My husband and me are damn good at providing new content for the Outtakes section. For obvious reasons I am not willing to write about every Outtake we manage to make happen, but the next ones are to cute and stupid to not write about.

The last few weeks we were busy booking flights and hotels and managing our route for our upcoming trip to California. Last week I asked Flo to fill out the ESTA forms for our trip. I was in the other room when he suddenly yelled “Wow, they alreday charge you 50 bugs per person for it”. I was kind of shocked by this and told him not to fill out the form before asking someone about it. He promptly typed a message into the American Dream Greencard winner forum to ask the other winners about it. Like five minutes later he got his answer via Google: The ESTA forms who already charge you money are fake! We were kind of relieved. But when we read the answer another winner posted for us, we felt embarrassed. Because as every winner but us knows: You don’t have to fill out the ESTA form anymore when you have a Greencard visa.

The other Outtake happened only a few days later. After one day in San Francisco, the second stop of our trip will be San Luis Obispo and the Madonna Inn hotel. Since I saw the hotel on TV a few years ago, I made it my big goal to pay it a visit one day. Flo booked the hotel without telling me as a belated birthday present. But when he told me about the dates he booked later that evening, I wasn’t only surprised in a positive way. We had already booked a hotel in Huntington Beach a few weeks ago and Flo kind of double-booked rooms for us. One in San Luis Obispo and one in Huntington Beach. The staff at the Madonna Inn was very helpful, so after 5 E-Mails Flo finally managed to book us a room for the right dates! I guess those guys will recognize the strange Germans first hand when we arrive!

I named this article “Outtakes – Holiday Edition Part 1″, because I am pretty sure that in the two weeks in America a lot of Outtakes will cross our way. So, stay tuned! And enjoy your laugh…

Today is my birthday and it is kind of a sad day for me. This may be the last birthday I celebrate here in Germany and this is scary! I guess days like birthdays or other holidays will be the days when we realize most how much we miss home. It must be so strange to not be able to just drive by your parents, brothers or best friends houses to get yourself a birthday hug! When we had dinner tonight with my parents and my parents-in-law we joked about having a birthday dinner via Skype next year. I laughed about that, but perhaps it will be what my birthday looks like next year!

I am so happy to not be alone with this whole emigration thing! To be frank, if I hadn’t got Flo in my life I wouldn’t be able to go at all, because he is the one who won the Greencard. But anyway I don’t know, if I would be brave enough to go on my own. Short before Flo and I met I really thought about trying to get a job in the US. I was so bored with my life back then and was desperate for a change. The whole being alone in a foreign country thing didn’t scare me much back then. Perhaps because I hadn’t found the love of my life, yet, and didn’t knew what it ment to be without real love. Or just perhaps it was just a dream and not a dream you already reached for!

They always say that friends are the family you choose on your own. Perhaps I will be with a new found family on my birthday next year. Perhaps I will be alone with my husband. Or perhaps I will be having dinner with my parents and my grandparents via Skype. Whatever it will be, I hope I will be happy with what the last year brought to me. And right now I just can’t wait to experience what this will be!

Not everything that comes in the package with an emigration is nice! Yes, the hardest thing will be to abandon our families and friends. But even if it sounds funny, I will cry my heart out when I actually have to pack up all the stuff we have in our flat and give it away. I actually realized this last weekend when one of my friends came over for a visit. She always wanders around our flat first when she arrives to check out, if we have some new stuff or some new decorations. During her last check-out tour she stopped with a sorry look and told us: “It is a shame that you have to give up this flat and everything in it very soon!”

And yes it really hit me then! This flat we live in is just beautiful and special. It is a flat for two people, not one to raise a family in or grow old in. But I love this flat! I love the moments we had in it! This is the first flat we lived in together. The first flat we lived in as a married couple! I could go on with this story forever! And then I could begin with all the stories the things that are with us in this flat have to tell. But this would endure till we actually move abroad. Or even longer!

My husband and me are not people who throw things away very easily. I really have to force myself to give away old clothes I don’t wear anymore. Last week I finally made it to sort out some shoes, clothes, CDs and books to sell online. These are only things that I don’t care that much about anymore! But that was pretty much everything I can’t part with now! I guess when it actually comes to our moving date, we will load up the storage spaces in both of our parents house and hope that they will host our stuff for some time. But hosting everything forever is no option! Not for them and not for us!

Only time can tell what happens! And how hard our hearts will crack over that loss! But the one good thing is that with knowing my husband very good I am sure that we will very soon have an new place packed up from the floors to the ceiling. No matter, if that place is in Germany, in California or somewhere else!