worries before christmas

Hello all together!

It's unbelievable, I came to the USA with the hope to get finally white christmas, but the hard reality had other plans. That means, we have no snow in Connecticut at all, nature looks somber and bored, but Germany is smothered in snow!! That's mean, but it isn't the worst part of this situation. The worst part is the disaster on German and European airports! I told you my boyfriend is going to visit me a second time this year. He is supposed to arrive tomorrow, but the trains are still delayed and overcrowded and airports still cancel flights or stop the whole traffic for hours because of too much snow!!! What happens next? On the one hand it feels like an exciting adventure, haha, but on the other hand I'm really worried about him!! All I can do is waiting, checking the status of his flights, and hoping. :(

Edit December 22, 2010: He was so lucky!! :) He catched all the trains and is finally sitting in the plane to New York now. :) The forecast says that it will snow again, so I wish all of you, who are in Germany, a white christmas with all my heart. :) You deserve it!

I didn't do new interesting stuff since my last entry one week ago. I've finished my first scrapbook, but I was really surprised how long it takes to create it! I made it for my lovely friend Aline, because she's flying home today to Brazil. :'-( We spent as much time as possible together in the past days, but it wasn't enough anyway. I'll miss her so much! :(

in front of the university, where we got to know each other

scrapbooking

Moreover I met Inga again at last and we hung around during the weekend: walking through Darien (with Jiho ^^), watching DVD's and a movie in the cinema. When I walked home at night, I could take a really beautiful picture of our house. :)

doesn't it look beautiful?

They showed the Jerry Springer Show on TV yesterday, which we attended in October (do you remember? :D). Alina and I watched it together at my home, and we were sitting in front of the TV screaming and laughing, because we could see our faces in a TV show which is shown around the country!! Haha, this felt totally weird, but it's a nice experience. :D

I've started wrapping my presents for christmas and my hostmum talked with me about all the food we need to make Christmas Eve's Dinner and Brunch for the 25th. It sounds amazing, haha! I'm really excited to learn more about the way of making American meals and I hope I can take good pictures to show you! :)

I don't know yet when I'll be able to write my next blogpost, that's why I wish all of you: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Talk to you soon! :)

never ending story

Hello and ho ho ho! :D

Kurz vorweg: Ich bitte alle, die mit einem englischen Blog nicht zurechtkommen, mir das im Kommentarfeld kurz mitzuteilen, damit ich mir eine Lösung überlegen kann! :) Wenn Ihr mir das nicht sagt, kann ich es auch nicht wissen, also bitte schreibt mir!! :)

I'm really far behind, my last entry is almost three weeks ago, but although I feel sorry I'm also tired of apologizing for my laziness. Mh, can I call it laziness? I was just totally busy, but I realized the longer I wait the more pictures I have to retouch and the more stories I have to tell in my next entry! :(

Well, here I am, and I have so much to tell, that's incredible!

First a big thank you to all of you who stayed loyal and checked my blog regularly. :)

As you'll have already noticed, I decided to write only in English, finally, but I really hope that everyone of you will be able to understand it. I won't use difficult words, because I'm not going to use jargon, but I wanna enable all my not-german speaking friends to read my blog. :)

Let's get started… I told you my mommy was arriving and she was here for entire sixteen days. We experienced so many things, let me structure it in every individual day:

1. day (Wednesday)

New York City! :D I showed her around the first important locations: Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center and 5th Avenue. We stopped one of the legendary yellow cabs and got a ride to Pier 78, where the Harbor Cruise started. We drove on the water around Manhattan for 90 minutes and passed the Financial District, the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. It was really cold, but the weather was fantastic! :) I booked tickets for the "Christmas Spectacular" in the world famous Radio City Music Hall for the evening and we really enjoyed watching the show. :) Before we took the train home to Darien we visited the Times Square as the last stop for that day – enough!

