Publicly Transported

A few fun(ny) experiences on Tuesday and Wednesday during my travels around Bonn. 

On Tuesday, I went to see an apartment because we are still looking for a place to live. (It's a long, unfortunate story that we are praying will have a happy ending. More details as they come.) 

Anyway, on my way home, I made a friend named Marcel who works at Post Bank, is 25 years old, and likes to run marathons. He was on crutches, which is why I struck up a conversation with him, and found out that he tore his meniscus. He was very polite and was also happy to practice his English, which was about a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Because his office was two UBahn stops before mine, I got off early to say goodbye. After we parted ways, I decided to just walk the distance instead of crossing the street again and waiting around for the next UBahn. (I'm trying to eradicate the "fat American" image and show that I'm ok with walking three miles to get home. Even though I never have until moving here.) 

The road that I was on is called the B-9 and it's roughly similar to University Parkway (but two lanes instead of four) because it's a main thoroughfare, and so there aren't many pedestrians. I put in my headphones and chose a country playlist. I was delighted to see a song that I haven't heard in several months, called Meet In The Middle by Diamond Rio. As the song started, I was transported back to Utah and my memories of blasting the song with Angie and Al Pal, as well as country dance with Sarah and Jason, and working at the ranch with Chyanne Barnson. I love the story and the moral it teaches, so I started to sing along. This quickly turned in to belting it out, with no other pedestrians for meters. It was extra-enjoyable because I was having so much fun doing something so simple! Plus there are few things more un-European than the serious-mullets, tight-Wrangler-wearing 90's country band. I then continued my personal Karaoke with these songs: 
- Somebody Like You by Keith Urban
- Little Bit Of Life by Craig Morgan
- Baptism by Kenny Chesney and Randy Travis
- Amarillo By Morning by George Strait
- A Woman Like You by Lee Brice 

As I got closer to home, I left the B-9 and walked through the neighborhoods so I stopped singing and just walked with a little bit of country dance in my step :)

By the way, UBahn is U for underground Bahn for train, but it is actually 50/50 above-ground and below-ground. They have dedicated tracks and are the quickest way to travel North/South in Bonn. There are also trams, which have power lines above and grooved tracks in the road, and they ride along next to cars. Lastly, there are buses, and lots of them! They are the least on-time because the roads here are very narrow, and if there are lots of cars or construction or pedestrians, then they just have to wait until there is an opening big enough to continue. 

Correction, second to last are our bikes, and very last are our legs. Those are the most flexible forms of travel, because we can come and go whenever we want! Or from our apartment, we can bike to the UBahn (5 or 6 minutes) instead of walk (14 minutes), power walk (8 minutes), or run (6 minutes for me, 5 minutes for Nate).  


On Wednesday afternoon, I left my apartment to go visit a friend Sina who is my age and joined the church 4 years ago. As I was leaving, Nate called to check in and tell me about a few things for his work schedule. I was power walking down to the UBahn because I really didn't want to miss it, and as I was hurrying, I heard someone say "Entschuldigung. Hey!"
I turned to see a car pulled over, and the driver was talking to me. As we made eye contact, he started speaking German and I told Nate, "hang on!" and then I said "I'm sorry, I can help you in English!" and the driver said in a great British accent, "Ok, great! How do I get to Bad Godesberg?" 

As I started to give him directions, a very disgruntled driver behind him honked for about 8 seconds straight. The slightly overweight, and slightly more grungy 25 year-old driver that I was helping stuck half of his body out of his window and yelled at the car "HEY! SHUT THE **** UP!" I tried not to laugh because I was so surprised and kept telling him where to go. Then he said thank you and I kept walking. When I got back on the phone, Nate said "am I talking to a local?! Sounds like this girl knows Bonn like the back of her hand!" which I don't, but it did feel exhilarating to know I gave the correct directions :)

About 30 seconds later, I had almost reached the intersection, and I heard someone say "excuse me?!" again. I told Nate "hang on again!" and looked at the same driver I had just helped. He said "My friend thinks you are really cute and is wondering if he can get your number." (please read this with a thick British accent) As soon as the driver had started talking, the guy in the passenger seat started vehemently shaking his head, and then repeatedly hitting his head against the driver's shoulder. I laughed and said "Actually, I'm married!" and held out my right hand to show them my wedding rings. He said "Oh, no way?" and I said "Yes, I know I look young but I'm 24," and smiled. The guy in the passenger seat had switched back to shaking his head and had sunk so low that he probably couldn't see above the dashboard. The driver said "Well, it never hurts to ask, right?!" and I chuckled and said "that's what my mom says too!" and then he drove away, and I ran across the crosswalk. 

