First Day At School

Last weekend we travelled up North for a couple of different occasions. One of them was my niece Thoras first day at school. Even though we left Munich way too late to actually make it to the school event, we still managed to arrive in time to get some potato salad and meet all of Karls cousins at my sisters house in Heidelberg.

In Germany on your first day of school you get a large cornet of cardboard filled with sweets and little presents. It's only later that children realize that this is how society tricks them into liking the idea of going to school. Here is Thora happily posing with her 'Schultüte'.

Meanwhile her little brother Tomas sold Karl some cheese in his store.

Hard Work In The Countryside

As you might have noticed in the previous posting, Karl and I are not touring Bavaria, but drove up north for my fathers birthday (now a.k.a. Popa). There's a lot of stuff that needs to be done here. Like drumming early in the morning.



And watering the watering can with another watering can. And sliding away from the dog. Stuff like that. Important stuff.

Family Vacation

Sorry for the absence of posts over the past couple of days. As some of you might know, Andrian and I made a trip to New York to catch up with our amazing friends that we still miss so much and probably always will. This wonderful vacation was only made possible by my parents a.k.a. Omi and Opa who took the best care of lil' ol' Karl. Thank you again! As you can see it looks like he had a great time with them just as we did in New York.



In order to not get used to being without crazy toddlers running around we went to see all our friends with (new) kids. Thank you, Shirly and Michael for hosting a great New York brunch. I'm proud that I managed to get all five kids in one picture.



Oh and of course, last but not least, the Bru finally got his birthday gifts. Now that he's 16 month old he can really appreciate them. He was head over heels!

Family Business

This past weekend we traveled to Heidelberg for the christening of my sister Carolins son Tomas. It was a lovely celebration and even though time was very short it was fun to see the boys pretend to have social interactions. I guess it will be even more fun when they can really play together as well as really beat each other up.



Of course my brother with Max was there, too.



And at some point even Karl took a little nap on our way back while riding into the sunset. (Well, technically we were riding out of the sunset because we live so far East, but that just doesn't sound as good.)

Gone For The Summer

In case you're wondering what's going on: we took Karl to France to teach him important lessons on the art de vivre. Two years ago there was no internets at the house but apparently this has changed so check back for exciting news from Karl's life at la plage.

The Black Forest

Newsflash - the Black Forest is neither a forest, nor is it black. Contrary to it's stark name it's a rather lush and pleasant landscape of rolling hills covered by deeply green pastures and woodsy patches of tall old trees. Karl was quite mesmerized by the whole landscape-cows-and-blue-skies thing, so now we're afraid he might turn into an outdoorsy kinda Patagonia type who doesn't share our passion for upholstered furniture and large television sets. He's probably gonna drag us out to the country as soon as he starts to develop something like a free will. Maybe we have to convince him that there is no such thing as free will (just a neurological illusion), beautiful nature (you never know, if acid rain, the ozone hole and Chernobyl fallout are really gone by now, do you?) or a healthy country life (think mad cows, lyme disease and "Deliverance").

Karl got to go to another farm though where they had a stable full of small and not so small animals. So far he likes goats the best. They got funny ears and spiky horns, but they aren't scary large like cows or cutesy lame like rabbits.

Karl also got to meet (and wrestle) his cousins down there. They are (clockwise from orange T-Shirt): cousin Thora (leader of the pack), sock hater Karl in his fancy plaid pants, cousin Max (he lives in Switzerland, already sponging off tax laws that would bring tears to your eyes if you'd know that you get real social services for almost no money there) and new arrival Tomas (not delivered by stork, but by Air Ethopia and seeming quite happy to adjust to his new posh Heidelberg surroundings after spending his first year in Addis orphanage squalor). Since we all stayed in a landmarked country inn recommended by the mighty Michelin Guide the long weekend turned into a perfect European large family event that we will submit to an agent for use in some health-food, red wine or full grain something commercial.

More Europe at it's best coming up. Next stop - Rheingau. For Maria's and Tim's wedding.

La Gomera X

Sand was definitely a big hit with Karl, after we had trucked down the steep mountain road to the beach. He was totally mesmerized, probably wishing his motor skills would allow him to start with the whole sandcastle thing already.

The whole outlook of course changed radically, when Daddy didn't pay attention for about five seconds and Karl rubbed his eyes, not knowing yet, how it feels to squish volcanic chrystals into your eyeballs.

La Gomera IX

I still have material for a couple more Gomera posts and since the days are slowish in Munich I will keep throwing them in. In the picture above you can see my two favorite men in the whole wide world checking out a big flock of goats (some of them in the background). We also met a donkey, but Karl was sleeping. I demonstrated the typical donkey sounds to him later that day.



For our little hike to the highest peak of the island, the Garajonay, we switched from the stroller to our carrier. The trails on La Gomera are pretty rough and Andrian was scared that Karl would get a whiplash. I think he's fine though. If he lost a couple of brain cells maybe his friend Bruno can borrow him one of his.

La Gomera VIII

I still got more Gomera pictures to share with you! Which is good because otherwise there's not a whole lot going on right now in rainy Munich, apparently one of the coolest places in the world. Uncooly cool as my friend Jennifer put it.



Anyways. So we went to the beach pictured above. It was beautiful, deserted and very hot. Andrian an I took turns swimming in the gorgeous water while Karl was hanging out in his makeshift sun hut inspecting local minerals.

