Category Archives: Our cute son

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Our cute son

German Christmas Market

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Christmas time is Christmas Market time for us Germans. Every city, every town and every village has its own Market offering a nice little Christmassy atmosphere in the midst of the cold and grey time most of Germany is going through around now. So what is all there on such a market which makes it so special? First of all it is decorated nicely according to the season and furthermore it just smells like Christmas (except the heavily packed Glühwein stands/ booze markets). Henry Lee from Fotoeins has a very nice collection of Christmas Market impressions on his blog including this guide for the Cologne Christmas Markets. As you can see there the bigger cities even got several markets!

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My hometown is not playing in the big league when it comes to these markets but it is still pretty nice. As we live now for over two months in Germany and had not much time to do anything we decided to take a look at the local Christmas Market. First of all, it is surely not very big but still filled with people. Usually this city of Neumünster is practically empty after 6pm. We even have a saying for this kind of thing  in German “Ab 6 Uhr werden die Bürgersteige hochgeklappt <…>” and translates into “They roll up the sidewalks”. It really feels sometimes that all life stops during evening hours. Anyways during Christmas Market time this rule does not apply and people seem to enjoy their life and the Glühwein. This Glühwein is actually Mulled Wine but each country has its own variations. So far my favorite version is the Finnish Glöggi which is slightly different and much tastier than the German Glühwein.

 

DSC02405Here in Neumünster the market offers all kind of things to spent your time on such as the food and Glühwein Stalls as mentioned before but also an ice skating field, little amusement rides for children and then of course the big Christmas tree. Nathan was mostly interested in the people passing by and my wife was focused on the different foods offered (in the end she bought some grilled sausage with bread and a bowl of Mushrooms  in garlic sauce). I used this opportunity to get my very first Glühwein for the past four years and bought a drink called “Schneemann/ Snowman” which is basically just mulled wine with some mix of booze and then on top whipped cream. Now as a specialist in the Glühwein section (not!) I can say that the taste was pretty good but once again there was too much alcohol for my liking.

 

DSC02368I think as a family you can easily spend even in this little market one to two hours (always depending on the child) as there is much food to try and drinks to warm up your soul. Other people who are not so restricted by the mood swings of Junior can spend without problem half a day or more there. However this is usually depending on the thickness of the wallet as the prices are much higher than off-season. I can just recommend to anyone visiting Germany during this time of the year to take a look at one of the (too) many Christmas markets around. In case you go there with your children, no problem, just leave them for some time in the amusement rides while you discover the rest!

 

Crazy Family, Our cute son

Nathan’s World

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It is now already over seven months ago that our baby boy was born. These seven months have been pretty eventful for him and for us. He also managed to travel a bit around as he has been already to several countries. In his age I barely managed to travel with my parents to Finland  as I was apparently not the easiest backseat driver available.

 

WP_20140725_003His young traveling career started in April with a journey to Germany where he met for the first time his German grandparents and Uncle. There he also tamed wild Elephants and Tigers at Hagenbeck Zoo and got baptized in Hamburg. During the trip to Hagenbeck Zoo he really tried his best to blend in with the animals but in the end the Penguins discovered the fake one in their midst and kicked him out. Few months later Nathan went on a dangerous tour to Estonia to discover hidden secrets in the Old Town of Tallinn and realized it is so much cooler there than at home.

 

Back in Finland the wild swamps and forests of Western Finland were awaiting him asTwitter7ec2da3_jpg[1] well as fishing for monstrous pikes in a huge lake. It took a while to build up enough patience but in the end he succeeded by hauling in a pike longer than himself! Sadly the fishing rod could not withstand these forces and this was it for his fishing career in 2014.

In late summer the Island of Rhodes was welcoming him with adventurous days at the beach, diving trips on his father’s back for hidden treasures in the baby pool and relaxation at the fish spa. Just a bit over a month ago he turned his back to Finland and began a new life in Germany but not before saying farewell to his Finnish great grandparents . Not bad for a little baby but that is not all. Right now he is getting used to his new career as an architect by designing and supervising his own baby room in the new apartment.

 

WP_20140318_002But such a little monster is not easily satisfied with only a few career choices so he also decided to pick up modelling. This was at first rather hard as he looked like a mini version of Winston Churchill. To make it even worse for him this Churchill face will haunt him still for a while as it is used in both his Finnish and German passport for the next five years, poor baby. However Nathan is able to use this for his own career boost as his pictures as Mini Winston Churchill are great for “Before and After” slideshows.

