Shoshana's big day and some previous pictures

Today is Shabbat March 29, 2008 and Shoshana's big day!!! I can't believe that my little baby girl is having her Bat Mitzvah already...

The whole event started yesterday night when all the out-of-towners came over for Shabbat dinner. Fortunately there was a catering service so we could all be lazy and just relax and enjoy the food. There were about 45 people but I didn't recognize many of them (although the other Au Pairs told me afterwards that I had lively discussions with some of them 7 years ago -my memory is really bad, other people remember more things about my life than I do!). Anyways, I had some nice chats with other family members and the other Au Pairs (4 out of 8 actually came to this Bat Mitzvah).

This morning we went to Synagogue and Shoshana had to read from the Torah and say many prayers by herself. She prepared for this day for many years now (learning Hebrew and so on) and she did a great job. Then she also gave a speech and she was just amazing - Miss Entertainment that she has always been! I was really proud of her. The service lasted for more than 3 hours and we were pretty hungry by the time lunch was served. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures, but I will for sure take many tonight. Now we are back home and have a few hours to relax before the big party starts tonight.

I uploaded some pictures from the previous week below - enjoy:

Alena, myself and the other Anne (who was the first Au Pair in the family)



I can still cuddle Sam (without him running away and being embarrassed - at least he doesn't show it)!!!!



Our day at the Harbor - all former Au Pairs and Shoshana went to the Harbor (that is Baltimore's city center) one afternoon. The picture shows Anne, Shoshana, myself and Sandra (Au Pair number 7)



Myself and Shoshana in front of the lighthouse at the Harbor.






















The city center's landmark: this nice building that hosts the Hard Rock Cafe, Barnes & Noble as well as Starbucks all in one!






















Shoshana eating chocolate icecream. Pay attention to her mouth - some things just never change! Good thing I brought many tissues.



Anne, Sam and Amy ready to leave for Shoshana's Bat Mitzvah service.



Sam and myself while everybody is waiting for Shoshana to get ready.



And here she is: Shoshana Beth ready to leave and all dressed up!

Greetings from Baltimore!

I just wanted to let you know that I arrived safely in Baltimore! Well, kind of safely... Our flight to New York, where we had to change planes, was so bumpy that even the flight attendants felt sick - imagine my stomach! Then we had a two hour delay on our flight to Baltimore, but we were happy to arrive at all since the plane was not very trustworthy (or let's put it like this: the two propellers that seemed like the main force of our plane kind of irritated me...).

At the airport Alena and Shoshana picked us up and it was kind of weird to have your host-daughter (that was 12 years when I first arrived) driving you around :-) Anyways, I am sure she is a better driver than I am! It is really nice to be back and actually it feels to me like I have never been away. Okay, the children grew up and are taller than I am, but it still feels the same. Of course, it is nice to have them cooking for us now and cleaning up after dinner etc.

We have been busy with some final preparations for the Bat Mitzvah, most of it creative stuff (so you can imagine that I feel kind of out of place, but I decided to just manage all these creative people and be responsible for the quality management :-)).

I didn't take any pictures yet, but I will get my camera now and then upload some later tonight or tomorrow! There are not many plans for these days and it is really nice to just hang out and be lazy like back then in the good old Au Pair times. Amy and Steve thought it is getting too much and arranged for some theater tickets tonight :-)

Leaving Germany

I finally get to move!!! Okay, it is not the big trip yet, but I am getting closer :-) I am heading to Düsseldorf today to stay overnight at my friend's (also called Anne) place and tomorrow morning we are flying to Baltimore. I already packed my backpack and, funny enough, I am taking more clothes than I will be taking on my three months trip...

In Baltimore, I will be staying with my host-family that I lived with for one year when I was 18 years old. I was working as an Au Pair back then and by now I didn't see them for nearly six years... The kids are grown up and the smallest one (which was 5 years old when I originally arrived!) will be turning 14 this year and has her Bat Mitzvah next weekend. We will stay in Baltimore for about a week and then head to New York for a few days before flying back home.

