Hi guys,
Now we've been back in Germany for more than two months and it is about time that I tell you what's happening with us. We experienced the worst shock before we even got there. We had planned to send our 600 books to Germany but found out that the post offices in Martinique as well as in Trinidad only do airmail these days. Not really an option. We tried to book additional overweight luggage online and in advance with Condor, but that is not possible in Trinidad. Next step was a freight forwarder, which was the winner of all. We asked for a quote for a parcel of about 0.5 m x 0.5 m x
0.5 m weighing about 40 kg. One quote from the harbor in Port of Spain to the harbor in Hamburg was for US$ 1,227! So, sadly we had to abandon our precious books in Trinidad.
We still had enough to carry, though. If it hadn't been for a Chinese chef who had worked in Port of Spain, we might have run into serious trouble. He put lots of our stuff in his luggage and we picked it up in Frankfurt. We expected our luggage troubles to be over by then, but unfortunately that wasn't so. I had strained a muscle in my lower back very badly, was hardly able to walk and had to see the doctor on an almost daily basis for a while. I am glad to say that all is well again now. : – )
One of the things that pleasantly surprised me, was the fact that we had no trouble to rejoin the German healthcare system. We just had to go back to the same place where I had been insured as a student and that was it. That took care of my most serious worry. Aurora Ulani absolutely loves the school and brought back a lot of As already. Even in her least favorite subject, which is math. Gloria and I had to go to the department of alien affairs in a neighboring city for several times and for a while it even looked as if they required her to take German classes before we could proceed any further. At which point she engaged them in lengthy discussions in German as to why she didn't like the idea (waste of her time and waste of her money) and subsequently the requirement was dropped altogether. She is now using the old textbooks of my sister in law from Chile. She might even learn a few words of Spanish this way <grin>. She now has the equivalent of a "green card" and doesn't have to go back there for one year.
All in all it wasn't all that difficult to get back into the system. True, we did have to go to numerous government offices, but it was mostly just the filling out of forms and copying of documents. Opening up the online shop is a different matter. The software platform plentymarkets is very versatile and adaptable – but that also means it is very complex. You don't usually buy it, but actually rent it and it is being maintained on the server of the developing software company. Unfortunately it is anything but user friendly. It will take me a very long time to get the hang of it and if you make a mistake, you always have to fear legal action from the competition. I was hoping to be ready with both eBay and Amazon for Christmas shopping, but now it looks as if I am not going to make it. That is too bad, as Christmas is the most important time of the year.
Another thing we have to figure out, is what to do with the money we got for DHARMA BUM III. Being back in the system does not mean that we have an old age pension or anything like that. My absence of 31 years from my home country makes that impossible. We do not want to leave the money simply in our bank account but the opinions of everybody including the experts vary to an astonishing degree. I tend to think that it might be a good idea to buy a house with the money and then rent it out. In this country the return on investment is very small, but still better than cash. Our friends from Taiwan are of the opinion that it is sheer lunacy to invest in Germany. If not Taiwan, than at least somewhere else in Asia. And maybe it would be better in any case to look at bonds, as the real estate market doesn't look promising at the moment. But Gloria's friends have always been high flyers and are born optimists. Then there is the apartment in Garden City (Taiwan). Soon we will have to decide what to do there as the contract expires. The price of similar apartments in the area went up by almost 70% since Gloria bought hers! Not re
ally a good time to get into that particular game at the moment. But somehow we absolutely have to make sure that we have enough money when we are not able to work anymore as we can see right now that we won't be able to make any reasonable amounts of money here. Lots of thought for plenty of discussions...
An old friend gave us three bicycles, so that we are able to make bicycle-trips in the neighborhood. At first Aurora Ulani didn't want to try out the bicycle and zoomed around everywhere on a little foldable scooter made of aluminum instead. After we promised her a toy, everything changed. It took her about one hour to learn to ride a bike and we can only say one thing: Bribery works! Last Tuesday she took the bicycle to ride to her ballet lesson in the neighboring village. Gloria and I never really wanted to get into that sort of thing, but she wanted it so much, all her friends are there and the costs are minimal. We bowed to the inevitable. Today she is having her first little party, which was completely her own idea. She planned and wrote the invitations herself as well as a program for different tastes as well as a timetable. Not our idea, I assure you! We wonder where those genes came from.
When the weather permits, we take a lot of walks through the forest, around the lake and down the river. It is very beautiful and it is a lot of fun to hunt for mushrooms. The other day Gloria surpassed herself by baking fresh mushrooms with spring onions and garlic in a Pyrex glass bowl. Absolutely delicious! There is one distinct drawback to all this gluttony. Our waistlines are expanding mercilessly... We have abandoned butter and margarine altogether by now. Delicious food will stay part of our way of life which is to be expected from a proper Chinese lady. Gloria even bought a deep fryer, as lots of vegetables need to be fried for seconds before being used in various recipes. On the boat I already vetoed a big Chinese gas jet burner which is normally used to bring the wok up to speed
and I am equally disinclined to have our house burn down here. A deep fryer seemed like the more sensible option.
Talking about the house: Our tenant upstairs is moving out all of a sudden on 1 November so we are moving in there. It is an apartment with a big living room, one bedroom and a huge balcony. Still too small for a family of three, so we will recombine the small place we live in now with the bigger one upstairs. There is a certain amount of reconstruction necessary, but it sure beats having to walk through rain, cold, wind or snow every time you leave your bedroom. In fact, once we have properly moved in, gotten our own furniture and decorated the place it should be very nice indeed. After all, we bought and renovated the house to our tastes in 1996 – with floor heating and all. We are really looking forward to living there!
We got a little car right after we got here, because out here in the boondocks you really need one. So we are living a very "normal" landlubber-life and I have to say that I agree very much with what sailing guru Bobby Schenk has to say about coming back and reintegrating oneself. People make much too much of it. It is way easier than living on a comparatively small budget on a sailboat for years. I also agree with another one of his opinions: That these days there are way too many people out there who shouldn't be there in the first place.
Right now we are very glad to have come back here, to spend time with family and old friends and re-discover the ways of the people in north Germany. Of course we miss our yachtie friends very much as well as the many beautiful places we have visited in the past eight years. Fortunately there is eMail and other electronic media, so that we can still stay in touch. In the next summer vacation Gloria and Aurora Ulani plan to fly to Taiwan. Gloria hasn't seen her family since she flew there from Langkawi and our daughter shouldn't forget all the Mandarin-Chinese which we so painstakingly taught her. We also continue to teach her Calvert School, because English is still her best language at the moment and we don't want her to lose it. Right now she is reading German translations of Enid Blyton by the bucketful. To be on the safe side, she has already joined two libraries, so we don't expect any problems in this department in the near future.
Very soon the autumn/fall vacations are beginning here. The summer is gone for good. In the shops you can buy all kinds of Christmas stuff, but our favorite "Glühwein" (warmed and spiced red wine) is not yet to be had. I am sure we will find it any day now. We've bought an electrical footpad for icy evenings (we do live in the basement after all) and wonder how we will like the first winter. At the moment everything looks real good and we just hope that next year will be just as good.
We do hope that you are well and are enjoying life just as much as we do!
Cheers!
Holger, Gloria & Aurora Ulani