Dear friends,

❅ When I look back upon this year, a feeling of great contentment, calm and bliss takes hold of me. And as I am losing myself in this thought, the music stops abruptly like in the movies, a record player needle scratches and some inner voice is saying: “Yeah, but that was also quite a lot!” For all those who have only just tuned in, a short summary of the previous months.

❅ Traditionally, I should start at New Year’s. We were in Bratislava. It was incredibly cold. The city is a pretty little capital and it was surprising how many, also young people spoke German very well, voluntarily and without effort. But this year, I have to start on the first of July. The day on which Olaf and I abandoned the plan to cohabit in sin and entered a regular marriage.

❅ The day of our wedding was for me one of the happiest days of my life. Most likely, because we neither expected it, nor were we looking for it. From the preparations, where we always seemed to be at least one year late, it’s true that I can still feel my muscles aching from raising my eyebrows. The big day itself, in return, could not have been better. Swiftly, I finished the lemon meringue pie at six in the morning. The speech of the registrar lady was not so much an instruction on right to appeal, but actually quite moving. The festivities, a beautiful summer party with friends from all ways of life. Orange, the reflections from the Aperol spritz cocktails on the veranda. Proud my godson, who informed me that he had already eaten five slices of wedding cake without throwing up. In a word, the perfect day for young and old.

❅ I attended two possibly life-changing congresses this year. At the phonology congress in Aarhus, where the campus was splendidly green, the way there underestimated steep, the food healthily good and good coffee absent, not only an extremely nice Belgian colleague discovered that the ability to correctly imitate sounds allows for no predictions on the degree of a foreign accent, but also I that I want to research such cool stuff myself and get started with it right away.
For the other convention, I was congress manager: the 3D convention of the DGS at Weimar. The guest houses of the EJBW behind the river Ilm right in the middle of nature were heaven and the convention itself was really great. And the way it goes, when you do something right, you are allowed to stay and so I was elected president of the DGS. Moving the archive was interesting indeed: One or two cartons per issue of the journal of our society with four issues a year since 2002 up to the roof of my car. Let’s put it this way: The word “axle weight” repeatedly came to mind.

❅ That a lady from İstanbul in transit to New York leaves security control at Frankfurt Airport prematurely, so that a terminal with 10,000 passengers needs to be evacuated, need not have happened on the day that Olaf and I flew to Canada. From the half-hour delay at take-off and after an eight hours flight, 30 minutes remained and when I saw the queues at immigration, I was quite certain the universe somehow preferred us not taking the next flight, but rather the bus that takes three and a half hours from Montréal to Québec. The reception from Olaf’s aunt, his cousins and their daughters and sons was touching. In the family pack, we discovered aunt Irmgard’s house in “Wisteria Lane”, creemees with maple syrup flavour and chocolate coating from Chocolat favoris, which Olaf immediately became addicted to and the little town of Burlington in Vermont, which could just be a movie set.

❅ And the others who are close to my heart? Hannes made it to the green theatre in Thale with the boys five minutes before the start of the show. I had hoped for twenty minutes early and bet on twenty minutes later – so that’s right in the middle. Konstantin stayed another week and thanks to the mediation of new stereoscopy friends from Berlin, we could watch a glassblower at the University of Leipzig. Now, with a ten-year-old boy, you cannot detect feelings directly, but apparently once back home, he quite enthused before his brothers.
As tour guide, I spent a magnificent holiday with my parents in Barcelona. A highlight was the trip to the local mountain Tibidabo. First on the historic blue tram, continuing with a funicular from the year 1901 (Do they actually have mandatory technical inspections in Spain?), this really felt like a lovely Sunday outing and up on the top, you are almost in the clouds. The latter may sound romantic, but it is actually just colder and more wet. At the restaurant Torre de Alta Mar in the old cable car tower, we became witness to a little magic: At our early arrival, the kooky artist of the quarter was talking to the man at reception. Barely twenty minutes later, the beret and dungarees were swapped for a black blouse, a cream-coloured tight skirt and bright red lipstick and we were facing the restaurant manager, who was now, head held up high, strutting through her realm.
There was also a reunion with M&M: Mike and Mary from the Stereoscopic Society. The location of the convention resembled an English manor house. How such an affordable price is possible, was demonstrated in a prime example of economic reasoning at dinner: Firstly, the posh round thing on my plate turned out to be just a cut-out potato. Those like me who think that this is still quite wasteful, rest assured that secondly, on the next night the little round tower consisted of mashed potatoes including some peelings from the day before.

❅ For the following weeks, I wish you all-encompassing tranquillity. For the New Year, the mindfulness to tend to the good things in your lives, the heart to create new good things and a satisfied serenity for the not so good things. Olaf and I will celebrate the New Year in Stockholm. I will take you with me in my heart and in thought shall clink glasses with you.

With love, Frank