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Fate needed several tries until we finally
got the message. Although we had met at a pre-accept meeting
of “Up With People” in Wiesbaden in 1996, it took
five tries in three different countries and two years until
we realized, at an Irish Pub in Bielefeld, that maybe these
were more than just random occasions.
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A heartfelt “Thank
You” to the organisers of the annual meeting
in Bielefeld for the excellent choice of pub.
Soon after that we became active users of the “Happy-Weekend-Ticket”
of the German Rail and found out that you can travel
the distance Bonn – Hildesheim in just about
six hours, using only local trains.
The distance Bonn – Denver would have been much
harder, though. This is because Arne was hired as
a lighting technician for “Up With People”,
beginning January 1st 1999 for a winter cast.
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So Juliane decided to apply for a technical
staging internship with “Up With People” and followed
him to Denver, for two months at least. While Arne was touring
the world after that, Juliane was sitting at home like a “grass
widow”, waiting for calls to come in from the big wide
world. One such call came not from Arne but from his boss
in Denver, offering her the job of a lighting technician in
a summer cast that same year. She accepted, and now both of
them were touring the world. If anyone needs advice on international
calls of the type “what-do-I-do-if-the-non-english-speaking-japanes-hostbrother-answers-the-telephone”,
we will be happy to help.
Since summer 2002 we have at least lived
in the same country. However things did not quite work out
as planned. After Arne decided on an optometry school in Diez
an der Lahn (about 45 minutes from Bonn), Juliane first received
a rejection from Cologne and then an acceptance from Berlin.
Having switched from trains to cars, Hildesheim became our
weekend meeting point for the next two years.
After Arne received an outstanding optometry degree and Juliane’s
internship semester at the NDR TV station in Hannover was
due, we finally looked for a common flat in Hildesheim. For
the next six months we lived a “normal” relationship
and had significantly lower telephone bills.
After the internship ended in the spring of 2003, Arne unfortunately
could not find a job in Berlin. So we were back to weekend
commuting.
On February 12th 2004,
Juliane’s 29th birthday, which she did not really
want to celebrate, Arne staged a perfect wedding proposal
that she, obviously, accepted. By the way, the ring
was hidden in the DVD - sleeve of “American Wedding”,
a movie we had just seen in a theater together. |
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