Here are Soenke & I in California over New Years, wandering the grounds of the Ritz Carlton with my friend Heather. And, of course Heather & I doing our usual thang …

Ok ok, here I am with a quick update !!!!!!! And thank you VERY MUCH for the birthday wishes! (we can stop counting my age now…)

The 29th of December, Soenke arrived in LA for some “fun in the sun”… except that there was NO SUN. Rain rain rain, every minute of every day. But Cali ALWAYS needs rain, so we were thankful. We did have fun lunching & raclette’ing with my friend Danae… also hooked up with Heather… went to my brother’s house for a big family meal in anticipation of my birthday. I’m sure Soenke enjoyed getting the 3rd degree from my brother. My nephews were very excited to meet a real pilot… it was cute to hear Channing try to say his name.

We also went up to LA (in the rain again, of course), for some Spanish tapas & a drink at the Westin Bonaventure revolving lounge that overlooks downtown LA (the Westin is the hotel in the movie with Clint Eastwood when he is a bodyguard to the President or something…In The Line Of Fire?).

During the 25 minutes of sunshine we had, we lunched on the terrace in Laguna Beach….. and I dragged Soenke up to the TOE RING shop to be fitted with the mandatory California toe ring. He kicked, screamed, objected, begged… I had NO MERCY. He could only envision going through security with the rest of his flight crew, & having the alarm beeping & beeping, & finally having to say “er, I have a toe ring”… with the other pilots & flight attendants looking aghast at him….! heh heh… I look forward to hearing about that!

On Jan 5th we flew to Hamburg together. Thanks to persistance on the part of Soenke (& divine blessings), we were upgraded to business class, which is VERY luxe on Lufthansa. What a delicious flight. We enjoyed several days in Hamburg (his hometown) visiting with his friends & family. ALSO, for my birthday we went to the LION KING which I have never seen before. INCREDIBLE! We took a boat to get over to the island where the theatre is located. Also, I had the opportunity to hook up with Sally a few times, including lunch with Malik. It was great !! Really a lot of fun to see them both.

Soenke’s family had me over for lunch on Saturday, & his mom cooked some delicious German food. His family is VERY nice. His brother , a.k.a. “bursche” (mountain man) - he likes it when you call him that-, & his girlfriend are a lot of fun. We went out to dinner together another night (with Sally too) & then went to smoke the hookah pipe & listen to Arabic music.

Sunday we flew to Frankfurt where Soenke is working these 2 days. Today we went to the river (called the “Main”.. very creative) & walked along the banks for awhile, then dined at a traditional local restaurant & had apple wine (weird) and a special order of SPAETZLE just for me .

Tomorrow off to Paris, where we will be reunited with several members of the gang ! LIFE IS GOOD !