Santa's little helper

Now that I’m not house bound looking after Max, I’ve been getting out and about and of course getting sick myself, naturally. Last weekend I went with the Family to the North of Bavaria for Nicoles brothers 50th Birthday party, so I got to meet a whole lot of the family. On Monday Mike had his Christmas play, where he was a Shepard and sang Christmas carols and even danced with girls! My crazy camera didn’t take one good photo, but the other parents were getting a little camera happy so there should be a good shot somewhere. The next day headed to Rüdesheim with Ellie, and managed to bump into a few crazy locals. That night headed back to school for Max’s end of year party. On Thursday took Ellie into Mainz, to do a few jobs for Nicole (who was at home sick, and had had to cancel the christmas party so as not to contaminate everyone) and to show Ellie around the Christmas market and town. My sister Ana, who's just moved to Belgium showed up on Saturday, so we headed back to Mainz to do a little shopping and again check out the Christmas Markets. After a bit of a rest, we walked into the centre of Wiesbaden and got some Glühwein with Ellie and Marc, before heading off to dinner at a Bavarian restaurant.

We carried on to a new English Pub that’s just opened up called the ‘James Joyce', where we were delighted to be given some Santa hats. Ana was exhausted from working all week and so after a few hours she went back to my place and I carried on back to Ellie’s. When I finally got home, I’d told Ana I would ring to get her to let me in, but my phone didn’t have enough credit, and the whole place was locked up like Fort Knox. I started ringing the buzzer for the top floor, but no body let me in. Just before I was about to accept my fate, that I was going to die of hyperthermia on the front door step, clutching a plastic Santa for company, it dawned on me I probably had enough money to text her, and finally managed to get out of the freezing cold. I'm not sure why it never occured to me to tell her just to leave the key outside!

Ana, Ellie and Me at the 'Fox and Hound'

The next morning Oma wasn’t too happy with me, something about ringing the doorbell continuously for half an hour, people stomping up and downstairs and lights flicking on and off at 2.30 am, what, who me? Also we didn’t get up till midday and she’d already made most of the Christmas meal, woops. So we got out of the house and I took Ana up to Rüdesheim (notice the theme, I should make a package deal for all those coming to the area, The Niki Special!! How much you reckon I could make?) Anyways, it was freakishly deserted. It’s a big tourist hub on the Rhine and usually crawling with old ladies on tours, but we got to walk up Dosselgasse with only a random Asian couple, who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. Then drove up the Rhine as far as I could handle, It was absolutely freezing outside, their was a weird mist and the sun was really low but we managed to see quite a lot of castles.

Ana along the Rhine

Back at the house, we toasted each other with a glass of champagne, and the boys ripped into their presents with gusto. I was very spoilt and got some new leather gloves, Belgium chocolates and Body Shop stuff from Ana, the family gave me a very nice designer handbag from New York and Oma and Opa gave me an antique German Brass plate, that is quite rare and you are not able to buy anywhere. Oma and Nicole had made Christmas Eve dinner, which is the main big meal of the holidays. We had shrimp cocktail with avocado slices for starters, steak with a mushroom sauce, peaches and pears, spätzle which is a type of German noodle and red cabbage. Granddad back in NZ would be horrified, as there was no dessert. Certainly was a lot different to Christmas back home, where we usually have around fourteen people for lunch at Nanas, some have to stand and we have a huge buffet with all the trimmings.

Mike, (a rather red faced) Me and Max

After cleaning everything up, we rang the family back home and watched the ‘Lake on the House’. Christmas day was really low key, got up late, boys busy playing with all their new toys. I dropped Ana at the English speaking Church in Wiesbaden, then after a quick bite headed into Frankfurt and braced the bitterly cold, and walked along the river. We strolled around the old part of Frankfurt, which was not destroyed in the war. Too cold to do anything else so after a pit stop for some Apple Cake (they were out of both Hot Chocolate and Strudel – which is absolutely criminal) we headed home and tucked up in bed to watch ‘The Family Stone’ a Christmas comedy. We cracked open a bottle of wine I had brought over from New Zealand with me, my absolute favourite; Milton’s Muscat’s at Dawn 2003 but was gutted to find it must’ve been corked. Still kind of drinkable, but definitely not as good as I had been hoping for.

Ana in front of the Frankfurt Dom

Before dropping Ana off at the Airport I took her for a walk in a park which is close by, and showed her some Castle ruins. She’s back in Brussels now and tonight I am heading over to Ellie’s and Marc’s, and Marcs going to cook dinner for us. I’m thinking of spending New Years in Frankfurt, but things could change and I’ve just booked my January holiday, so while the family’s off skiing in Austria I’m heading to the Canary Islands, which are off the Western Coast of Africa close to Morroco, to catch some sun for a week. No rest for the wicked huh.