Did you see it to?

So we had a bit of a scare yesterday; we woke up in the morning to this bright yellow object just floating high in the sky. At first Erin and I didn't know if we should even go outside with this unknown object hanging ominously in the sky. We did however decide to venture out into the world when we saw other people walking around town. The first thing we noticed was that the yellow object provided more warmth then the normal gray sky that has been over our heads for the last couple of months.

We stopped an older gentleman and asked him if he had ever seen this yellow thing in the sky before. He said that he saw it once back in the 60's and that people had even started to call it "the sun", but that was a long time ago. He said that "the sun" would not harm us and that our usually gray sky would be back soon. The man was right "the sun" caused us no harm (Erin even commented how she like "the sun" better then the gray sky), but I was happy to see our comfortable gray sky above us by days end. I am sure soon enough that "the sun" will just be a distant memory that we can look back on years from now and remember the day that we to saw "the sun".

Our group braving the yellow thing in the sky

Hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas

Patrick

Blue Man Group and Air Force Bases

I just got the results back from my 3rd MRI. The short story is that the blood in my brain is gone (well not all of it just the stuff that’s not supposed to be there). I started climbing again/working out after the last 4 weeks of head injuries and being sick. It felt really good to get out of the house and exercise.

On a different note school ended last week! I ended up with a 4.0 and am now officialy a Junior! At this rate I might graduate sometime before 2020..

Last weekend I took Erin on a date to dinner and the Blue Man Group. If you have never been you should really check them out. It was the first time I had been to a “show” in the city and it was really odd, weird, cool, loud, interesting, creative, and totally worth it.
After dinner we went to this Austrialian grill that served Kanga (or kangaroo). They also served the largest cheese burger I have ever seen. It was the size of a regular plate and had a ½ pound of cheese on it or if you live in Berlin its more like a ¼ Kilo.
Two weeks ago Erin and I visited my cousin and his family and I must say that I have a really really cool cousin. I am not saying this to take away from how cool you think your cousins are, I am just saying this because my cousin gets to fly around in jets and blow stuff up for a living. Before I get to far into this Blogg I should clarify a couple of things; technically he is my second cousin; and currently he is taking a break from flying the A-10 Warthog so that he can “fly a desk”. I am told that everyone that plans on being in the Air force for 20 years ends up taking time out of what they normally do to “fly a desk”. Currently the “desk he is flying” makes him the assistant to the Major in charge of the US Air Force for all of Europe (yes all of Europe) and is stationed at Raimstein Air Force base about an hour south of Frankfurt Germany.
Eric has been married to his awesome wife Shannon for the past 5 years. In those 5 years they have been lucky enough to have two amazing kids. Both kids are amazing little people that have fantastic personalities that I am sure will take them as far as their parents have gone. It was a pleasure to get to know them and I hope to hang out with the whole family soon.
Erin and I have gotten used to going to our local German grocery store, walking, riding bikes, taking a train, not having a car, not understanding what most people are saying, not seeing Americans, not speaking English all the time, not having mountains in our back yard; we have done a pretty good job at getting used to all of it. Then we took this trip; I think we have done a great job at getting used to the difference from Germany and the states. That’s why this weekend was so interesting, because Eric picked us up in a GMC Yukon (a big SUV). This small thing might not seam like much to the average SUV driving American, but to us it was the largest vehicle by far we have seen in 4 months. Berliners just don’t have big cars; they really like the smart cars and other small cars that look like you could pick up. It was nice to be in a car with a cattle guard (it made me feel like running into something). We got to their house (also something we don’t see much in Berlin) and right away noticed some major differences in how they live. I think the biggest thing for us was the bed in the guest bedroom. Now most German beds are really just two thin mattresses pushed together. This joining creates a very noticeable “crack” in our bed. Erin has spent many nights smashed uncomfortably into the “crack” in our bed. Eric’s bed was a full fledged 12 inch thick pillow top American mattress that the very sight of had me saying the pledge of allegiance. Needless to say we slept well. The next noticeable difference was found when we looked into the fridge. It had American food in it, Betty Crocker, Coke, Land O Lakes cheese, Dryers ice cream; it was like we took a little vacation back to the States for the weekend. Erin and I felt a little silly walking around the grocery store on the base giddy because we could get simple things like American sticky buns, Montreal Steak seasoning, and real brownies. I am sure my cousin was thinking “what’s wrong with these two” but we really just don’t have certain things over here and its amazing how much seeing them can take you back to the States.
Erins mom Gayle has done a great job making us feel like we are not missing Christmas by sending us packages from Santa that we have put under a palm tree that we have decorated. Yesterday I went out to get some Christmas lights, tinsel, and fake snow so that we can make this house look a little more like Christmas. I threw the tinsel on our palm tree where the presents are, sprayed some fake snow on the windows, and plugged in the white lights. The white lights blow out in 5 seconds; just like in the states.
The next couple of weeks are very busy; we have some friends that we met in Brugge coming over to visit us on Monday, my Mom gets into town on Thursday, Erin fly’s to Whales on the 26th and then we go to Poland on the 2nd of January.

A Thanksgiving I wish I could remember

What happened?
What did I do?
Where is my gear?
How many hospitals have we been too together? (question to Erin)
Only two you’re getting off easy (my response to Erin)
Did you tell them I am allergic to sulfa drugs
This is the best hospital I’ve been to in Europe.

These are the questions that I kept asking every 90 seconds for the better part of the day this Thanksgiving..
This time a week ago I was driving south from Berlin to a small ski area in Austria; to say I was excited would be a major understatement.
The last thing I remember is getting gas north of Munich around 10 pm Wednesday night.
Thursday night I wake up long enough to wonder where I am, and realize that I am not dead because I can reach over and touch Erin. I smile and fall back into a mix of head injury and sleep.
I wake up Friday morning; notice my neck and abs really hurt; my eyes are slow to open and focus. I look out the window and see a mountain that looks like the mountains around Estes Park. One of my first thoughts is how did I get to Estes?
One of my next thoughts was what the hell happened to me?
Erin explained that I was skiing in a white out and feel about six feet; if it where not for my helmet the spots of blood that the cat scans found in my brain would be much larger. This news does not make me happy, but at this point I am just glad to wake up to my beautiful wife.

