Category Archives: Crazy Euopean People

Crazy Euopean People, Our cute son, Travels

The Fairytale City Prague

October 23, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 48 Comments

Recently we decided to have a little holiday somewhere nice in Europe. Okay it is not that recent anymore as I actually wanted to write about it for three weeks but some computer troubles kept me at bay. At first we wanted to go to Ireland but due to some visa difficulties for my wife we settled for the Czech Republic, or to be more precise for Prague. From Hamburg it takes only a bit over one hour to get to Prague by plane which is rather nice compared to the 8 hour nightmares to China.

Getting from the Prague Airport to the city center is fairly simple as it takes only about 40 min, first by bus and then by metro and it is super cheap with the tickets costing only about 1 Euro something per person. Our hotel was located in the New Town, now don’t get some modern ideas about this so-called New Town as it was founded in 1348! For me as a German who is used that many cities don’t have much historical substance left the city of Prague is just amazing. Everywhere you look in the city center you see historical buildings. I thought that Dresden was already incredible but Prague is on a whole different level. We stayed for three nights in Prague, giving us enough time to discover the city on our own pace. All the locations we visited were within walking distance except the Prague Castle for which we took another 5 min metro ride. For a family such as us this is just perfect as it makes getting around so easy.

Nathan developed right from the start his favorite spots in the city. For one there were those main locations where soap-bubble performers were active and another and most important place was Hamleys. I had no idea about this toy shop chain before as they don’t have any stores in Germany or Finland. Let’s just say the Hamleys store in Prague was a little wonder world (only 6.000 sqm…)for Nathan with a carousel in the middle of the shop, several slides (one going from the second floor down to the first!), many other different activities to offer, staff dressed up in some nice costumes and of course toys and more toys everywhere. I have no doubt Nathan could have spent the entire holiday there. When you are in Prague and have kids you need to visit that shop (okay, even without Nathan I would go there).

prag40 — The mighty Saint Vitus Cathedral

On our first day we went around the area of our hotel. I was rather happy that our hotel was just a few minutes away from the famous Wenceslas Square yet another tourist site. Everywhere in that area are restaurants so it was no problem at all to find a new place to eat for each day. However I must say that it was a bit odd that nearly every second restaurant is either Asian or Italian, just like Little Italy and China Town combined right there in the middle of the city. Yet I don’t want to complain as it allowed us to give in my wife’s cravings for Asian food every day and then allowing me to choose another restaurant for dinner (I never get to choose usually!). Each day we tried to visit a few main attractions in Prague so we did cover at least the Wenceslas Square, Prague Castle, the Old Town, Charles Bridge any many other place within walking distance from our hotel.

During the entire trip we wondered how this holiday would have been with MIL. For some reason wherever we go and she is with us it is just too much stress. We came to the conclusion that it must be because we do not only have to watch our for Nathan but for her as well. My wife once told me it is like having two children to look out for, with the older being mentally behind the younger one. I know sounds mean but Nathan knows the animals already better than his crazy Chinese grandmother.

prag35 — Do try some of the Trololo, I mean Trdelník which can be found all around the city

All in all I can say that Prague is a wonderful city and I can only recommend going there at least for a couple of days. The city has so much to offer from all the history, over the food and last but not least the beer. For us this was now the last trip we will take in a while due to some reasons to which I will come in some later blog post. I do hope that after 2017 we will be able to travel once again. Oh and sorry with the following flood of pictures.

I carried Nathan and his push car up these stairs just to find out afterwards that there was a road leading up on the other side

Panorama pic from the Charles Bridge towads the Prague Castle

Minecraft, sadly I wasn’t allowed to play by my wife

Have you been already to Prague or plan to go there at some point?

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Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Our cute son

A Weekend In The Middle Ages

September 18, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 30 Comments

Ever since we visited the big renaissance fair near my home town back in 2015 we wanted to get dressed up as well for these events. The very same year we got ourselves some clothes and equipment which we tested out last autumn. This year we went once again to the big medieval market near my hometown but it was such a rainy day that we did not enjoy it entirely. However we had another very very big renaissance fair in sight this year in Hamburg Öjendorf.

What is so special about this renaissance fair? Well it is just huge. Last year I wrote how big the market was we visited near my hometown but it is just dwarfed by this one in Hamburg. Huge is not even enough to explain it. The whole festival area was 30 hectares big, over 100 military camps with over 1500 people within them, over 200 market stalls, 5 music stages, a knight’s tournament arena with 10.000 seats and and and. For this event we got ourselves tickets not only for one day but for the whole weekend in orderto be able to see everything and with the hope to have at least one dry day. Yes, we bought the weekend ticket mainly because of the terrible weather this summer as the renaissance fair this May was kind of ruined by the rainstorms.

Right from the beginning we were overwhelmed by the size of the whole area. In fact you could not never see half of the area due to the layout and the amount of people there. I think I don’t need to mention anymore how differently people are dressing up for these events as you have everything there from knights over normal peasants to even unicorns…Nathan himself went once again as a monk and gained a lot of attention. The festival area had also many little stations for children with stacked straw bales fo them to go crazy. Nathan just loved it but he was still too small to climb up, yet alone to jump down from them. Surprisingly there were each time some kids helping him up and down non-stop so he was able to enjoy it nearly as much as the bigger children.

mpso6 — #Nathancuty just loved the handoperated wooden ferris wheel

I must say that even though we were two days there we did not see everything. Sure we managed to cover the whole area but there were different performances all over the area at different times so we missed rather many as it was a bit hard to go around and watch Nathan all the time. The biggest performances we missed once again this year which were the Pest Procession and the fire show during the night hours. One day we will manage to see those performances as the pictures I have seen about them are just stunning. We only need to figure out how to do it as we clearly can’t go with Nathan as it is just too late when they start. I am just glad that dear mother-in-law had just left us few days before this event. You can just imagine how crazy this weekend would have been with her there! Probably she would have been banned from the festival area in no time for trespassing the military camps or throwing her trash somewhere else than the trash bins.

