My Story
Born in East Germany in the state of Brandenburg in 1984. I'm fortunate to have had a very happy childhood thanks to my parent's unconditional love and endless support.
After High school, I escaped my small town and went to Munich for one year of civilian service in a hospital kitchen. Then studied Economics in Bayreuth, Berlin and Paris. In Paris, I met the love of my life and never returned back to Germany.
I started my professional career working remotely as an auditor for aviation emissions. After 4 years, I was laid off and founded an aviation tax accounting firm that I'm still running to this day.
During that time, my wife and I moved around quite a bit. We lived in Montreal, Toronto, London, Edinburgh and Valencia. Currently, we call Porto our home and share our house with Joe, a 4-year-old Cocker Spaniel.
My Passion for Travel
I guess the seed for my wanderlust was planted already at a young age. I remember spending weeks away from home on table tennis training camps and tournaments all over Germany, as well as abroad in countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Slovakia or Finland. Maybe enough time for getting used to being on my own.
Besides, I was lucky to have parents who took my brother and I on a summer and winter vacation every year. The deal was that my mum would get her beach time in Spain or Portugal in exchange for my dad taking the whole familiy to the Austrian or Italian Alpes for skiing.
And even as a young adult, travel remained an important part of my life. My first trip overseas was to California. I think this is when I realized that traveling is for me. Another trip went to Indonesia. Wow, this was even better than California and looking backward, selling my car to pay for this trip was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made.
My Passion for Aviation
That was weird for my then girlfriend and now wife. Because seeing me point to the sky whenever I saw an airplane was something she had never seen an adult do before.
Not surprisingly, today, she knows most of the aircraft types from Airbus and Boeing and is increasingly successful at identifying airlines from far away based on their livery.
Who said that life with an AvGeek was easy?