Tag Archives: family

Crazy Family, Crazy Germans, Me, Travels

Plans for the rest of the Year

July 16, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 27 Comments

Over half of the year 2017 is over and much has already happened. Untill the birth of our daughter in May we were very busy trying to “stabilising” our little business. From January till the beginning of May we were investing so much time into our business that we had no time to do anything else. We did not travel anywhere, we didn’t visit any neighbouring towns, we did not even go shopping or eating in some nice restaurant (with the exception of birthdays and the weekend Family Gathering in March).

Basically all we did was work and spend the little free time with Nathan. Due to our work we do not even have any free weekends which can be sometimes very hard when the work seems to have no end. By the time our baby girl was born we had reduced the workload already in order for my wife to find some rest. However it was just reduced workload and thus just two days after Nathalie was born I started working again. Now two months after our family grew by one we started to wonder what we can do to enjoy life a bit more once again after those hard months.

No, we won’t have any big travels planned such as last year. However we have some smaller trips planned already within Germany. For one we want for Nathan to have some more fun by going to a little theme park in the next few weeks. That theme park is perfect for little kids like him as he can pretty much go into every amusement ride as there aren’t any “wild” ones and there is also a deer park! Besides the theme park we will go to a few cities this summer such as revisiting Lübeck and Flensburg for some day trips. In August we have then our “biggest” trip which will lead us to the dark East of Germany.

That big trip developed only because I got an invitation for a Class reunion from my high school in Chemnitz (East Germany). As my wife had no interest in going there at all just for some reunion I had to come up with some plan. So now we will be driving first to Quedlingburg which is a very old town first mentioned in the records in 922 AD. The old town, the church and the castle are on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1994. I was there already once back in 1994 or 1995 with my parents and brother but I do not remember much of it anymore. There we will stay for one night right in the historic old town and then on the following day travel to Chemnitz. Except meeting with some friends and then having later on the reunion I have not planned anything yet. The problem for me with Chemnitz is just that I have no clue what to visit there even though I lived there for two years from 2005-2007.

My father on his way to his old home in 1991

In the late summer we will be trying to travel for a weekend to Poland to revisit my father’s birthplace Kołczewo on the Island Usedom. That trip will be especially important for my father as he had revisited that place only twice before, both between 1990 and 1991.He has not much memories from that place as he was very young when his family had to flee back in 1945 and become refugees till settling down in my hometown (they were living in camps for the first few years here). After that trip we will have only a few more day trips in mind. For us it is only important to get out of the daily routine from time to time. Next year shall be different again for us and I will write about it at some point towards the end of this year.

1990 My father carrying me in front of the old family house. The child standing there belongs to the “new” residents, let’s see if they are still there this year

What are your plans for the second half of 2017?

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, Travels

Family Fishing Tour

April 4, 2017 CrazyChineseFamily 28 Comments

Back in the day my family used to do a lot together such as going on holidays or simply meeting once in a while. Those days where all before I was born. Back then my brother Ulf went sometimes with his uncle and cousins for holidays abroad, went out eating and most importantly he and his cousin Frank had some little fishing tours. Both were still young in those days and as they got older they did not meet up for fishing any longer. Certainly my brother and his cousins still had contact during the past 30 years but it was not that much as before.

What a wonderful and interesting landscape

Last month we had our first Family Gathering since 2005. There my brother and cousin Frank somehow got to talk about fishing again. Thing is my brother did not fish since the old days but Frank stepped up the game and has caught pretty much every possible fish available in Northern Germany and Denmark. When he talked during the gathering about the past years and especially about fishing it sparked something in my brother again. Somehow I also got again interest in fishing (which I did sometimes in Finland with some old and cheap equipment) and shortly after the gathering we had a Fishing Family Group Chat on WhatsApp.

Walking over those rocks with all the equipment is not the easiest thing in the world

This all developed further within short time and for my birthday I got from my brother some new and very good fishing equipment. After that we all decided on a date on which we would meet up in Flensburg (where my cousin lives) and from there to Denmark for a daylong fishing tour at the Baltic Sea. This trip was going to be the first I did without my wife ever since we got together in 2010. Good thing that my brother decided that we should go a day earlier to Flensburg as we had a lot to prepare and to be able to arrive in Denmark as early as possible. Thing is we underestimated how much we had to prepare and in the end we all went sleeping around 1:30 am and had to wake up at 4:30 am! I can tell you that those few hours of sleep did not really give us enough rest for the rest of the day.

