21. Benefiz show - home in Germany

It's November, the month I usually always go home to Germany. The reason being the annual "Benefiz" dance show of a local jazz-dance group called "Tiptoes" where I used to dance and participate when I was still living at home. Though I'm not participating anymore in this group and their shows, I use this annual event in autumn to go home and visit my family.

The dance show usually falls on the weekend around the 14th of November and on the 20th of November it's always my father's birthday. So usually I try to take the whole week in order to be there to attend both events. This year's "Benefiz" show fell on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th of November. Unfortunately my colleague Elisa planned some bigger holidays to Japan exactly the week after so that I couldn't stay until my father's birthday. So this year I went to Germany only for a couple of days from 9th to 14th of November.
The days at home went by so quickly. They are always so stuffed with things I want and have to do...


Wednesday 09/11:
I had one of those super early Air Berlin flights to Germany which make me get up at 3:45 in the morning to catch the flight to Berlin in Oslo at 6-something.

With a 50 minutes only transit at Berlin-Tegel I usually arrive then in Cologne-Bonn at around 10 a.m. This time though, there were some delays due to super foggy weather conditions. So when I arrived at around 11:30 a.m., my mum was already waiting for me at the terminal.

Right after the pick-up from the airport we were heading towards my grandmother's place in Königswinter. For a long time already she wanted to invite my mum for lunch. Since also my aunt had long promised to meet up again with my mum they decided to meet altogether for a lunch near my grandmother's place. The date they had agreed on coincided with my arrival from Oslo and so we met up all four for a "ladies" lunch :-)

Since the place my grandmother so much loved to take us was closed on Wednesdays, we ended up in another place somewhere in the "Siebengebirge" (lit. "seven mountains"), a range of hills to the East of the Rhine river, southeast of Bonn, consisting of more than 40 mountains and hills.

It was the restaurant of the local hotel "Im Hagen", a rather old-fashioned place attracting predominantly elderly people. In deed, when we arrived four tables were occupied by a 80+ clientele :-)
Nevertheless, we ate really well! This time of the year is typical for eating game/venison and indeed I had a really delicous wild boar ragout on "Spätzle" (a special kind of fresh pasta originally from Southern Germany) with lingonberries.

As I already mentioned in a previous post, my old camera broke. It took me a while to decide on a new one, but I finally found one: the new Canon IXUS 230HS :-) I had ordered it online to have it delivered home right before my arrival. My mum brought it along and so I directly started palying around with it during our lunch.

(f.l.t.r.: my aunt, me, my grandmother, my mum)

 (my grandmother and me)

(my aunt and my mum)

After lunch we brought my grandmother back to her place. It was a really nice autumn day full of sun.

It was nice coming home in the late afternoon. For dinner even more good food was awaiting me. And right before relaxing with my mum and her husband in front of the TV watching some nice German movie (as some of you might now, I don't even posess a TV here in Oslo, so I occasionally really miss some good  TV evenings...), I was walking around our ground floor taking some pictures just to inaugurate my new camera. Just playing a little bit with it :-)

Well, the pictures are actually not of too good quality, but I'm not a good photographer and I still have to discover the right functions and settings etc. Nevertheless a few impressions of my home :-)

Thursday 10/11:

I spent the next two days basically shopping :-) I had a pretty long list of things that I actually really needed. So on Thursday I went to get the things I could get at my town in Meckenheim. I needed some running shoes and especially some winter boots. I have some boots here in Oslo, but they are absolutely not suitable for snow. So I was looking for something waterproof, something you simply need to have when living in country like Norway, something I can really rely on in situations of "real winter". Eventually I found what I needed.

At "ALDI" I then stocked up on plenty of typical German Christmas goodies, like Lebkuchen, Printen, Baumkuchen (="tree cake") and other things like wine etc. Everything a German misses abroad :-)

In the late afternoon I went to the jazz-dance training of that group that was going to do the show on the weekend. They train three times a week and whenever I'm home I join them. I simply can't do without it :-) Just some some sports, some dancing and meeting friends.


Friday 11/11:
The shopping continued. Today I went to Bonn...with my new camera in my hand bag of course.

cathedral Bonner Münster

Postoffice with the Beethoven statue infront - Bonn is the birthtown of the famous composer

A piece of the old city wall.

Pedestrian streets of Bonn downtown.