I quickly go threw my memory:
Parents names, day I got married, address back home, phone numbers, friends names, peoples faces, email passwords, bank accounts, its all there!!

Friday was spent taking EEG tests, heart tests, ultra sounds, and getting to know my two other roommates that I was sharing a room in the Neurological ward with. They told me their names, but I decided to call the one that had his head bandaged “Rio” and the one that snuck alchool into the room “Zach”. These guys are not nearly as cool as their namesakes, but they would have to do for the week.
I don’t really remember much from Friday, and in retrospect really was not doing to well. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been on Erin.

Saturday I woke up and felt good, not great but good. I was going to be OK. I still had to be in the hospital for 3 more days, but I was going to be OK..

I never claimed to be a smart man (something that has become harder with the loss of brain cells recently), but I have been smart enough to learn from my mistakes. So I decided that I would spend the next few days learning from this mistake. The problem with this objective is that I don’t remember about 48 hours of my life, and that where I had my accident was substantially below my skiing ability. My inability to learn from this mistake was really starting to bother me; after all if I could not learn from it then what was the point of causing this much stress in people?
This need has been with me for the last 5 days; at first I thought life was telling be to back off the adventure sports that I love to do, but then it hit me! Everything that happened this year the marriage, joy, success, pain, shitty times, injuries, the move, and general stress of 2007 happened so that we could slow day and same “Dam we are lucky” lucky to be alive, lucky to be married, lucky to have such great friends, lucky to have great family, lucky to have a job, lucky to have my brain, and lucky to have had so many experiences in life that have left me breathless and feeling very lucky.
So even though I was throwing up, getting cat scans, wondering who I was this past Thanksgiving does not mean that I did not learn to be thankful to call you all friends and to be alive.
In the words of our guide from Machu Picchu “everything is possible, and nothing is sure” so make sure you slow down a bit and realize just how dam lucky we all are this holiday season.

(Thanksgiving dinner?)

I have some dam good friends

So I woke up knowing that I have to submit my application to CSU and a bunch of school work I need to get done today. I open the computer check my email and see this http://www.myspace.com/flatpatrick1 (make sure you click on Patricks first adventure) in an email from Zach.
Now being thousands of miles away gallivanting around Europe isn’t always as glamorous as it may seam (although it is pretty cool) At times its really hard being so far away from family and friends especially when we are lucky to have such a great group of family and friends (great seams like an inadequate word for you all, maybe I will invent a new word to describe how lucky I feel to know you guys. How about a combination of super, great, fantastic, amazing, lucky, blessed) so here is the word that I feel is adequate of everyone’s "greatness" sufanamalucssed. I am not really sure how to pronounce it, but hey living in Berlin I have gotten used to words that I cant pronounce and have to many letters in them.
So back to the myspace page. It made me laugh out loud; I was literally coughing up my cereal it was so funny. It was just what the Dr ordered..
I can't wait to see all the adventures of flat Patrick over the next few months; lets just hope the guys can keep up with him on the slopes; after all I heard he learned how to ski from the real Patrick.

Berlin livin

Good morning America! How is everyone back home? I feel like all I do on here is talk about me, and the cool places we have been. So lets talk about you!
What have you been up to?
What’s new in your life?
Are you going anywhere cool for Christmas?
Any really interesting new year’s resolutions?
Or you could just email me and tell me how your life just hasn’t been the same since Erin and I left..
So feel free to email me at kayakclimb247@yahoo.com

Alright enough about you, it’s time to talk about what we have been up to.

We got our first snow in Berlin!!!

Incase you hadn’t noticed Erin and I have been doing our best to not be in Berlin much, and until last week we where pretty successful at that goal. I think I was only in Berlin 4 days the entire month of October. Well that has changed; like the gray cloud that has moved into Berlin we to have been hanging around a lot.
There is so much to see and do in this town that not leaving it just gives us a chance to explore the city we live in and the cool things it has to offer.
Last weekend we road to the huge forest that is close to our apartment in Zehlendorf. This forest is called the Gruenavald and contains the only hill in Berlin. For those of you that aren’t in the know, Berlin is the flattest place I have ever lived and the fact that there is a hill is odd because the geology of the area is all sand. So you may be wondering how did this hill get to Berlin? Well my friends that’s a great question that I can answer for you. Much of Germany has been shaped by the two world wars that it hosted; this fact holds true for the geography of Berlin. Berlin was the most heavily bombed area in the European front. Those bombs blew up 90% of the city leaving Berlin in ruins. The allies decided to take all of these ruins and pile them up in the South Western part of the city. This is how berlins only hill came to be, it’s literally made out of the buildings of old Berlin.
Now Berliners are smart people they said “hey we have a hill” what should we do with it? So in 1969 they got a bunch of concrete and poured mans first artificial climbing wall (they where very ahead of the times). Other parts of the hills provide a place to fly kites, mountain bike, fly remote controlled airplanes, and on top of the tallest one is an old CIA radar station.

They ended up pouring about 10 of these concrete structures all over the city. Not knowing my way around the city and being a climber I decided the only way to learn the city was to visit these structures. I have been to most of them and I have to say that they are really cool, some are old bunkers that in WW2 housed 10’s of thousands of people and other are just poured concrete that was poured for the sole purpose of climbing.

Thanks for reading the blogg; I need to get back to school work and planning some trips. Ruff life really..
Hope you are all doing well
Patric

I will no longer eat “Freedom Fries”

The French deserve a cut of potato named in their honor. I will call them French Fries!

So the last few years in the States have been a tuff place for the French. I to have taken to poking fun at our frog friends across the Atlantic, but I have to say that they are by far the nicest people I have met since I landed in Europe. It started a couple of days ago when I was trying to make my way from the sewer of a city called Amsterdam (more on that later) to a place called La cocque France to help a friend turn a two hundred year home into a bed and breakfast. So I take the train into Paris and have to get across town to another train station in an hour. It’s totally doable but time is tight, I quickly find myself not lost, but misplaced. Evidently I looked “misplaced” because a nice French woman comes up to me looks at my ticket says something in French to me then grabs my arm and escorts me across the train station to my train all by me saying the only French word I know “we”. I thought to myself wow that’s really nice she missed her train and everything. I arrive to my destination safe and sound about 434 kilometers south of Paris into this sleepy farming town.

