Shoes and Parties

This is what your hall way looks like when you have a party in Berlin. 

It is usual practice to remove your shoes before you come into someone's house. 

On the weekend, we went to Phoebe and Luke's house for a Xmas party. 

I took a photo of the shoes at the door...but then forgot to take any other photos...must have been the gluhwein. The coats, hats and gloves went in a spare bedroom.

How we manged to find our shoes, coats, hats and gloves after gluhwein is a mystery to me.

The Bossy Christmas Fairy

Cameron's Year 1 and 2 production for this year was the Bossy Christmas Fairy. Some fun songs, some interesting singing and acting, forgetting lines. A perfect Year 1 & 2 production. It is fascinating to see how serious some of the parents in the audience are.  

The Bossy Christmas Fairy chose which decorations were allowed to go onto the tree, and which ones were sent to the box! Poor Max R the Christmas Bauble, Tabea and Jemimah the snowflakes, were sent back to the box because of scratches and bent snowflakes! In the end, another Xmas fairy said that it didn't matter and everyone was allowed onto the tree.

Cameron and Bradley were Shepherds (part of the chorus, they were both bored out of their minds!). 

Cameron would prefer to do maths! Cameron and Bradley are up the back, under the painted Xmas stocking.

"O Tannenbaum" 2006

I love decorating the Christmas Tree/Tannenbaum.

Phil got home from Vienna, and the boys had a German lesson with Simona! Straight after dinner it was time to get the tree started! The boys took charge of their decorations and Phil and I worked on ours. The first ones go on... A few more... Gee there are a lot of decorations All done....still some room for me to go shopping at the markets! YIPPEE!! All of us in front of the tree.  

Merry Christmas from us

1st Advent

The Advent wreath is part of the Catholic tradition. The actual origins are uncertain. There is evidence of Germans using wreathes with lit candles during December days as a sign of hope in the future warm and extended-sunlight days of Spring. Whatever the history of the advent wreath...everyone in Germany buys one, and they are sold at every shop you pass. 

The wreath is made of pine branches, signifying continuous life.  The four candles represent the four weeks of Advent.  The Advent wreath is lit at dinner time.

Even though we are not religious, we like the advent wreath, and have one on our table. The boys love having it lit at dinner time.

St Nikolaus kommt

A German tradition. 

Before St Nikolaus comes, you must polish your boots.  The boys did such a great job, they can polish their own school shoes from now on. 

On the eve of Dec. 6th, St Nikolaus goes from house to house carrying a book in which all the children's deeds are written. If they have been good, he fills their boots, with delicious fruits, nuts and candies. If not, they may find potatoes, coal, or twigs.

 

As you can see the boys and Mummy have been very good so far this year. Daddy seems to have been a little bit naughty, and got a few twigs too.

2006 Xmas tree delivered

Phil is in Vienna until Wednesday. I went to the nursery this morning, chose a Xmas tree, and it was delivered this afternoon. I put the angel on the top, and the boys helped put the train around the base. The decorations are ready and waiting, we just need to have Phil here, and we will decorate it together. 

The boys have a box of special decorations each. Every year they buy a couple of decorations that they like, and they get to put their own decorations on the tree. They have quite a great collection of decorations now, that I have to take a photo of what they have, so after Xmas we can put them back in the appropriate boxes. 

 Here is Alexander's collection Here is Cameron's collection Here is Phil and my collection. For some strange reason Phil thinks we have enough for our tree. But these German markets have the best decorations, it is hard to leave them there.

Wedding: Carola & Magnus

Our first "German" wedding! Magnus  from work was getting married, and apart from it being a really great time, it was interesting to note the differences from Australian weddings. 

All weddings take place in the registry office. Getting married in a church doesn't count (even though they can take money straight from your tax each month!). If you do get married in a church, you must also get married in the registry office to make it official. 

With the normal "I do's" (or as Magnus elegantly put it "Ich will" (I want), the celebrant started with a description of the certificate: Name, D.O.B., occupation, address of both, then the wedding certificate number. This is compulsory, no matter what! I have since been told that this formality happens at Russian weddings as well. 

Carola had to sign papers (along with the wedding certificate) on the spot to say she would take Magnus' surname. 

