Archives for January 2006

OMG – this was fun! I went gown-shopping with my Mom and my sister on Friday. Nina picked us up at noon and we drove to Düsseldorf. First stop was “HONEYMOON“, a pretty exclusive bridal store. Ahm, yes, and we came without an appointment – big no no! :( [but how should I know – I am pretty new to that business ;)] The lady was pretty nice though and said we could stay.

I must admit, it was kind of weird to be in a bridals shop picking out a gown. When I tried on the first gown, it felt a little bit unnatural to wear it, but I quickly got used to the idea :) OMG, the gowns were soooo beautiful and it was so much fun to try them on. I didn’t really know what I would look like in a wedding gown [seriously, you don’t have any idea, until you actually wear one ;)], but I can say, the first dress I tried on was MY dress – you know, I pretty much knew right then that this was exactly what I was looking for :) HA! Since I hadn’t really been  in the wedding-mindset for a while, it was really amazing how all of a sudden, picking out a gown could get me all excited :) I tried three or more other dresses, but I didn’ t like them as much or they were pretty but totally NOT for me. I was told, I am a “classic bride” – there you go, plain elegance without much knickknack ;)
Well, have a guess – the dress I liked was of course the most expensive one: 1700 Euro! :( *gasp*
We decided to leave and go to another bridal store [which was not worth talking about] and then drove to Neuss. The lady at this store was really nice and I tried about 5 different dresses there and one was really (!) nice – a little different from the one I instantly fell in love with at the first store, but still very nice.

I was totally overwhelmed when I got home that night and believe me, although you think you’ll definitely remember the exact dresses that you looked at, it’s impossible. When you tried on so many dresses, it’s really hard to remember all the details. I spent the rest of the evening browsing the internet for more ideas regarding gowns, hair styles, invitations, etc. :) I am really getting into it!

Saturday morning, we had an appointment at one of the restaurants were looking at. It’s a really nice place (an old estate – I meant to say “Bauernhof/Gutshof”, but “farm” sounds pretty wrong in this case) which is part of an old town center with cobbled streets and an old archway. Really pretty :)

In the afternoon, Nina, my friend Ira and I went to another very big bridal store, CECILÉ, near Köln. Fortunately, we had called the day before and could get an appointment for Saturday. It was a really nice place with a little coffee lounge with free drinks and many bridal magazines :) We had some coffee while waiting for the saleslady that was going to help us. It was so exciting :) When she came to get us, she asked if I had an idea of what my wedding gown should look like already and I told her pretty accurately what I was looking for :) She found a dress for me, pretty similar to the one I had first tried on the day before, and Ira instantly loved it :) It looks like we all have the same taste in wedding gowns. I also tried a few more, different dresses which were all very beautiful, but in the end we all agreed on which one we liked best :)
Nina and Ira were so excited about it :) and I wish I wouldn’t have had to take it off again ;)

I am going to go back with my Mom this week and try on the three gowns again that I shortlisted and hopefully I’ll be able to make a decision then :)

Today my Mom and my sister went to another potential restaurant for the wedding and also had a look at the chapel in which we’re going to have the ceremony. Let me tell you – this is all sooo much fun, but also so exhausting! All I am thinking about is the wedding right now. I wake up having lots of thoughts and I am going to bed at night thinking about the things that happened during the day. If I am starting to bug you with all this wedding-talk, please let me know – I can “try” to cut back on it ;)

In the evening, we went out to a belated birthday dinner for my Granddad [his birthday was December, 30]. It was a really nice evening with yummy food :) I love family dinners – it’s always nice to get together and catch up, but now I need to go to bed. It’s pretty late. Good night!

So here I am, all refreshed and rested after 15 hours of sleep the night before yesterday :), but still not very happy about leaving J and Sacramento :(

Sunday we spent all day packing boxes and cleaning out the apartment, since Jon will be moving to LA in a week already. I also had to pack my suitcases and run some more last-minute errands. In the evening, we went out to dinner with Aaron and Maria. I got to pick the place and I decided that I needed one more yummy Caesar salad at Mimi’s Café and it was delicious :)
I cleaned the kitchen in our apartment when we got home [all the fun stuff like scrubbing the oven and stove etc.] and then J and I lay down for a little while and of course fell asleep. I woke up again at 1:45 a.m. and had to force myself to get up and finish packing my suitcase. We went back to bed at 3:30 a.m. and our alarm rang at 7:00 a.m. :( just great!

I got up, took a shower, Maria came over at 8 a.m. to say goodbye (before she went to work) and then I went to the post office to give them our change of address forms and mail out the first package for my spouse visa! OMG. I hope I did everything right and things will move along quickly.

