Before I left Ms. Kirkey was kind enough to prepare for me a photo album with a collection of photos of friends and family. I kept this photo album on my coffee table the entire time I was in Germany. It was [...]]]> I am faced with a difficult challenge: a year in 100 photographs.

Before I left Ms. Kirkey was kind enough to prepare for me a photo album with a collection of photos of friends and family. I kept this photo album on my coffee table the entire time I was in Germany. It was a great reminder of the people who help to make my life what it is.

The album also happened to be half-empty, allowing the perfect opportunity to fill the album with photos from my year abroad. I just counted the pages and there is space for about 100 photos. I wasn’t photo crazy most of the time I was there, but I have lots of photos among:

• in and around my flat
• the chicken castle
• Built to Spill in Stutgart
• a sloppy joes party
• a pigeon festival
• my Kinder Surprise advent calendar
• a 1FCK match
• the Karlsruhe Christmas market
• the XXL restaurant
• Skiing at Mehliskopf
• London, Paris, and Germany with Katy
• visiting at mine and castle at Neuenbürg
• Munich, Prague, Strasbourg, Blackforest, and Zurich photos with Evan, MK, and Zout
• Canada Day and barbecuing in Germany
• the Alpencross
• my trip to Madrid to see NIN
• the Porsche museum
• the Canadian Memorial at Vimy Ridge
• road trip to Brussels, and
• my trip to Berlin

I don’t know how I can condense this to 100 photographs. So far my best idea is to do so using people–minimize the inclusion of photos don’t don’t include people I’d like to remember–but I still think I’ll be left with too many photos to fit in the album.

It’s too bad I wasn’t married to a photo-crazy woman who would just take care of this for me. This would make my life ten times easier in this respect.

The past two months have been incredible. I have been blessed with visits from some of my dearest friends. First, I [...]]]> A couple of months ago I wrote to you about my reaching the mid-point of my year here in Germany; now, I have but four months left. Time is going by rather quickly.

The past two months have been incredible. I have been blessed with visits from some of my dearest friends. First, I met Katy in London just before Easter. We spent about 5 days in London. It was my first time in England and hopefully not my last. The weather was as-expected, but it was still glorious to be there.

We left London after the Easter long-weekend taking the Eurostar to Paris. That’s where we got lost in the Louvre and didn’t find our way out for 3 days. (I kid; but it is a big museum.) Katy successfully made some purchases on Champs-Élysées–an arguable must for any woman.

Early on a Friday morning we took the high-speed TGV train from Paris to Karlsruhe, Germany–in only 3 hours.
After more than a week of straight touring I think we were both pleased to settle down at my home. We managed to grab an A6 from my work for the weekend and took a day-trip to Stuttgart. The next day we went with a slower mode of transport, using bicycles to get into Karlsruhe.

Katy and I went to Frankfurt to drop her off at the airport and to pick up Evan and his colleague Steve. Unfortunately Evan and I aren’t the photo types so there aren’t any photos of that. Nor of Evan, Steve, and I’s trip to Munich that following weekend. But soon enough Matt and Kevin came with their cameras blazing.

I, unfortunately, had to work for a few days so I sent Matt and Kevin to Munich from Ulm (most of these photos are not of Munich, because I wasn’t there). When we re-united in Ulm we toured around a bit before heading back to Karlsruhe for the night.

The next day Matt, Kevin, and I drove to Frankfurt Hahn where we met with Evan and we all boarded a flight to Prague, Czech Republic. In Prague we had a giant apartment to ourselves in the centre of the old town. We did a bike tour, drank lots of Starbucks coffee, found a lot of washrooms, ate some goulash, and saw some strange works of art. We got back to Germany late on a Monday night and quickly drove back to my home.

The next day we did a quick day-trip to Strasbourg, France. This was also the day that we introduced Matt and Kevin to flammkuchen. We ate six flammkuchens between the four of us, and stocked up on snacks for our trip to the black forest the next day.

The black forest was quite nice. We drove through the black forest on the “black forest high road”, the B500. We stopped about half-way through and hiked up to a ski-jump platform for lunch. We ended the day with a trip to Gockelburg–the famous chicken castle–and a trip to P10–a beach bar atop a parking garage in Karlsruhe.

We said goodbye to Evan after we drove him to the airport and prepared for our final big trip: Zurich. In Zurich we stumbled upon the grand opening of the Hauptbahnhofstraße Apple Store. I, of course, insisted that we go in and claim our free t-shirts. We were drawn the water and spent a lot of time just enjoying it, day and night. The next day the weather more-or-less forced us to hike up a huge hill to the south-west of the city-centre. We walked around until we got lost, then returned downtown for a final Starbucks beverage before leaving the city. Because it was so nice out we took the long-way home, taking a ferry across Lake Costance (or Bodensee).

Matt, Kevin, and I went to Frankfurt the next day where they finally tried currywurst just hours before getting on their return flight. We got our final Starbucks beverages and then I saw them off at the airport.

Like I said, it has been an incredible couple of months. And this leaves me with only four months left here, and still plenty to look forward to: the Alpencross in July, Spain at the end of July, and a marathon in September. I hope there are enough photos here to hold everyone over until I make my trek back to Canada, though I would be surprised if a few photos don’t come out of my trip across the Alps at least.

I hope everyone’s summer starts off nicely. See you soon.