Zum letzten Mal haben uns meine Eltern 2004 in Suedafrika besucht. Also, wurde es langsam mal wieder Zeit - und Luca’s Geburt war natuerlich ein hervorragender Anlass. Ich habe mir eine Woche Urlaub genommen, waehrend Katja im Krankenhaus war - und so haben wir die Wichtigsten Sehenswuerdigkeiten in ein paar Tagen abgeklappert. Die meiste Zeit haben wir in Brooklyn verbracht, zwischen Fort Greene, Prospect Park und verschiedensten Spielplaetzen. Aber wir haben auch ca. 20 km zu Fuss in Manhattan zurueckgelegt, und von Central Park Mitte bis zum Battery Park, von der 1st Ave bis zur 7th so ziemlich alles gesehn :) Ausserdem haben wir uns das Feuerwerk zum 4. Juli angeschaut. Im Grossen und Ganzen wuerd’ ich sagen, dass wir eine gute Balance zwischen “Leben in Brooklyn” und “New York Tourismus” hinbekommen haben.

Die ersten Tage

Euro 2008 (Halbfinale)

Spielplatz-Spass

Touristen-Tage

Die letzten Tage

Es war sehr schoen, dass Ihr da wart!
Bis zum naechsten Mal.

Torsten & der Rest :)

Nach langer Sendepause, melde ich mich heute zum Blogger-Leben zurueck. Immerhin hatte ich unschlagbare Gruende fuer mein Nicht-Schreiben. Meine Eltern haben uns einen lange ueberfaelligen Besuch abgestattet und natuerlich wurde am 27.06 unser 2. Sohn geboren. Wenn das mal keine Gruende sind, dann kann ich Euch auch nicht helfen :)

Nun, um mal wieder ein bisschen Schwung hier reinzubringen - erstmal ein paar Bilder vom relative enttaeuschenden Feuerwerk zum 4. Juli. Auch, wenn die Kulisse natuerlich unschlagbar war, hatte ich irgendwie mehr “Feuer” erwartet. Aber was kann mich schon noch zufriedenstellen, masslos wie ich bin…

Bald noch viel mehr.

Torsten

On June, 27th, 2.34p Luca Albert Raak was born at the New York University Medical Center. He weighs exactly 4000g and is 53.4 cm long. That is slightly lighter than Noah and slightly longer. Everybody’s healthy and happy that it (read: pregnancy) is over and that all went fine :)

So, let’s say it togther: Welcome to this crazy world, little Luca!

Torsten & Family

Alles Gute zum 2. Geburtstag, Du alter Sack :-)
Hier ein paar Bilder:

Torsten

Hmmm… Noah wurde am Samstag 2 Jahre alt. In ca. 8 Wochen erwarten wir unser 2. Kind. Soweit, so gut. Die meisten (in Amerika lebenden) Kinder in Noah’s Alter gehen ca. ab dem 18. Monat in eine Art Kindergarten. Aufgrund des Umzuges nach New York haben wir das mit Noah erstmal nicht gemacht, weil wir ja wussten, dass wir ihn dann wieder rausnehmen muessten.

So, nun ist es aber soweit. Wenn No. 2 auf die Welt kommt, sollte Noah 3x pro Woche im Kindergarten sein; 1. damit er sich mehr mit gleichaltrigen beschaeftigt und 2. damit Katja mehr Zeit hat, sich um No. 2 zu kuemmern.

Aber das scheint alles gar nicht so einfach zu sein. Das Angebot ist riesig, aber die Nachfrage noch ein bisschen groesser. Kindergarten, Daycares, private Nannies und Einrichtungen, von denen ich gar nicht weiss, wie ich die nennen soll, buhlen um der Eltern Gnade :)

Die, die uns zusagen, sind natuerlich auf laengere Sicht voll, und das, obwohl sich wahrscheinlich nicht jeder 10,000 - 15,000 Dollar Jahresbeitrag fuer einen Kindergarten leisten kann oder will. Und das, was verfuegbar ist, ist halt nich 100%ig ueberzeugend. Was also tun? Jetzt anmelden fuer 2009 bei etwas, was uns richtig gefaellt? Hmmm… Und dazu kommt dann noch, dass ich mich selber dabei ueberrascht habe, wie schwierig es mir faellt, mir vorzustellen, Noah fuer den ganzen Tag in fremde Haende zu geben.

Wir werden sehen.

 Torsten

P.S.: Manchmal denke ich, dass ich langsam verlerne ordentlich Deutsch zu sprechen und zu schreiben. Irgendwas stimmt mit dem Text nicht - aber das ist dann mal wieder ein anderes Thema.

On Sunday we went to lunch at Madiba Restaurant in Brooklyn, NY. Well, the name says it all, it is indeed a South African restaurant. Man, was I excited about getting a good Castle Lager.

So, we go there, want to order some drinks and it turns out that everything South African is sold out and that they aren’t expecting a new shipment for another 4 weeks. So, no Castle, no Windhoek and no Savannah. Baaah!

So, we settled for some other beer and went over to the food. This was as South African as it gets, though. I had boerewoers with pap, Katja had a Poitje, and Katja’s mum had a bunny chow :) Very nice. Then some milk tart as dessert and that was that.

Nice lunch and nice setting. Here are some pictures.