We left for San Francisco at 10:30 a.m. and had a bite to eat for lunch and then it was time to say goodbye again. Ah, how I hate these times at the airport :(  but I kept telling myself that it’s going to be for the last time!
I made sure they took out my I-94 at the check-in and when I got to the gate, I checked out again at one of these self-check out counters [that Kim told me about from Chicago]. Honestly, I am not sure if they had been there when I left San Francisco in November, but I swear I didn’t see them and I didn’t use them at all, although a security lady told me that they are mandatory and that you can get into trouble on your next entry [oh well, maybe that’s why I was pulled out upon my arrival in Minneapolis?!]
I must say that I think for being mandatory, these check-out counters are not very “visible” and if I hadn’t heard about them before, I would probably have ignored them completely. If they are mandatory, why don’t they have these check-out counters right at the gate where you have to pass them or otherwise can’t get on the plane??
Anyway, I have my check-out receipt and made sure twice that INS knows that I left the country as I promised.

my bags are packed and J and I are leaving for the airport pretty soon. We’ll have one more nice breakfast at Bakers Square in Davis and then we’ll be off to San Francisco. I am glad that my flight departs in the afternoon, which gives us a little bit more time today.
My flight details are:

San Francisco (SFO) to
London (LHR)
Flight: British Airways 284
Depart: Mon, 1/23/2006 at 4:15 PM (SFO)
Arrive: Tue, 1/24/2006 at 10:30 AM (LHR)

London (LHR) to
Dusseldorf (DUS)
Flight: British Airways 940
Depart: Tue, 1/24/2006 at 1:15 PM (LHR)
Arrive: Tue, 1/24/2006 at 3:35 PM (DUS)

Oh well, that is it then, I guess, goodbye Sacramento :( I’ll miss you.

Ok, I ended up going to Downtown Ventura on Monday afternoon with Jon’s Mom. Jon wanted to stay home and read, so she and I drove Downtown and strolled down Main Street. They have quite some interesting shops in Ventura, nice boutiques and lots of Antique stores. It was so much fun to rummage in all the ancient stuff ;) some of it seemed pretty worthless, but other things were quite nice!
We had some coffee at Starbucks and sat outside in the sun :)

In the evening, we went out to dinner with Jon’s parents and his friend Ian. We went to a restaurant close to the airport in Santa Paula (about 15 minutes from Ventura) and Jon and I had pork ribs *yummy*

Yesterday morning, we decided to drive down to LA again to look for apartments. I had searched the Internet for some more apartment places and had checked www.craigslist.com as well. It’s a website where people can post things to sell, rent, buy… etc.
It took us about an hour to get to Westwood (West LA) and we had some breakfast at the “Corner Bakery Cafe” – it’s a pretty neat place and I am hoping that we will be able to buy fresh bread there [I have yet to find out about that.]
Then we started our apartment hunt… we parked the car and walked around the neighborhood, checking out places that I had found on the Internet and just looking for renting signs. Since it was just around lunchtime, Jon mentioned that some of the management offices might be closed until 1 p.m., but we still decided to walk on and try different places. Some offices were in fact closed, at other aparment buildings we just talked to a person through the intercom telling us that nothings was available at that time [which was kind of frustrating, since all these places had big “now leasing” signs hanging from their buildings :( ]
Finally we found one place to look at which was a “loft” apartment for $1350 [note: apartment prices in LA are insanely expensive and this price is pretty much as good as it gets… it was by far the cheapest place that we checked out]. The “loft” -which is a two story aparment with an unpartitioned upper floor and high ceilings for the lower floor – looked really nice and we instantly liked it. We had been looking for 1 Bedroom apartments originally, but they were even more expensive, so we were seriously considering this place. I preferred to look around some more, but in the end the loft was the best and cheapest option [and still insanely expensive]. It was 3 p.m. by that time and we decided to put our names and deposit down for that place when we received a call on our cellphone from a guy named Ken who I had called earlier about a place. We had walked by this place earlier and he had a sign out that he was renting a 1 Bedroom aparment. To be honest, it was just a stupid idea to call him, because the apartment he was advertising was in a “condo”-type building [not a huge apartment complex!] and there was no way we thought we would be able to afford this place, but I had called just for the heck of it, because I liked the building and I just wanted to see what we were NOT going to get ;) So we went back to his place and took a look at the apartment, which was on the 2 floor with a separate entrance, a huge living room with bay windows, a big kitchen, a separate pretty big bedroom and a bathroom. We fell in love with that place instantly, but walked out thinking that this must be about $1600 or something. Jon was about to leave, but I said that I wanted to talk to that guy and ask him for the rent… just because I was curious how much that place was.
Ken, a guy in his 50’s, was really nice and we talked a little bit and when I asked for the price, we almost keeled over… Jon was already half out the door when he heard “$975″ and we were like “Excuse me?” We couldn’t believe our ears!
Jon went back up to take another look at the apartment [to check if there was anything “wrong” with it *lol*] and then came back to verify that he had understood him right… $975?
We both were totally stunned. The apartment is  older, but very well kept and just beautiful! The only downside is that it doesn’t come with parking and there is only 2-hour parking on the street, but Jon was positive that he can figure something out (since there are two streets a block away that don’t have any parking restrictions).
This place just really fell from the sky!
Ken said he was going to make a routinely background check and he would let us know. I do hope he calls [hopefully tomorrow!!]