Nice French Person encounter number 2:
Like I said I am working on this really old house that makes you hungry and pretty dirty; fortunately for us Greg’s neighbor is this super nice old lady that spends all morning cooking for us. Now if you know me you know that I am not what you would call a good eater, in fact I am kind of the opposite, I am pretty much a burrito and pizza kind of guy. So this nice old lady has us over for lunch and has 3 courses set up for us.

(the nice 80 year old lady that cooked for us every day)

First course:
Not to bad, a little soup some wine, I am a little nervous, the wine she serves us was homemade and knocked my socks off, but I am doing all right.
Second course:
Salad; not bad at all (starting to think that maybe I will make it.)
Third course:
Out rolls this big black piece of sausage. Its called blood sausage and looks like hell. She is saying something in French then makes a gesture towards me that I should dig in. I grab the smallest piece I can and the second my fork touches it I know its not going to go well. I cut a piece off and its black inside (from the blood). I look to my left and she’s sitting there with eyes full of glee waiting for me to try her meal. I take a bite (oh god just the memory is turning my stomach) I smile at her while I am throwing up inside. She looks at the other guys in the room to see how they are doing and I take the chance to bust out a move that I learned from my moms cooking when I was young (no offense mom you cooking was great, I am just a bad eater). I politely spit the pieces into my napkin while she was not looking. I got out of there with the cute old lady thinking I was the greatest American she ever met all the while I had that god awful blood sausage in my pocket.
Day 2:
Its rabit day! Yes I ate Peter cotton tail today! And you know what? He tasted pretty good! The nice French lady and I have gotten our style down. She talks a lot in French, I smile and nod, she rubs my head/ beard, and occasionally when she is making a point about me needing to eat more she rubs my stomach (maybe she thinks its good luck). In all seriousness she is really great and it’s nice to have someone get so much enjoyment from making a meal and watching you eat it.
So looking back on the last month makes me think I am some jet setting international playboy like Austin Powers or James Bond (mostly due to my good looks but minus the crime fighting, and scantily clad women following me around) Since October 2nd I have been to Colorado, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, and now France for the last week or so. It has all been really cool and very cultural (meaning I have seen more old churches then I thought existed)

(the view from our room)

Belgium:
It was Erins fall break from school so we used the Euro Rail pass that we got for the wedding from her brothers (thanks a ton guys) to head to Brugge Belgium. You might be wondering what or where is Brugge? I was wondering the same thing just weeks ago; turns out its what ever image you have in your head of an old quaint beautiful European town. If you had a couple extra grand burning a hole in your pocket you should give it to Erin and I so that we can have another nice romantic weekend back in Brugge; or you could grab your special someone and head on over to Belgium and stay in this town; it rocked.
One of the days we road to the Nord zee (North Sea in English) with our new friends from the states. These guys work for the airlines and don’t have a home so each month on there days off the hop on a plane and go on vacation (really cool).

These guys are a ton of fun and we think they are going to head to Berlin on one of there days off. The rest of the time we hung out eat some great chocolate, drank some good wine and looked at some more old churches. It was a perfect get away from Berlin with Erin. Later in the week we headed to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam:Amsterdam is kind of like the internet, a little history, a lot of places to buy things, way to much porn, and sometimes you wonder why it exists. I mean really how many times can I be approached to buy cocaine or hookers in one night. What mayor said hey I have an idea. Lets make prostitution legal, then let everyone in the city walk around high as a kite yeah that sounds smart.
We should have staid in Belgium…

Overall the last month has been really really cool. I got to see friends back in the states, travel Europe with my wife, and work on a house and see a side of France most don’t see.
I am really one lucky Guy
Hope this blogg finds you well doing what ever it is you love
Patrick

Around the world in 8 days. Sort of

So we are going to roll the clock all the way back to September 30th 2007.

September 30th 2007 found me on a train heading north out of Berlin. These are the same rails that started the story Erin and I are going to hear today. We bump along for an hour or so and stop in Oranienburg the town closest to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. I am sure you are thinking wow what a fun Sunday.
The day as a whole was not what you would call fun, but I would call it completely necessary for many reasons. First 200,000 people passed threw this camp 100,000 of them died, the second is this was considered the “model camp” or the place the Nazis tested out different ways to torture and kill. The final reason that this was necessary is because horrible things happened here, they should not be celebrated, but they need to be learned from so that society never goes there again. I would say the most important thing I learned from this day and reading I am doing around it is that I often thought of Nazis as this other form of humanity one capable of killing by unspeakable means, a form capable of killing 11 million people, a form just like you and I. Yes I said it, just like you and I. These men and women did horrible unimaginable things, but in the end they where just Doctors, farmers, policemen regular people that got caught up in the propaganda and charm that was the Third Riche. Now I am not saying that I our anyone I know would ever do a thing like this, but there similarities to the rest of humanity are scary and should be learned from.

Now on to happier times:
October 2nd:
I show up at the air port ready to get on the plane. I am waiting patiently in line when I look back and see a guy slugging a bottle of Vodka (or Wodka as it is spelled in Germany). For some reason my first thought was wow that guys smart drinking all of his liquid before they take it away at the security check point. A couple of minutes later I see this guy ducking under the rope lines and making his way to the front of the line. This in turn made the 4 rows of people he just cut off less then happy. Now our drunken friend was at the check in counter trying to board a flight to Turkey (there was no flight to Turkey). He insisted that he did not need a ticket, and seamed very upset that this lady was not going to fly him to Turkey. It was rather comical, but in this day and age of airport security this guy was fighting a loosing battle. A few minutes later the cops show up; this is where things go differently then they would if this scene happened back in the states. The cops just stood around and watch this drunk guy and his friend hold each other and sway back and forth. They decided to take action only after the main guy had fallen over for the 4th time and was drooling on someone’s luggage.
The rest of the flight went well and I soon found myself eating a burrito in Denver with my buddy Zach.
October 3rd:
Today was get stuff done day so that I could have a good rest of the week. I took a midterm for my US History 2 class (got a 100% if you where wondering), checked to make sure the house was still standing (it was and looks great thanks to our roommate Mel) and bought random things to take back to Germany.
Then the jet lag kicked my butt. I was sleeping peacefully in the back of the car by 10:30

