Special Mail

Our care package wrapped in Zoo lights newspaper
which was not lost on us :-)

Mail is a much bigger deal here.  We don't get much - junk mail or otherwise - but when we get something it is cause for celebration and reminds us that we are further away  (Germany and Seattle) than we realize or care to admit.  We often just feel like Seattle and all our friends and family are in a time trap and we will return to find everything exactly the same.  Mail and letters break that bubble a little.
THANK you everyone for your lovely Christmas cards and letters.  They made our days brighter.

My good friends, Lori and Steve, sent us a very cozy Christmas package.  Homemade, flannel pillow cases.  So warm and fluffy and perfect for curling up and reading a book with. SO appreciated.  Lori and Steve hold a special place in our hearts as they were there the very first time Marty and I met.  Marty was doing some cd giveaway downtown Seattle in the summer of 2003.  My good friend, Simone, and I had planned to go jump in Lake Washington on this particularly hot July day and when I got to her house she said, let's go get a free CD from Marty Riemer from the Mountain before heading to the lake.  I was game. Why not? I had listened to Marty for years and really loved the radio station.
When we arrived at the Rock Bottom Brewery in downtown Seattle the outdoor area where they were giving away CDs was packed.  We just popped in and grabbed a CD.  Simone had met Marty before so she said hello.  I must have too.  And then we were going to leave and go jump in the lake.  I saw my friend Lori and her husband Steve sitting at a table and they had room so they invited us to stay.  Lori, by the way, was an English teacher at Shorecrest when I taught there.   So we stayed and hung out with Lori and Steve, ordered drinks and maybe even appetizers.  Marty and his friends just so happened to be sitting at the table next to us.  We all started in on some discussion about who knows what.   But then I left and he left and we both were dating other people.

A few months later I called into the radio station trying to win a free trip to Mexico.  They did this every year and every year I had tried to win.  I figured I deserved to win being a high school Spanish teacher and all.  Well, he answered the call. I reminded him who I was and that we had met at the Rock Bottom a few months before then and my name went into the drawing.  A week or so later I got a phone call telling me I, along with a dozen or so other listeners, had won the free trip and Marty and the rest of the on air staff were also going to be on the trip, Yahooo!! Little did either of us know at that time that we would still be together nearly 15 years later.  But I digress, Lori and Steve were there at our first meeting and had they not been there Simone and I would've just jumped in the lake.  So we credit them a little with our getting together.

One of the four, beautifully
cozy, cute pillowcases

Their care package was extra sweet because they have been some of our biggest cheerleaders over here.  SO invested, inquisitive and up to date on what we are doing and the best letter writers.  I'm sure this is partly because Lori was an English teacher and partly because Steve was a long time West Seattle Mail Carrier.  But whatever the reason.  They are AWESOME.  Thanks, guys!!!  Much love from Berlin.
Speaking of mail, we obviously moved and have a new address.
Anyone who writes I promise to write back.  Not right away but eventually I will write back.
New Address is:
Riemers
Albertinenstrasse 12
14165
Berlin
Germany