Last look at the sea before returning home

We left for Denmark shortly after 5am and drove to some “top spots” our cousin recommended as he had caught some nice fishes there over the past years. We all were so enthusiastic and excited when we arrived at the first location, not only because of the possibility of catching some fish but also because it was something we did together as a family. Quickly my brother and I got into our wetsuits and went into the sea. Let’s just say it was not the most successful fishing day for all of us as we did not catch any fish the entire day. We did not even spot any fish but at least we were not the only ones as all other fishermen we met had the same bad luck on that day.

Even though we did not catch anything is was still an enjoyable day. First of all because we spent the day together and then also because of the wonderful nature all around us. I mean look at the great landscape in those pictures! Sure it was a bit disappointing to come back home in the evening empty-handed but nonetheless it felt great to come back home totally exhausted from fishing the entire day. Will I do such trip again? Definitely! In fact we are planning for another trip in the end of this month however it is not sure yet whether I will go as my wife and I are expecting soon our baby girl to be born.

Have you tried fishing?

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

https://www.youtube.com/

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family

Our Wedding in Finland

May 25, 2014 CrazyChineseFamily 34 Comments

In one of the previous articles I wrote about our wedding in China and how I experienced it. Now it is time to present you our wedding in Finland!

Last summer we had first a “little” wedding in China which was pretty much stressful experience but also at the same time very interesting. About three weeks later we had our wedding in Finland which had been planned for nearly a year by my wife. However unlike in China, we had instead of 100 guests only 50 but at least we knew each single person there! Besides it would have exceeded our financial limits to invite anybody more as Finland is not exactly known to be a cheap country.

Our guests included of course both of our parents and much of my family from Finland and Sweden. In addition my brother was flown in with his girlfriend from Germany. The tricky part was to invite our friends as we had only limited capacities which meant we couldn’t just invite everybody we know but had to be very selective. My wife invited some of her friends she knew for years in Finland and also several friends from her work place. I on the other hand invited several dudes from my swimming years in Finland, one guy from my old swimming team in Germany and last but not least my best friend from my youth who extra came from California for this event.

The couple of days prior to the wedding were more than just stressful. The location of the wedding reception had to be prepared, people had to be picked up from the airport and delivered at the hotel and of course my wife and I still had yet to start practicing our wedding dance! The night before the wedding we also met at the hotel with some of the guests to have a DIY dinner consisting of potatoe salad, sausages and jiaozi 饺子. This dinner allowed us also to get some dancing practicedone as my uncle from Sweden used to be a dancer. Not that we practiced alot but at least we learned the basic steps.

Things became even crazier on the wedding day itself. It started very early in the morning, I had to pick up one bridesmaid from Helsinki city center so she could help prepare my wife with hairs, make-up and her dress. My own preparations were a bit less exiting as there is not much to do except to suit up and put the hairs into a less messy state. However there was still much to do at the wedding reception because one of our guests changed plans and would not come, my wife had to invite somebody else and my task was to come up with a new seating arrangement + getting the technic to work for the picture screening. This meant I drove very often between our home and the wedding reception, building up more and more stress as time was running out. I do not know how but in the end we managed to be in time at the church. I believe this included several speeding violations on my behalf.

Already one year before the wedding we were trying to find the perfect church for us and booked it in advance together with the wedding reception in a manor house near our home (they only had two weekends still free for us at that point, one year before!). Thankfully nothing out of the ordinary happened at the church, not even a crying baby! Our pastor was holding the ceremony in Finnish and in English and in the end we received also a bible in those languages from her.

Once we arrived at the wedding reception it was time for some photo shooting, relaxing in the sun and welcoming all the guests before entering the premises. One of my wife’s bridesmaids was the MC doing everything in English, then another bridesmaid was translating everything into Finnish and one of my groomsmen was translating into German and Chinese, hence we had all needed languages covered. Thanks to the MC there was always something going on which resulted that no one was getting bored. She had prepared a full program for that day and it was planned in a way that it allowed much free time between the sections for the guest to get some rest, mingle and pick up few drinks from our car. We had a lot of games, very good food and a wedding dance which was okay for practicing only 15 min before. The celebrations lasted well into the night and in the end we could get our well-deserved rest in the hotel at the manor house. All in all I can say it was a great day, sure it was exhausting but it went very well and thus was a nice experience.

Here are some more pictures from that day. I will still try to find a picture from our invitation cards which we had purchased before from China.