Family Blog

Carmen has finished now her au pair at an Australian family and is now on a trip thru the outback. She visits Adelaide, the Ayers Rock (of course) and other places where my sister (who lives in Perth) said, she never was.

On Eastern, when she will come back, the next adventure waits for her - the begin of the study as teacher. She has one week time to recover and plan to move to her new home at Weingarten.

Today I did it - I deleted my profile on Facebook. I was in Facebook since 2007 and in the last 2 year I felt that I lost the control about my data in Facebook. In the beginning you had some kind of privacy but not now. So I decided to quit my virtual life in FB and to return real life.

This week Manuel has an interview in the "Badische Zeitung" about the transfer from a soccer player of the FC Freiburg. Here's the link to the article.

Long time it was quit on Manuel's blog. But now he started a new one "Comprehending the Word ...". It is more a political blog with some facts around the world.

2012 is once again a year when the world goes down. But until then there is still time for some good resolutions this year, as there would be:

• more sport (at least 2 hours per week),
• begin with app development for iPhone and iPad
• say goodbye to Facebook.

Especially the last point would be hard, because Facebook has its advantages. So I don't know if I really will quit it, but there are some points that bother me. Especially that you don't know what happens with your data and that FB takes no (or less) notice of your "privacy".

Happy New Year

Christmas with palm trees - does that work? I don't know but for Carmen it is her first christmas in a foreign country, in Australia. She will spend some days with my sister and her friend and I think she will enjoy some quit days.

We will go in a few minutes to the Stiftskirche (main church in Stuttgart) where Manuel and Philip will sing together with the Hymnus Choir before we will go back home and celebrate the holy night.



Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

This week I received a package from Iran. When I opened it there were two pakets of gaz inside. Gaz is a white kind of nougat and tastes delicious - a kind of early Christmas present. As my friend in Isfahan told me she thought it would take several weeks from Iran to Germany. This was also my experience when I sent a postcard from New York to Iran. It seems that the post from Iran to Germany is much faster as from USA to Iran.

My friend told me also that the Zayandeh Rud (the river through Isfahan) has no water inside. When we were in Isfahan in May the river was dry. Here in Germany it hasn't rained since one month and some rivers like the Rhine have only a quarter of the normal water level.

Since seven weeks Carmen is now as au-pair in Perth, Australia. Last week she was with her host family on an island near Perth. She swam at that beach where a man was killed one week before. And this week again a man, an American diver was killed at Rottnest Island.

Last week we came back from the US and I need some time to arrive in my daily work. What I missed most is the free internet access at each corner (even in the plane you can find WiFi). On the other site I'm happy to have my normal breakfast each day. One of the first thing our daughter wanted was a pretzel when we landed in Stuttgart.

We started our visit in New York which is a very busy (and never sleeping) city. After three days we rented a motorhome and went first to the north (to the Niagara Falls) before we went west to Whitefish Bay near Milwaukee. The first stop at a gas station we were a little surprised - we need nearly double so much gas as expected but the price for it was about half of the price in Germany (about 4$ per galeon).
In Whitefish Bay we had the luck to be part of the family where Manuel had been four years ago. His family was so friendly to us and we learned a lot of the Americans in these days. We had also some political discussions - this is something what I had not expected.

While the weather was warm in Wisconsin the weather in California (where we flew from Milwaukee) was hot (except San Francisco). We spent one day in Lincoln, where we had an excellent Mexican dinner and nice day with Philip's host father from his time at school some years before. We had too less time to visit all the great national parks but some of we saw (and they were really great). Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon were the last big attractions before we went back and spent a (sunny and warm) day in San Francisco.

Our flight back to Stuttgart started in the evening (6:55 PM), so we had some time left for a last trip to a shopping mall in San Bruno. Back at the airport we heared the news about the damages of the storm "Irene" and saw pictures from New York were we have been three weeks before - what a luck we had with the weather.
We were all tired when we reached London Heathrow, but we were more tired when we were back in Gerlingen again. When I went to work this morning it was a strange feeling driving a Smart because the last three weeks I was used to drive a motorhome.
Philip came back this evening. Only Manuel is missing - he will spent one more week in Wisconsin.

Because we had to be back in San Fransico on Saturday morning we decided to go back directly. But before we visited the Sunset Vulcanology Crater. With about 500 miles the Thursday was the longest section because we wanted to leave the Mojave Dessert behind us. We stopped in Tehachapi on the same campground as a few days ago.
For the next campground we looked for one near Santa Cruz and found one at the Sunset State Beach near Watsonville. Manuel wanted to go swimming but the weather was foggy and cold. So we walked only on the beach and saw a lot of seagulls and pelicans sitting there.
Next day we stand up early in the morning (6:00 AM), because we had to bring back our RV till 11:00 PM. We drove about 2400 miles from last week, where we started here.
From the RV rental we took the train into the city of San Francisco and visited chinatown, the cable car, Lombard Street, Fisherman's Wharf, the Painted Ladies, before we looked for a Mexican restaurant. We had luck with  the weather - first it was foggy (which is normal in August), but in the afternoon it was sunny.

On Tuesday we reached Las Vegas, but not without stopping at a shopping mall before. In Las Vegas we found a cheap RV park at Sam's Town and I think it was the same RV park as 20 years before.

In the late afternoon we visited the strip with Cesar's Palace, Paris Las Vegas, The Venetian and all the other big gambler paradises. One the one side it was overwhelming to see the Rialto Bridge, the Eifel Tower or artificial waterfalls in Las Vegas, on the other side it is a big waste of valuable resources. Back to Sam's Town we risked a play at a slot machine and Philip won something (ok, it was only 10 cent).

Next day we visited the Hoover Dam. On the way to it we had to pass a security point where we had all to get out of our RV.

On the way to the Grand Canyon we come in a little sandstorm. The weather was not so good this day and we saw lightnings in the distance. But we had luck and an overwhelming view when we reached the Grand Canyon. There were many people from Germany, but we saw also some people from Tibet and many Asian people.

Last Thursday we arrived late in San Francisco and had first to look for an hotel, because our reservation for it was lost (although we had a confirmation for it). We found another hotel near the airport, where we started the next day to Oakland by public transportation. It was a new experience for us to change two times the train and tram with different kind of payment (in Germany you have to pay normally only once for a ticket).

In Oakland we picked up our next RV which was much older than the first one. From there the first goal was San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. Philip directed me not the fastest but shortest way and so we drove up and down thru streets where you normally would never go with a motorhome.
There was fog above the Golden Gate Bridge which is normal in summer. We followed the highway 1 along the coast till Bodega Bay where we stay overnight.

On Saturday we started with a cold and foggy weather but when we arrived in Lincoln it was sunny and hot. We said hello to Jeff, the host father of Philip four years ago. Philip showed us Lincoln and his high school. And we tried frozen yoghurt which tastes delicious.

Jeff cooked in his great kitchen a wonderful Mexican dinner for us, we had Californian white wine and nice talks in the evening. The next morning we had a good breakfast at a restaurant near the high school, before we said goodbye and started to Yosemite National Park.

Well behaved children are always welcome.
Those under the age of 18 must be supervised by their parents.
This was one of the rules of the first campground we arrived in California.