The first leg of our journey led us to Florian's family in the Netherlands. The girls had grown so much! As a souvenir we brought along our air plane, so that Julie and Fleur could come and visit us in Chile in the future!
In Dresden/Germany it rained non-stop, until the river burst its banks. Fortunately the flooding was not as bad as in 2002, and we didn't get wet feet at my grandpa's birthday party. Happy 80th Rudi! Then both my sisters joined us. We were headed to the far north-east to see our other grandma Dorothea. Despite dementia she still remembers all 3 of us!
The brief moments Florian and I had to ourselves, we spent shopping cute thingies for our little blind passenger...
In Dresden/Germany it rained non-stop, until the river burst its banks. Fortunately the flooding was not as bad as in 2002, and we didn't get wet feet at my grandpa's birthday party. Happy 80th Rudi! Then both my sisters joined us. We were headed to the far north-east to see our other grandma Dorothea. Despite dementia she still remembers all 3 of us!
The brief moments Florian and I had to ourselves, we spent shopping cute thingies for our little blind passenger...
After Venlo, Roermond, Dresden and Pasewalk, Potsdam was next. Why? Because it's one of Germany's most beautiful cities, and – more importantly, the location of Rebekka's wedding, part II :-) Bride and groom looked absolutely gorgeous, and we all enjoyed a sunny day full of love. There was even an special salute by Matthias' friends from the old Prussian guard, known as "Lange Kerls" (Potsdam Giants). But not only Rebekka was a happy girl on June 8. Norah turned 7 the very same day, and got, what she raved about as her "best birthday gift ever": roller skates! She put them on right on the spot, and wouldn't stop practising, until she could skate all by herself.
And off to yet another wedding! Christian and Michaela became a couple at the exact same Aiesec Xmas party, where we first met. And it was fantastic to finally see them getting married too. Congrats! The next day we all went up the Drachenfels ruins, overlooking the river Rhine. I arrived in Europe with not much of a belly, but as you can see, at 7 months, it suddenly popped out! Our doctor was fine with all our travel plans, but advised us to take it extra easy, arrive everywhere well ahead of time, etc. Here is, how we put his advise into practise... :-)
Our departure day started off at a public swimming pool at the Rhine. Since it was such a warm and sleepy day, we did not pay much attention to time. But this turned out only to be the first of a series of mistakes to come... We misread our flight schedule, believing Madrid's arrival was Frankfurt's departure time (never happened before). Since we were completely oblivious to this fact until at the closing check-in-counter, it did not stress us too much :-)) We reached Madrid, however our bags did not (never happened before). In the end it did not matter. The whole flight to Santiago was cancelled anyway (never happened before). Technical problems. We went to customs for the baby shopping: Where is your luggage? ...Lost. Don't know. Where is your on-flight boarding pass? Don't have one. Flight's cancelled. Without hesitation customs stamped all our tax-free forms (never happened before). Hey, at least something worked out! After an involuntary overnight stay at the most awkward airport hotel ever, a shuttle bus was supposed to bring us back to the departure hall. But again, the Spanish transport system had a different idea. We queued endless hours in the morning chill, finally got on a bus, only to be stranded on the highway minutes later. The shuttle bus engine had broken down (never happened before)! Seriously?? We had to laugh in disbelief. If things continued like this, we would never get home!! But fortunately we did: A confusing wait later, we were picked up by a substitute bus, bringing us to our substitute plane, which flew us back to Santiago safe and sound. Over the coming days all our luggage miraculously reappeared. End of story :-)
Our departure day started off at a public swimming pool at the Rhine. Since it was such a warm and sleepy day, we did not pay much attention to time. But this turned out only to be the first of a series of mistakes to come... We misread our flight schedule, believing Madrid's arrival was Frankfurt's departure time (never happened before). Since we were completely oblivious to this fact until at the closing check-in-counter, it did not stress us too much :-)) We reached Madrid, however our bags did not (never happened before). In the end it did not matter. The whole flight to Santiago was cancelled anyway (never happened before). Technical problems. We went to customs for the baby shopping: Where is your luggage? ...Lost. Don't know. Where is your on-flight boarding pass? Don't have one. Flight's cancelled. Without hesitation customs stamped all our tax-free forms (never happened before). Hey, at least something worked out! After an involuntary overnight stay at the most awkward airport hotel ever, a shuttle bus was supposed to bring us back to the departure hall. But again, the Spanish transport system had a different idea. We queued endless hours in the morning chill, finally got on a bus, only to be stranded on the highway minutes later. The shuttle bus engine had broken down (never happened before)! Seriously?? We had to laugh in disbelief. If things continued like this, we would never get home!! But fortunately we did: A confusing wait later, we were picked up by a substitute bus, bringing us to our substitute plane, which flew us back to Santiago safe and sound. Over the coming days all our luggage miraculously reappeared. End of story :-)
