Pabstorf is where? - where and why

A wedding? Where? In Pabstorf? In 'Huy'? (How do you pronounce?) Questions you all might ask after that first mail bringing the news of the coming union.

To help you on your way. Pabstorf is a small village in Germany, in the province Sachsen-Anhalt. It's located practically on the old border between former East and West and is the birth place of the mother of Doreen and still the residency of her grandmother and one of the two uncles (Hansi). It's close to the Harz, a mountain range in the middle of Germany. For those who read German or are proficient in using web-translation tools, you can find more info on: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabstorf

Currently Doreen owns a house in the village, still partly inhabited by the former owner - Otto Ganz (see Doreen and Otto working the lovely garden on the photo aside). How and why Doreen has gotten Otto's house is another story, perhaps for a later blog post, for now let's just say Otto is generous guy. Here I wanted to say something why we want to get married there.

In different ways this place represents to us a central part of our history. The private history of Doreen growing up, and the larger history, of me being from the West and Doreen being from the East. We are who we are (partly) due to this division and we can be 'we' because of the fact that this division has ceased to exist. So even if we physically met on a sailing boat in the Netherlands a small nine years ago, in many ways it feels to us that the place where we truly met was in this no-mans land between the former East and the former West.

more practical stuff, coming up.