October 4th:
The reason I went back to the states was to be in my good buddy Rios wedding. It’s for that reason that I found myself tearing up the golf course. Not being a golfer I was pretty happy with myself I had a few 250 yard drives and maybe one 300 yarder.
After a long day on the lynx I was ready to eat a good meal. Turns out Rios mom lives to cook and cook she did. She made a feast fit for a king or for about 30 of Rios closest friends. Once again jet lag set in and I was in bed by 11, the good side to that is that I saw my 2nd sunrise of the week come up over the mountains (a sight that dam near made me cry)
(The groom in all his glory)


October 5th:
After watching the sun come up I hooked up with Dave, Doug, Mike (Erins brother) and Becca (Mikes girlfriend) at the coffee shop in Estes. We loaded up and headed down to boulder canyon to do a little climbing. I had been promising Mike for years to take him climbing, it was good to finally be able to get him on the rock even if it was not Devils Tower. Don’t worry Mike we will still get on the Tower. The other great thing from that day was that I was in Colorado, it was sunny, I was climbing, and with some great people!! I could not have been happier.
I had to hurry back up to Estes for the big wedding rehearsal. The rest of the day was a blur between busting a 10 year old for drinking beer at the grooms dinner, beer pong, and having a good time with great friends.

October 6th:
The big day. The wedding was at 3 but the grooms had to be ready by noon an hour that came a little to soon after the night we just had. The ceremony rocked, it was really very nice to see two people I care about get hitched. The weather was supposed to be crap, but turned out to be about perfect, some clouds over the divide, sun lighting up the yellow aspen leaves, and it was in Estes so even if it was raining it would still be one of the prettiest places I know of.

October 7th:
Went down to Fort Collins to work on some school work, ended up having to take a test online while I was huddled in between all of our worldly possessions in my garage because I don’t have a key to the house. That night I went over to my friends Tom, Cree, and Skylers house and had a good slab of beef for dinner. Once again it was just great to catch up with awesome people.

October 8:
I show up at Zachs house to help him move into a real house with a real yard to see that he has packed about two boxes. We work well together so we had everything moved by around 2 in the afternoon and managed to not really break anything.

October 9th:
It was once again warm and sunny out so I went climbing with Dave and Zach. I spent most of the day trying to cram the feeling of sun, friends, and being in a really cool canyon into my brain so that when it’s cold, rainy, and flat in Berlin I can remember it. My flight was not until 8:15 that night so I had time for one last burrito (total burrito count for the trip was 6). It was a nice surprise to find out that I was going to have a row of four seats to myself, I grabbed all the pillows and blankets I could piled them up and fell asleep somewhere over the South Dakota/ North Dakota boarder and got some sleep. I did not wake up until we where zipping over Iceland.

October 10th:
I finally land in Berlin at 7:10pm after 22 hours of flying/ time changes and wonder if the last week was just a dream. Life always goes by so fast when all you want it to do is slow down.
Since landing I have just been trying to catch up on school work and figure out where we are going next week. Erin has off next week so I think we are heading to Belgium and The Netherlands. From The Netherlands I head of to somewhere in France to help a friend work on his house that he is fixing up. So if you don’t here from me I am somewhere in Europe and will be back in Berlin on the 28th.
Hope you are all doing well
Patrick

P.S if anyone wants to get married during ski season in Colorado I would make sure that I come back for it, just make sure it's going to snow alot.

When was the last time you went to Poland for $26?

So every time Erins mom and I hang out someone almost dies. Last time we where watching Erins brother run a marathon when this guy in his mid 60’s drops with a heart attack, a couple of minutes of CPR and we get him back among the breathing. This time we are standing next to the Berlin wall on a free tour of the major sights of down town Berlin. All of the sudden we hear this crash and I see a guy flying over a car no longer attached to his nice BMW motorcycle. I think I was running to the scene before he hit the ground. When I got there he was conscious and doing pretty well considering that he had just been hit by a car. I did the best I could medically considering we did not speak the same language and soon was no longer needed because the ambulance was there scooping him up. Pretty funny scene really. It was right inbetween check point charle and the old wall.
Anyway Erins mom had a good flight and was ready to go pretty much the next day. We rented a car and crused the Autobahn down to Dresden. It was soooo good to get behind the wheel of a car and just drive. We have not driven in almost 2 months so the freedom felt great. It was also nice to see hills, rivers, and rocks. There is tons of really cool history in the Dresden area. We visited the only castle that has never been taken by any raiding group except when everything got blown up/ taken in the 2nd world war. It was a really cool design because it was built on top of cliffs. It was just odd walking around an old castle something that does not exist in Colorado.
On the way back from Dresden we got totally lost but some how managed to get to a road that I had ridden my bike on a few times, then was able to get us home safe and sound.