Skyline Manhattan with Empire State Building

Mommy with Washington Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge :D

Statue of Liberty

inside Radio City Music Hall

2. day (Thursday)

New York City again! :D We woke up early to get an early train to New York City and to get good places to watch the popular Thanksgiving Parade of Macy's. Not early enough to stand in the first row, but nevertheless satisfied with places in the fourth or fifth row next to the Central Park we waited patiently for the show to begin and to end. After three hours of standing there we were totally frozen. xD We took a rest at Starbucks, visited Little Italy and Chinatown and finally started our way to New York City's only Heliport. Unfortunately it was raining, but we couldn't change it. The ten minutes flight over Manhattan were breathtaking anyway. :) Yeah, I forgot to mention that we had THANKSGIVING DAY! =) That's why I invited her after the unforgettable view over Manhattan to an amazing (and really expensive – I left almost one of my weekly pays xD) Thanksgiving Dinner at a restaurant in the 2nd Avenue before we took the train home.

big balloons of Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

the three famous American types of sport: Basketball, Baseball and Football

Santa!!!

Subway stop at Wall street :)

Statue of Liberty from above!

amazing view over the Manhattan Skyline...

Thanksgiving Dinner :)

3. day (Friday)

Our adventurous tour to Canada (Niagara Falls and Toronto) was finally starting, yeah!! But there's not much to mention about that day, except for that we started in Chinatown, which was a little bit scary so early in the morning – we left New York City at 8am – and that we drove almost fourteen hours to arrive at the Niagara Falls. We just arrived right on time to see the evening fireworks while we were still sitting in the bus! Our bus was multicultural, we were traveling with people from Belgium, Spain, China, Singapore, South Korea, Philippines, …. and our tour guide spoke English and Chinese, freaky!!

4. day (Saturday)

The most interesting day of our tour! We discovered the Niagara Falls and the Canadian town around them – you know, the Niagara Falls are located in the USA and Canada. It was damn cold and everything around the water was frozen because of the high mist, which led to fantastic looks. Around noon we had lunch at the Skylon Tower with an incredible view above the Niagara Falls! We shared the table with a really nice couple from Singapore, and we had a lot of fun. :)
Later on the day we arrived in Toronto and did a Harbor Cruise to watch the beautiful Skyline. When it started to get dark we visited the highest building in Toronto, the CN Tower. We saw Toronto from above at night and we were brave enough to walk over the floor of glass which offered an awesome sight hundreds of metres down to the ground. :D We ate Korean dinner with the really nice guys from South Korea, this was the hottest and spiciest experience for me. :D

funny town

Niagara Falls!

fantastic view at Skylon Tower and Canadian Falls

the first black squirrel I've seen in my life!!

everything was frozen, insane!

close-up of the Falls

and a rainbow :)

the American Falls from above

look at the high mist!!

Toronto Skyline :)

lying on the glass and you can look down to the ground, yeah, I was really brave!! :D

Toronto by night :)

5. day (Sunday)

We returned late to New York City after a really long ride and got home exhausted, but happy about the past days. :)

6. - 10. day (Monday to Friday)

I showed her around my area during my daily free time. :) We did a lot of shopping and my mommy said she never shopped so much her whole life, haha. :D Despite the cold air we drove several times to different beaches and also saw a beautiful sunset. :)

finally the gardeners came to clean up our lawn!

mommy watching the sunset :)

my mommy and me :)

11. day (Saturday)

New York City! What else? We went shopping around the lower Broadway, which means in Downtown, and we bought not only clothes and other stuff for us, but also christmas presents for my family at home. :) Yeah, we walked a lot and reached Ground Zero, where the Broadway starts/ends (? I don't know yet :D). We looked around, but everytime I visit Ground Zero I feel sad, so did my mommy too… Then we went to the outlet shop "Century 21" and later Macy's, but it was insane crowded so that we left immediately after we entered. :D Anyway, New York City was totally crowded on that Saturday, even my Hostmum told us so, it was crazy! We wanted to see the world famous christmas tree in front of the Rockefeller Center, but the crowd of people made it impossible to get close to it. xD

12. day (Sunday)

Mommy's last New York City day! My lovely friend Aline from Brazil joined us in the train to New York and when we arrived at Grand Central we stopped a taxi again, as we did on the first New York City day, to get to the Central Park. It was cold, as every day, but the sun was shining so brightly that we had a really nice walk around "The Lake", the second largest lake there, from the east to the west side. :) After that we visited the MoMA Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, where we could warm up. It took us longer as I expected to walk through it, and we couldn't even finish the whole sightseeing, but we saw paintings of Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Chagall, Salí, Kandinsky, Monet and other artists, which was the most important part. :)

On our way to the Rockefeller Center, for another chance to see the christmas tree :D, we met my nice friend Jiho from South Korea. :) Fortunately it wasn't as crowded as Saturday and we could stand underneath the tree and take pictures, but actually you can take the best pictures from another point: from the stairs which lead down to the ice rink. ^^ At the end of that worthwhile day we went to the Times Square again, which is totally exciting in the evening, because of all the lights around you!