This is me and my host-family in 2001, I will post a current picture once I am there - so you can compare :-)

And it is snowing like crazy in Germany! The pictures below show the view from my window when I woke up this morning - good thing I don't have to look for hidden sweets and eggs in our garden anymore... Happy Easter!

Chinese Wet Markets

Okay, there is not much happening here in Germany (except that it was snowing today!), so I will just show you some pictures from a typical Chinese wet market (sorry to my Chinese / Hong Kong friends, I know this is quite boring for you...). To be honest, these pictures were taken in Hong Kong, so they are not completely typical - in some more rural areas of Mainland China I did see fresh dogs in these kind of markets :-)

Let's start with something familiar - the meat section (except that they probably wouldn't present the pig heads this way in Germany).

Now it is getting weird...

Chicken feet! People here enjoy eating chicken feet and to my shame, I have to admit that I never tried them (I just couldn't get rid of the pictures in my head of our dirty chicken and all the stuff they actually do with their feet ) :-(

Toads! These ones I actually tried, but by accident. After a wonderful hotpot dinner with my friends, they ordered this most delicious desert which I thought was plain coconut. It was indeed coconut, only that they added some toad fat so it would taste even better... Why would you do that?!?!? Anyways, I am happy I only found out after eating it, because it was delicious indeed.

These poor guys are tied up...

So let's move to the fish section now! As you can imagine, sea food is quite famous in Hong Kong.

Kissing fish!

Somehow, these guys seem to be sad :-(

Everything is prepared freshly - the guys on the right were still moving (or at least the parts of them).

And this is how it works: you select the fish you want to buy, this gentleman gets it out of the water and then prepares it just in front of you (he is amazingly quick!).

Chinese people also like dried stuff - here: dried big, small and tiny fish.

Dried squid...

And even dried (and flat) duck!

All flights booked!!!

Yippie!!!! I finally booked all my flights for the coming months!! Many of you have been asking me for quite a while when exactly I will be in what place. So far, I couldn't answer these questions because I didn't arrange for any flights yet. Yesterday, I finally booked my last flight and here comes my rough itinerary:

March 24 - April 5: USA (to visit my host-family in Baltimore and spend a few days in NYC)

April 14 - May 21: Southeast Asia (I will fly into Bangkok and most likely travel to Northern Thailand, Laos and Cambodia)

June 2 - August 29: Eastern Africa (together with my best friend Natalie, I will fly into Kampala and later on fly out of Dar es Salaam; in the meantime, we hope to visit Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and probably some other countries if time allows)

In between each of these trips, I will be in Germany for a few days and you can reach me via phone :-)

Okay, I just wanted to give you this short update and I am finally really getting excited about my trips! So far, it all seemed so far away, but now I have the flights and there is no way back :-)

Philippines 2007

During my time in Hong Kong, my best friend Natalie came to visit me for about four weeks. Of course, we traveled to Beijing and saw most of the Hong Kong highlights, but still, we felt like escaping the big cities with its crowds of people. So we decided to head to the Philippines for two weeks. Given the fact that we are not particularly keen on beaches (at least if we have to stay there for more than a day) and, additionally, that it was just Easter time and most likely all tourists from the region were heading to the beach resorts on the Philippines, we decided to stay in Manila for a few days and then travel north to the Cordillera mountains.

Welcome to Manila! - At the beginning we were quite shocked by this 15 million people moloch, most likely because our hostel was located in a not particularly "nice" neighborhood. Anyways, we very soon started liking the city a lot, especially after we found out that we were nearly the only tourists in town (we were prepared for the worst!).

The streets of Manila - we have been to many big cities in emerging countries, but traffic in Manila was still shocking! One could see the air... Although Manila is a city with many problems, we thought it had quite some charm and learnt a lot (e.g. that big bus terminals might just move and nobody knows whereto...).

