Christmas in Veltheim


Train ride to Bastian's parents. We were super excited to finally see our family... The train ride from Zurich is a long 7 hours and we could not resist when there was an announcement noting that German 'Currywurst' is served in the train restaurant ;-)

Its always nice to come back home and the christmas season in Veltheim is always full of traditions. One of them is our walk around Lake Veronica. 

Another thing that we always do is a trip to the Weihnachtsmarkt in Braunschweig and of course eating lots of the specialties such as those lovely Poffertjes...

And yes, same procedure as every year, we went to the local restaurant called Lindenhof where the owner 'Friwi' serves the best Currywurst (in the world!). Oh, by the way, I had two of them this year!!!  

At the Wolff family, christmas time is always the time for board games. Usually everyone is getting up early in the  morning and shortly after breakfast, the first board game is on the table...

We also watched some games... This year, Bastian's favorite football team, Eintracht Braunschweig, was promoted to 2. Bundesliga and we spend 90-minutes freezing our butts off for a boring 1:1 score.

What was special this year was our daytrip to Berlin. We hadn't been for about 10 years and were keen to see how German's capital had developed. First stop Reichstag, the German parliament ...

We wanted to go up, but no need to wait in the long queue as we made a reservation at the restaurant on top. The cupola of the German Reichstag Building is a great place to have a panoramic view of Berlin. 

When we were back down, we got slightly lost and walked past the back entrance of the Reichstag. By pure chance, a familiar looking lady walked out the door... We were like, hey, is this...? Yes, it was Angie, our chancellor and arguably the most powerful women in the world walking right in front of us.  

After our meeting Angie, we walked over to the Holocaust Memorial, a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Its designed by Peter Eisenman and consists of 2711 concrete slabs.

Then, Brandenburger Tor, Friedrichstrasse, Checkpoint Charlie, Alexanderplatz and so on... Berlin is a city of so much history and culture that you can easily spend a few days!

We had a wonderful time with Bastian's parents and we will definitely be back. It's unbelievable how much Berlin has changed from the last time we both went.


Finally, Christmas Eve was approaching and as always Bastian, his parents and brother Alexander celebrated together, while I was with my family in Soest.

 

 

Thanks so much to Bastian's parents for taking such good care of us... Too bad that Bastian and I could not see his sisters and nephews & nieces this year.

Work in Switzerland

In early December Bastian and I spent a few days in Switzerland for work. We came in on Sunday and spend the afternoon in Zurich for shopping and eating... 

Our favorites are the Vermicelles with chocolate and cream from Globus ;-)

For the weekend, we drove to St. Moritz with our friends Fabian and Jolie. It was the perfect getaway after a stressful week at work.

It was Fabian's birthday and Jolie organized us a very good rate at the Kempinski hotel which looks like a fairytale castle.

While the boys got some work done, Jolie and I took some were practicing with our cameras. 

In the evening, we went for a bit of luxury at the Palace Hotel where Jolie made a reservation for Fabian's birthday dinner. Fabian got surprised with a cake... what a nice evening!

 

 

Day 3 & 4: Ningaloo Reef

From Carnarvon, its another 400 km North to Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef, with its white sandy beaches and crystal-clear lagoons. Nothing better than to end our trip right here... It was a great day and we made our first stop at Coral Bay.

In the afternoon, we checked out Turquoise Bay where we went for a snorkel. Turquoise Bay is a 'drift snorkel' wherein you enter the water at one point on the beach, and the current that is prevalent at that part of the reef carries you over the spectacular coral reef.  The current on that day was strong and Bastian needed to pull me out of the water at some point... 

After we got out of the water Bastian explained me that if we hadn't made it to the shore by a very specific point at the drift snorkel, there is a remote (but very real) possibility that we could get swept out through a gap in the reef into the open ocean. What he also did not tell me before was this video that he found on youtube showing a huge shark swimming at the exact point where we were snorkeling. Scary!!!

After all the action, we were ready to chill out... On the way we saw a family of Emus and lots of other wildlife. Its been so much fun just driving around and seeing all those wild animals.

We drove up to the Vlamingh Lighthouse where we had spectacular views of the entire cape. At certain times of the year, you are able to see Whales from here...

To increase our chances, we went to the Marina and jumped on a boat that was offering Whale watching tours. We were going for the big ones, the Humpback Whales which can get a length of up to 16m. We were lucky and saw few mothers and their calves cruising along and taking a breather... 

We had so much fun and we couldn't get enough. Before returning our lovely car and flying back to Perth, we took a few nice shots of the white dunes at the Ningaloo Reef. What a great vacation!!!