Bonn

Crazy to believe. Our one-year anniversary of arriving in Bonn was on Friday. I’m trying to run through a mental list of all of the things that we’ve done, seen, eaten, traveled to, and people we’ve met since we first set foot in Bonn on March 25, 2010. (Reviewing my Twitter posts helps too.) Departed Oakland. Arrived, bags in hand. First stayed: Hotel Ibis. First dinner: Mediterraneo. Bonn puns. First apartment (danke, Thomas and Couchsurfing!) in the Bonn Altstadt. Cherry…

“Hallo, mein name ist Cyrus. Ich komme aus den USA, aus Kalifornien. Ich spreche Englisch, Französisch und ein bisschen Persische.” And so began our first day of German class yesterday at the Institut für Sprachvermittlung und internationalen Kulturaustausch, just next to the Deutsche Post Tower and Deutsche Welle. Our class is small — just five students, including Rebecca and I. This is a very beginners German class, and is conducted 100 percent in German. The first lesson? Introductions. (“Mein name…

As I alluded to earlier, after much discussion between Bex and I, we’ve decide to bump our move to Bonn up by about three months, which means we’re leaving our beloved Bay Area in about four weeks. The reason? Largely so that we can take part in intensive German classes prior to our starting work — me at Deutsche Welle English and her, hopefully at the University of Bonn. Since mid-December we’ve been taking private courses with Frau Dr. Marion…

So it’s a new year, another birthday, and vacation is sadly over — time to get back to a regular working schedule and real life. But this year is different, given that five months from now, my wife and I will be moving to the birthplace of Ludwig von Beethoven and the former capital of West Germany: Bonn, Germany. Late last month, I accepted a position as the new host and producer of Spectrum, a weekly 30 minute, international English-language…