I had promised to buy a pair of pyjamas for Mari since they are much cheaper in Germany then in Oslo. Furthermore I needed some skiing gloves after having lost mine during my last skiing trip to Hafjell in March this year. And since the next skiing season is just around the corner I should make sure to be prepared and have some news ones. Also an adequate memory card and a spare battery pack for my new camera appeared on my shopping list. Well, and once in Bonn you find a lot of other necessary and less necessary things to shop for as well :-) Loaded with bags my mum and I drive home in the evening.

I actually did't stay home for long. Already shortly after our return from Bonn I made myself on the way to my father's and his wife's new place in Hennef. My father's time at the NATO in Brussels is over now and so he just moved back to Germany where the two recently moved into a new house. Not having seen my father for a while it was time for visit. My brother and his girlfriend joined as well for the evening. It was nice and we were talking a lot. Actually until late. My brother having uni lectures the next morning left somewhat after midnight, while I stayed overnight.


Saturday 12/11:
The day started with some great German breakfast. German breakfast means with everything one can imagine on the table: many kinds of different cold cuts, marmelades, honey, nutella, egg, all sorts of bread incl. croissants and the typical "Bretzeln". Just yummy :-)
Unfortunately I couldn't stay that much longer at my father's place. In the afternoon it was the first of two presentations of the "Benefiz" show during this weekend.

The event always takes place on a Saturday and a Sunday and always in my old school. Since this event is also a get together of many people from former school times, I went already a bit earlier to meet and catch up with all those people you only meet once a year at this event.

At 19:30 the show started, as usual with Richard Recker leading through the evening. New during this year's show, though, was the participation of the locally famous "Hot Jazz Boys" group. The main attraction of this show are surely the "Tiptoes" (www.tiptoes.de) which are always supported by the younger dance groups giving the Tiptoes time to get changed in between their performances. The Hot Jazz Boys this year replaced the - to be honest pretty boring - small kids having been on stage for one interlude in the past years.

Of course the whole show is full of movements and various light effects. Thus pretty difficult to take proper pictures. But I took a few which I would like to post here. The professional pictures which are always taken are not out yet. But as soon as I get them I might add them to this post later on.

A team of artists is responsible for the sketches which are always a well included and funny part of the programme.

 

On the below picture: Monika and Christian, the children of Roswitha ("Witha") Thünker who was founder of this show 21 years ago. Her husband and her two children were raised up in her showgroup and are part of the tiptoes since the beginning in the 80s/90s. Some years ago Witha withdraw from the trainer position and her daughter Monika followed in her mother's footsteps, creating year for year those many beautiful choreographies and performances. Below Monika and her brother Christian dance together in a duett.

The Hot Jazz Boys

Sunday 13/11:

The last couple of years my friend Sarah usually joined me for the Saturday show. It was always a great occasion to get together after not seeing each other for a long time. She then stayed over and we had enough time to chat and catch up with news. However, this year she couldn't make it and so we met on Sunday morning in Bonn for a brunch at the bistro "Roses". I think we sat together until around 3.30 p.m. when I realised how time had passed and that I actually had to leave. It was so great to see her again.

I actually had to leave as the huge dancing event always takes place twice during a weekend in November... and still hanging with my heart at this group I always attend the show twice, on both evenings, thus also on that Sunday. And like also last year, on Sundays I help out in the cafeteria selling "Bretzels" and drinks whose returns are used by the Tiptoes for the creation of the lavish costumes.

As every year there is always a huge after-show party on Sunday evening. It's a party for all dancers, artists, other participants and former Tiptoes-members like me :-)
For the first time now this took place in a local new restaurant and not as usual in the club house.

Witha Thünker always celebrating her birthday in line with the "Benefiz" show. She's the founder of the Tiptoes and the creative director and choreographer over many many years until her daughter took over some years ago.

I think I was back home at around 2 a.m. It was a great weekend, dominated by dance :-) It's always so great to see all those people again at this occasion!


Monday 14/11:
Since it became pretty late the evening before, I slept in. After getting up late I actually had to hurry a bit. I had to make my suitcase and I knew after my excessive shopping this packing required some time. In order not to get into rush hour on the way to the airport, I had to leave early. Luckily also my flight back was from Cologne-Bonn and not from Dusseldorf. It was actually my father who had accompanied me to the airport. We enjoyed some coffee and café latte, before I went to the boarding gate to take my flight at 7 p.m.
Back home in Oslo well after midnight I just fell to bed. A full day off work lay ahead.