rekindled spirit

markus and björn in rome

my husband was on a special team of engineers representing germany on a nato project in the states when we met. the project involved four other nato nations which also had teams on the project: england, france, italy, and the united states.  markus, pictured above on the left with his life partner björn (they are our favorite berliners) was on my husband’s team and became a very dear friend.

fontana di trevi

during this time, which lasted close to four years, the people working on the project formed a round table. they met once a month for an evening out somewhere in the city.  they say that this unique arrangement of working together opened the door for an unusual opportunity. it was a good chance to encourage cultural exchange and international fellowship. what a wonderful idea! 

piazza di spagna

when the project ended, they all agreed to have a weekend reunion of the round table every two years in each of the project participants countries for a weekend rotating locations forever.  a typical weekend schedule would consist of sight seeing tours, shows, and every other meal or so together with chances in between to deviate from the scheduled program and go do your own thing if you wanted to do so. the first meeting outside of the united states took place in 2003 in paris.  it was my first time in paris and it was an amazing trip.

pantheon

of course there is much to see and do there but pierre, the wonderful man and host that put our weekend program together made it so flexible that one could leave a tour of the city and come back to it at their lesiure. meaning you could stop, take your time, enjoy the place and catch the next tour bus to the next location. it was really amazing. my favorite part of the was an exquisite seven course meal dinner event on a ship that sailed down the the  seine river.

ponte saint angelo

the second round table reunion in 2005 took place in las vegas, USA and was hosted by super ted, one of my favorite people. we unfortunately could not attend as we were expecting baby number two. they all of course drank a lot,  lost a lot and won a lot of money. it was a huge it, they all reported that they had a fantastic time.

santa maria in cosmedin

this year, 2007, it was in rome and we almost did attend but again, we unfortunately could not make it because we agreed that baby number one and two are still a bit too young for such a trip. oh were we dissapointed! i was in rome as a child with my parents on a family vacation and i would have loved to go as an adult because of course  it would have been a completey different experience.

san pietro, i love the sun rays coming in through the dome

markus took these beautiful photos and agreed to let me share them on my blog. i love especailly the ones that show the masses of people in the sun indulging in the eye pleasing views.

vatican city, st. peter’s square

we were very very happy to recieve a post card signed by all the members of the round table…it felt good that they thought of us because believe me, we were thinking of them!

colosseum

i can’t wait to hear where the next round table reunion in 2009 will be, for sure we will attend!

happy birthday markus! hope it was goooooooood! thanks again for these fabulous photos!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 9:21 pm and is filed under other places.