Dave & Jess in Hamburg

Dave and Jess came to Hamburg for a Thanksgiving visit. Continental now has a direct flight from Newark to Hamburg, which they took advantage of. They were looking pretty chipper when they got of the plane, we must say:






Jess is now making these AWESOME handbags. Nat got one as an early Christmas gift.






The big event was, of course, Thanksgiving dinner. We got an 11 lb bird from Geflügel Krohn around the corner from our flat. It was extremely fresh. We made a big pot of soup from it, which we ate for the next couple of days.








The weather took a turn for the worse just before they arrived. It was cold and rainy or snowy pretty much the whole time. Didn't matter - we had nice, long visits inside around the table. Even played a game or two of Set...which was...um...really fun with two jet-lagged people at 10:30 pm. (That was actually mean from us - we're sorry. It really is a good game).

We did make a few trips out and about. Got the Christmas market in Hamburg, which was a hit, with mold wine an all (oops - mulled wine). Also did some shopping in the Schanzenviertel and took a day trip to Lüneburg:



Dave was prepared for cold weather with his Biscuit hat:


On Saturday night we decided to splurge and go to Cafe Vienna, one of the best restaurants in Hamburg. It's a little place just around the corner from us in a residential area. There is no sign out front and the 8 tables in the tiny room get filled quickly. A little too quickly for us. Though we were there when they opened at 7 pm, the place was already full. Go figure. Upon advice from the bartender, who thought it might be 30-60 minute wait, we decided to stick it out at the bar. Turned out to be a 2-hour wait instead.





We enjoyed the meal nonetheless. It was excellent. A four-star experience all the way. Waiting for the table reminded all of us of the Seinfeld episode where they are waiting in a Chinese restaurant, which we promptly watched after returning home.

Dave got this cool drawing from the bartender at Cafe Vienna:




All in all we had a super-great-fantastic time. Had been looking forward to their visit for a long time and it turned out to be just a lot of fun. Hope you guys come back soon. Miss you already!

Jim & Nat

Magnum and Magnum P.I. - Cultural Differences

I come to this topic because Em posted something really funny about Magnum aka Tom Selleck. I loved to watch Magnum in the 80's. One reason was Tom Selleck himself of course - I found him groovy and cool (besides his mustache) and: I loved his VOICE!

Well, we Germans are dubbing all movies and series from other countries (rarely we have subtitles, that is when somebody from Bavaria speaks). All the actors in the States have their own German voice. Robert de Nero, Tom Hanks etc have always their own German voice and so has Tom Selleck. I never heard the real voice of Tom Selleck!

A couple of months ago, just awake and in this status of trying to remember who I am, where I am and why I am, I was listening to the radio in the bathroom. All of a sudden there was an adervertisement for a local car dealer. Listening to the voice my thoughts were:"This is Magnum!", "Ahhh - Tom Selleck!", "Poor guy, wow, now he has to do poor adervertisments on German Radio!"

An hour later on my way to work it dawned me that this of course wasn't Tom Selleck - it was the German voice of Tom Selleck who spoke. Right, what should a synchronisator do when his actor is not acting anymore?

So due to Em's post, I did some research today on the German voice of Magnum and found some interesting facts. First of all Tom Sellecks German name is Norbert Langer and in Germany he looks like this:



Em - I'm sorry - I wasn't able to find a picture to see if he grooms his chest hair - but I'm pretty sure he does.

And I found out, that our German Magnum Series was way apart from the American Original. They have cut out a lot of scenes and even episodes they didn't like.

First of all it was named Magnum instead of Magnum P.I., second I never knew that Magnum had a Vietnam war trauma and what really shocked me was that they cut out all the details about Higgins being at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials. German TV even changed the whole episode "Never again, never again" drastically. The former Nazis hiding on Hawaii became Palestinian assassins in the German episode. I don't get that - why? In the 70's and 80's the Nazi time was openly discussed in Germany and I really see no reason for hiding this to the public. I also see no reason in not showing Vietnam War Trauma - what the heck was going on? I really have no clue.

But one thing is for sure: if I would watch Magnum in the States, it would be the same shock for me as looking at Tom Sellecks groomed breast hairs. Another voice, another Tom, another Higgins - completely different action strand. Wow - I would like to see that now immediately!

Life is beautiful

As some of you know my life isn't great right now - all those terrible news are really gnawing on me but on Sunday we had a wonderful autumn day. Circe and I walked a couple of hours at the river Elbe. It was beautiful.










Hamburg is a beautiful city and I'm happy to live here with Jim and I'm also happy to have so many wonderful friends! Love ya!

Halloween - For Circe on Demand :-)

I promised Circe to post a pic of our pumpkin this year. Next year we will have a Halloween Dinner again, I promise.





And a "Schmankerl" for you - Friches Blötterteig is a Turkish specialty only for the German market:




Have a great Day!