The next adventure was going to Poland for the day, well not really the day more like the morning. Poland is only an hour train ride from Berlin so we Bob, Suzy, Erins mom, and I hoped on a train and took off for another country. It was how I always picture Poland, kind of rainey and cold. We walked across the bridge that separates Germany and Poland, got our passports stamped, and changed some money. It was odd that you can walk across a bridge and be in a place with different laws and languages. There was not much to see in Poland so we figured we would have some lunch at a lovely Egyptian place called Rmazies. It was an weird lunch of pizza, gunnies, and a mix of Egyptian Polish atmosphere. The place we visited in Poland is not exactly a destination resort so we soon found ourselves crossing the bridge back to Germany.
The rest of the week was spent doing Berlin things, like visiting all the historical places, riding the S Bahn, having dinner with friends.
Saturday around 5am we jumped a train to the Airport and found ourselves flying to Spain for the weekend. While on the plane I was reading about things to do in Barcelona and came across the paragraph that said this weekend was basically Barcelona’s largest festival. Looks like we where going to have to do a little partying!!
It was nice to be in a country that spoke Spanish; I at least had a shot of understanding the language. Barcelona is a really really cool 2,000 year old city situated on the Mediterranean. The airport was CRAZY; everyone was flying in from all points in Europe for this festival. Once in the city you could feel the energy that usually exists in Spanish speaking country, it was going to be a good time. We where supposed to find our old friend/roommate John at the Christopher Columbus monument around 6, getting there was an adventure in itself. Most of the roads heading in that direction where filled with 1,000s of people. It is by far the largest crowd I have ever been in.. I was really doubting our ability to find one person in this huge mess of people.. Fortunately we did; right next to Columbus statue pointing out to see (I think he was pointing to all the indigenous people he was going to help concur). The night really did not get going until around 11pm when John and I walked down a back road to find what can only be described as a riot. Any place in the states that’s what they would call it, but in Barcelona it was a parade. I think the goal of this parade was to burn as many people as possible. A group of about 50 people would gather in the middle of the crowd with theses sticks that had about 10 roman candles on them. Then one guy would stand in the middle of this future inferno and set about 500 of them off. Then these 50 mini people fireworks would come funning at you.. It defiantly woke me up and motivated us to find shelter in a bar. We passed up the bars/clubs with the scantily clad guys and girls dancing on poles to find a good ol Irish pub to drink Gunnies in. Somehow between the football match, a bunch of Gunnies, and the worst live band I have ever herd I found myself walking home at 4am (not my usually bed time) I did have a new experience while walking home. I was approached by 3 very friendly “women of the night”. I new they existed but had never been in a city late enough to ever have one talk to me. I soon found myself in a hurry to get home and hug Erin.
The next day was a busy one. We saw Sagrada Familia! I am sure most of you are thinking wow that’s so cool?? What exactly is Sagrada Familia? Well it’s a church that was started in1882 by Gaudi. It is easily the coolest man made structure I have ever seen. If you are ever in Europe GO AND SEE THIS. I am not going to insult this 125 year old project by trying to describe it.. Just go see it for yourself. The next stop was this really cool city park that Gaudi also built. Once again its indescribable and worth the visit.. The rest of the day was spent swimming in the Med, hanging out while Erin and her mom went shopping, and trying not to get to lost in the maze of city streets, and riots a.k.a parades.
It was great to have Erins mom visit. We saw a lot more then we would have in a normal 10 days, and it was really cool for me to show someone around. It proved to me that I am starting to figure out how to move around in Europe.
In other news, hearts are breaking around the world as we speak because my good buddy Mike Holmes is getting hitched! If you where at the wedding he was they guy with the Southern accent reading a quote during the wedding. I am very happy for him!

Funny lycra man

I want to start off this blog by directing you to a site I stumbled across while I was trying to write something about the Germans love of spandex and the mullet. Before you go to the site sit back, get comfortable, relax, and clear your calendar because you are going to need some time for this one! Please visit http://www.lycraman.dk/
Hopefully you spent some time checking that one out. I am going to have to save my in depth coverage on the Germans love of Spandex, the mullet, and David Haselhoff (or the Hoff as we call him) for another time because there is no way I can come up with something funnier then that site.
Back to other burning questions, like what have Erin and I been up to? Last weekend we took a train to the Baltic sea. You may be wondering wow what does one do at the Baltic Sea, well I will tell you, you sure as shit don’t swim. The Baltic was not like the last sea we where in (the Caribbean) the water temp hovers around 50 degrees for most of the summer and there are no palm trees for 1,000 of miles. Never the less a good time was had by all, combing the beach not for cool shells but really cool rocks that had be weathered by the constant action of the surf and the howling wind. We visited the town of Warnemunde near Rostock Germany. Warnemunde reminded me of trips to Cape May New Jersey or parts of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It was really cool to just hang out walk around the town, and try to figure out what we where going to eat for dinner because this did not look to appetizing.

Last night Erin and I went with our friends Nancy and David to the International Fireworks festival that was being held at the Olympic stadium. We totally scored! It was going to cost 15 Euros each to get into the field to watch the fire works but fortunately for us they were sold out! So we found this really cool beer garden that had a great view 100 yards (or meters if you live in Germany) away from the gate. So needless to say we spent the 30 euros we would have spent on a ticket eating bratwurst, drinking great beer and watching the coolest firework show I have ever seen!
Plus I got to try out the fireworks setting on our new digital camera.

So an update on people coming and going. Erins mom arrives next Friday the 14th so we are busying washing the towels, clean the room, and putting the mints on the pillows. My mom just booked her ticket to come over Christmas from the 19th to the 27th, and now it looks like my friend Doug is going to be in town over New Years to do some skiing! He has not booked the ticket yet but I am sure he will soon. So all you other slackers start saving your milk money for your ticket!!

Hope all is well
-P-

Update

Can anyone tell me why Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East Berlin leader Honecker kissed?

It has been over ten days since I last posted a blog, how have you all made it so long without my witty banter? You are all obviously very strong people to have made.
So whats new in our world. Well it’s a bit of the same old stuff, just trying to figure out our rolls here in the fatherland (as my German friend Stephen calls it). After 3 weeks of paper work..uh I mean training, Erin finally got kids in her classroom. She has this awesome ability to make even the coldest classroom (I say that because her school looks like a bunch of bunkers stacked next to each other), look all warm and fuzzy. Her kids are different then what she was used to, her students in the past did not have the money to travel so when Erin would ask what they did this summer she would get answers like “went to Wal-Mart”. When she asked her new students that question she got answers like, India, Italy, and America (probably to go to Wal-Mart). The educational system is set up so that if you are not on top of it from 4th or 5th grade you don’t get to go to all 13 grades (yes 13) and therefore would end up in a career that they did not love, or even like.
Today is our one month anniversary of being in Berlin. I have spent the free time just trying to get my head around all the death and destruction that went on right where I live. It is completely fascinating to me, how a whole society can have a radical idea and it ends up killing 60 million people across the globe. I have really wanted to just give myself time to take it all in and then start to research the battles, castles, and memorials on a deeper level. It’s really quite perfect that school started for me last week and I am taking a class on Modern Western Civ. So am studying where I live and the culture that surrounds each event in history.

So to get to know this town I have found my self on my bike trying to get lost. Yesterdays adventures found me lost in the down town part of Berlin. Now all over Berlin there are 100’s if not 1,000’s of these bears. They are pretty tall and usually out in front of businesses. Erin and I have always wondered what they heck they are all about. Yesterday I found out that they are “United buddy bears” if you want to learn more go to http://www.buddy-bear.com/. Anyway I guess they are intended to promote peace and fundraise for the poor kids of Berlin. Not a bad idea and they are really pretty unique.

