Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year
December 2007
This past year
we
received many wonderful letters from friends for
which we are very grateful. Each of those letters, of course, required
an
individual answer and it was our plan do to so. The last three month,
however,
got a bit hectic and so we are here today, on the third of Advent,
having not
sufficient time left to write individual answers. Instead, we are
providing a
short report
of our year 2007. For those
of you
who may be interested seeing more
details
we recommend to enter our website at www.Wittmann.US
using our daughter’s short
name as
user name and password.
2007 started
with the
departure of our daughter with family of four heading half around the world to New
Zealand
where she joint the staff of Palmerston North Hospital as neurologist.
Anna and John planed to stay for
one
or maybe even two
years. When they
all came back last month to spend Thanksgiving with us their philosophy
had
changed, however, and we would not be astonished if they stayed in NZ for a much longer period. If you are
interested, you
may read John’s well written essay about their lives in New Zealand
at
our above mentioned webpage.
In March
Dietmar met a
cruise enthusiast on the beach who infected him with cruise fever and
so
Dietmar googled cruises on the internet and found quite an attractive
offer
departing the following week from Tampa
for the Western
Caribbean.
That was the perfect anniversary present for
Heidi, and before we knew
it, we
were on the huge cruise ship Miracle visiting the Cayman Islands, Belize, Cozumel
und Costa Maya. The world of
Maya
opened a bit and we were fascinated by their culture and scientific
skills.
Most of the remnants of the Maya culture remain to be excavated and we
will
intensify our knowledge.
In Springtime
Dietmar’s
mother came with Nils, his nephew, and during Easter Heidi’s grand
cousin
Joanne from England
and her two sons joined the crowd. We had a lot of fun at home and on
the
“intracoastal waterway” using Pam and Jim Wheatman’s motor
boat. Pam and Jim are local friends. They also own and breed wire hair
terriers.
We are happy that the location Casey Key in Florida
attracts our family members and helps us maintaining a closer relation
with
friends.
In May we
traveled to Germany
mainly
because Dietmar was invited to deliver the Key Note address for the 20ts Anniversary of “his” Surgical
Infections
Society. The event turned out to happen in quite a honorable
and important historical building - the Römer in
Frankfurt, the city
hall where coronation
banquets for German Emperors
happened for
several centuries and where all 52 Emperors
of the Holy Roman Empire are depicted.
After
Frankfurt we drove
to Hagen
in
Westfahlen to visit Hans and Hilke, old friends of Dietmar’s residency
time. Hans
became later Chief of Surgery at the Hagen City
Hospital.
They have never been in the US and we decided that they should come and
they
came later in October to visit our island Casey Key and the many of Florida‘s West Coast
attractions such as the
Ringling
museum with its new Circus Museum, Selby Garden, Snook Haven within the
Myakka
River Jungle were the original
Tarzan movies were filmed, Siesta Key with its white powder Sand, and much more
. They enjoyed being here and we had the most wonderful time together
re-intensifying our old friendship.
The
picturesque middle
age town of Wolfhagen near Kassel
was our next stop on our way to the Baltic Sea.
Dietmar’s Cousin Bernward lives there
‘surrounded’
by his three grown up children and their grandchildren. Heidi was glad
meeting
him and his wife Christa and having actually sufficient time to talk
and to get
to know them better and sharing their good attitude and opinions about
things
that matter.
We postponed
our plans to
visit Berlin and Schloss Sanssouci in
Potzdam
for a future visit and went
through
Mecklenburg, a part of Germany
that we did not know. We were quite impressed about picturesque
countryside
with many lakes and alleys. It was a
very sunny day ending in a wonderful sunset over the fascinating
landscape of
the brackish Bodden separating the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula from mainland. Heidi’s artist
friend Uschi lives in Darß
during summer time and showed us the beautiful and picturesque area
between the
mainland and the Baltic Sea, a quasi northern
mirror of our Keys between
Gulf and Florida
mainland. Like our home country the
Darss is breeding place for
many
birds and other protected wild life.
