Christmas Letter

The woman of mists is yarning the world. This year’s light is burning low.
___ The hunter roams through wood and glade. Now, rabbit, write your testament. ___

A new year arises from the night — in only a few weeks time. Admittedly, the weather is rather like March, but still you can feel the Christmas time. And so I enjoy the last weeks within the cosiness of my circle of friends and I am looking forward to the holidays when I am allowed to switch my mind off. The year started with Louis de Funès in The Spat and Olaf on our couch. It was to become a year of big events and far travels.

The farthest journey was without a doubt my pronunciation course for German teachers of the Volga region in Samara (Kuybyshev). Torn between distrust and curiosity, it was highly interesting for me as an ex-GDR citizen to set foot on Russian ground. What caught above all was the poverty in which people live and the dangerousness of the streets this creates. In comparison, the French Riviera was much more glamorous: lost 20 quid in Monte Carlo, bought perfume for the same amount in Grasse and in Saint-Tropez – well, nothing, because nothing costs so little there. Much more affordable was the week in Budapest with Olaf. Here we had a guided tour in the two-room-sized telephone museum, where an old lady with a grey braid explained important things in Hungarian. We nodded with wide eyes, but probably not very convincingly, as she switched into English. In fluent German, we were addressed one evening by two blond girls from the Balaton, who wanted to get us to buy them expensive drinks in a bar. We couldn’t really see why and renounced. But finally: the waiters in Budapest are quite spruce, yet unable to remember an order completely right. But then what is more important?!

Quite some travelling was also involved on the business level: Frankfurt, Hamburg or Erfurt are already printed on my business cards. Unfortunately things are advancing as quickly as I’d like them to, thanks to the crisis. But I needn’t complain. After all I was able to add the famous Leipzig Graduate School of Management or also the HTWK to my list of clients. And at the University of Erfurt, my love for linguistics is still burning.

Of great events, we had two this year. My cousin Andreas married and also my brother exchanged wedding vows with his boyfriend. One party at the beautiful Karl Heine canal with a boat trip on it, the other at a castle and in a clubhouse with GDR flair. One party with bloody little cake, the other with after-each-glass-it-doesn’t-taste-so-awfully-sweet-after-all red wine. These are things you fondly remember. Definitely one of those was also the stag night of Andreas with paint balling (it hurts!) and shots-on-sherbet-powder-pub-crawl. What a funny species the hetties are!

Finally something for the eyes. My new hobby, which is to stop me from going mental because of too much freelancing, is 3D. In cinemas the experience is fantastic. But also at your PC at home you can do some magic with photos. In my new album you’ll find some holiday photos that I’ve converted. In this regard, it is the season: keep the daily grind outside, enjoy the world in 3D – here at your screen and outside in real life. And have a few quiet holidays!

Happy Christmas! — Frank. mail@frank-lorenz.com | 020 3051 2666