We get our first guest on September 13th. Erin’s mom is flying on over to hang out with us for a week or so, then my mom is coming over for Christmas, and my brother at Spring break. The reason I am telling you this is so that you feel pressured to book your room in hotel Forster early (it’s cheaper that way)
Hope you are all doing well
Patrick

The HAUS that Hitler built:

Growing up playing soccer I always herd about the crazy fans in Europe. People going to a soccer game and finding them selves mixed up in a riot; you know that kind of thing. So needless to say I had to experience one as soon as I could. Our local Berlin team is the Herhta football club; they are not the best, but not the worst either. So yesterday Katy, Bob, our new friend David and I grabbed a beer (you can do that in Germany) and jumped onto the train that takes us to the local Olympic stadium. This is not your run of the mill Olympic stadium, this is were Jessie Owens helped to expose Hitler’s anti Semitism, by winning every running race 800 meters and under. It also holds the huge field that most of the video we have of the Nazi marching (mostly done for propaganda and scare tactics)
Once off the train there was an energy in the air that I have never experienced before at a sporting event. The fans are on a different level, take your most fanatical crazed sport fan from the US double his energy level and invite 40,000 of his closest football loving friends and that’s what this was like (oh yeah and they are not sober). It was for good reason that there where several hundred riot police that looked ready to rumble.
The stadium is clearly modeled after the old Roman coliseums; it is a big foreboding structure that would have been an intimidating place for an African American (Jessie Owens) to travel to in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s.
Our home team won, as every home team should do, the crowd went crazy and all was right with the world, but the actual soccer game was really a small part of being at the stadium.

As if the history/ soccer lesson from Saturday was not enough Erin and I decided to go on a little bike ride to Potsdam. For those of you that are wondering were Potsdam is and why we would go there I will fill you in. It’s a 12 mile ride threw forests and cobblestone roads away from our house, it’s also were Stalin, Truman, and Churchill met to slice up Germany/ Berlin into all those little pieces changed the world.
There is so much to see in Potsdam that it can’t be done in one day so we thought we would start with the prettiest. Sans Souci is on hell of a “summer home” the existing grounds are roughly 4 km squared and house a many lavish gardens, palaces, bath houses, tea houses, more gardens, and fountains. We spent a couple of hours there and just walked around the gardens and only saw about ¼ of the place and did not go in any of the buildings. If you come for a visit you can expect to come here!

So its 3:30 Saturday morning and I get woken up buy a guy moaning. Before you jump to conclusions he was on the front steps to the apartment building. Now the last time I heard a guy moaning like this I had just finished doing CPR on him so I thought I would get up to see what the deal was. Well he was not dieing, but he did kill some brain cells that night. The old guy must have had one heck of a night out on the town. In the states I would have given him several not so nice options of were he could go, but this being Germany at 3:30 in the morning what to do was a little unclear. The moaning continued for the next hour waking us up several times so I thought the thing to do was to call the cops. Have you ever tried to call the cops while in another country? It’s not easy, especially when you can’t speak the language, and when you finally get your point across they try and tell you that the street address you just gave them does not exist. Frustrated I gave up. I looked out the window at our poor drunken village idiot to see that he was gone; someone had let him in past the front door. Now our booze loving neighbor was slowly coming up the steps yelling please in German and shouting something violently. After an hour of this he finally made it past our door to the last flight of stairs. Wondering what he was up to I went out of our apartment to find an open door to what I assume was his apartment and him passed out in the hall way. So that’s our neighbor.. Wow city life is a little different..
To our moms that are reading it, don’t worry we live in a very very safe part of town and I will be amaized if this was not the most excitement we see all year.
That’s enough for now, hope you all had a great week!
Patrick

Another week gone by

It is kind of funny this whole blogg thing. I have never before had the time or cared to reflect weekly on what goes down in my life, but I think that thats what berlin is going to do for me. Give me time to reflect on past trials and tribulations and get psyched for the next adventure state side.

(Name the gate)

So the sort of funny dramma from this week is that half the time I was crankie because I thought my bike was stolen. Yes I said crankie and that best describes it. I moved here and the one adventours activity I was planning on still being able to do was to go mountain bikeing, and when I thought my bike was stolen I got full on crankie. So I filled the insurance paper work in the hopes that I could get some money back to buy some kind of bike. 4 days go by of me being crankie and still no bike, I roam the streets of Berlin just looking for the guy that stole my belovid bike, visions of seeing the bike riding theif roll threw my head along with a vision of me doing a flying leap across trafic; cloaths lining the guy and making him pay. Not a great way to experiance a new city..

Monday comes and the only guy that speaks any English calls me over and says he needs to show my somthing. He takes me into this other part of the building that I don't have a key for and shows me MY BIKE!!!! I hug the guy ( mental note: germans don't know how to react when a strange American is hugging them) Turns out the last place I put my bike was not OK with the guy that runs the appartment so he took the liberty of hiding it for me. When I asked his wife about it four days before the language issue got in the way. I am sure there is some sort of lesson in all of this, but I have been to busy riding my bike to think about it. Yesterday I road almost to Potsdam and checked out some really cool Palaces that are now parks along the river. Sorry I don't have any pictures but you will all just have to see for yourself.

Since we told everyone that we were planning on moving to Berlin there have been alot of people that said they were going to come over. We fullfilled our end of the bargian and now it's time for you all to pony up and buy some plane tickets over here. We even got a larger place just to host all of you. So some quick facts on what Hotel Forster has to offer. If you come over you have your own room, all to yourself (nicely decorated by Erin). We have a full kitchen and there is a good chance I will cook most of your meals if you ask nicely. We are located in the "Suburbs of Berlin" our places is surrounded by trees and a 2 minute walk to the train only about 20 minutes from down town. And the best part is you can't do any better on price $19.99 per night! (I am kidding we are not going to charge you) So really it's time to start making plans; or if you are thinking to yourself "Berlin sounds great and all but man I always wanted to go to ??????" Then let us know and there is a good chance we could be talked into ?????.