Torsten

Now, I can smile again. But last Tuesday I thought I’d never smile again. What a fucking mess it was, once the moving company had dropped some 260 boxes and furniture items in our new place. But let me take a step back…

When we arrived, we were immediately confronted with the well-known “parking-problem” in the city. Eventually, I found a spot only to get a ticket for $115 two hours later. Apparently I had parked to close to a fire hydrant. Ok then, I moved the car further away - only to get another ticket for another $115, for the same violation. Still not far enough away from the bloody hydrant. Hmm, eventually I figured it out. Now, we have the parking scenario somewhat figured out. After the first 2 days we were ready to sell the car - but now we’ll give it another try.

We were expecting the moving company some time Tuesday morning. When they still weren’t there by lunchtime, I called them and was told that they’d arrive shortly. Well, at around 3.00p they arrived. Immediately it became clear that they won’t be able to unload the stuff for the appartment and the storage facility on the same day, as the storage facility closes at 5.30p.

Well, they started unloading. And they weren’t impressed with how narrow the staircase was and they also weren’t impressed that there was no elevator. Hey, but that’s what I paid them $7000 for, right? Anyway, it all went ok until they got to the couch and some big IKEA shelf. I had to take the shelf apart on the sidewalk so they could carry it up in pieces. And the couch? Well, that wouldn’t go up at all. An hour later or so, I had the idea to take the whole ballustrade off the staircase and to also take the legs off the couch. Wow, after that there was around half a centimeter on each side to spare and the thing actually went up and into the living room.

They finished at around 7.00p or so and were planning to come back the next day for the storage stuff. (Which they actually did and there were no hickups there). That evening we were so tired that I just put the ballustrade back on, grabbed a six-pack, had a beer and went straight to bed.

It was only in the next morning, that the whole mess became clear. There was so much stuff everywhere, that it was literally impossible to get anywhere in the place. So, the bottom line is, that everything had to be touched 10-20 times until it had reached its final place. Add this to the fact that around 5 larger items just would not fit in the places we had planned for them. Usually they were around half an inch too wide or so.

On another evening I started wiring the whole entertainment setup in the living room. There goes a TV, a Receive, an XBOX, 2 Playstations, some external hard-disks, a Slingbox, a WiFI Access Point, a DVD Player, a Cable Box and kilometeres of cables. It took me around 4 hours to wire everything. When I got to the point to plug everything into the receiver, I found out that the damn thing wouldn’t fit into the cupboard properly. So I re-arranged everything the next morning, drilled some holes and now everyhing is connected. I still need to hide 2 wires from the TV and install the rear speakers, but other than it looks and sounds pretty impressive. HiDef goodness :)

Remember that bookshelf I had to take apart on the sidewalk? Well, I put it togeter again - only to realize that it was one of those things, which were half an inch to wide to fit properly. So, on Saturday, we drove to IKEA in New Jersey and bought some new, smaller bookcases. Upon our return I took the big one down again and put together the new ones. We then gave the old one away to some neighbour.

Other than that it was just very stressful. Get up at 7.00a for a quick breakfast - and work through the day until midnight - only to re-start that cycle the next morning. Noah was not impressed at all with us doing stuff - rather than playing with him.

Well, anyway, we’re now in a livable space. It’s pretty much there. There are 2 boxes left to unpack and some pictures to hang. After that some fine-tuning and then we should be done.

Today’s my first day in my new job - and so far it’s nice to just sit on my butt and don’t carry things around the house. We’ll use the evening this week to put up some curtain, blinds and pictures. So, by the weekend we should be 99% done.

So, this gives you a glimpse into our last week. It was actually much worse than described above :)

We’ll keep you posted!
 Torsten

Good bye “Suburbia”. After almost two years in a quaint, little suburb of Chicago - where the properties are huge - and all cars have the size of a Cadillac Escalade - we’ll move our things over to the big city. New York, that is.

After spending approximately two weeks in Manhattan, living in a hotel, it became clear rather quickly that there will be only two options when it comes to settling down: Upper West Side or Brooklyn. Both areas look quite alike. You know, the old Brownstone style, tree-lined streets. Close to parks - either Central Park or Prospect Park or Fort Greene Park.

After looking at places in the Upper West Side (where prices where actually quite ok), we realized that there’s just s$&% on the market. So, after a desperate week of looking at all sorts of places, we had a couple of appointments in Brooklyn - and then we found this gem. Around 100 yards away from Fort Greene Park, there’s this newly renovated 3 bedroom duplex appartment with some nice, old charme. The prices is extremely reasonable, really - and we just liked it the minute we walked in.

Note: It’s actually very interesting and disturbing how quickly one adapts to real estate prices. I mean, we are doubling the amount of rent we pay (from Chicago to NY) but still feel it’s an ok price. Still, for the amount we’re paying now, I could pay off a house in Jo’burg with around 6-7 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge yard and damn big swimming pool. But then again, I wouldn’t have electricity :-)

Enough. Check out the pics:

Cheers.
 Torsten

Well, here we go. After a fantastic day in NYC, I can herewith officially confirm that we will move to the Big Apple in almost exactly 8 weeks.

More details to follow ;)

T.

——-

Nun ist es also tatsaechlich passiert. Nach 7 Jahren Consulting (teils Sales, teils Delivery), werde ich zum 1. April anfangen etwas ganz anderes zu machen.

Zuerst SAP Retail Solutions in St. Ingbert, dann SAP Africa in Johannesburg, als naechstes SAP America in Chicago und nun: SAP Global Marketing in New York City!

Auf geht’s zum naechsten Kapitel :-)

Torsten

Hey, it was my birthday last week :) So, Katja had the brilliant idea of getting a babysitter for Saturday, go for dinner at Yoschi’s Cafe and see the Blue Man Group in Chicago’s Briar Street Theater afterwards. What a great show! Thanks for the great gift, babe :)

See ya.
Torsten