As I put the phone to my ear, Nate said "I can't believe I just got to hear all of that!" at the same time as I said "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that you were on the phone for that!" We laughed about how ridiculous it was, and I joked that maybe I shouldn't have worn my stretchy Ann Taylor skinnies that day. To top it all off, I walked past a group of men working on the road, and one of them whistled at me, which Nate also heard. Such an eventful 5 minutes!

And none of this would have happened if we had a car. The joys of walking and riding public transportation! 

Bikes, a Bosch, and a trip to Frankfurt!

We’d like to welcome you back for a second installment of our blog. We worry that we set the bar a little to high last week but I’m hopeful that we won’t disappoint! I just spoke with the editor (Emily) and we both agree that we’re going to do a little less typing and a lot more pictures from now on. Also, thanks for all the emails and responses that we have gotten from everyone. We really love hearing from you J

Before we go any further, we would like to thank our familial graphic designer- she’s not really “in house” since she lives on a different continent, but Alex made the graphic for our blog. It was not attractive before she helped us. Thank you again for your help, Al Pal!

Last week we made a trip to Frankfurt to attend the temple and decided to make a weekend of it. It started with Emily stopping by my work with our rental car – a 2-seater, convertible Smart car. It burst out laughing when I saw the car. We decided to get a car because train tickets were expensive (€ 190 per person!) and Em found a deal to rent a car from Friday afternoon to Monday morning for € 75! So Friday after work we packed up and made the 2.5 hour drive to Frankfurt. It was so much fun driving through the German countryside and through little towns, but I will admit, my definition of hell is being on the Autobahn and only in a Smart car. While in Frankfurt we stayed at the luxurious and highly rated temple housing. It was perfect and right in our price range! Saturday morning we attended a session and even ran into a returned sister from Emily’s mission. After that, we spent the rest of the day seeing all the sights of Frankfurt. Awesome city! Rather than run through the details I will simply direct you to the pictures.

Monday-Thursday we had Emily’s mission friend Inga come and stay with us. It was a lot of fun but things got very cozy in our 1 room studio apartment. The highlight of her stay in my opinion was the night that I came home from work, and Emily and Inga had visited the Haribo gummy bear factory and had brought home samples of all the different kinds of gummy treats! In case you didn’t know, Haribo is a huge gummy bear producer, headquartered just a 10 minute bus ride away! (Haribo = the European version of The Sweet Factory) The winner of our informal, yet extensive testing is that the gummy panda bears and German flag sour belts are the best. Just wanted to pass that along so that all you don’t waste any time with 2^nd rate gummy candies.

The next highlight from our week was the arrival of our Bosch mixer. I was not aware but a Bosch is a beautiful piece of German engineering and is the ultimate culinary status symbol. As Sarah said to Emily, “You’ve arrived!” See pictures for more details.

Work continues to go well and get better each day. The person that I report to and oversees all of my work is a bit difficult and has very particular ways that she likes things. At times I feel that her being critical of my work is more in the realm of personal preferences rather than choices between right and wrong, but I’m grateful because I feel that her exacting standards are turbo charging the skills that I am learning. I feel improvement every week and really enjoy what I am doing. The highlight of the week happened on Friday when I led my first meeting with a pretty high-up executive at DHL. Even my very demanding boss had to admit that I did a good job, but in the spirit of never missing an opportunity for improvement she did say that I was “a little too friendly” at the start of the meeting for German standards. Oh well!

Finally, the big event finally arrived! We had been looking forward to it for over a month. On the first Saturday of each month, Bonn holds a bike flea market. It is the best place to get a good deal on a high quality used bikes. Emily and I went down early Saturday morning, and it was so much fun being with so many people. We even ran into 2 Americans and had a fun conversation with them. We had success and were able to buy 2 really nice bikes. We have already enjoyed a bike ride along the Rhine River and another ride through the city center. I think they will be a very fun and very convenient addition to our lives here.

Thanks for checking in with us! Hope you enjoy all of the pictures that are to follow. Till next week!

