Greetings from Lake Michigan

Phew, it's been a busy year so far! Between buying a house and trying to make it "ours", working a new job and finding my place in a large organization, and settling into everyday life as a married couple there really hasn't been much time to get away. It's made me extra appreciative of this little trip "up north" right now! Lake Michigan is GORGEOUS and it's funny how it still seems to be a hidden gem. Plus we have this bad boy for a little while, so we're definitely riding in style...






BOOM!!

Carpooling

You guys all know that I lived very close to my office previously. It took me about 5 minutes to drive to work (without any traffic lights it would be more like 2 mins). Now that I've moved, that has changed a little. It takes me about 35-40 minutes each way, every day, ugh! Not so awesome for this spoiled European. (I am used to either walking or cycling to work/school.)

I didn't have high hopes that I would find somebody to carpool with... while people do carpool here in the US, I thought that a 35 minute commute is NOTHING for Americans and that nobody would be wanting to carpool for such a "short" distance... wrong! I actually found a colleague who was willing to. He was tired of driving so much and lives only 5 mins from our new house :)

We're aiming to carpool for 2 out of the 5 work days, yay! (Gotta go to yoga straight after work for the rest of the days!)

Snow

Right on time, on the last day of November, we got our first real snow.



Hrml, not a fan :-/



The cool thing is, my baby car gets to stay in a garage now, so no more scraping or digging out in the mornings :)

This is how I roll

I've mentioned it a couple of times... work is kinda crazy at the moment. I don't know when I have to work the next day and where. I'm just kind of on stand-by and the 60-hr week last week didn't help either... blah.

Anyway, this is the result of my vagabond lifestyle...

Why yes, I do have a laptop, a case of water bottles, an oscilloscope, yoga clothes and yoga towel, random food items, dress shoes, and more electronic measuring equipment in my trunk. Doesn't everybody?

Two yoga mats and yoga clothes drying on my improvised drying rack. When I go to yoga and then
straight to a customer, I hang up my wet, sweaty clothes on the hangers... not ideal, but better than having them rot in a bag in my car for 10 hours.

Yep, just trying to make it work...


PS: I'm trying my new blogging app for the first time. Hope this post doesn't look wonky.

I'm walking...

This song has been on my mind a lot this week. Remember the Jetta vs. Pick-up truck story? I'm finally getting the body damage fixed and it was more extensive than it looks... which means I have been without a car since Monday and will get it back next Monday at the earliest... Luckily I live close to work, sooo... I'm walking :)

That's hot.

My car's thermometer showed me a 3-digit number for the first time: 100 degF = 37.8 degC... nuff said.

You can take the girl out of Germany, ...

... but no chance in hell that you can take the Autobahn out of this girl!

This is the Michigan State Police, disagreeing with my German driving style.

My poor car...

This was in the tank of my beloved Jetta... no wonder it had to be towed AGAIN!!!

Thank you, dear gas station :(( It cost me 680 bucks to fix and you better pay for this!!!!!

Haha, weather, you're crazy!

Yep, 81 degF means 27 degC!!! I guess the weather got upset when I criticized it yesterday.

Finally, SUNSHiNE and I get to enjoy my sunroof!

Jetta vs. Pick-up truck

<no words>

Pretty ice rain

I can't recall having seen pretty ice rain like this before today!

And this is from the inside of my car :)

Call me crazy, but I really prefer this over snow.

No Snowday after all...

 

We didn't get as much snow as we thought we would, so I went into work this afternoon. My car was only covered in snow on one side, because the wind was blowing so hard yesterday night.

And then there was oil.

On Sunday, my new-to-me car decided to dump out all of its motor oil. I spent most of today running around to get the situation taken care of. The problem was the oil drain plug, which mysteriously fell out. The car seems to be OK now.

Deutsch: Am Sonntag hat mein "neues" Auto beschlossen, sein gesamtes Motoroel auszuspucken. Einen grossen Teil des heutigen Tages habe ich damit verbracht, diese Situation zu klaeren. Das Problem war die Oel-Ablassschraube, die mysterioeserweise herausgefallen war. Dem Auto scheint es aber gut zu gehen. (Ich habe selbstverstaendlich nichts fuers Abschleppen oder die Reparatur bezahlt.)

Das Auto.

Picked up my new car last night!

Here it is again... Sorry, the gray Michigan weather isn't really ideal for picture taking :)

Yep, we're German :)

Vrrrrmmmmm vvvrrrrrrmmmm!

What's that beautiful sound, you ask?

Yep, it's German, it's got 5 cylinders, it's pretty awesome!

Yeah!!! I'm picking it up on Monday!

Thinking of...

Yes, my mind is currently completely occupied by cars. Yes, I am an automotive engineer, so I guess it's to be expected. But I'm also still an the search for a German car for myself... I hope I'll have one by next week... I'll keep you all posted!

PS.: This is obviously an old picture... A beach is the last thing you'll see in Michigan in January. It's an old favorite of mine though. A dorky friend and dorky me drew these in the sand in 2005 on a beach in Florida.

Car Shopping

Yummmm, German engineering :) So it looks like I will actually buy a VW Jetta! Probably in a couple of weeks... I'm so excited!

And finally... FINALLY... some Taco Bell food :) Totally missed that in Germany! Yeah, I'm a cheap date like that.

And the big news........ were delayed, I'm sorry to say. I'll tell what it was supposed to be though: I was supposed to be able to move into an apartment today, but it fell through. Looks like I will have to wait 7-10 days before I can move in after all. Here's a photo of the kitchen in my apartment though. They're still doing some renovations.