La Gomera VII (Spring Training)

La Gomera is of course also the site for the spring training of the "Diaperpant Rockets". Here he was getting ready for the morning games. He did score a few touchdowns and is a mighty tackler, felling babies twice his size. He did overdo the whole warpaint thing though. So it didn't quite strike as much fear into the hearts of his opponents as planned, but at least he didn't get sunburnt.

La Gomera VI

I had never really heard about dragon trees, but they seem to be super special, because this one was mentioned in all the travel guides we had. It is about 150 years old and sure enough very pretty yet impressive. It is also unconveniently located in a deep hot canyon. Pew!

La Gomera V

What we did most of the time: lounging!

La Gomera IV

The laurel rain forest in the Garajonay National Park of La Gomera is part of the Unesco World Heritage Forest Programme. Walking through it feels like you're in a fairy tale since it's almost always covered in a misty fog. Karl was stunned by all those shades of green and put on his cutest look in order to survive possible attacks by green forest monsters who probably live there. It seemed to work because we managed to finish the walk safe and sound (although it's not an easy task to push a city stroller on muddy mountain trails).



Our camera was confused by all the fog so the image results are questionable, but it really was the most beautiful nature trip.

La Gomera III

See the little Church in the second picture of the last entry? It had to be our first walk of course. Sun! View! Ocean! And Karl was sleeping.



We got our car seat back on the second day which Karl was only medium happy about. This is also the last time we've seen him tired ever since. For some reason our vacation made him totally hyper. Too bad he's still too young to go to a boxing gym. Speaking of boxing: A big shout-out to my former team mate and sparring partner Yuko Yamamoto who fought herself all the way up to the Golden Gloves Finals at Madison Square Garden next weekend. Congrats! I so wish I could be there.

P.S.: Thank you, Maria, for the awesome outfit! WE LOVE IT!

La Gomera II

Turns out you need a lot of patience to travel to La Gomera. It actually took us 14 hours to get there. Partially of course because Munich airport is located somewhere in Russia. Another reason was that our car seat didn't make it on the flight to Tenerife somehow, so we ended up missing the boat to the island.

It is totally worth it though. Check out the view from our little bungalow. Pretty similar to what had been promised (see two entries below), huh?




Even though he had 14 hours, Karl didn't get through all the magazines he got for the trip, so he was still doing some reading after we had arrived. In the background you can see his mom resting.

La Gomera I

Yes, we're back! It was great. The island is amazing, the weather was beautiful and Karl the best travel companion. More to come...

Travelling To Hessen III

Our trip to Hessen is so last week, but I still got some pics that I want to share with you.



I was really bummed on our way to the local shopping mall when I noticed the sign for Europe's Largest Stunt and Action Show just a day too late. I'm sure that wouldn't have happened if Andrian had come with us. Karl would have enjoyed those roaring gigantic supertrucks so much.



Since the loud trucks didn't happen, I showed Karl the silence of the vinyard and pushed him all the way up the hills. It was pretty exhausting but I could witness amazing wildlife like the pictured snail for example. But again my son was sleeping as usual when there's important things to be learnt.



Another lesson kept him awake though: a history lesson. Whenever I'm at my parents house I'm trying to throw out some stuff. So this time I went through old exercise books from my school days (yes, I had kept them until then...) No time is too early to work on Germany's difficult past I guess and so Karl carefully inspected my national socialism learning materials. As you can see he totally broke into the topic.



On Wednesday he seemd to be happy to be back in Munich (that's because he doesn't know New York yet) and took some really long naps over the past couple of days. Maybe he knows that there's another trip just around the corner.

Travelling To Hessen II

Of course there's no travelling to Hessen without stopping at Maria and Tim's in Frankfurt. We took some time to introduce Karl to his mother's former hometown and showed him various parks.

The Grüneburgpark has an addition which I had never seen either: A Korean garden, built in 2005 when Korea was the guest of honour at the book fair.




Very pretty, but Karl was sleeping as usual when I'm trying to teach him important things. He didn't even wake up for the Holzhausenpark play ground but we thought it's better to have it covered anyways. I mean, he's half a Frankfurter.

Travelling To Hessen I

The internet situation wasn't easy on my little trip to the North so I'm doing some belated reporting. Last Friday we left Munich by train. Very conveniently it goes directly to Bensheim, where my parents live, but travelling on the first day of the Bavarian Easter vacation wasn't exactly the smartest move. The Parents & Baby compartment was packed and sort of smelly (which was partially Karl's fault).




We finally made it though and Karl seemed to be excited to be back in baby paradise (a.k.a. my parents house).

He got a bunch of new skills by playing with his individualized air balloon and a plastic ladle. Omi, Nelson – the dog – and Karl also had some pretty intense discussions about the pros and cons of playpens.


But the main reason of my trip was to meet Karl's new cousin Tomas. My sister Carolin and her husband Ivo adopted him from Ethiopia and he finally made it to Germany a couple of weeks ago. He's adorable and his new sister Thora is obviously thrilled.



(I actually forgot to take a picture when I was at their house so my sister provided this one for me)

Trip To Sweden

Yesterday we taught Karl a crucial lesson in consumerism and took him to Ikea for the first time in his life. I'm not sure if he completely got the entire meaning of this event, but he will probably get another chance some day in the future. He did listen when I explained the importance of Billy bookshelves for the worlwide book trade though.