Heino's Cafe

Yes, dreams really come true, but not just in Disney World. When we first signed up to go on this year's bus tour, Elmar was very happy to see that Heino's Rathaus Cafe was on the list of stops. He was hoping that Heino would be there, but no promises were made. Many, many years ago Heino performed in Milwaukee and Elmar took pictures of me with Heino. However, it was back in the days of using film and the film was filled up before Elmar could get a picture of him and Heino. Well, as you can see from the picture on this page, Elmar got that picture with Heino.

Heino and his lovely wife, Hannelore, were very gracious and Hannelore even welcomed our group in English. We had our own room for our 50+ people that were on this tour and Heino when to each person and personnally handed them an autographed picture postcard. This gave everyone the opportunity to speak with him or have their picture taken with him. You only needed to ask and he happily posed for that picture.

We were served the famous Heino Hazelnut Torte. If you look closely at the white chocolate wafers that decorate the torte, you can see Heino's image on them. Heino had studied to be a baker before he became a singer and grew into the super star he is today.

The pictures for the first day of our fabulous 2 week trip are in a Picasa album. I am putting my pictures out here so that other members of the tour can also download some of the pictures I took on the trip and perhaps they can send me some of their pictures and I can put them out here for all of us to share. If you click on the image below, you can go directly to the Picasa album to see that first day.

This fabulous meeting with Heino happened on our first full day in Germany, but the day before we were on the go as soon as we landed and you will see those pictures in this album too. One of the very first things we did was have a tour of the Asbach distillery, a short distance from our hotel. And then a short stop at the Niederwalddenkmal. We even had a boat ride down the Rhein and a glimpse of the Loreley. In the evening Albert Dormann played for our dancing pleasure. on May 6. On May 7, when we went to Bad Muenstereifel to vist Heino's Rathaus Cafe, but in the evening we had a great dinner at the Ruedesheim Lindenwirt where we had the famous Rudesheimer coffee (it has Asbach Uralt in it & the light it & quickly put it out with whipping cream.

Also, that evening a new friend came to visit us. Andrea Ney is the president of the Axel Becker Fan Club " Amore Amore" and takes care of all the webmaster duties. We have been corresponding since last December when Elmar & I went to see Axel Becker in Cleveland for one of Gisela's Christmas shows. It was so nice to meet Andrea, face-to-face. She is a very nice lady, who has a great love for music.

If you were on this trip with us and would like one of the pictures here, just click on the right lower corner and go to the Picasa website to right click and do a save as or send me an e-mail and I can help you. Again a great big thank you goes to Gisela Lewis and Peter Matthai, who truly made this a trip to remember.

Thank you Andrea Ney

I want to sincerely thank Andrea Ney. She is the fanclub leader of the Axel Becker fanclub "Amore Amore" in Germany. She was kind enough to publish my Axel Becker Cleveland performance report on her fanclub website and all the pictures. She published it in "English" just the way I wrote it, but she also translated the whole piece into German. She did a fantastic job. Andrea, thank you so much!!!

Take a look at her website. She is a very talented writer and has a lot of pictures at her site if your German is a little rusty. She features concert reports that are very detailed and interesting to read. Stay in touch with what this popular German entertainer is doing. Axel received standing ovations everywhere he

appeared in the US and Canada. If you have the opportunity to see this singer, don't miss it.

On December 26, Axel Becker was back in

Germany and performing in Bad Fussing for a Christmas concert. Andrea was there and took pictures that are great which include the Chicago favorite, Romy, and here is also a link to her concert report. CLICK. If you go to my Links page, I have added Andrea's link under the heading "Friends of the Stimmung Stunde" ... check it out.

Christmas Show in Cleveland was a hit

On Friday we traveled for 7 hours to see this fabulous German Christmas show. Gisela Lewis of New Jersey organizes a German Christmas tour every year. The closest it came to Milwaukee was Cleveland. So I made my reservations months ago and finally the day came to travel to Cleveland. It was held at the Donauschwaben house in Cleveland and it was nice to see some old friends again. There were about 350 people in attendance. If you look at my other post on this website you can see a complete list of where they will and have appeared. I am so happy we were able to attend this show. It was one of the best I have every seen.

The headliner was Axel Becker, who is a big star in Germany. It is amazing that Gisela was able to land a big name like Axel, but even more amazing was his voice. Axel Becker has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard and is also quite the showman. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand and at the end of each set, he received a standing Ovation. Although, Axel was clearly the star, he was gracious to his fellow performers and brought them up on stage to share the thunderous applause.

