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Next Tuesday, in a promotion in the “so crazy it has to work” category, we hope to give away 1000 McMuffins between 6:00 and 10:30 am in a promotion we call Easy Morning for Free. The daily HAN newspaper in Hamburg-Harburg will be printing a coupon on page 1 of their Monday edition that is good for a McMuffin Bacon & Egg and a coffee, which we usually sell for 1.99€. Here’s the teaser report from last Thursday, (also as pdf). 
This is part of a series of free promotions in the HAN, and their readers have lined up in the past for free car washes, cheese from...
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Last weekend I was finally able to attend the annual Whiny Expat Blogger Meetup, organized the past 4 years by J. Good thing, since when we were voting on the location it was my idea to stuff the ballot box for Bremen so we’d finally have a northern location. So while most folks had to travel for hours to arrive, I could just hop on the Metronom for a 45 minute train trip. Claire organized the details in Bremen and did a wonderful job, even preparing little welcome kits for us all. She herded our group of 25 (including strollers) through the city, parked us on the Weser riverbank to enjoy the sun for lunch,...
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Noone solved the riddle of our weekend destination in my last post. Indeed, noone even seemed to recognize that it was a riddle. Frauke, Christopher and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in a suite on the MS Color Fantasy, a ferry that shuttles between Kiel and Oslo. 
It was similar to the trip we took a year ago last spring, except then we departed from Copenhagen with the Danish DFDS, and this time from Kiel with the Norwegian Color Line. We left Friday afternoon, arrived in Oslo Saturday morning for a quick 4 hour stay, just enough time for the Fram museum, the...
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In commemoration of the events that occurred 25 years ago tomorrow (for which all photographic evidence seems to have disappeared, much to the chagrin of the participants), the weblog PapaScott will remain silent today and for the weekend. All three members of the Petersen-Hanson family are away observing the anniversary “in the near abroad, within our traditional sphere of influence”, as Vladimir Putin would probably say. One could also say that they have disappeared from the face of the earth for a couple of days, but will return home on Sunday evening to fulfill their respective obligations. We kindly request your understanding and respect. We hereby submit the following documentation. Click to enlarge. 
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Even after 18 years of driving in Germany, I still have problems following my instincts with right of way at intersections. The German rule is Rechts vor Links, or right before left. That’s the same as I learned in driver’s training in Minnesota. In the words of the Minnesota Driver’s Manual: When two vehicles reach an intersection at the same time, and there is no traffic light or signal, the driver of the vehicle on the left must yield to the vehicle on the right. So far, so good. But at T-intersections, a different rule applies: When two vehicles approach an uncontrolled “T” intersection, the driver of the vehicle that is turning must yield...
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 It’s now been six years since we submitted the application, took the pictures, and obtained Christopher’s US passport. That means the passport expired nearly a year ago, and it’s time to apply for a new one before we visit the States this Christmas.
I found the rules online, and have the forms completed and the documents gathered. Two things have changed since last time. For one, the consulate in Hamburg no longer processes passports, so we have to go to either Berlin or Bremen. Secondly, if both parents don’t appear in person, the written consent of the missing parent must be notarized. I don’t want to trouble...
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We’ve just returned from a couple of days at St. Peter-Ording on the North Sea. Details later.
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German Joys (responding to the Spiegel article last week on Beta Bloggers) on why Germans are such poor bloggers. Point 1: 1. A national culture of modesty that frowns upon too much self-expression. Americans have the advantage here. They’re hardly afraid of looking like fools, and like to talk about themselves. Herr Lumma will be interested in point 4: 4. Germany’s hierarchical, party-driven, elite-dominated political structure doesn’t foster the belief that ordinary citizens can meaningfully change government policies … there is no critical mass of people who consider the Internet a tool for positive political mobilization (rather than ranting), [thus] there is no real incentive to try to form mass movements or raise large...
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While chatting via email with Shelley, one of my favorite bloggers, she asked first about the business and then about me… “Do you ever miss the tech stuff?” Well, um, yes, er, sometimes, oh, maybe… I do miss being an expert. I was very good at managing networks, and was very good explaining and using my expertise with others. I understand maybe 30% (at best) of the restaurant business, and defer most of the time to Frauke’s experience and the experience of those in our team. I don’t miss the conflicting expectations of those who design, sell and market tech applications and those who implement them. I spent a lot of my time playing
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Christopher and Frauke at the beach in Cuxhaven. No Viking battles were fought, and while the sun shone seldom, it did shine.
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