With the formalities finished, we then enjoyed champagne and finger food in the ante-chamber of the town hall where the wedding took place, and then went on a 3 hour "Coffee and Cake" (and of course beer and schnapps) river cruise. The weather was cool but clear, and as we hadn't taken a boat cruise yet (the last one we tried to get on didn't run on the day we turned up!), this was really enjoyable for us. Also a good chance to practice a bit of 'conversational German'.

We ended up docking at a modern building in the old East of Berlin where a room had been set up for dinner. Then the third interesting difference - Magnus and Carola introduced every person at the wedding in turn, sharing some special memory or reason for them being there. This was the first time I had seen this done, and I thought it was a lovely personal touch. Magnus' dad's speech was the best of the evening (I even understood the German!) and the cake, made personally by Carola's step-dad, was outstanding! Nicole says it was the best tasting German cake she has had since she has been in Germany!

After 13 1/2 hours, it was time to relieve the baby-sitter (who had been on duty since 12.00 mid-day). I expect the party continued after we left. 

Best wishes, Magnus and Carola!

The boy's view of our trip

As the boys were out of school, they had to write a few sentences about their trip for when they got back. This is Cameron's drawing of Santa. 

Cameron: I went snowmobiling and saw lots of reindeers. I went reindeer riding and made it run. I saw Santa and said that I'd like lots of Lego. I threw snowballs at Dad and I laughed. I went sledding with Alexander. Alexander's picture of visiting Santa 

Alexander: I went on Blue1 to Rovaneimi - Berlin to Helsinki to Rovaneimi. I went to hotel Rantasipi. I went on the bus to Santa Claus Village. I looked in the shopping house (with all the shops). I went and told Santa my wish and had a photo with him. I went to check if the reindeer ride was on. I went to the skimobiling place and got my license. I went on a snow mobile safari. I went back to the hotel and slept. I did some shopping. I went on a reindeer ride. I slept at the hotel. I went to the airport and did the things you usually do. I got on Blue1. I got to Berlin. I went home.

Sledding down every hill

We took out "bum sleds" to Lapland, and they are small and light enough to put in our back pack. There were a couple of "hills" to sled down, and the boys had a great time playing in the snow Alexander sliding down the hill On the sleds Cameron going pretty fast The boys have decided they would like to make a hill in the garden with our snow this year, instead of snowmen. They think it would be great to sled in the garden.  I am sure the neighbours granddaughter would love it too...that is a job for Phil! 

Snow Mobile Safari

Alexander on his ski mobile, photo was taken at 3pm

Phil on his ski mobile, photo taken at 4pm.

Cameron on his ski mobile, photo taken at 4pm
 After visiting Santa, we went around the back of Santa's office to check out renting ski mobiles. The boys were hooked. They did a practice run around a course for 15 minutes, were given the OK,and then let out  to go on a safari in the forest. They saw wild reindeer. The boys had really good control of their ski mobiles, and only ran into a few trees. We were lucky with the temperature, -2 degrees. The following days the temperature rose to 0, and the snow began to melt. There were no ski mobiles riding the next few days!

We also went on a reindeer sled ride after the mobiles, it was pretty dark by then, so no photos.  

Santa's Village

After a relaxed breakfast (we seemed to be almost the only ones in the hotel), we caught a local bus 15 minutes out of town to Santa's Village. Located on the highway across from a truck stop, this small 'outpost' is where Santa goes every day to meet friends who want to visit, and to check out his mail. He lives somewhere north on the Fells, but apparently the actual location is a bit of a secret

The front lodge of the Village contains an information centre, about 10 gift shops (including one which makes famous Finnish hunting knives, just what you would expect in a village set up for kiddies, 3 cafes and some christmas decoration shops. 

After 'cruising' the shops and having a Santa-priced cup of coffee, we went across to see the great man himself. No disappointment here! It was fantastic! Out beyond the front lodge is Santa's greeting hall. 

Apparently in high season, 10,000 people per day pass through, and it is a real production line. One hour in a queue, say "Hi" to Santa, say cheese for your photo, select which photo to buy, exit through the gift shop. 

However, it appears that we planned our visit perfectly, and arrived about two weeks before the high season begins on December 1st. As such it was us, an Indian guy of about 40, the Australian family we met on the plane, and a couple of other families in the entire place. 