Our plans so far are as fallows:

Barcelona Spain September 22-24

Belgium, Amsterdam, Luxonburg October 13-21 (Thanks Mike, Eric, and Stacie)

Turkey for Thanksgiving (Seams fitting)

Christmas break (I don't know some were warm hopefully)

January sometime (Skiing in the alps with My sister and John, Heather if you are reading this you and John should come over in January)

Easter Vacation March 17 to April 4:

Croatia, Greese, Italy

And finally to wrap this weeks blog up I will leave you with this little peice of wisdom we found painted to the side of a blown up building from WW2.

Erin and I are on week two of this life altering event. This week had it’s moments, both good, bad, and funny (I suppose that’s how most weeks go, but I have never written about them before)
The first learning experience this week is that in Germany people don’t make eye contact with you while on your bike, walking down the street, or doing anything. Initially I was mildly offended by this. I don’t usually think much about my looks but when I do I don’t feel that I am painful to look at. So I walked around in my American bubble (that is how I feel not knowing the language or really were I am going) feeling like some sort of horribly disfigured outcast that was to painful to look at. It was starting to get to me; it kept me awake at night with thoughts about getting my second chin sucked away, or some bo tox to make my cheeks look fuller, or maybe I needed a nose job. Then I sat down at a little café and watched people (it’s really fun to do in the country, there wear a lot of spandex and still love the mullet). I started to notice that NO ONE LOOKS AT ANYONE! You could be on fire and they would not look at you. I was immediately relieved just thinking about the money I would save not getting all that plastic surgery done. So do me a favor next time you are walking down the street look at someone; hell maybe you could even smile, you never know when you are going to end up in Germany missing this little part of America.

So I came over to Germany without a job. This is a little detail that has been driving me NUTS! I rely on work to give structure to my hours, days, weeks, and years. I don’t want to “just be in school” I need to work. So I found my first job over here. I was a lab rat! They hooked me up to all these electrodes and made me answer questions about a bunch of sentences that were sung to me by an opera singer. I walked away with 21 euros ($30 US) for 3 hours of my life. The big hang up with finding work over here is the lack of work visas. Unemployment is as high as 20% so if a German can do it they want the work to go to them and not a foreigner. It looks like my best chance for work is going to be substitute teaching and/or painting houses.

Erin and I have bikes over here. They are our main form of transportation around town (they get great gas mileage) In our apartment complex there is a room for the bikes, at first I was a little weary about putting my expensive bike in the basement with everyone else’s bikes, but I thought I would give it a try. So I locked our bikes together and put them in the basement for the night. During the night the key to the lock walked off never to be found again. So in the morning I had to unlock the bikes with my leather man multi tool (thanks mike). I went down to the room to find our bikes thrown in a pile on the other side of the room from were I put them. This did not make me happy, who would be rude enough to throw our bikes in a pile to the other side of the room?
I went to work cutting, twisting, bending, the cable trying to get it undone, it was going rather well. Just as I was about finished someone started to open the door, this caused some concern because I was pretty sure I could not tell someone in German that I was breaking the lock to my own bike and had no intentions of stealing the bike. The lock broke just as they came threw the door. All the sudden the little old lady that walked threw the door starts yelling at me. Not about the broken lock but the fact that I “parked” our bikes in her spot last night and she had to move/ throw them in the corner. At least that is what I think she said because she was yelling at me in German. Not knowing how to say kiss my ass in German I smiled and walked away saying danca (thank you in German).

The last notable adventure this week was the five hours of my life spent going to, shopping at, and trying to get home from Ikea. For those of you that are not in the know Germans love Ikea more then they love David Haselhoff, and why not you could literally furnish your entire home with one stop to this store. So Tuesday after I got done playing test dummy and Erin got out of school we took the train to Ikea. Now I love nothing more then spending hours on end picking out the perfect towel pattern for the kitchen and bathroom but after 5 hours I was ready to pay up and get out of there to never look back. So $500 euros later (a new kayak in my language) we were done! Once we walked out of the doors I noticed all the taxi drivers averting there eyes and shaking there heads. There silence explained that there was no way our new bed was going to fit, and I would be forced to spend the rest of my life stranded at Ikea. Just then this random guy in his early 20’s swoops in and saves the day. He says that he has a van and could give us a ride if we wanted to hitch hike. Now back in Co I do a lot of hitching when I go kayaking. It is usually pretty safe, but some times you end up on the back of a Harley bear hugging a 300lb biker dude. Anyway back to hitching in Germany, after talking to this guy long enough I figured his intentions were good and he was not going to kidnap us or anything. So four of us crammed into the front of a 2 seater van for probably the funniest ride I have ever had. Turns out the one guy must of learned most of his English from rap music. I would like to elaborate more but you just had to be there.

(Relaxing after building everything we got from Ikea)

This weekend Erin and I are planning on going to Potsdam to see the castles and learn some more German history (you can’t turn around without running into some) then next weekend I am going to try to ride my bike to the Baltic sea (I should have one or two funny stories about that).

It's all about the cheese

Life so far has really all be about the cheese. Not that the cheese is good or we have had that much of it, but it comes down to the fact that I can’t read the ingredients or nutritional break down of this bag of cheese we just used for dinner. This problem does not solely apply to cheese. It permeates everything in every aspect of our day from how to get anywhere, to trying to figure out witch country my lost bike was in, to buying beds, couches, cookware, to meeting new people, buying lights (since most places don’t come with light bulbs or the wiring for that matter), to getting bank accounts, to getting internet, to witch bathroom to use. It is a huge slap in the face to someone that has most every aspect of his life wired back home. In a few short days this experience has thought me that I was comfortable back home, it was getting too easy, this decision of ours is not easy, and to be honest the last few days have had times that have really sucked, and times that have been really interesting ( usually after a beer garden) but it was/ is necessary. I am getting out side my comfort zone, not by falling off a waterfall, hanging off the side of a rock face, but by taking my ability away to know were I am going, how to get there, and what to eat once I get there.
Sometimes when you are kayaking you swim out of your boat. It’s not the preferred way to run a drop, but it happens, fortunately you have life jackets and safety gear to save your ass. Our life jacket/ safety gear for this waterfall of an adventure come in the form of Katie and Bob (Erin’s friends from Colorado). If we have any question the usually have an answer to it, from the best place to by groceries, to the people that have cheap furniture. They basically took this week (and probably many more) to get us set up with the million little things we will need to make this place home for a year.

