today's blog is going to be lengthy, so sit up tight, no seat belt requires but a cup of coffee, perhaps :)) enjoy.
it has been so long ago since my last entry here. Life was a hustle-bustle soon after my school break on December 19, 2008, but thatsokay :)) Cold winter breeze is still upon us here in Europe and imokay with that. After all, i love cold weather tickle on my skin and the snow!
CHRISTMAS EVE: DECEMBER 24th, 2008
My first holiday break, we had a quiet family Christmas celebration with my in-laws in a small town called Asperg. We stayed overnight and drove back to Heilbronn the next morning gearing up for our first winter holiday getaway to Venice.
VENICE, ITALY: DECEMBER 27th-29th, 2008
TUI fly airline took us to Venice on December 27th. Soon as we arrived at Venice airport, we opt for "public water taxi" that cost us 24 Euros to transport us to our hotel. This water taxi took 1.5 hours boat ride after stopping passengers from one destination to another and we were in no rush. Private taxi boat will cost us 120 Euros in 1/2 hrs ride! Our water taxi stopped us at St. Marcos where we stayed for the next 2 nights at Hotel Bauer. Well located!
We checked-in to our hotel in the early afternoon and was given an upgraded room, hurray!! Seconds after chucking our luggage down, we used all the leftover day light time to walk around Venice. The weather was sunny bright. It got colder in the late afternoon as the sun started to go down into the horizon. 2 nights was more than enough to see the whole separated "town" that was linked by many bridges.
We thought going to Venice in the winter would avoid us with packed of tourists but we were wrong! I guess everybody wanted to go somewhere during this most festive time of the year to create memories we all never want to forget.
Throughout our stay in Venice, we had a wonderful time cruising on foot and even the weather was a blessing from Above. There was no drop of rain because 2 weeks earlier, there was a very bad flood in Venice. Halleluyah! God has answered my prayers.
ASPERG, GERMANY: DEC. 29th-JAN.2nd, 2009
Novi stayed with us until the 2nd of January and it was unfortunate that we could not show Novi much around. Both, my husband and Novi fell sick because of the cold weather. My body seemed to handle the situation quite well although i have aching muscles here and there. Thanks to Novi when she was up on her feet, she gave me a superb 'kaut' using coin (that's Malay word), i would say muscle 'scrub' to remove bad wind in the body! do you understand what i mean ? :))
One morning when we were already on the road driving towards Black Forest with Novi, suddenly, the breaking news on the radio mentioned of snow rain at Black Forest region. There were already road accidents due to slippery road. Better be safe than sorry, we had to make a quick U-turn after driving almost 45 minutes. We ended up browsing Stuttgart city where all the shops were closed! I hope Novi will visit us again end of this year, another 357 more days to go...
RINGING IN YEAR 2009 AT HOTEL ADLER, ASPERGon December 31st, we had a wonderful New Year Party at Hotel Adler in Asperg.
Our table of 13 persons was very international. There were a French family of 5 who live in Moscow, a Columbian family of 3 who live in Spain, Novi an Indonesian-Canadian who lives in England, me Malaysian with my Deutsch habibi and my in-laws. We had wonderful food of 5-course, lecker... and sharing stories with everyone ... of course, dozens of family photographs to remember this very day.
PARIS: JANUARY 3rd-6th, 2009
Then it was Paris, Paris, Paris, with all her famous landmarks decked out for the holidays! We took the ICE speed train leaving early morning and arrived in Paris in the good afternoon weather. Wonderful timing! It was a smooth 4 hours train ride. We also had a blessing weather in Paris, sunny but cold, no rain at all, no snow either, not now, not yet... just waiting...
We walked a lot in Paris until my feet were so sore, but thatsokay :)) We didn't celebrate Paris in high style like boat cruise on the Seine River - it was crazy cold, instead we spent our good time on good food. We had good food indeed and i had fresh oysters non-stop in Paris. They were so fresh and i could not resist not to eat them when i can. I ate snails too, but sea snail, nyummm...
On our last stay in Paris, it snowed all day! thanked God we had done the Eiffel Tower the day before and all the MUST SEE areas. Later, i learned that the Eiffel Tower being one of Paris' main tourist attractions was closed because of slippery conditions.
AND THANK GOD my husband thought wisely to take the train as it was more relax to sit on the train and the timing was about the same if we took the plane. He was indeed correct and it was a perfect trip to go to Paris by train from Germany. Why? should we have taken the flight, we might not make it home as scheduled - there were dozens of flights being cancelled at Paris airport due to bad weather that contributed to the cancellations on that day.
On our last day in Paris, my body could not tolerate any longer with the cold weather and i fell sick eventually. i am trying to recover from my bad cough but i love hearing my rocker voice though :)))
that's about it the sum up of our recent holiday getaway collection happenings in my 3-week class break and it is about to come to an end... no more glorious days .... and now i am not looking forward to going back to class next week!!
our next vocal holiday: God willing, Istanbul, Turkey :)))
NinaOA©
3 comments:
Hi Nina!!! Awesome, awesome pictures and holidays. Don't you just like Venice? I should go there again with my lau-kung...tapi camana mau romantik with our little monster, Juju, ni...LOL. I missed those places...Italy, Paris, Germany...So easy kan traveling to any countries in the Europe. You can fly, drive, or take a train...so convenient; unlike here in the US. Domestic flight pun macam mau gilak mahal...
Anyways, as always I have enjoyed reading your entries, and, of course, all your fantastic shots!
hi Joyce, thanks for dropping by. We have no desire to see Venice for the 2nd time.... Once is enough. Too touristic and some areas are just packed of them ... yeah, we're one of them haha... Food is a bit expensive and one evening, we went to a restaurant we regretted later. The food was so lousy and the service was so bad and we were billed at 80+ Euros! We give no tip! actually we already saw few customers walked away after one order and we should have had understood what was going on in there, but too late...
As for Paris, we have a very strong desire to go back there again. Keeping my fingers crossed, this Easter break :)) i love the fresh baked bakeries and the seafood in Paris. Nyumm.. nyumm... forget diet :)))
Yes, it is good to live in Europe - it makes traveling much convenience. I hope you and family will make it to Europe one day and we could meet up somewhere, somehow, God's willing :)) Nina XOXO
VENICE, the city of Canals and PARIS, the city of Lights. Both cities are gifted places to see especially Venice. Enjoy Venice now, as tomorrow, you feel, it may be gone. This precious city may disappear forever into the lagoon.
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