After the Indian guy had a really serious chat to Santa (and bought his photos), the boys rushed up for their turn (no queue!). We sat with Santa for about 10-15 minutes. He was a really gentle old soul who spoke perfect English with a slight Finnish accent. The boys were awestruck, staring at the real Santa and initially hardly said a word.  However with a bit of coaxing from Santa they settled in and soon Santa found out all about Australia, Berlin, the types of planes we had flown on, and what they wanted for Christmas. 

Santa also had a nice long chat with the boys about the reindeer, and what they were up to, (currently his reindeer are out in the wild looking for frozen mushrooms and berries to eat). The entire experience was very relaxed. we had our photos taken and then exited through the gift shop. This might be Nicole's favourite photo ever!

Even though it was only about 12:15pm on Friday, the trip had paid for itself already. We all were really excited by meeting Santa and the reaction of the boys was brilliant. They were the perfect age for it, and it was really worth doing!

We wandered around the village a bit more. We found Santa's main post office, and thought we would see what happens here. Inside is the normal post office, and off to the side is the special room where all of Santa's mail is opened. WOW....it is very organised, and the elves are very busy in there. The letters are sorted out into countries, and then each letter is opened for Santa to read. The stamps are collected and bundled up for UNICEF. 

The elves asked the boys where they were from. "Australia" they said excitedly. The elf went over to the box and pulled out some letters from Australia. She opened them, and then the kids were allowed to read the letters from Lachlan in Brisbane and Brittany and Sarah from NSW. It was incredible to see, and to know that every letter for Santa is actually opened!

Here are the boys with 2 of the elves working hard! 

Santa's official address  is

Joulumaantie 1 

93930 Arctic Circle 

Finland 

But there were letters addressed To Santa Claus,  Arctic Circle 

They made it there as well!

     

We got to speak to Santa for about 10 minutes.

The Arctic Circle, Rovaniemi

We took the kids out of school on Thursday and Friday and got on a plane to Finland, Lapland. Our main aim was to see Santa in his office before Christmas this year. This weekend was the only weekend free that we could make it fit in with Phil's busy work schedule.

It was a bit hard to tell who was most excited, Nicole or the boys! 

 After a couple of long flights, we landed in the evening in Rovaniemi, Lapland, which lies on the Arctic Circle in the far north of Finland. As a comparison, this is well above the level of Scotland on the map and one hour's flight north of Helsinki. 

Whilst we were connecting from Helsinki and we were waiting to board our flight, we ran into another family of Aussies (although with 5 kids plus granny, they sure were outnumbered!) who were also heading to Santa. They are ex-pats in France, and thought that the only people who make this trip are 'mad Aussies like us!'. Turns out they were staying in a cabin, one hour out of town, and that they had chosen the 'optional extras' of running water and power - with 5 kids! 

When we arrived it was dark. The question was - would it always be dark? There is only supposed to be one hour of sunlight a day in December. In mid-November it probably wouldn't be a great deal more. 

It was not too cold, either. We had bought enough clothing to dress for the top of Everest, but it was only -3 when we arrived. We are used to in these temperatures in Berlin. 

Rovaniemi is famous for two things.

The first is Santa (of course, why we are here) 

The second is a heavy metal band called Lordi, who recently won the Eurovision 2006  song contest and dress up as monsters. These guys are so popular, they are in the local paper every week, and they have even named the town square after them. 

We settled into our hotel - we had adjoining rooms with the kids excited to have their own (me too!) and then went out for a late pizza for dinner. 

Phil and business travel

I am often asked "With all your international travel, it must be great - seeing interesting places, meeting interesting people, enjoying the leisure of air travel"

 Unfortunately, this is nothing like reality! 

Take my last trip, to Kuala Lumpur:

I had to leave on Saturday morning, which meant I had no weekend time with Nicole and the boys. 

My plane out of Frankfurt was delayed. We eventually took off, and somewhere over Eastern Europe we turned back to Frankfurt for repairs. 

We waited, and took off just after midnight. 

Connection change in Bangkok and finally arrived in KL early in the morning. 

Waiting at the baggage claim, no bags arrive. 

Off to the office to make a claim. 

Finally reach the hotel at 2 am local time. 

