Family Blog

Carmen is back. She arrived today at 14:08 at the airport Stuttgart. We first did not recognize her because she had an Africain hair look. But then we realized that the girl with the dreadlock in the hair was our daughter. We are all happy that she's back.

Yesterday Kathrin, Manuel's host sister, arrived from Montpellier. Cordula picked her up from the railway station because Manuel and Philip gave private lessons and I was on the way back from Düsseldorf where I work since 1st April.

Before we picked up Carmen today we went to Stuttgart for sight seeing. At last we had to hurry up to come to the airport in time. And then their was a traffic jam on the highway. We reached the airport just after the airplane had landed.

Now we are more than complete. One week ago we had only two sons in our house. Now we have two sons and three daughters.

Since yesterday we have an exchange student from Poland, Sylwia. She will stay at us for two weeks. There is now much more life in our house than before.

Last week I was told to go to Düsseldorf from 1st April on. Probably for the next three months. Düsseldorf is about 400 km in the north of Gerlingen.

On Saturday Carmen will come back from France. She enjoys her last week in the Bretagne before she will go here to school again. But before Manuel's host sister, Kathrin, will stay at us. She will come this Friday. I guess we have to make a time table for the bathroom ;-)

Our kitchen is now complete (the lamps are mounted this week) and yesterday we painted Carmen's room. The weather is fine here and in two weeks Carmen will be back.

We called Carmen today and it seems that she enjoys her new life in France and the French cuisine. She said she put on weight. On the other side she is the best student in sports. We will see in two weeks when she'll back...

Since 4 weeks we are living with an empty kitchen. Last year we ordered a new kitchen and before it can be build in we had to upgrade the eletricity, the water pipes and the floor. But now all work is done and we are waiting for the new kitchen...

Three weeks ago Carmen was in Paris for one week. Since two weeks only a few emails arrived us from Carmen. The computer in her family was killed by a virus and now she must go to the next Internet cafe to send or receive an emai.

Today it is the first day after a long time which is sunny and warm (15°C). We hope that this weather will stay for a while.

One Week is over since Carmen left us. As you can read in her blog she had an adventurous journey (flight cancelled, snow chaos on the airport in Paris, trouble to find the host mum) but now she is safe in Rennes.

Her first school day was a special school day - she was nearly the first student on the school building. The other students struck because of some of Sarkozy's reform plans. But now the life in France gets normal...

Today Carmen started her journey to Rennes, France, where she will live and go to school for three months. But it was a start with some obstacles. The flight to Paris was cancelled what we saw in the Internet yesterday. But when we tried to phone to AirFrance it was too late - I was only connected to a speech computer.

Early in the morning at 5:00 AM we started our trip together with Carmen's girl-friend to the airport Stuttgart. Yesterday it has snowed the whole day, so it was a little slippery on the streets but there was not much traffic. At the AirFrance desk we found out that Carmen has to take the next flight, 3 hours later.

So we spent the next 3 hours with Carmen at the airport. Then the time came to say goodbye. This time it was not so hard for me as one and a half year before when Manuel and Philip left Europe. It is only for 3 month and it is not so far away - about 950 km westwards. But for Carmen it was hard - she flew alone to Paris where she got picked up by the organization (Travelworks). From Paris to Rennes she went by train. And tomorrow school starts for here in french.