As I have mention before we got ourselves the weekend ticket due to the unpredictable weather and it was a good decision as the first day we had sunshine and barely any wind with a following terrible rainstorm day. Even though the weather was so bad on the second day we still stayed for more than five hours there before starting our journey back home. Though it was a great experience I doubt we will go for another weekend like this again. It is just too exhausting in the end and my wife is not fond of doing her hairs and make-up on two days! I think it was a great end for us this season with the renaissance fairs. Next year we won’t be able to go to any but more about that at some later point this year.

Some little music performance with dancing

The festival is located in a park with a lake

Have you been “too long” at some event before?

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Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law, Our cute son, Travels

Holidays in Finland Part I

August 14, 2016 CrazyChineseFamily 39 Comments

First of all I am sorry for not posting any articles for the past three weeks but there were many things happening. During my “absence” we were two weeks in Finland and then the past week we were just too busy with work. At first I wanted to have only one blog post about our holidays in Finland but I quickly realized that I took first of all too many pictures and second that there is just such a clean-cut between our time at the cottage and those days spent in Helsinki. This first blog post about the holidays in Finland will be all about the days spent together with my parents at the cottage and next week will be about the four-day stay in Helsinki.

We had planned our holidays in Finland for some time as we wanted to meet up with some friends and because I also had to help with some things at the cottage. It was no trouble at all to find some good plane tickets but we somehow missed to check at first what time those flights would be. So we ended up arriving in Finland on a nice monday evening at 10pm! Sure it doesn’t sound that bad but the thing is that we had to get still to my parents cottage roughly 4 hours away by car. My dad picked us up with enough coffee in the thermos to keep me awake for the journey to the cottage. It wasn’t the most pleasant car ride I had as by the end of July the days were getting shorter again which meant it was nearly pitch black around midnight, half the trip we had heavy fog hindering us and worst of all we had to check non-stop for moose crossing the road. Yes moose as they are very common in Finland and they do love to come out of the forest at night to pester the roads leading to many dangerous situations which even end up deadly few times a year for both the animal and the person behind the steering wheel. Luckily we did not see any moose this time on the road but it still took a lot of energy to look around the whole car ride.

nummi14 — #Nathancuty making sure that his little cousin is not breaking the poor dolphin

Nathancuty, mother-in-law and my wife fell asleep pretty much as soon as we left the airport and only my dad stayed awake to keep me company while driving. The amazing thing is that as soon as we arrived at the cottage around 2:30 am Nathan decided to wake up and check out the whole place. It took over one hour to catch him running around and he was rather upset that we took him upstairs to sleep as he wanted to still spend time with his Mummo and Opa (Mummo is Finnish for grandmother and Opa is German for Grandfather). The following days meant work for me, a lot of work as I helped out with mowing the lawn, chopping wood, trying to get the outboard motor working again (I failed), cutting away reed in the lake with a scythe and last but not least making myself extra work by starting to build up a wall made out of large rocks. This might give you an idea that the days at the cottage was less holiday for me and more like a working camp. Besides all the work I also joined my father on the early morning bicycle rides around the lake, yes I had a full-time job there!

MIL, Nathancuty and my wife had a bit less to do. In fact they had a lot of free time there when they did not have to watch out for Nathan. That little fellow was rather keen in running around the cottage all the time, especially to the lake. Not that we don’ trust this big boy with his judgement when it comes to his non-existent swimming skills but it is better to make sure that he is fine. In their free time MIL, my wife and my dad went over to the neighbour’s property to harvest the area for raspberries. I believe they collected around 10 litres within a few days and my mother was fairly busy in making every day several jars of raspberry jam. We might be probably soon sick of raspberry jam as my parents come back to Germany next month with their car loaded with the sweet death in jars…

One of the exciting days was when my cousin came over with her three children. You might remember her little daughter from this post when Nathan was fairly jealous of all her hairs. Let’s just say he is probably even more jealous now as she is sporting a lot of hairs while as Nathan might be better off with a monk hairstyle. During all the time at the cottage my dear Chinese mother-in-law had also some stuff to discover. For one thing that ducks actually survive out there in the nature without her feeding them, that seagulls are not ducks and that a rabbit is not a deer. Yes you read it right, she actually thought one evening that she saw a deer on our property and even described it “It was this big (waving her arms in huge motions) and it had very very long legs”. The thing is that there are not deers in that part of Finland but she was very sure that it was no rabbit because “I know how rabbits look like, especially because you have those two bunnies!”. When we all went to investigate and she pointed to the place where she saw the deer a small rabbit came running out of the bushes and she was all like “Look there is the deer”. Got to love her own believe sometimes.

nummi6 — #Nathancuty driving a small tractor

During one of the last days we were invited for lunch by our cottage neighbours who own a farm about 30 driving minutes away. The farm is just huge and they had on a wall a document stating that the farm has been in their family since the 1670s! That is certainly a long line of farming business there but sadly it might soon end as it is just not profitable anymore these days. After a delicious lunch we went for a little walk around and also stoped by their Galloway cattle herd. Last time we had visited them back in 2014 when Nathan had is first encounter with them. The whole area was just breathtaking (not because of the smell from the farm!) and I do hope we can go there next year again. All in all I can say that it was something special for me to visit Finland again and spend time at the cottage. The house at the lake has been now in my family for 24 years and I spent every summer there in my youth so for me it is like a little safe haven, a place I will never forget.