I had been travelling for 32 hours and been in the same clothes for 36 hours. No bags = no change of clothes.

At 2 am in the morning, I am washing my jocks and socks in the basin in the bathroom. I couldn't stand the thought of wearing them again unwashed the next morning! 

The doorbell rings, the hotel offers me a present.  A new clean polo shirt to get me through the next day (fabulous service!) 

Up at 7:00am for work. 

Still no sight of bags, I have a dinner appointment and I must buy new clothes. no shoes to fit (obviously Malaysian men have small feet and small...)but buy jocks, socks, shirt, slacks and a belt.

After dinner my bags finally arrived. It is amazing at how excited you can be over seeing you own toothbrush and undies again!

I speak to the airline, who are not too willing to refund the price of the clothes I had to purchase, or offer decent compensation. 

I make an appointment and go downtown to visit the manager. Finally resolve to pay exactly what I spent on the clothes and not a Ringgit more! 

Meetings all week. Finally I get home and realise that I left my MP3 player and headphones on the plane on the way in (I was so damned tired, it was not surprising!). 

Emailed them from Bangkok to see if there was any hope of getting them back. 

I worked and slept on the plane - only to find that when I got home, I had no feeling in my left hand and massive pains in my right arm. 2 days later I had the pinched nerve in my neck released, the arm / hand is coming back to normal. 

Back in Berlin, and try to get my body in sync with a different timezone. Sleeping in my bed. Home with my family. Who wouldn't want to travel for business?

 Afternote 1: Some colleagues also attending the meetings in KL had to fly back to their starting point in Sweden after an engine dropped off (no joke!) their plane. Turning back is not so bad.

 

Afternote 2: With some incredible luck, the MP3 and the headphones have been located and are on route to Frankfurt as we speak. I had given them up as lost so this is a wonderful surprise! 

Afternote 3: Time to pack the bags for the next trip!

Meeting the Disney Family

You can't go to Disneyland and not have photos taken with the characters. Here is a selection of some of the Disney family we met over the 5 days we were there.

 

One of my favourite characters was Sully from Monsters Inc. He was so furry and I just wanted to give him a big cuddle. He was pretty big, and the kids had to be careful where they stood, incase Sully stood on them accidentally.

On the wall behind Sully and Aladdin, are the Scream Monitors. You scream into a microphone, and you test if your scream would fill a canister.You can see on this photo, that someone has one red bar (that is a small scream.) If you could scream and get all the bars to go red, that would mean you filled the canister, and you had a pretty loud scream. 

Not surprisingly (well to Phil and I), Alexander managed to fill the canister with every scream he did! Cameron could only get about half of the canister, which surprised us, we thought he could fill it as well! They are both so loud!!

We also found Narnia.

Lonely Clarice

Could anyone help us with the name of this character?

  

edited: Yes, Mel could, it is Clarice! Thanks Mel. 

Poor Clarice was by herself, and no one wanted a photo of her. Chip and Dale were close by getting all the attention. We felt sorry for her, and made the boys go over for a photo. Cameron calls her the "sexy squirrel" even though she is a chipmunk

Walt Disney Studios

Next to Disneyland Paris, is Walt Disney Studios.

 

This was great fun, and the queues were not long at all because many of the attractions are cinemas, so lots of seats for many people. 

There was lots of interactive props of Disney movies that the kids have watched dozens of times.

The Disney characters were a bit more accessible here as well.

During the back lot tour, we watched an oil tanker explode, a landslide, and  the oil tanker slide off the road.  Then watch it all go in reverse for it to reset for the next group. 

  

With the magic broom from Fantasia movie

Phil on tall rides

There were several roller coasters that the boys were not tall enough to ride, so I headed off to tackle them alone. 

My favourite is the 'Rockin' Rollercoaster' in Disney studios, with a super accelerated start from standing and then a great loop and spiral roller coaster. Exhilarating! 

In Disney park, there is a new Indiana Jones Roller coaster which is also really fun. And then there is the Space Mountain (Mission 2) which I thought was really rough and not very enjoyable. I thought I was over roller coasters after riding a thing called the "Bush Beast" in Sydney (forward and reverse through a spiral) with the third worst hangover of my life. However, with a clear head, I had an absolute ball riding the roller coasters! 

