Sidonie and I are on an adventure that began long ago, but I thought it time to update friends on life here in Hamburg, so here I go!
Let's start at the beginning...it's a very good place to start...the year was 1981; it was a cool Easter morning...Well, I suppose I won't go back quite that far!
We arrived here in Hamburg five and a half weeks ago. The move was quite a whirl wind! Sidonie was studying abroad in southern Germany this summer and, as a part of her studies, flew up to northern Germany (Hamburg) for a workshop with one of the largest casting agencies and musical theatre schools in Europe: Stage Entertainment. The students of the study abroad program were invited to a mock audition with the company to see what a professional European audition was like. After the mock audition, Sidonie was asked to attend a REAL callback for Nala in the German production of The Lion King. The casting directors enjoyed her work at the callback, but said she should work on her German and come back (she, of course, had not yet begun to study German!) The officials from the school connected with the casting agency, however, had seen Sidonie's audition and invited her to attend the prestigious Joop van Den Ende Academy! After prayer, MUCH prayer, and about two weeks (during which we sold most of our belongings - our parents who are storing the leftovers may disagree - and purchased many more suitcases) we moved from sunny and warm Orlando, to rainy and cold (to us) Hamburg, Germany! We are so excited to be exactly where God wants us and can hardly wait to look back and see what all He has done in and through us!
When Mom found out that we were moving, she told some friends from church to get them to pray for us. One of them, a worship minister with whom we had sung while in Tallahassee, said to Mom: I know someone in Hamburg; let me see if I can get in touch with her...
Long story short(er) the friend of a friend had a friend who had a room that we could stay in and a cellar in which we could store all of our 10 bags!
Short rabbit trail... When we were leaving for Germany, with the tickets that had been paid for just the day before by a couple in our church, the luggage was far too heavy for the regulations. We flew AirBerlin (which I would recommend to all) and their stipulation is $150 extra for each additional bag - we had a total of 10 checked bags - AND $150 extra PER BAG that is over the weight limit - more than half of ours were. We were trying to figure out how in the world we were going to pay for all those extra bags, and how we were possibly going to take care of all this in time to get to our flight when the very helpful manager at the MIA AirBerlin ticket counter asked if we were moving. We told him yes and he said, OK, let me see what I can do. What he did was knock off the charge for ALL the over weight bags, and let us pay for only 4 of the checked bags out of the 10!!!
Returning to the path...We arrived and stayed with Afsaneh Shiri, a wonderfully hospitable Persian woman who lives with her 82 year old mother in a two bedroom flat in Rahlstedt, a community to the North and East of downtown Hamburg.
Our Twin Bed - Cozy :)
The Desk In Our Room (notice our REAL Persian rug)
Our Wardrobe (no secret passages that we discovered)
Die Toilette (yes that's what we call it here!)
Das Bad (the bathroom - a separate room from die toilette)
The Entertainment Center - The TV was a source of constant enjoyment for our host and her Mom, and they got great reception of a number of Persian channels! :D
The Living Room (with our host, Afsaneh!) She's so sweet!
The Dryer ;)
The Kitchen (notice the Kuelschrank - Fridge, or literally called the "cool closet")
The Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner nook!While staying with Afsaneh, we attended the wedding of an Afghani friend. It was BEAUTIFUL and LONG (we began preparations about 8 in the morning, and got back home about 2:30 AM the next morning!) The music was fun (albeit all very similar in our ears) and we were able to/STRONGLY encouraged to dance! Apparently I have a knack for it?!? They were calling me Mr. Tanzer (dancer) afterward... It was not at all difficult, and quite fun!
Ellie - Afsaneh's Daughter - Picks Out Her Maid of Honor Dress That Morning
Sidonie Chooses The Bread for Dinner - Persian Flat Bread
The Bride Gets Her Hair Done Before The Ceremony
The Wedding Dress (we found out later that it was the first of two dresses for that evening's festivities!)
My Beautiful Bride Dressed to The Nines For The Wedding (which little did we know, was still hours away! :)
Sidonie's Makeup Done By the Wedding Makeup Artist!
Afsaneh(R) and The Makeup/Hair Artist(L)
The Couple (looking AH-mazing) Enters (for the first time)
The Couple Dances Their First Married Dance (with her wearing that beautiful gown, who was looking at him?!)
The Couple Enters (for the second time - this was about 1AM)
Sidonie Gets Her Dance on With Ellie and The Girls!
This Little Naughty Boy Put a Flower Petal in The Candle (it promptly caught fire!)
I Cut The Rug to Turkish Music (which happened to sound almost exactly like Iranian, Iraqi, and Afghani music! What do you know?!)So, since this post is now FOREVER long with all the pics etc, I'll add to this again soon with Part 2 - stay tuned!
Hugs and kisses to all! MUAH!
Tschuess!
