Goodbye Colorado!

Things are moving quickly these days. Even I was surprised by the development... it seems like the whole moving process is having a life on its own and is moving far beyond light speed. What are you saying now Einstein? ;-)
Anyhow... the remaining days between my goodbye party and the actual flight were filled with lots of activities. Like selling my car, packing stuff, sending packages to Germany, packing even more stuff, cleaning up the mess downstairs (sorry again for leaving still such a mess, Justin), getting a rental car, goodbye dinners with friends...

Speaking about friends... thank you so much for calling over to the different events! I really miss you guys and as I said a couple of times before... a place is special because of its people. You can find nice scenery nearly everywhere around the globe or a nice city to live in... but good friendly people like here in Colorado are hard to find. And to all my friends I didn't see at my last days in Colorado... sorry for my restricted schedule! But it wasn't my last time over there, promise!

Well... back to my last days in Colorado. They passed by in an instance. And suddenly it was Wednesday morning and I had to catch the plane at 6 pm. So I was sending my last packages back to Europe, had lunch with Justin and Torsten (of course Mexican which you can't find that easily over there), send some more packages to Europe (the people in the post office knew me by name in this stage), nearly left my camera in my old room (I really have a problem with cameras these days) and was already off to the airport...

Oh man! What a crazy day... returning the rental, carrying 4 heavy suitcases to the check-in, being scarred as hell when they were weighing them (but they let them through without any comments) and off I was! Flying back to Germany... back to my hometown which I thought would never happen to be honest. Oh well... life is full of surprises I guess, and Colorado was one of those surprises as well... a very pleasant one I have to say ;-)

So... what is next? What will happen with this webpage you might ask. First of all there are still a couple of posts in the making... especially a 'making of' series you don't want to miss! But surely it will get a bit quieter around here in the future :-( But don't you worry my friends! Of course there is a new project in the pipe already! Announcing: Ekki in Germany... all you ever wanted to know about the country of Bratwurst, Sauerkraut and Beer but so far didn't dare (or care?) asking! ;-) Check it out:

www.ekkiingermany.blogspot.com

And if you ever make it to Germany yourself... give me a shout! I'll be around to show you the closest Oktoberfest :o)

Yours,
Ekki

Don't leave me now...

Well... and sometimes you have to say goodbye to a long lasting love... for two years we were together. We went (drove) through good times and bad times. But we always could trust on each other. On my way to work she was entertaining me, she was with me on all my trips up the mountains even though she didn't like to ski and left me up the mountains a good couple of times.

And she was on a road trip to Mt. Rushmore with Justin and me. He also enjoyed her company... she was very social! Countless times she brought me to the airport but I always left her behind. Not very nice of me but she never said a word or acted up. Quite the opposite... she was very easy going but still had 280 horse powers in the back of her hand ready for when you needed it.

Obviously I couldn't take her with me. Even though she was very low maintenance I think it would have been hard for her to get settled in over here. With 3.3L she would have been the queen of the Autobahn but the taxman wouldn't have been that understanding I would think.
Anyhow... so we went different paths in our lifes. Two days before I had my plane she left me for someone else... Michael. I hope he takes good care of her... so long my love :.(

Goodbye BBQ at Casa Cammon

As I said earlier already: everything has to come to an end someday... even though I certainly had a blast in Colorado! But the plane ticket was booked, suitcases packed (I wish!), the rest of my belongings sold and everything was set for a most dramatical end. And even the heavens started to cry which kind of messed with my BBQ idea... oh well, who looks back in anger right? ;-)

But regardless the bad weather everything was set for a party to remember. 80 burgers, 40 sausages and a beer keg were waiting for my guests (not sure if it was 40 or more... something along this lines I guess). The only disappointment of the night was that I had some leftovers... 40 burgers! Oh man! My friends are obviously not very good eater... but much better drinker :-)

And of course better cooks, too. Thanks for all the different salads, salsas and... cakes. As you can see on the left: Bich-Khe and James made a delicious cookie-cake for the party! Including the German 'goodbye' icing in the national colors of Belgium ;-) Still very, very tasty... thanks for that!

And to proof how tasty it actually was: my (ex-)roommate Justin seemed to be very happy with the cake. Or was it the beer? Well... I bought a keg of my favorite 'New Belgium Brewery' beer: Sunshine Wheat! It also was a huge success and we were able to finish the keg already at around midnight. Lucky enough we had plenty of bottled beer, Whiskey, Vodka and also...




Jell-O shots. Those are not known in Germany and you can see the surprise written in Torstens face discovering them at the party. What you can't see is that after having a couple of those Torsten was dancing to the music... on his own. Well it was entertaining for all of us :o)






But even the longest and craziest party has to come to an end. And I have to say thanks to all of you... for being such good friends over the last years!!!

And in the end it wasn't only the heavens who was shedding some tears :-)

I hope to see you all at my welcome party in Germany!!!

Goodbye dinner

Well... all good things have to come to an end somehow. And as most of you already know I am planning to move back to Germany. So this goodbye dinner is the start of several goodbye activities...

But first things first... the goodbye dinner at my favorite restaurant: Casa Bonita. Most of you will know this place from a South Park episode and will be shocked that this place is real (at least Paul was shocked when he visited me last year) :-)

But it is real... well, it is even better than real! How to describe it to somebody who doesn't know this particular South Park episode? Something like 'Disneyworld' meets a very very bad Mexican restaurant I would think. And of course... cliff divers! Can you ask for more?

Thanks Torsten, Justin, Dani, Pete and Annika for this unforgettable night ;-)