefferson's head to the right of Washingtons it had to get blasted off due to unsuitable stone... that's how Teddy Roosevelt got his place onto the stone formation ;-)


And here are two more big heads... this time not made out of stone. Oh well... arguable made of wood ;-)

For this blog I made sure that there are no hidden treasures like in National Treasure 2 hidden behind the presidents heads. In fact you will be shocked to hear that there isn't even a lake! Is Hollywood lying to us? Find out in the following posts!

Road trip to South Dakota

What is it about South Dakota, worth driving more then 1000 miles (1600 km) round trip? Well first of all it is an easy enough drive as most of the roads are straight like drawn with a ruler (which is really hard to find in Europe). Secondly I could go on about the beautiful countryside of South Dakota but that is actually only half of the story. There is much more to see then some rolling green hills and small lakes with surrounding forests which reminded me a lot of my hometown back in Germany. The following posts will bring light into the darkness why my roommate Justin and I chose this destination for a jolly road trip up north. So stay tuned to read more about Rocks, Caves and a good old friend from Ireland we met against all odds where the Buffalo roams ;-)

The latest trend

Fast food, Hollywood, Rock and Roll, Starbucks, Coca Cola... the US has always been the trend setter for the rest of the world. That's why I am delighted to show my friends back in Europe the latest trend which might comes to a Autobahn near you sooner then you think: having your pick-up truck and the kitchen appliances in the same color! Which is quite a challenge when you have a 70s-toilet-green-colored car like this guy in the picture. Well done ;-)

The credits for this great picture are going entirely to my flatmate Justin who was quick enough taking this picture while I was steering my car in disbelieve :-P

Goodbye DC

But every good thing has to come to an end and after 4 days my feed were quite thankful for getting back home and under my comfy desk back at work ;-)

I am still amazed how much you can see and do in DC. Especially when you love visiting museums and taking pictures of monuments, like I do.


One of the highlights of my trip was meeting Ann and Dave from Milwaukee. We spend some very nice hours together, drinking beer and talking about Germany (where they went the year before). So I will be very happy to visit them in the next months in Wisconsin and try some of their well known beer there!


For being there only four days I saw lots of things. Starting with all the Memorial day celebrations like the parade or the concert, the war memorials, Arlington cemetery, museums, capitol... and I still haven't seen it all. So I guess I have to come back in one stage ;-)

Museums and Monuments

The museum for the American Indians (funny name for the native Americans I thought) is in a very nice and modern looking building alongside other great museums like the air and space museum or the American history museum. Spending time in all museums in DC is truly a challenge and might take you several weeks.


But even trying to visit all the different monuments will take quite some time. One of the most famous one is the Lincoln Memorial just across the Washington Monument. In the park between them you can find all the different war monuments starting with the famous black wall for the Vietnam War, the Korean War monument to the newest World War II memorial.

But one of the most chilling experiences is the Holocaust museum which is right of the national mall too. It is one of the best museums I saw in DC and is well worth a visit. The end of the exposition is this eternal flame for the victims of the Holocaust.

Me and the VIP

For most of you this might come as a surprise but history studies are showing that on all major events in American history I was there too. You don't believe me? Well, check out the pictures and believe your eyes my friend!
Here you can see me talking to Abraham Lincoln just before his assassination in the theater watching a crappy comedy. Of course Abraham insisted on getting us some drinks and peanuts... and that's when it happened.

Or you can see me here with JF Kennedy, visiting Berlin in the 60s. We had a long conversation on the plane about what he is saying at his speech. Unfortunately he didn't listen to me (once again) and said the famous words... Ich bin ein Berliner... which easily could be mistaken for... I am a donut. No wonder that the crowd was getting hungrier minute after minute with all this talk about food. I should have had a Bratwurst stand there and I would be rich ;-)

Going back a few more years in history again... here you can see me with the civil war general Lee discussing the terms of his surrender. What you can't see is a huge number of fine Tennessean bourbon bottles which helped quite a lot for the negotiations. After that union general Grand signed everything... and bought even our broken washing machine and dryer ;-)


And here is a more recent picture with me a good friend of mine: Georg Clooney . He saw my performance as JFKs first lady and offered me straight away a leading role in his newest movie... Ocean 27. Well, as much as you can have a leading role beside 26 other leading characters though :-)

Of course I refused! I like traveling more then acting I guess :-P