| A Little About My Past.... |
| Well, as most of you know by now, I was born in Germany and lived there until 1993, after which my family and I decided to pack our stuff and take a little trip across the pond to Canada. I grew up in a small community of a few thousand people called Bredenbeck in northern Germany. It was a very neat place in that the village had most of the things you needed on a daily basis, but yet was close enough to a larger city of several hundred thousand inhabitants called Hannover, where you could fulfill your urge to put up with the city-hussle-bussle. Right out the backdoor was the "Deister", a fairly large forest (tiny when compared to the never-ending blanket of trees found in Canada), which was a popular place for leisure activities such as biking, walking, crosscountry skiing, or simply watching the local wildlife. I have spent a lot of time going out hunting with my dad in that piece of the woods ever since I was a little kid. As for the rest of my pack....my mom and dad owned a landscaping business at the time, which they ran for over 18 years and sold just before we moved to Canada. My other mom, who used to be teacher, is currently living in Aschau, a small community close to Munich, Germany. My sister, Inga, also lives in Germany together with her boyfriend Arne. Both are attending university in Hannover at the time, coming over to visit as much as time allows. My older brother Arne (another Arne) is currently on the East Coast going to university in Montreal and is living with his girlfriend Bernice. So, what happened once we crossed the pond, you might ask? Well, the five of us (Inga decided to move back after about a year ) arrived in Edmonton, Alberta in April of 1993, where we were picked up by our friends, Bodo and Ursel. After we had loaded everything into the VW van, it wasn't long before we were on our way through the mighty Rocky Mountains on our journey to British Columbia. Let me tell you, it was quite the sight....imagine five people, one dog, way too many bags all crammed into this tiny for-everyone-to-see-bright-yellow van trying to conquer the Rockies. Since I was the smallest, I had the honour of sitting on a camping chair in the middle of the floor because that was the only spot left between all the bags, gear, people, and what not. The thing I remember most about this trip is the impression on the people's faces passing us, since we weren't exactly moving along all that quickly when it came to those mountain passes. At first, they would have this really annoyed expression on their faces, which then gradually changed into a big smile, accompanied by waving hands, as they saw how packed this metal can was. Eventually we arrived in Kelowna, British Columbia, where we planned on settling down for a few years, while looking for a ranch somewhere in the lower portion of BC. Kelowna was a city of approximately 80,000 people at the time and is located in the Okanagan Valley, which is known for its vineyards and various fruit orchards due to the hot and dry climate. It is also a very famous vacation spot offering anything from mountain biking in the hills to waterskiing on Okanagan Lake to playing golf on one of the many golf courses in the valley. |
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| Bredenbeck |
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| Deister |
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| Kelowna |
| The Van |
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