We wish you a great year ahead! I bet you had a good party on the 31st. On our side things were a little bit more quiet. With 2 small kids and low temperatures outside, the number of possibilities are reduced to only a few. Non the less we had fun and were astonished about how long fireworks were launched into the cold night. Different than in Singapore, during NYE (almost) everybody is allowed to purchase and fire off fireworks. I bet you can imagine what that means. And, not to forget, we had a White Christmas with big snowflakes falling down like in slow motion thus supporting a classical and traditional Christmas atmosphere!
Eva closed the year with her first live appearance of ChiliCrab in the local art scene. She displayed and sold her jewelry on an artists market at the beginning of December. It was very funny that one of the organizers was Singaporean. Sometimes the world is small. We talked about Kaya Toasts, Char Kway Teow, Bak Kuh Teh, the healing powers of a good spicy Rendang and on almost every other type of Makan we could think of, like Noya Kueh Kueh. (Im hungry now!)
The weather. In Germany, and many other parts of Europe, the weather forecast takes an important part in our lives. It dictates what you will wear and sometimes it even determines what you will do that day. Every night before you go to bed you will check the weather forecast in the news and every morning, one of the first things you will do is to check your weather station (every German possesses a comprehensive radio controlled weather station, Im sure). At low temperatures this ritual turns out to be very important to avoid chilling surprises, possibly affecting transportation and travel, your schedule or even worse, your health.
I doesnt matter how many digital weather stations you may have, if the massive snow fall kicks in 3 weeks before it usually does, you have no chance. Dont know if the news about the impact that this climate had, made it to the region you live in. And one more time I feel lucky to be able to work from home, so I could avoid the outdoor chaos and watch the hassle from my window (when lazy Ill only check my outdoor WebCam 
). Unfortunately something I was not able to escape from, nor did the rest of the family, was getting sick. In fact we got ill a few times. For at least 6 weeks someone of the family was always out of order. I think our bodies and immune systems are still trying to cope and adapt.
Something positive about this cold conditions are the numerous photographic motives. An example: (All pics are on my photo-stream)
The kids have holidays from school, lets see what we come up with. You will see that on next months update.
Check HERE for the photo stream.
Take care. And a happy New Year!!!
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