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

Holidays in Finland Part I

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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.

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View on the lake

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.

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#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!

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Wonderful nature everywhere

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…

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Are you talking to me?

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.

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#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.

Where have you been this summer?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

 

 

Crazy Family, Mom in Law

Living in a world of your own

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Everyone was already in a situation where you thought you did something such as paying some bill but in the end you basically forgot to do it.  This can be rather annoying at time because you were at first 100% sure you did pay the bill which makes it even more frustrating to see that you were wrong in the end. Let me tell you there is nothing bad about it as it happens more often than not to me, especially when it comes to bringing the trash out (could be also my mind is doing it on purpose because who really likes to bring out the trash…). However this can be also very aggravating when it does happen to a person all the time and thus not only causes delay in doing certain things but also waste your time.

 

Who could I possibly talk about? My dear mother-in-law of course! I mentioned in various posts before that she is a rather odd person who is always right. No matter how clear it is that she did something wrong she is always able to blame others for it or it never ever happened. The thing is it wasn’t bothering me/ us so much as we didn’t have to depend too much on her most of the times but this changed a bit over time as she also started to visit us each year for three months and so on. Of course it wouldn’t matter at all in case these things were about trivial stuff but it usually always happens when it is about important or urgent matters.

I am making you brain dead as well!

Last time my wife was with Nathan in China she wanted to take some cash with her to Germany. Okay no problem there as she just had to go to bank with her mother (as the money is on her account) and withdraw some Euros. Now the problem wasn’t with getting the money but to find it again before flying to Germany. Few days before my wife and Nathan were about to fly back she started to pack and noticed that the cash vanished. She went to her mother and asked her where it could be. So MIL told that she gave it to her. Okay no trouble there but my wife couldn’t remember this at all so she asked her again. MIL then explained step by step how she gave the money to her when they arrived in the apartment. She even explained how she was giving it and with which hand. But as my wife couldn’t remember this at all MIL was just like “I gave it to you so it is your problem now!”. OKAY…according to my wife this went on for several hours until MIL finally decided to check her closet for something and voilà: THE FREAKING MONEY WAS WITH HER STUFF!!! Basically dear mother-in-law just created her own world once again and made up this story while she actually put the money to her closet and never gave it to my wife.

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Just for fun, a big fish (according to MIL)

Another example just to show you MIL’s insanity happened few weeks ago. As you might know both my wife and I have a little business (okay mostly my wife as I was just too ill to get anything done so far but things are slowly improving for me). All of our customers are from China so my wife has to send packages there every week. In case people buy some smaller amount my wife waits for a bit and then sends a big package to her parents containing stuff of several customers who had smaller orders. These things then are being put into smaller packages by MIL and then send to the customer. This actually sounds more complicated than it is because my wife strictly separates each of the items which belong to one customer and attached the name and address of this person. So all MIL has to do is to take it out, put it into some smaller packages (in case my wife didn’t put it already into some smaller boxes), attach the address of the buyer and give to some logistic company. Well well there is not really ever anything easy when it comes to MIL.

Few weeks ago my wife sent such a package containing the items of several buyers but there was one item without an adress as the buyer was just moving to a new place. The customer then sent few days later the new address to my wife and there was so far no problem. But the trouble of course started when my wife called her mother and gave the address for this last package. MIL was like “What package? I sent everything already away! There is nothing here!” WHAT??? How is this possible as there was this one package without any address! MIL was 100% sure that she sent this package but she didn’t remember any longer to whom. My wife then spent the whole day trying to figure out where on earth her mother could have sent this box. Late in the evening MIL then contacted my wife “Oh, by the way I found the missing box, it was with my stuff”. Guess how furious my wife was after wasting a whole day trying to track down where the box could be.

In the end father-in-law’s words ring too true “She is just crazy, she lives in a world of her own” and “She is able to bend reality and thus the truth to her own liking, she is never wrong about anything. Just crazy, you know”.  This poor man living with her for so many decades, no wonder he developed several OCD’s over the years.

Do you know someone who creates her/ his own reality when it comes to such things?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts. Furthermore I also have a YouTube Channel in which some videos might pop up from time to time

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family

My Parents first trip to China

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In the year of 2011 was my first visit to China. Nothing too special about that but it was also the first time (and only time thus far) that my parents visited China. Through this Guest Post by my wife you learned already few basics about my dear mother. As you can imagine the whole idea of visiting China was not a dream of my mother. She was scared of the country itself, the many people, the food, the hygiene, the plane, getting lost at the airport and did I mentioned the food before? My father on the other hand was really excited about this trip. He pretty much didn’tt care at all about all the things my mother was scared of except one thing, public toilets in China. My old man is not the youngest anymore, meaning that any kind of “squatting” his pretty much impossible for him.

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Picture at the Drum Tower

Everything started during spring time when we had the great idea to have our engagement dinner in China, together with the whole family. As a joke my wife suggested that I should invite my parents as well. I kinda didn’t get the joke and actually asked my parents. My mom was shocked, and said she wouldn’t even board the plane and my father wanted to know the details already on the phone. Three months later my wife and I were waiting in Xi’an for my parents to arrive at the airport and of course my parents actually arrived without any harm (just a bit exhausted).

The entire trip to China was already an adventure worth writing a very own article about. Lets just say it involved them not being able to park the car at Helsinki airport, hearing their names mentioned through the airport announcements about gates being closed, having very noisy people on the plane, arriving at Beijing and being lost, mobile phone without service and thus not being able to call us for help, not being able to ask for help as they only speak German and Finnish,  a changed gate to Xi’an at Beijing airport and running all over Beijing airport…

 

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Arrival in Xi’an

Anyways my parents arrived during late afternoon and were welcomed by my in-laws and family friends. Already during the first evening we had a program planned for them (even though they were pretty exhausted). We visited the fountain show at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda with a short tour around the surrounding area and of course a big dinner. As you can imagine dinner time meant horror time for my dear mother and MIL was not exactly helpful in this situation either as she just piled up more food on my mothers plate. Mom ate always bravely the plate empty, without having a clue what food it was, and MIL piled up more…

 

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During the one week in Xi’an we visited together most of the main attraction such as the Terracotta Army, the Tang Paradise, Tang Dynasty Dinner & Show, Drum and Bell Tower and also the Muslim Quarter. My parents both got a new hairstyle plus massage at a hairdresser, a full body massage (my father with cupping) and a lot of food. For my mother at least one dream got fulfilled, she got a silk shirt tailored, something which is of course also possible in Europe but usually very very expensive.

 

Import_020I am not sure anymore what we all ate but it was very much. The engagement dinner was interesting as we had also Camel served which I didn’t mention to my parents until the dinner was done. Otherwise it was pretty uneventful, probably due to the exact planning by my wife who had an “activity plan” done already weeks before the trip. In the end we also spent one day in Beijing and did a little sightseeing tour. Beijing has mixed feelings when I think back due to the fact that we never could get any taxi and then we a wild “black taxi” trip back to the hotel.

In the end I can say that it was a nice trip but a bit too exhausting for my parents. We had too much in the program and it all involved walking around a great deal. To make it worse it was during Juli, meaning temperatures to make the asphalt on the streets melt. Furthermore my mother couldn’t handle the air-condition and ended up getting sick in the end and suffered the last day when flying from Xi’an to Beijing. For the next time they come to China (my mother doesn’t know about her luck yet) we have planned a much more relaxing holiday for them with trips to the nearby hot springs and it will be either during spring time or during autumn to escape the hot summer.