Love,

Nate and Emily

This is what I saw as I walked out of my building- so fun!

Not sure who's smaller- the car or my wife?

Only the best

Having a convertible made it so much easier to take in the skyscrapers!

Visiting the German stock exchange- Frankfurt is the financial capital of Germany

Grabbin life (and business) by the horns (apparently this is the classic pose because the horns are very polished and we watched three other people do this before my turn for the picture)

"Why is it called a Monet?" "Because you're gonna pay a lotta Monet to get one"

The Main Tower- this was our favorite thing that we did because it was last, so we were able to recognize where we had been and what the main buildings were. Aaaand the sun was setting amongst beautiful clouds, hence the excellent lighting of this photo :)

So excited for this belated birthday present

Our night of Haribo sampling

Such a sophisticated and elegant machine!

Markmann Bäckerei, which is a 1 minute walk from us! We just made the goal to try one new pastry a week.

Success! We love our bikes.

Ridin in style

The talented photographer, allowing himself to be seen ;)

On our way home from the ride along the Rhine- this is the street that we walk down to get everywhere.

All Good Things Have A Beginning

We would like to welcome everyone to our first of many regular emails/blog posts! We have been in Bonn, Germany for a little over a month and have many memorable experience that we want to share with our family and close friends. We’ll try to have lots of picture and make this as fun as possible.

So our first order of business was to figure out a name for this publication. We thought we could play it safe and call it Beck Monthly or News from the Fatherland. Emily liked the idea of pushing the envelope a bit; maybe we could call it Shake your Bonn Bonn, or Pass me a Bonn Bonn. Long story short, we have not decided yet and are open to suggestions. Nate Steele-isn’t it your job to come up with great stuff like this?! We would love your help.

As I stated earlier, this has been quite the month for us over here. The way that I think of it from a high level is the first month we have been in survival mode. We were figuring out how to find food that we like and how to get around on public transportation and all the basics. Now that we are moving into month 2 I feel already like things are changing. We are making friends, figuring out a couple of good restaurants to go to, have taken a weekend trips to Frankfurt, and exploring our little city.

We have been overwhelmed by how great our ward is! In the first weeks so many people reached out, invited us to dinner, and invited us to family night. We have been so fortunate to have the ward family to ask questions and just do things with. We’ve also had the missionaries over for dinner and are hoping to have a couple of investigators ready for them in the coming weeks.

We are also glad to report that we have brought the card game Nertz overseas. Three weeks ago we invited a co-worker and his wife over for dinner and then to play the card game. We thought it was going to be World War II all over again with the Americans emerging victorious. Unfortunately, they have a similar game over here and my co-worker’s wife whooped us. Better luck next time.

Work has been great for a lot of different reasons. I really like how DHL’s Inhouse Consulting department is organized. It is very demanding but they provide all the resources necessary to be successful. I am able to participate in a lot of trainings covering everything from persuasive presentation skills to informal lunches about DHL’s business in Africa. I feel very fortunate to have a job that really stretches me and I feel like I’m growing. I currently work on a team that works with the global steering committee to develop and roll out a program that will assess the current state of DHL’s 5,000 warehouses, gather best practices, and put together a development plan for how those warehouses can implement them. I really like the program and it gives me a very interesting perspective of how the company is organized. It also lets me work with people on the front lines of the company, which I enjoy. A typical day’s hours are 9:00 am to 8:00 pm. My commute to work is about 25 minutes and is about 15 minutes of walking and a 10-minute train ride.

Well, I will hold off until our next letter, but a couple of things that I’m looking forward to that I’ll have to tell you about next time are tonight’s couples fireside, the bike flea market, and moving into our new apartment! Hope everyone is doing well! We love each conversation that we get to have with you whether by phone, text, Facebook, FaceTime, Skype, or pony express. Talk to you soon!

Nate

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Hello everyone! My contribution to this email are the pictures. Because everyone has different phones and computers, I put captions on each photo! Let me know if this format works for everyone. 

Also, here are a few videos that we have taken. 

Running To Church - a little glimpse of our one hour commute to church- we leave at 8:22 for 9:30 church!

Water Show, Beethoven's finest - this was a celebration that we stumbled upon in the City Center! Water, lasers, and fireworks! 

Water Show - Bonn is the city where the composer was born and raised. 

Along with the photo captions, is also a new way to share what is going on. Let us know if this works! 

Em