Jeepneys - the favorite form of transportation in Manila. These reconstructed jeeps from the US military are run by private people and take you everywhere in the city. Without them, the public transportation system would surely collapse. Jeepneys are carefully decorated, very colorful and each one has its own name :-) If you happen to sit close to the driver, you might even end up as chief assistant for the duration of your trip, collecting the fare from other passengers, handing them back change and so on. Please also pay attention to the masterly achievement of electrical engineering above the Jeepneys!

Some cute children entertaining us in the streets of Manila. Unfortunately, between 50,000 and 75,000 of these children are street children...

Here we are already close to Banaue in North Luzon. Transportation in this area of the country stays exciting: leaving Banaue we were traveling on the roof of the official bus because there was no more space "downstairs". I accidently sat down on some living chickens and we had to stay highly concentrated to avoid the power cables that were hanging too low for somebody traveling as high. When this picture was taken, we were traveling in a tricycles which is a motorbike with a small passenger cabin attached to it. Philippinos can fit 5 or 6 people into one of these cabins, but we felt quite claustrophobic only among the two of us. By the way, I wouldn't want to enter this building - at least not for more than one meter!

Our tricyle left us at the junction to Batad, which is a wonderful village surrounded by the most amazing rice terraces. Since there are no roads to the village, the only way to get there is walking for about four hours :-) The picture was taken on the way towards Batad.

Batad! The views of this small village are just amazing. Some of the rice terraces in the area were created 2,000 years ago and many of them are on the World Heritage list. Unfortunately, many villagers are very poor and young people are leaving the village.

Another amazing view... This is one of the places on earth where you can't stop taking pictures because every time you turn around you just see the next amazing thing.

On the way to the waterfalls that lie behind the village - as you can see, the way was quite steep and we were balancing on the rice terraces which were approximately two meters high, but very narrow. At least they seemed too narrow to us... at one point, we met a very drunk local who could hardly talk or walk anymore, but he was still able to balance on the rice terraces :-)

Another nice view of the village - On our way back, it started raining very heavily. Since we mainly had to walk uphill this time, it took us six hours to get back to the junction, where our tricycle driver was (fortunately!) still waiting for us.

We saw mostly old women working on the rice terraces. Here one of them is trying to make some old fields more fertile again.

China 2006/2007

In August 2006, I moved to Hong Kong and enrolled for an MBA degree. Although the program was quite tough, I found a few opportunities to escape to Mainland China. I am convinced that I had never taken as many pictures of me or were offered as many digital pictures from other people, like during these 12 months. Here is a selection and I think I will create separate food, market, people and friend posts later on (otherwise, I cause an overkill and you will never visit this lovely blog again :-)).

My dear classmates at the very beginning of the year - we had people from Mainland China, Taiwan, Macao, US, India (for a while at least), Germany (second biggest majority after the Hong Kong guys!) and of course Hong Kong.

My favorite freetime activity (even before eating!) - KARAOKE!!! This was the first time we went out and the big fun was just about to start.

Of course, I also visited Beijing! This picture (at the entrance to Forbidden City) was taken on my first trip in late October 2006 together with 4 friends. Back then, I didn't know that I would come back another three times with all my visitors...

Tiananmen Square - you can see the air pollution and that although it was supposedly a very clean day since many factories had been shut down for a visit of more than 40 African heads of state.

The Chinese Wall during autumn - here is our travel group: Cecile, Timo, Yvi, myself and David

After finishing my classes in July 2007, I had the opportunity to participate at the Young Leaders Programme and visit some villages in beautiful but very poor Yunnan Province.

Amidst this beautiful scenery live some of China's minorities. Unfortunately, conditions are very hard and some families have to live from only 80 USD a year. What a contrast to the booming cities I visited before...

This was the oldest lady in town :-)

Our team interviewed the locals about their daily problems and living conditions in order to come up with a business plan that helps them to deal with these challenges.

My very last trip - together with my friend David, I traveled to Yangshuo and we explored this beautiful place. The best way to do so: by bike! Don't worry, you can actually cycle around these mountains you see in the back :-)

And we went by bike every day...

Okay, after a day full of biking, we got lazy and took a cruise back to the city.