 

Nowadays he resembles more a tiny human being and is rather popular with the ladies! Each day his crazy MTXX_20140726_190314Chinese grandma wants a video chat as well as his aunty from Japan. The interesting thing is that especially the Japanese aunty had only every few months contact with us  but now our little boy is dragged in front of the phone nearly every single day to look cute and stuff. By now he also has his own fan club on Chinese forums and on Weibo, good job Nathan, I never thought you would pick up Social Media Marketing this quick….well, the youth these days seem to get used to all this tech stuff much faster than us. Thankfullly he is still far away from his Chinese stalkers but as soon as he decides to advance his travels to China he might has to hire his own bodyguard (probably me).

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

Holidays in Greece

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WP_20140803_16_28_08_ProThe past week I was with my little family on holidays in Greece, to be more precise on the famous island Rhodes. Right from the beginning I must admit that we were more of the lazy tourists kind as we did not go out to see any sights such as the city of Rhodes itself. Okay, maybe not only because we were lazy but because traveling with a little baby in +35 degrees celsius/ 95 degrees fahrenheit is not really the smartest option (hey, I need at least some kind of excuse for just sleeping at the beach…).

 

Our plane left Helsinki on sunday afternoon and we arrived in our hotel room in late evening hours. Due to the late arrival we had no dinner but we had a great view over Rhodes (city) by night which is pretty impressive! The hotel itself was advertised as a family hotel and there were a lot of families with their young kids there. The hotel/ trip organizer offered for kids a daycare option to give the exhausted parents some rest. This was no option for us a Nathan is just too young for that and anyways he is perfectly happy by eating and sleeping the entire day.

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View from the beach

 

Our days were actually really busy even though we had mostly nothing but being at the beach, at the pool, eat and go during evening hours to the nearby village. For me being lazy and at the same time to be feeling busy and exhausted at the end of the day is something new to me! Usually I went for a short 2km swim in the “action” pool each morning before breakfast, went with my wife and baby to the beach and later on to the pool area and finished the day with a great dinner and stroll around the village.This was the first real holiday I have ever had. Before I only went to sunny places for swimming camps, in my childhood I went during summer holidays to our cottage which is in the end mostly work and the China trips were usually to be with the Chinese family, eat a lot and go overweight back to Finland.

 

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Someone wants some dessert?

 

Remember that my wife belongs to that Chinese majority who can’t swim (I know, it’s very embarrassing for me as a former professional swimmer)? As she really wanted to enjoy the ocean as well we got her an air mattress to float at the shore. No, she was never in rhodos5danger as I watched out that nothing happened and besides, she was also only as far as her feet could touch the ground. To her dismay her skin got tanned! To my amusement no day passed where she didn’t complain about her dark skin (he he!). Now you may wonder what did little Nathan do the entire time. He sometimes enjoyed the pool in his full body suit and extra thick layer of sun screen and of course mostly only in shadowed areas or slept in his stroller always nearby us. As he can not speak for himself yet I must say that he looked pretty damn happy when going for a little swim with me. At least the different crazy sounds he can do were all of the happy kind, not the upset heartbreaking kind.

 

During our time spent at the beach we got to know another Chinese guy who is going from beach to beach and offering massage for the tourists. At first we thought he might be employed by the hotel but later on he told us his not so happy tale. As many other Chinese in Greece he came illegally to the country to find work. Before the economic crises it was actually pretty okay till he lost his job and ended up doing the massage at the beach during summer times. This apparently happened to many other Chinese and there are whole crews going around, waving their little pamphlet with the prices of the different massages. He said also that the bigger beaches are mostly controlled by Chinese black society (when it comes to services Chinese can offer there) which leaves people like him only some smaller beaches with less business possibilities. He also wants to go back to China but he first wants to make a little profit before going back as the illegal way of getting out of China is very expensive. I just hope for him, the other Chinese and any other people who suffered due to the economic crises there that their situation will improve again over time.

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Hotel area by night

 

What else to say about this trip other than it was pretty much perfect for us? The food was great, the area was wonderful and everything was working out well. Everything? Okay, there was this issue with the terrible internet connection which was driving me insane sometimes but then again it was a holiday, so why did I care so much about having a good internet connection and getting annoyed by not being upload stupid pictures to twitter…who knows…

 

Anyways, I am very glad we took this trip and I am also surprised that everything went to easy with Nathan as you usually hear that it can get pretty rough to travel with a baby.