When the boys are bigger, I can see that we have a few interesting theme parks to visit around the world. Here is a small tip for roller coaster riders that have small families: Take all of the Disney tickets, and get fastpasses for the whole family. Although they will not ride, you can then have 4 shots at riding the roller coaster in 1/2 hour, which is possible using the fastpass entries (smaller queues!).

Rollercoaster night

After dinner, Alexander and I headed back to the park, whilst Nicole and Cameron went back to the hotel. 

It was a cold night, but with proper jackets on we were warm enough. The queues of the day had dramatically reduced in the evening. I asked Alexander "Where to?.." and the immediate answer was "Big Thunder Railway!!" - his favourite roller coaster in the park (Although I think it ties with the Buzz Lightyear ride as the best ride of all). 

The first time waiting in the queue was about 35 minutes (the longest of the night, whereas in the daytime it is more like 60-90 minutes). All the way, we chatted about all of the stuff on display. Alexander had a million questions about everything "What's a firearm? What's an assay? What would this thing do?". It was great fun relaxing and spending a bit of time together. On the first ride, we sat up the front. At night, the ride was lit up and it was interesting to see a different focus on things. Half way through the ride, Alexander starts singing the "I'm just a singin' goat" and "Be prepared", from the animated movie "Hoodwinked", where the characters race in mine cars through a tunnel like this. He had a great time. 

On the second ride, he was busy being 'tour guide' to a small boy who sat behind us and was a little frightened. "This is the biggest hill",  "The photo is taken up here", "Don't worry, those rocks don't really fall". All very kind and comforting, but I think the little fella only spoke French! 

On the third ride, I hear a "woo hoo" and I look over, Alexander has his hands in the air! He must have seen some bigger kids doing it. He was having a great time! 

For a break, we returned to the haunted house again. Then returned for our 4th and last ride on Big Thunder. With almost no queue, we asked to sit at the back, and Alexander thought this was the best place of all to ride the roller coaster. I had a great time sharing Alexander's excitement and fun, and by the end I knew every inch of Big Thunder Mountain!

By the end of our stay in Disneyland, Alexander had ridden Big Thunder Mountain 9 times. 

We walked back to the hotel, and met up with Nicole and Cameron in the foyer. They had not made it up to the room (and we had left them over two hours earlier!) It was a really fun night. 

Nicole and Cameron had a great night in the hotel. It was quiz night for the kids. Cameron was keen to participate. They had to listen to snippets of the songs and then name the movie. A slight disadvantage for us, the songs were in French. The second competition were pictures on an overhead projector, and they were shown only a small part of the picture at a time. Cameron managed to get 2nd place in both competitions! 

Thanks to Chantal, Sonia and Michelle for the Disney books and dvd's ! It was really helpful. Cameron was thrilled.

Discoveryland

Our first venture into Discoveryland was accidental, and fortunate. On our first afternoon in Disneyland we were speaking to a couple who had some fast-passes to the 'Buzz Lightyear' ride. They were heading back to their hotel and kindly gave us the passes to use. We had no idea what the ride was like.  The allocated time was after dinner. and we gratefully accepted them without knowing what this ride was. After dinner, and our first Buzz Lightyear ride, we were hooked and we came back again and again.

Part of the hotel deal, was vouchers to have breakfast in the Park before general opening times. We thought we would get to meet some of the characters at our table, but we were wrong (must be that German to English translation again!) 

The restuarant was Bella Notte Pizzaria, from The Lady and the Tramp. Breeakfast was croissants and cereal, (not pizza).  Just around the corner from the restaurant was Discovery Land, so we were able to have our first ride of the day on the Buzz Lightyear ride without waiting too long! 

 

Phil trekked off to Space Mountain (minimum height was 132cm). The boys and I went to the Orbitron, similar to the Dumbo the Elephant ride, but in rocket ships. The boys could control going up and down. Cameron loved to go up high, and then drop down quickly. 

We watched the "Honey I shrunk the kids", 3D movie. Alexaner didn't like this very much.  

Next was the Star Wars virtual flight similator, where we took a spaceship to Endor.  Cameron didn't look tot keen throughout the ride, but he told us later that he really liked it. He looked quite scared throughout the ride.

Then it was back to more Buzz rides and Big Thunder rides.