Luis’ first trip across the big pond! 

From Santiago to Madrid to Frankfurt and on to the world-renowned village of Velden, where grandma and grandpa had already been expecting us. When they last saw him, Luis could barely hold his head, and now he was sitting up, and smiling with two little teeth. Luis also met his nieces Julie and Fleur for the first time. The girls creatively decorated Luis' mohawk with spring flowers. Our little boy didn't mind. He was fascinated by all the attention, and most of all, the new toys!

Next stop: Dresden.

Business in Santiago forced us to cramp our Europe trip into 2 weeks only, but of course we couldn’t leave out Dresden. The Gütz clan, Cameroonian acquaintances, emigrated friends from Chile, and old classmates from Anna, yes, it was quite the hussle and bussle. In between we did some Japanese-style sightseeing, and rushed through dm, Media Markt, Ikea & Co. to stock up on things we cannot get in Chile. 

Here we have Easter brunch with Luis' great grandparents Rudi and Gabriele. Rudi made a Sorbic Easter egg especially for Luis. Little man was blown away and demonstrated his delight by smashing the art piece onto the ground. Fortunately we still have a picture! With my family Easter cannot end without a good Easter egg hunt, hence in the afternoon we were sent out to search the wood and amazingly we found all kinds of goodies! Rumour has it a mysterious grey-haired Easter bunny was seen in the area... 

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...

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 :-)

On September 22nd, my little sister got married. Yes, that's right, my LITTLE sister got MARRIED... :-)

After answering the all important question at the registry office correctly, Rebekka and Matthias took the old and the new family on a steamboat cruise - from Dresden's famous bridge Blaues Wunder up the river Elbe to castle Pillnitz, where the Countess of Cosel awaited us with cake and champagne! Hard to believe that this beautiful day was just a foretaste for the "real" wedding, going to take place in Potsdam next summer.

Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Knies!! To be continued...

In 2012 we still had an activity voucher left from our wedding, that we could never redeem since moving to Chile. But on this Europe trip we seized the opportunity - and learned the Segway! The tour took place in Viersen, just a short drive across the border from Florian's parents in Venlo. Under the professional guidance of our instructor Karl-Heinz we mastered the 2wheeler in less than 5min. After 30min. we no longer worried about steering or balance, we just relaxed, enjoyed the sightseeing through Viersen and the Segway took us wherever we wanted to go. Absolutely effortless.
I doubt though, that Segways will ever become a serious option for private use. It's a nice gadget, but at the cost of a small car it just doesn't have enough advantages. Still perfect for tourists. Thank you Lothar & Monica, for a memorable birthday/wedding present!

Seeing our families was priceless.Thanks to Outotec's last-minute extension of our trip, I even got the chance to visit both my grandparents. Shortly thereafter one grandpa passed away, at the ripe old age of 85. So glad I still saw him.
We also visited Florian's brother for a day. His family just moved back to the Netherlands, after 8 years abroad. The plan was to have a comfy BBQ in the backyard of their lovely new house, but the weather put a spoke in our wheel. Once again! It seemed, the whole "summer" 2011 had been an endless sequence of rain. So in the end it was not too hard for us to leave Europe and return to Santiago, where it would be dry and sunny. Guaranteed.

After Peru, Chile was already waiting! We knew we wouldn't be "home" for long, so we tried to make the most of it. The first day right after Florian returned, we joined the crazy party crowds at the carneval in Mainz. Putting on silly clothes, singing "Helau, der Himmel ist blau!" he re-integrated into German culture in no time. The following days we got together with old friends and shared stories about Peru. We also resfreshed our snowboarding skills in the beautiful winter landscape of Winterberg. And we were lucky - one week later spring arrived and all the snow melted away.

Summer in Europe was as good as it gets, although we were up to our necks in wedding preparations. It felt good to stow away the big suitcases for a while and have clothes in a normal wardrobe instead. From March onwards Florian and I even shared the same way to work, as I got an internship position in Frankfurt. Still, no chance for daily routine, time went by too fast...  Four days after the wedding I had to take my last crucial exam at university. I passed... :-) And in September we started labelling moving boxes again. At this point many of our wonderful wedding presents helped bidding farewell, for example cruising on the river Rhine, along old castles and beautiful vineyards. Thank you Mario! We also listened to a very last classical concert in Wiesbaden's spa hotel. Thank you Anne-Dore and Christian! Also we treated ourselves to some great Riesling at the annual Rheingau wine festival. One weekend we made a permanent mark of our love in Wiesbaden's urban forest. Let's see if we manage to visit this spot every time we visit Germany! But for now: Tschüß Deutschland! Tot ziens Nederland! Bienvenido a Chile!

Wiesbaden
Coming soon!

So, Florian finished his studies and real life begins! After his traineeship he was offered a job with P&G in Groß Gerau - THE chance for us to move together again! So we started looking at apartments in Mainz and Wiesbaden. After seeing tons of awful rooms with even worse furniture, we had some luck and found a beautiful place in Wiesbaden. Florian "moved in" with 10 books, a computer and his golfbag. Can you believe it? Not a single piece of furniture after 8 years of student life! My stuff also fitted in 2 boxes, so  first the apartment was pretty empty. The budget was tight, hence off to... IKEA! With skillful assembly practices, like only an engineer can do, our new home slowly became livable and the air mattress could be stowed away. We really fell in love with Wiesbaden over the years, although sometimes a bit too tranquil, it is a lovely town with beautiful parks and great architecture. You can definitely find us there during the Rheingauer Weinwoche, where we try the latest brews from our local vineyards. And in winter Wiesbaden's hot springs are a great retreat.

In 2004 I took up my studies at the University of Mainz. That same year Florian also moved to Mainz for his traineeship with Procter&Gamble. Both of us didn't know our way around, so we independently joined AIESEC, a cool student club of like-minded international people. I still had the travel bug from backpacking Australia and Florian knew AIESEC from his time in India. So the inevitable happened: We met at the AIESEC Christmas party in 2004. There, Florian showed me quite plainly, that he liked me... But despite all his efforts I attached no importance to it and later forgot about the cute Dutch guy altogether... As a new member to AIESEC I volunteered to organise the whole party. I simply was not into dating that night - tough luck for Florian. So it was not until December 22, that our romance officially began... But as you all know, eventually something clicked!!

This time the AIESEC crowd went salsa dancing. And whatever it was, our spellbinding salsa skills or just the vibe of the night, that December 22, 2004 sealed our love :-) It also laid the foundations to overcome our next big challenge: 1,5 years of long-distance relationship. Florian had to return to the Netherlands for his thesis... But not only did we make it through these times, our love grew day by day and those lousy 350km between Mainz and Enschede soon lost their sense of threat.  In 2005 I picked up some Dutch and learned about their weird habits, such as eating dust-dry hagelslag. Florian, on the other hand, found my Saxon dialect a hard nut to crack. So we talked English first. Meanwhile we invented our own language of 80% German and 20% Dutch-Spanish-creative mix.