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 :-)

This year I had my first experience of active sailing. Weather conditions were pretty challenging, but with sailing expert Kees onboard, we had little to worry about "...thunderstorm is good, we can go faster..." Out on the Sneekermeer, everyone had their turn steering with/against the storm. We stopped in Terhorne for a warm-up "kopje koffie", only to get soaked to the bones minutes later. In retrospect I think sailing can be good fun. Definitely something to try again!

After the sailing adventure we crossed the Afsluitdijk for a brief visit to Amsterdam. The Rijksmuseum had just reopened after a lengthy period of renovation, and we were able to see some of the Netherlands's most renowned paintings for ourselves. And the many flee markets, I just can't get enough of them :-) In 2012 they sell their plunder at extra special recession prices, of course... 
Jan and Coen, thanks so much for your hospitality. We'll be back!

This year we spent our Europe holiday in Friesland - together with my sister Rebekka and her fiancé Matthias. None of us had been to Terschelling before, so we took bicycle tours all across the island (by the way: the Netherlands are NOT flat!), got caught up in the middle of nowhere by high tide, ate Hollandse Nieuwe + Kippeling every day, hunted down a million mosquitos, and froze on the beach! The island is exactly how I imagined Friesland to be, in a good sense though. 
Also, we've probably been to all "Hoorn's" of the world by now: the original Dutch city of Hoorn, freezing Cape Hoorn in Patagonia, and now even Cape Hoorn Pavillon on Terschelling!

The island hosts a cool shipwreck museum. Apparently it happens quite regularly, that big container ships run aground in the Wadden Sea and loose all their cargo! Whole container loads of jogging shoes or bananas have been washed ashore here already. A local woman, who was part of our wad excursion later that night, said, everyone collected the stuff, although the bananas were unripe and all the shoes didn't match. Seems, island life is not so boring, after all...

Here we are on a guided wad tour. Learnings: Wad worms will eat up each other's heads, when put together. Crabs produce foamy bubbles, when angry. And while wad-walking, the danger is not so much stepping on sharp Japanese oysters, but on a drowning bee. Matze can tell you all about it!

First on our Europe trip 2012 we visited Florian's parents. Ludwig and Inge live near Venlo, which so happened to host the "Floriade" that year. As it's name might suggest, that it was a feast of worship to Florian by the commoners, it is not. It is actually a flower and landscape expo which Holland organizes once every 10 years. Together with Florian's parents we visited the exhibitions and are now up to date on the latest trends in landscaping, very useful for our balcony in Santiago! 
The next day we went to Roermond to see Florian's brother Robert, his wife Annique and their two little rascals Julie and Fleur. Somehow Sinterklaas (Dutch Santa Claus) mixed things up and delivered the presents for Julie and Fleur to Chile. Luckily we were just on our way to the Netherlands and could drop the present off to their rightful owners. In the evening we played some twister with the girls, and Julie demonstrated what she learned during summer vacation: CHESS! She almost won against her uncle. Thanks for having us, we had a great time and hope to see you all again next year! 

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.

Two great couples, we are friends with, got married this summer: First Martijn and Madelein tied the knot in a phenomenal feast near the canals of Maarsen/NL. Maybe you remember it from our own wedding: Boght's traditional wedding gift is a cheesy garden gnome... Time for something unexpected! For the M&M wedding we flew in a Chilean picaro statue. When lifted, this picaro reveals a surprise ;-) A big hit. Everyone burst out laughing!
Just one week later Kees and Nina said "I will" in a beautiful monastry in Leuven/Belgium. They are a Dutch-German couple, like us. We are really happy we could attend both weddings during this Europe trip. All the best to you four!

Some old, some new – our motto for this year's tour through the Netherlands. The old: Amsterdam. We had not been to Amsterdam in years, and just enjoyed doing standard tourist things: soak up the unique atmosphere at Leidseplein, stroll over the flower market, visit the busy Van-Gogh museum, sip coffee with friends at De Waag, or hop on a scenic sunset cruise. We were even treated to our own private concert! When our boat went through Prinsengracht, a floating Big Band just started playing "Aan De Amsterdamse Grachten", ...last rehearsals for the Grachtenfestival 2011.

The new: Den Haag, seat of the Dutch government.
We've been to the Scheveningen beach before, but I never saw the city center of The Hague. So Florian showed me the famous food stall, where prime minister Balkenende is said to buy his matjes filet after work. I don't particularly like canned herring, but the fresh fish at Balkenende's place was delicious! We continued in the footsteps of the Dutch government with a tour through the medieval Ridderzaal, known for the queen's annual speech from the throne. In a modern annex of the Ridderzaal sits the Dutch parliament. Fortunately we had two kids in the group, so our tour guide explained the Dutch political system extra slow and easy. The audience was all Dutch (except me), but you could see on their puzzled faces how relieved they were about all the children's questions. Nobody had a clue^^

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!

After lasercutting and more than 1000 pieces of fibre reinforced plastics, I came up with an elegant computer model which simulated the damage done to this material by the laser beam. After a successful presentation and defence to a jury of peers and professors, I was rewarded with an 8 (out of 10) for my thesis. A magnificent end to my time at university and of course a good reason to throw a great party with all my friends and family.