Travelog for: Lady Sirina

Today Katrin went to Hamburg to work. She came home later than she had planned - and her parents had already decorated the Christmas tree. This year it's classical in red with some wooden stars.  Can you see me?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Here is Germany the people are so lucky since they get their presents already on Christmas Eve! But let me tell you about my Christmas with Katrin's family:

In the morning Katrin got her last Christmas cards, but she was a bit disappointed because she was waiting for another TV but it hasn't arrived in time. 
But looking at the great cards let her smile again.


Then we had to wait and wait and wait... We decided to visit the small "Weihnachtsmann" in the living room. He was happy to see us and told us some Christmas stories and poems.


In the evening Katrin's mum finished the Christmas dinner - goose with potatoes, green beans and red cabbage. It smelled fantastic!


And finally - the presents! These are all the presents from all family members for all family members mixed up. They looked great under the Christmas tree.


Katrin's family plays a kind of game when they get the presents to make it more exciting. They roll the dice and everytime when a 1 appeared, one of the presents is chosen from the cluster. It's turned round and there is a name on it. This lucky one can open his or her present.


It took more than an hour to open all the presents but we had a lot of fun.

Today is the first Christmas day, this is how the German call December 25. Katrin and her family went to visit her grandparents where they also meet some other relatives.
They were talking a lot and Katrin nearly forgot to take some photos, but here we are with the rest of the cakes.

While Katrin and Sportie spent the weekend Schwerin, Lady Sirina and I opened one of Katrin's letters which arrived today. She had told us, that she is waiting for another guest coming from Austria and hey, there was a letter from Austria in the right size. But when we opened the letter, there wasn't a TV in it but bag! It was a little Christmas surprise from Greycat!

Today Katrin and her brother decided to bring all their "small" money, just 1, 2 and 5 cents, to the bank.
This is the "money-bag"...


... and here we are with all the coins!


At the bank they got more than 7 Euros for  they coins and now they start to collect them again.

It's the last day of the year and it started with some bad news: Katrin got this broken envelope in a plastic bag. On the plastic bag it says that the German Post put the envelope into this bag because it was damaged. The really sad thing is, that in this envelope where some postcards and some brochures, but there should have been another TV, Leo Lion. He is now somewhere lost in the mail. 


Here it's dinner time and on "Silvester", that's how New Year's Eve is called in German, Katrin's family usually eats Raclette. Everybody gets a little pan and can choose from all this great food and heat it and     scalloped it with cheese. Yummi!



Later in the evening Katrin's boyfriend mixed some cocktails for us. We all ended up a little bit drunk because we wanted to try everything. Katrin stopped us and told her boyfriend to mix just some juices together. So he did, but I saw, that he always added a little bit of wodka...


After midnight we went outside to welcome the new year with some fireworks. Katrin had bought some rockets and a lot of beautiful fountains. We tried to take some photos, but it didn't really work...

Happy New Year!!!

Today it is time to say godbye to Luddie. She'll travel to Austria. I wished her a short and safe journey.

Today the parents of Katrin's boyfriend invited everybody for a trip to the Baltic Sea. We are here on a small island called Pöhl and this is the harbour of Timmendorf.


This is the view over the Baltic Sea and as you can see on the waves, it was very windy!


This is the view along the cliffs and the beach.


The wind was very strong and over the years it has made holes into the cliffs. Today some of them are homes for seagulls, but not this one.


The sea again


This funny waves in the ground are made by the tide. Katrin wanted to go a bit nearer to the water...


... and here we discovered tracks from birds in the sand.


And the cliffs again


Frozen water glittering the sun, very beautiful.


This is the landscape we discovered behind the cliffs: green fields are far as you can see.

Today Katrin took us for a quick walk around her hometown. It was very cold again and there was some snow left on the ground.
Here we are in front of the church. It was built during the 15th century with huge stones.


We went up the stairs and turned around: this is the townhall of Kellinghusen:


These stones are standing near the church. The letters build the word "Frieden". This is "peace" in English.

Today is my last day in Germany. Katrin is going to travel to the US on Sunday and can't take us with her. Since my mum didn't answer Katrin's messages, I'm going back home to Texas to start my next journey from there. I said goodbye to Sportie, she is going to travel to Australia.