(Our first dinner at our empty house)

Some of you are probably wondering about the little things like were we live, were Erin works, what city life is like. To those of you with these thoughts here is your answer. I am all about great deals and our apartment is one of them. Our place is huge! We have two bedrooms a big living room, and a nice sized kitchen. Currently it’s empty, but it is slowly filling up with donated/ cheap furniture that we have been able to get. It feels really weird going from to many roommates in our old places to no one but ourselves (So if anyone wants to move to Berlin for a bit I will give you a deal on a room). The part of the city we live in feels more like a suburb. It feels very safe, very clean, not smelly, and very orderly. There is a really cool little market that is about 150 meters away (things are in metric now) several large grocery stores and cool little shops tucked in on side streets and old world allies. It will be a cool place to live for a while, it a good mix of city life off set with a suburban feel. It’s hard to comment on Erins school, she has met most of the new staff, but really has not seen the classrooms or the other teachers. Everyone we have met so far seams like they are a bit shell shocked from there own adventure of moving from the states like we are. There are several mandatory trips to the beer garden that are built into training so I am sure I will have a better handle on who people and how the school is after they are done.
I have to get back to putting posters on the wall so this place looks more like home, hope you don’t mind but I am signing off for now. Life is good, challenging, and exciting and that’s how I like it!

Hope all is well

Patrick

This is "queer grizzly" that we ran into near buddy bar in Berlin.

Our own Wizzard of OZ

We are sitting hear at 40,000 feet humming along threw the atmosphere on our final destination of this 15 day tornado of an adventure that has taken us from our home in Fort Collins, to Wyoming to get married, Mexico to honeymoon, and finally to our OZ for the year that is Berlin Germany.

To recap the wedding with only words is impossible for me. I am not a good enough writer to recap the emotion and energy that existed in Wyoming for those four days. If you were there you probably have an idea of what I am talking about but for those of you that were not I am sorry you missed it. All I can say is that it was the most intense, emotion filled, inspiring thing I have ever been apart of let alone been the center of. Erin and I really wanted to spend as much time with our friends and family so we decided to make the wedding a four day event. Wednesday night started with a ladies camp out and a “men meet and machine gun night” hosted by my new family at a cabin with a shooting range that over looks the tower. I am not much of a hunter but I really enjoyed myself and it was great to get to hang out with Erin’s family a little more. Thursday 30-40 people enjoyed the ski boat that Erin’s brothers brought out all the way from Wyoming (the wedding would not have been the same with out all there help) it was a great event they helped pull off and I think everyone had a great time. Later that night we went to a town in South Dakota called Deadwood. It’s a interesting town that has a ton of history to it if you can look past all the gambling and T-shirt shops. By Friday my whole family had made the journey from as far away as Paraguay and I wanted to spend some time with them. So we hung out, walked around Devils Tower, and had some lunch at one of the two places to eat in Hullett. It's always nice to be surrounded by family. One of the coolest parts about the wedding is if I wanted to see one them all I had to do was go to a small hotel in a sleepy town in Wyoming to hang out with them. That is a convince that I really enjoyed and one that made it hard when the wedding was over. I love my life in Colorado and could not imagine another way to live it, but it is very hard being so far from family especially when each and everyone has something that I could learn from and something that I miss when they are gone. To my family members thanks for coming all the way out there the wedding would not of been half what it was with out you. It means more then you know.

Saturday July 21^st was the big day. It was a truly unforgettable experience coming down to the wedding site and seeing all of our friends and family in one spot. Then it got crazier when I saw my new wife get our of her fathers truck and walk toward me. It really felt like a dream.

Some how Erin talked me into flying off to Mexico 2 days after we got married and 6 days before we moved to Germany. Thank god she did!! It was great to have 4 days of sleep and sun with my new wife. We flew into Cozumel Mexico on Monday and did nothing but eat, sleep, snorkel, and drink fruity drinks.

And now onto our latest adventure. My new wife and I are moving to Berlin Germany so that she can teach something (I wish I could be more clear, but we really don’t know what she is going to be teaching.) We land in Berlin in about 6 hours so hopefully we will find out soon.

No one would ever make the mistake of calling me a city person, but I am going to give it my best shot for the next little while. I plan on taking classes while I am over there, traveling with Erin, and finding some kind of work. I already have some very promising leads and am confident something will pop up, because they always do!

So an update:
We landed safe and sound. We are going to be staying at our friends Katie and Bobs house for a couple of days because we can't get into the flat we have been paying for since the 16th. Not a big deal most of our stuff got here (my bike plus tools are somewhere between Denver and Germany).
If you want to check out pics of the wedding go to
www.nhews.net
Click on erin and patricks wedding. Type in your email address (they will not send you anything) then click on wedding at the top.
There are 31 pages so get comfortable!
We have a phone number that I will pass out as soon as we get into our house
Other then that not much is new. It will be nice to not move around for a while and get our bearings as a new married couple in another country.
Hope this finds everyone well and I already miss you.
Patrick

My first Blog

(Erin still working on wedding stuff)

Wow I am really growing up; not only did we get our marriage license today, a joint checking account, but now I have my own blog. What's a Blog anyway?

The plan is to use this Blog to keep everyone updated with the game of "were in the world are Erin and Patrick" that we are going to be playing over the next year. Right now we are in the planning and packing stages of the game. There are a million little details that are consuming our minds right now that it's hard to think about what we are going to be going threw in the next couple of weeks, months, years, and decades.

The moments that I do sit down and think WOW! Erin and I are getting married are not filled with nerves or apprehension, but with the thought of dam Erin and I are two very lucky people to have so many people coming to our wedding. Not the kind of luck were you find a dollar on the ground, but the kind of luck that leaves you wondering what you did to be so fortunate to know these people. How crazy is it that we have over 150 people flying from all point on the globe to gather in a beautiful field in Wyoming. Erin and I are beyond words with respect and gratitude that everyone is going to be sharing our wedding day with us.

I hope my first update finds you all doing well and getting ready for our big day!

(The garage that our whole life is going into)