Here’s a picture from the outside. The apartment is on the second floor (the whole front side that you can see). Isn’t it charming? ;)

Oh, and then there’s another cute thing about it… the address is: 460 1/4 Kelton Ave… I feel like in “Harry Potter” :) I have never heard anything like that, but Ken explained to us that this is acutally the “real” address of this place.
I can’t believe how lucky we were… the whole apartment hunting was pretty exhausting and then this place popped up… for $975/month! That is unbelievable! Oh please, let us get this place!!!

Jon and I had some dinner at “Olive Garden” and then stopped by at Dhevan’s place to tell him the “good news” :) We drove back to Ventura around 8 p.m., told the whole story to Jon’s parents (who were really happy for us) and then went straight to bed. We were exhausted!

This morning, we got up early and drove back to Sacramento… I had a nice talk on the phone with my sister and then went out in the afternoon to run some errands. When I got back at 5 p.m., I invited Maria over for some coffee.
Oh, I forgot to tell you… Dhevan got us this really nice Cuisinart coffee maker which grinds the whole coffee beans before brewing. It’s awesome! I had been waiting for 4 days (!) to try it out :)
Let me tell you, you could really taste a difference! I am so excited about it!
We chatted with Aaron and Maria for a while and then I made some dinner for Jon and I and we watched some X-files. We really had to turn our minds of for a while [we both have so much going on right now].

I’ll be leaving here in 4 days and I feel so rushed, because there is so much I have to take care of before I leave and I am so sad, because I won’t be able to enjoy my last few days in Sacramento :(
I really loved living here and it makes me kind of sad knowing

Hi guys, sorry for updating you so late… time is just flying right now and I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can :)

We spent the weekend at home and watched a whole lot of movies and several episodes of X-files. Jon has declared watching all episodes of season I his goal by the time I leave [there are about another 18 episodes left], so we really have to keep watching.

Aaron and Maria came over for a while on Sunday and we went to “Panera” for lunch. They have awesome sandwiches, but I still love their french baguette just with butter the best ;) Sandwiches are “too complicated” for me with all their different ingredients – I like it plain best *lol* In the evening, we watched some Basketball and then played “Grass“, a fun card game.

Our “honeymoon” has pretty much been being lazy and watching movies the last few days *LOL* On Wednesday, Jon took me to the movies and we saw “The Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe“. What a fantastic movie! I love these kind of dark fairy tales a lot. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you go and see it soon! I made my potato dish for dinner and then in the evening, we started watching the first two episodes of “X-Files First Season”. Jon is desperately trying to get me into it ;) and I enjoyed watching it – I am just not that big of a fan of movies/series about aliens and that kind of stuff ;)

Thursday, we watched “Mr. Holland’s Opus“, a very good movie about a composer who becomes a music school teacher and totally blossoms in his role as an educator. When the school’s music program is cut because of budget problems, he fights for the right of students to learn music. I found that pretty interesting since Jon told me that he only had music lessons in Middle School and neither in Elementary nor Highschool. I told him that in Germany, we have music lessons pretty much from 1st to at least 10th grade and I find that important, too. I always loved the music lessons in school.

Yesterday, we had planned to go to the Bay Area for the day, but we slept in late and then decided to go sometime next week. I watched “The Notebook“ while having breakfast :) [I just LOVE that movie and I love HBO which is playing a couple of good movies right now. I really want to enjoy American TV and American movies while I am here… I know I won’t get that for a while.]

We went out to dinner at Bakers Square and I had some yummy Apple pie as desert :) and then we returned home to watch the Kings play the L.A. Clippers… and they won! We were so excited!! Before we went to bed, we watched “Bad Santa” and let me tell you, what a f***ed up movie! I mean, I somehow enjoyed watching it, but I don’t know how many times Jon was saying “Geeez” and how many times I was just speechless shaking my head about what was going on. I can’t explain it any further, but you have to see for yourself.

I am not sure yet what we’re up to today, but it looks like it’s going to be sunny, so we might go out and do something (as soon as Jon wakes up *lol*). Have a great weekend!

[this will be a long one…]

Finally… I am back. Happy New Year to all of you and all the best wishes for 2006! I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and a fun New Year’s Eve!

I know I owe you over a week of “what’s going on in Sannie’s life” and you’ll get it in pieces. I’ll start with Christmas in Germany today and we’ll see how far I’ll get.

Christmas Eve was amazing. In the morning, I met with Silke, a friend I have known since Kindergarten. I hadn’t seen her in two years, because she’s been living in
Berlin and I haven’t exactly been around much lately… so it was just fantastic that we managed to get together for a couple of hours. We went Downtown to “Coffee Corner” and had some coffee and caught up on the latest news ;)
Time just flew by and after three hours, I took her home and then stopped by at Ira’s place since I wanted to see her again before I left. She and her parents were in the kitchen preparing the Christmas dinner and we sat down for a while to talk. At 3 p.m. I went home and helped my Mom prepare stuff for the evening as well.
I prepared little menu cards with name tags on them and decorated the table.

At 7 p.m. our guests came over. Since Nina and Dirk left for their skiing trip the day before, we were “only” 8 people total – my Mom and Dad, my great-aunt, my Granddad, my aunt and my cousin Bastian and another cousin of my Mom’s. I love having so many people over :)