New Year´s Eve in NYC with my family! :)

Finally after 5 month  I see my family again! I´m so happy that my parents are also visitng me here in America. It´s really hard to describe how you feel, when you meet your family after 5 month. All I can say is that I was soooo soooo happy. 

We stayed almost a whole week in the City. That was so great.

New Year´s Eve dinner at Delmonicos:

After we had dinner we decided to go to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was very cold. Anyhow there were still so many people. So we waited till it turns 12:00. We waited for around 20 minutes. But that was still too long. My feet were freezing. Finally it was 12:01. We expected a big firework. But unfortunately the "firework" wasn´t as big as we expected to be. But it was still a great day! And it was so much more greater to start the new year 2015 together with my family.

My brother´s birthday in America! :)

 

Happy Birthday! 

There’s no other love like the love for a brother. 

There’s no other love like the love from a brother.

(Terri Guillemets)

Christmas 2015

It´s Christmas! Finally. This year it´s really not a normal Christmas for me. I´m celebrating Christmas in America. And I´m so happy that my brother is here to visit me over the Christmas holidays. So a part of my family is around me. I´m so so happy about this.
This Christmas is so different than any other Christmas I´ve ever experienced. Different - but different in a good way.

Sooooooooooooooo many presents!

And such a huuuuuuuuge christmas tree!

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero. 

Marc Brown

It´s Christmas time!

The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters.

Audrey Hepburn

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Charles Spurgeon

Ice skating!

Today my brother arrived. After I´ve picked him up from the airport we had lunch at applebees

and then we returned back home to the kids and Lisa.

And then we decided to go ice skating!! Wuuuhuu! That was so much fun! 

How the grinch stole Christmas

Tonight I went together with the kids in the city to see the musical "How the Grinch stole Christmas".

We took the train at around 5pm, and after 1:20h we were in the Madison Square Garden in NYC.

I love musicals! If I would have the money I would see a musical every weekend.

The Grinch: It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags.
Narrator: The the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
The Grinch: Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...
Narrator: He thought
The Grinch: ...means a little bit more.
 

 

This is just a video from you tube. It´s not the show we saw. 

But it´s similar. 

 

 

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Today I spent the day in the city with my friends. We wanted to see the big Christmas Tree at the Rockerfeller Center. After that we went for a walk in the Central Park. It was cold, but we had such a great time together.

 It´s also possible to go ice skating under the christmas tree. But I think it costs 30$ and you have to wait a really long time, because so many people want to go there ice skating.

 Love is all you need.

 Of course, we also got a cup of coffee at starbucks - like always.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, 

and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

You can also go ice skating in the Central Park. 

It´s cheaper than at the Rockerfeller Center and you don´t have to wait so long.

The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

The Nutcracker

Today we saw the "The Nutcracker" in the Stonybrook. 

We have our Christmas Tree now!

Today we´ve brought our gigantic christmas tree. And when I say gigantic, I mean it! I´de never saw such a big christmas tree in any living room! It´s soo soo big!

So we drove together with the kids to the place where they sell christmas trees. And I´m pretty sure we got the biggest one they had.

Four men were necessary to get the tree on the top of our car.

December

Der Dezember steht vor der Tür. Und ich dachte mir ich mache meinen lieben Hostchildren eine kleine Überraschung. ein Adventskalender. Gesagt, getan.
2 x 24 Kleinigkeiten habe ich mir überlegt und in insgesamt 48 rote und grüne Tütchen gesteckt.
Und fertig war mein Adventskalender.
Und die zwei haben sich mega darüber gefreut. :)

Trip to the Niagara Falls and to Boston and to Philadelphia

This weekend I was on a trip with two of my friends. We decided to do a three-days-tour. The first stop were the niagara falls. It was really amazing, although it was snowing and really really cold.
But I was good prepared with my warm winter coat, gloves and my warm scarf.

 

I think  it was around 6:30 when we arrived in NYC.

We got up at 5am because we had to take the train to the city first.

We had to go to Chinatown. That was our meeting point and our bus stop.

So the first day we spent in the bus to drive to the niagara falls.I don´t know how long exactly, but we left NYC at around 8:30am and we arrived at the niagara falls at - I think - 7/8pm.
We drove at this day more than 600km...

 The niagara falls at night. It was really cool. Cold but cool.

 

This was our first hotel. It was pretty good. 

On the second day we visited another place, I don´t remeber the name. But yes, it was cold and windy. We drove to one of the big 5 lakes - I think.

 Thess are our two chinese travel guides. Besides a few other people there were only chinese people with us in the bus. So of course our guides were also chinese. 

And everything they told us and the other tourists we´ve heard  first in chinese and then in english.

This was an amazing hot chocolat with lots of cream and chocolate sauce. 

We were in a very small village around in the area of the niagara falls. 

We were so lucky that we found this cafe.

Then we had some time by ourselves, and we were looking for a cafe to get a warm drink. 

And we found the cute, little "village diner".

The niagara falls at day. It was very cloudy and windy. And it was kind of raining and snowing.
But it was still amazing to stand next to these big waterfalls.

Then our time at the niagara falls was over and we got back in our sooooo comfortable bus.... 

We were on our way to Washington now. On our way to Washington we stopped at a glas museum.

Then we arrived at our hotel at 7pm. We all were so tired, and fell into our beds (which were indeed really comfortable).

Our room for the second night. It was just like the first one pretty good.

On Sunday we went to Washington. We got up so early - at 7pm left the bus. So my alarm was at around 6am... But we really had a good breakfast, but unfortunately not enough time....
We drove another hour to get to Washington.
Washington is a really amaing city. And I´m sure that wasn´t the last time I was here.

Our first stop was the Lincoln Memorial. This statue is pretty huge.

In my opinion it looks like a greek bulding. It´s how big it is.
Everybody should visit Washington once in his life.

Then we went to the White House. Here lives the President of the United States of America. But this house wasn´t really amazing. I was thinking it would be much bigger. But maybe it´s just because we were so far away behind a fence.

The last big stop was at the United States Capitol.
After this, we got back on our bus and we drove for another hour to Philadelphia.
We saw the Liberty Bell and the Constitution Hall.
We spent only 30/45 min in Philadelphia so we didn´t really see much of the city. So I defenitely have to come back.

Over all it was a great trip. But I won´t do another bus tour like this.
 It´s just way to stressfull und you really don´t have enought time.

But for only 75$ it was quite a good deal!