The beautiful Styrina was also on the bill. Many people in Milwaukee remember this charming young girl from Austria with her long flowing blonde hair. This little "firecracker" really brought energy and excitement to the floor. She had traditional songs in her first set and changed into a glittery red dress for the 2nd half that made her shine like a red diamond. Styrina told me later she really enjoyed her time in Milwaukee and would love to return again.

Filling out the program was a band from Austria, Kristall. They had only 3 members of their band with them. We saw them in May in Austria when we were on the bus tour with Gisela Lewis. They were a lot of fun and some very talented musicians. The trumpeter, Werner George, was very talented and even sang a few songs.

This was clearly a top notch Christmas Show. Now I really feel in the festive mood. If you still have an opportunity to see this show while they are still in the states, please do not miss it. I have a slideshow below with pictures I took that evening. If you would like one of the pictures, just click on view all images and it will take you to the slide website. Click gallery view, then find the photo you want and right click to download. It's free.

Weihnachts Show tour presented by Gisela Lewis

Gisela Lewis is again presenting a fabulous Weihnachts Show tour in the USA and Canada. It starts on November 27 and continues through December 19. Gisela has brought entertainers from Germany for many years and this year's show looks like it will again be a stand out. Check out the list below to see if there is a show near you. It is bound to be an evening to remember.

The stars for this year's tour are: Axel Becker, Styrina, and the Kristall band.

We saw Axel Becker perform live in Germany back in 2006. He puts on a great show and is often on Volksmusik TV shows in Germany. He has many hits through the years and he is looking forward to his first trip to the US. When I listen to his voice the word "velvet" pops up in my head. Take a look/listen yourself and click on this link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBCK5qMzXa4

Styrina was at this year's German Fest in Milwaukee and this beautiful girl with her long flowing blond hair aquired many new fans here in Milwaukee. I ofen hear people describe her performance as a little firecracker. Take a look at this YouTube link to see Styrina in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qAHHuNmDTY. We also saw Styrina in Austria when we went with Gisela Lewis and Peter Matthai (leader of the Sandler band) on the Bus Tour they organized in May this year. By the way, they have another tour planned for May 2010 and I will be bringing details of that trip soon. On that same Bus Tour, we saw the band Kristall perform and you will not be disappointed with this talented band. Here is a link to YouTube to see Kristall perform: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCjzT3_CzlI. They made great music and their humorous antics will have you laughing out loud.

Click on the poster to the right to enlarge the image. It gives details of this fabulous tour coming to the US.

Nov 27 - Deutscher Club of Clark, call 908-756-1783

Nov 28 - Delaware Saengerbund, Newark, DE, call 302-366-4710

Nov 29 - Franklin Square, NY, call 516-333-4710

Dec 1 - German-American Soc of Trenton, Yardville, NJ, call 609-585-5593

Dec 2 - Evergreen Country Club, Reading, call 610-944-7501 & 484-797-3528

Dec 3 - Germania Park, Dover NJ, call 732-557-0670

Dec 4 - Cannstatter Volksfest Verein, Philadelphia, PA, call 215-332-0121

Dec 5 - Schulverein Walpole, Boston, MA, call 508-586-0982 & 781-320-9940

Dec 6 - Schutzenpark, North Bergen, NJ, call 917-680-3942 & 718-821-7337

Dec 8 - Carpathia Club, Sterling Heights, Michigan, call 586-781-6734 or 586-822-2366

Dec 9 - Deutscher Sportverein, Ft. Wayne, IN, call 660-338-1234 & 260-248-2282

Dec 10 - Donauschwaben Society of Cincinnati, OH, call 513-451-6452

Dec 11 - German-American Culture Center Olmsted Falls, Cleveland, OH, call 440-235-2647

Dec 12 - German Family Society of Akron, Ohio, call 330-923-7947 or 330-336-7127

Dec 13 - Schwabenverein, Toledo/Oregon, OH, call 419-536-9942 or 419-691-4116

Dec 14 - Club Lorelei, Hamburg, NY, call 716-875-1064 or 716-633-1044

Dec 15 - Club Rhein-Danube, Leamington, ON, Canada, call 519-326-3740 & 519-326-1779

Dec 16 - Concordia Club Kitchener, ON, Canada, call 519-745-5617

Dec 17 - Association of Danube Swabians, Scarborough Toronto, ON Canada, call 416-290-6186 or 416-282-4021

Dec 19 - Blobs Park, Baltimore, MD, call 410-799-7130