Tag Archives: chinese in germany

Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Mom in Law

At the City Festival

June 14, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 20 Comments

Every year in the beginning of June there is here in Neumünster the city festival called Holstenköste. It is a four-day event with several music stages around the city center, food/ drink stalls and funfair rides. I haven’t been at this festival since 2005 as that was the year I moved away from here. Even though my hometown is pretty boring they still do good with this festival. This year the festival had at least during the first two days wonderful sunshine so it was pretty packed there. After those initial two days there was just a rain and we didn’t even bother going there on those days.

The whole event was first held in 1974 and evolved to the current size over the years. This city festival is pretty much THE EVENT OF THE YEAR for many people living here. But of course other cities also got their own festivals such as the Kieler Woche which is around two weeks after my hometowns festival and much much bigger. Talking about size, this city festival here attracts roughly 200.000 people during those four days, not bad for such a boring town I would say.

Besides all the delicious food everywhere on the festival area there are also those funfair rides. It was Nathan’s first time being in one and he looked rather confused. We also went to the ferris wheel which is one of the main marks of the festival for a few decades already. You know, I am terribly afraid of heights and that the cabins of the ferris wheel were open didn’t help either. However I managed rather well and wasn’t afraid at all this time, am I evolving? We were there with several friends of my wife and we all went to the ferris wheel except of MIL who seemed very afraid of it. Nathan was just Nathan and sat the entire time in my lap looking bored, I guess as a baby you just don’t care if you are suddenly around 50m in the air…

koeste12 — Confused Nathan and friend + MIL’s head

It is too bad about the terrible weather during the last two days of the festival but there is always another year, and another and another. As mentioned before there is another festival in the next city soon as we will most likely try to go there as it is even bigger. I am really wondering what my Chinese mother-in-law thinks about these events and about the food. In her opinion she can make any food we ate so far much better than the restaurants but somehow she hasn’t even started yet to make and of those dishes. Even stranger, she never says she can make better food than the restaurants in China, or perhaps she tried and failed and thus doesn’t want to mention it anymore. MIL is full of mysteries it seems.

Does your city got a similar festival?

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Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Family, Travels

A Perfect Day in Flensburg

June 7, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 21 Comments

As we had finally sunshine here in Germany we decided to have a day at another city. My task was to decide which city to visit and I quickly came up with Flensburg. I had been very often there over the years as a very good friend lived there and so I knew at least a bit about what places to check out. Flensburg is roughly one hour away by car from my hometown and is located just a few kilometers away from the Danish border. Initially we planned to have a short stop in Denmark but decided against it as there was just not enough time.

The day started pretty troublesome as we overslept and could not leave till 12 which meant that several hours of precious weekend time were lost. However once on our way everything went well, no traffic jams or the like and we arrived after less than an hour in Flensburg city center. I parked in the harbour area and from there we walked by the sea-side searching for a nice place to eat. Basically we did not even search as we just took the first restaurant with many people sitting outside and a good choice it was. The restaurant was the “Hansens Brauerei” and some of you who might understand little German can see from the name it is a brewery. In fact it is also Germans northernmost brewery as it is a bit more in the north than the bigger Flensburger Brewery. So this place did not only have superb food but also great beer, double yay for me. This food was especially great for as it meant one less lunch served by MIL…

After being stuffed to the brim we continued our trip through the city. The inner city (Altstadt) is very beautiful because there are so many old structures still standing unlike many other cities here. The reason for this is that Flensburg only suffered small damages during WWII through the bombings. For example my hometown has barely any old buildings left as most of the city was destroyed during the war. I must admit that my hometown looks like a grey ugly thing compared to this city but then again there is also a reason why my hometown has been voted before the ugliest city in this state but that is stuff for another time.

flens13 — One of the many historical buildings

Both my wife and my crazy Chinese mother-in-law were fascinated by the Old Town in which also the long shopping street is located. Not only it is full of historical buildings but it is also the place in the city with the most people due to the shopping area and has many sightseeing spots such as several churches, museums and other points of interest. What else makes this city so interesting? Well it used to be a major trading port after the collapse of the Hanse in the 16th century and thus many special things started such as the local Rum production. Here you can find a so-called Rum and Sugar Mile in which all Rum/ Alcohol and sugar production sites are listed and can be visited by eager tourists. We did not follow it but saw several shops selling Rum and the Hansens Brauerei were we had our lunch is also part of this Rum and Sugar Mile.

As we had only limited time due to us oversleeping in the morning we could only have a short tour through the Old Town including a short stop for some nice ice cream and then headed out to visit Glücksburg, the northernmost city in Germany. The only reason for going there was to visit the Glücksburg Castle which was built from 1582 to 1587. It is certainly not the most impressive castle in the world but I wanted to see it already for many years and this trip to Flensburg was the perfect opportunity as it is just few kilometres away from the city. The castle is nearly entirely surrounded by a huge pond which was created as a defence system back in the day. Sadly we could not enter as it was too late when we arrived and thus we started our tour back home after taking few pictures there.

My food, as you can see my wife is not the best when it comes to take pictures of food…

MIL wanted to collect these mussels and a jellyfish to raise them in my aquarium (she has not realized yet that there is a differene between sea and fresh water)

Yes, Flensburg is also famous for its beer

Wife and MIL discussing something useless

MIL running like a pinguin and making her famous monkey face

Have you ever visited a city and got the feeling that you want to move there? Have you ever visited any castle?

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Crazy Euopean People

Spring has come

May 6, 2015 CrazyChineseFamily 27 Comments

After ages of grey skies, wind and rain we finally could welcome spring here in my hometown. Today was the first day with actually sunshine and blue sky and in addition the trees are turning green again. The cherry tree at our building bloomed last week, pretty much later than in other parts of the world but still it bloomed and now it fills the paths with an ocean of pink petals.

spring1 — Rhododendron, Cherry tree and the lovely trash area in the background

Also the street we live at turning from its wintery grey into something more cheerful. Now it is once again pleasant to live the apartment and discover the “world”.