Central Park still looks like fall at several places!

Aline and me :)

Van Gogh and me :D

Picasso and me, haha :D

the christmas tree!

13. - 16. day (Monday to Thursday)

Shopping and beaches again. ;) Metionable: The visit in the cheesecake factory!! My Mommy was really enthusiastic about the amount of choices of cheesecakes. :) And we decorated my own small christmas tree in my au pair room. :) On Thursday night she flew back to Germany. :( But we had an unforgettable time, mommy, thank you for everything. :)

our pond

walking through our forest, we don't have snow yet, but we have already frozen water...

mommy relaxing on the beach

Haha, I didn't tell you everything about all the American food we ate: pizza, ice cream, spareribs, cheesecake, hot dogs in New York City, … ;)

Well, four other days, especially another weekend passed by since she left. What else did I? You should know sorting all my pictures took a lot of time. xD

On Saturday I went to New York City again to meet the mommy and daddy of the family I did babysitting for in Germany. :) Mr. and Mrs. Klingeberg, thank you again for the tasty cookies and nice greetings to the kids! :)

On Sunday I had the next au pair meeting at our area director's house. We were supposed to bake cookies, but I was the only one without cookies, which was a little bit embarrassing. =/ When I got home I started feeling really sick and during the evening I got all the symptoms of a food poisoning! =( That wasn't nice at all, but today I felt better, so that I had time to write this text. :)

I'm done now, I can't believe it!! =) Christmas time is coming and my handsome, cute, affectionate, smart, humorous, imaginative, just my beloved Joschka will be here in eight days!!! I can't wait to see him again! :)

Thanks for reading, I would love to get some comments, but if not I'll talk to you again anyway, soon, I promise! :)

Dies und Das

Hallo meine Lieben!

Wieder einmal viel zu spät… *hust* Ehm, ja. ;)

Meine Mama kommt heute für zwei Wochen! Ich freue mich riesig und wollte deswegen noch schnell den längst fälligen Blogeintrag verfassen. :D Während ich nun also schreibe, sitzt sie bereits seit einigen Stunden im Flieger. ^^

Seit über vier Monaten bin ich nun in den USA, unglaublich! Hier befinde ich mich inzwischen nun auch inmitten von Festen und Feiertagen: Halloween ist gerade vorbei, nun stehen diese Woche Thanksgiving und der Black Friday an, bevor dann endgültig Weihnachtsbeleuchtung und -stimmung verbreitet werden! New York zu Weihnachten! Wer wünscht sich nicht einmal zu dieser Zeit in dieser Stadt zu sein? Ich bin ganz gespannt!! Nächste Woche werde ich von den ersten Eindrücken und Unternehmungen mit meiner Mama berichten. Ich verrate aber noch nichts, lasst euch einfach überraschen. :)

Vorletztes Wochenende war ich ausnahmsweise nicht in New York, sondern habe einen Spaziergang in Connecticut's Wäldchen dem Großstadtdschungel vorgezogen und am Abend mit der Inga gekocht. :)

Der Herbst in seiner Farbenpracht ist nur leider schon wieder vorbei. :(

Am Donnerstag war ich wieder mit der Aline unterwegs und in dem kleinen Nachbarörtchen Rowayton haben wir ganz zufällig mitbekommen, dass hier ein Film gedreht wurde. :D Ich guckte erst ganz verdutzt und fragte mich, aus welcher Zeitmaschine die Männer im Wrack und hohem Zylinder und die Frauen in braunen Umhängen wohl entsprungen wären. ;) Ein Polizist erzählte uns dann, dass der Film "We, The People" heißt. :)