The last
segment of our
East German trip led us to the Hanseatic cities of Stralsund,
Wismar and Schwerin
with their huge red Brick Gothic churches. The last time we visited Stralsund in
1972 the
cathedral was still not repaired from heavy war damages. The enormous bell laid shattered on the floor of the tower with nobody of the
socialistic East
Germany
even thinking of doing something about it.
Now the Church has been perfectly restored.
When I asked, however, somebody about the fate of the shattered bell,
there was
denial and it took us quite long discussion to have the person admit
that the
bell had been neglected for
about 30
years. Germans have done a marvelous job restoring
these old cities including in Wismar’s
huge cathedrals. The Castle in Schwerin with
its golden
roofs did glow and shine in the summer sun like an ancient jewel.
Back in Hamburg we had
good discussion with old
friends some of them we haven’t seen for
over 20 years. Our main purpose to visit Hamburg,
however, was to be with our aging mothers (89 and 93). We were glad
that they
are doing well.
In August
Dietmar’s sister
Lilliane and her husband visited after they have spent some time in Silicon Valley where their son has a position
with Ariba
the winning cyberspace company that enables organizations
to optimize their Spend Management processes and supplier
relationships. Quite
clear – inst’ it.
The Nature
Printing
Society is becoming a new focus in our life; mainly for
Heidi of course as you may draw from looking at the card wrapping this
letter that
Heidi created and printed. They had their Annual Meeting in Bar Harbor in Maine
and we went in August. On our way we visited our neighbors
and dear friends Arthur and Barbara who live in summertime in Gloucester
near Boston. Barbara and Arthur were wonderful hosts and
we were quite impressed by the beauty of the Atlantic coast, the little
fisherman towns and little Italy
in Boston and of course the rich history and art of New
England.
Driving north along the rocky coast on Highway 1
introduced
us to the beauty of this part of the country and eventually we reached
the
College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor
in Maine
with
Granite beaches and lots of whales ejecting water fountains. While
Heidi was
active learning new techniques and creating new art, Dietmar enjoyed
himself as
a “cling-on” with other cling-ons discussing science, philosophy and
“politics!!”
and generating plans to change the world
for the better. Dietmar was
particularly engaged in discussions with Klaus Reichenbach the husband
of the
well known nature printer Erika. Klaus
was a mining engineer and manager of the biggest open mining corporation.
It is fascinating to hear all about the logistics to temporarily
moving and relocating back entire cities to permit open mining. The new
relocation place, of course was now 100 meter or
so lower.
In October
Dietmar went
to the annual Meeting of the American
College of Surgeons and
experienced rebuild New
Orleans. Then Hans
and Hilke came as mentioned above and after them Dagmar and Ralph
Purves paid
us a visit which we enjoyed very much particularly because we were able
to
demonstrate Sarasota
in its artist costume. Many artists had exposed their art at Sarasota’s fine
beach promenade. Dietmar and
Dagmar have been old friends while Dietmar was enrolled in the
University of
California San Francisco
Medical
School in 1967.
Later in
October
Dietmar’s Cousin Walter visited to help him erecting a 16 KW
photovoltaic Solar
system on top of our house. During the previous months Walter has
helped
Dietmar planning the system. Today, on December 17, the system produced
68 KWh. Not bad.
Our entire
family came to
celebrate Thanksgiving in our home. Mark Lisa and their three daughters
Fritzi,
Sabine, and Meike did join Anna John Syrah and Daphne, who were here
anyway
because they visited from New Zealand as mentioned
above. We were glad to see
the whole family happily united and interacting and enjoying each
other.
Now Annemarei
John ,
syrah and Daphne have returned to New
Zealand
and Mark, Lisa Fritzi, Sabine and Meike will fly to Chicago before
Christmas to see Lisa’s parents. We plan to celebrate Christmas with
the
children at their home on the 25th., after having had our traditional
Lachs
Dinner with friends on the 23rd and the pre Christmas
Kartoffelsalat Lunch the with the kids.
Last but not
least we
wish all of our friends a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Dietmar und
Heidi
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