Rückblende: 2014

December 30, 2014 • 1 Comment

This is going to be a longer post, not because I´ve decided to write more than usual, heavens no, it´s just that I´m posting a lot more pictures than usual. This is a 2014 retrospect. The year we´ve finally, after twelve years abroad, come back home. Our wonderful last seven months in the new world, our wonderful first five months in the old world; we´ve had the best of both worlds in an eventful year. Because of these many events, it´s a year that will be remembered more clearly than most others. New discoveries, nice travels, goodbyes to familiar places and dear friends, greetings to new (old) places and more dear friends.

View from our living room window. January.

2014 came with a cold and snowy salute. Winters in Washington were short but intense. The kids

loved the many school-out days, but over time we´ve had longer power cuts than in Ghana

because of snowstorms and wet snow on power lines.

View from 14th St. Bridge towards Memorial Bridge. January.

The Potomac was frozen for quite a while twice between January and March.

A beautiful spectacle especially around Roosevelt Island.

View down Wisconsin Ave. beyond M St. towards Potomac River. January.

Last visit to Georgetown. The somewhat snooty but picturesque Old Town of Washington.

Last view of our raccoon, who always glanced into our active living room from his favorite

V-shaped tree fork, he was the first to say goodbye in February.

Last winter rescue operation. Our American/Russian neighbors with their way of helping

"The Germans" during winter power cuts. Their humor and friendship will be missed.

View towards southwest on Islamorada. February.

Last visit to Florida. After a reluctant view towards the Sunshine State in the eighties,

I grew very fond of its wonderful diversity.

Handrail over footbridge on Billy Goat Trail in Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Park in Maryland. March.

Last walk on Billy Goat Trail. Maybe this scene best describes the inner conflict of current American society.

We certainly had very good and mostly positive interactions with Americans,

but the general mood was surprisingly pessimistic by American standards.

View from our living room. March.

Last snow in Washington. We surely enjoyed the best view we had from any living room yet.

View from Virginia to Maryland at White´s Ferry. March.

Last ride with "Jubal A. Early", crossing the Potomac after one of our many trips to Leesburg.

View from Scott´s Run Park, Virginia, towards Maryland. March.

Last Potomac flooding end of March. This was just a minor flooding from snowmelt

in Western Maryland. Looks a lot more dramatic than it actually was.

View from Harper´s Ferry, West Virginia, over to the Maryland side. April.

Last visit to Harper´s Ferry. The area around Harper´s Ferry has hiking paths for every grade

of fitness. We always loved the arduous one up to Maryland Heights. Going to miss that too.

View up a dune in Jockey´s Ridge State Park, Outer Banks, North Carolina. April.

Last visit to the Outer Banks. This was one of our favorite places to go year after year.

It´s where we spent quality time with family and friends from Europe.

View out on U St. from inside Ben´s Chili Bowl. May.

Last visit to Ben´s Chili Bowl, one of Washington´s landmarks. Not the best restaurant,

but the best place to interact with real Washingtonians.

Last visitors. Waving goodbye to dear friends in May.

Inside the Phillips Collection. May.

Last visit to a Washington Museum. The guy who seems to be challenging me is not part of the collection,

he´s a security guard. One thing I´ll definitely miss will be the world class Museums.

There is hardly any city that has such a high density of top level Museums,

although I can´t complain about Berlin either.

View of our house with deck. May.

Last gettogether of the volunteer school cooking team. Surely they´ll keep coming

together year after year, but this was my last time with the group.

Inside the school kitchen. June.

Last group photo with a cooking team. I´ve done quite some volunteer work in my life,

but the cooking team of The German School Washington under the highly motivated

and talented manager Susanne Köhler, was most fun.

View from an Robinson R-44 helicopter. June.

Last and only helcopter flight in my Washington time. One of the last highlights was a

helicopter flight over Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland.

Public viewing area, Dupont Circle, Washington D.C. June.

Last mass event. The public viewing of the World Cup game between Germany and USA was also

a real highlight. The event was sponsored and organized by the German Embassy.

View of roof top pool towards Washington Monument. July.

Last picture of Washington. My final shot while staying at an apartment in downtown D.C. was during

an upcoming thunder storm. A very impressing farewell salute. Many things in America

are bigger than in Europe, even the elements were more severe.

View towards Brooklyn from FDR Drive in Manhattan. July.

Last July 4th fireworks. It was a great way to spend the last evening in the US,

leaving the stage with a big bang.

View down East River due north. Clockwise Governor´s Island, Manhattan and Brooklyn. July.

Last view of the US. At the same time we were on the vessel that would bring us to our new

home. In spite of the fact that we could have stayed a little longer,

it was a really grand way to leave. Transition as it should be.

Emil Nolde´s home and studio, Seebüll. July.

First highlight in Germany before moving to Berlin. Emil Nolde Museum and Foundation.

Many of his very expressive paintings of the great north German

landscape are here where he painted them.

Canal at Brooktorhafen, Hamburg. July.

Right before departing to Berlin we made one of those nice and relaxing barge tours through the canals of Hamburg. Hamburg and Berlin are canal cities, and supposedly each has more bridges than Venice, both squabble over who has more. But facts speak a clear language: Hamburg has close to 2,500 bridges, Berlin almost 1,000, and Venice comes to less than 450 bridges. Then again, Venice is by far a lot smaller than either Hamburg or Berlin.

House wall in the Wrangel quarter of Kreuzberg, Berlin. August.

(Kreuzberg stays rude)

Welcome to Berlin! That´s what this sign is actually saying. After getting used to Berlin

ways and customs again, appearances and utterances often have different meaning.

Gipfeltreffen Restaurant in Kreuzberg, Berlin. September.

After trying many of the good and interesting Restaurants in our neighborhood, this one turns out to be our favorite. It´s just down the road from where we live. We were astounded and surprised to find our quarter being a totally hip place, popular with tourists and party folk. A few things did change in twelve years.