Filmdreh

Das nun eben vergangene Wochenende hatte ich Besuch von meiner lieben Jule, die Au Pair auf Long Island ist. Freitag Abend habe ich sie in New York getroffen und nach einem Besuch in dem neuen, überwältigend großen Disney-Store am Times Square sind wir wieder zu mir gefahren. Hier habe ich ihr am Samstag die Gegend gezeigt und wir haben wunderschöne Fotos bei Sonnenuntergang gemacht, was ich schon immer tun wollte. :) Abends sind wir in Stamford ausgegangen, da wir beide ja über 21 Jahre alt sind, juhu! ;) Sonntags haben wir uns noch den Rest der riesigen Ballon-Parade in Stamford angeguckt. Ja, das war ein sehr schönes, lustiges Wochenende! Vielen Dank Julchen!! :)

Disney-Store

Jule und ich :)

Mit der Schaukel am Baum, einfach genial!

Vollmond :)

The Cat in the Hat...

Schnee! :P

So, dann mache ich mal auf zum Flughafen! *freu*

Bis bald!!

von Gespenstern und Läufern

Hallo meine Lieben!

Mit erneuter Verspätung, aber in neuem Design, gibt es nun wieder den nächsten Blogeintrag! ^^

Hat irgendjemand daran gezweifelt, dass ich SAW 3D im Kino überlebt habe? Nun, mir ist glücklicher Weise nichts passiert, auch wenn ich die Nacht danach gar nicht schlafen konnte. :D

Inzwischen habe ich das Gefühl, dass mein Au Pair Leben immer langweiliger wird – der Alltag kommt, ahh! :(

Zumindest bin ich auch vergangenes Wochenende wieder jeweils Samstag und Sonntag in New York gewesen und habe neue, spannende Plätze entdeckt und Dinge erlebt:

Am Samstag mit der lieben Aline aus Brasilien. Wir sind erst mit der kostenlosen Fähre von Südmanhattan nach Staten Island und wieder zurück gefahren – vorbei an der Statue of Liberty und mit Blick auf das Financial District. Nach einem Rundgang bei Ground Zero und ausführlichem Shoppen bei "Century 21" (ich besitze jetzt ein schwarzes Abendkleid ^^), sollte mein Halloween-Erlebnis in den USA ein spektakuläres Ende finden! :D Für 20 $ erhielten wir Eintritt in "Blood Major", einem Haunted House in New York. Schon beim Anstehen in der Schlange liefen gruselige Gestalten herum und erschreckten uns. ;-) Im Geisterhaus mussten wir dann durch ca. 15 verschiedene Räume laufen. Ziemlich dunkle Räume, in denen furchteinflössende Gestalten auf uns warteten. :D Hey, ich habe sogar Freddy Krüger getroffen und er hat mir mit seiner Kralle über meine Wange gestreichelt. Naja, so witzig wie das jetzt klingt fand ich das in dem Moment nicht. xD Aber am meisten erschreckt haben mich die Wesen auf dem Boden, die nach meinen Beinen gegriffen haben, …

mit Micky Maus!

auf der Fähre "Staten Island Ferry" mit meiner geliebten Schokolade!! :D

beide Personen symbolisieren Freiheit =P

Helikopter

Blood Manor

Am Sonntag mit der Sina! :-) Wir haben uns den New York Marathon angeschaut und sind dann durch das Viertel "SoHo" und den Washington Square Garden gelaufen.

New York Marathon

Architektur in SoHo

Straßenmusiker im Washington Square Garden

Nun, was kann ich noch berichten? Ah, ich habe mein komplettes MacBook formatiert und mit Mac OS X Snow Leopard und iLife '11 neu eingerichtet. :-) Was für eine Freude, dass mein altes MacBook das noch mitmacht! An dieser Stelle einen ganz großes Dankeschön an Apple: Es war noch nie so einfach für mich meine Fotos, Mails, Lesezeichen und andere Daten wieder einzusortieren. Es gab so gut wie gar keine Probleme und alle meine Daten sind sicher wieder an ihrem "alten" Platz! :-)

So viel für heute von eurer Weltenbummlerin!