01.-30.6.2008: Hamburg / Huatabampito Yes, Helen survived the weeks without Kirsten. This is Kirsten writing now: Hi, normally Helen writes the English pages of our website, but as you can see by all the photos, I´ve got lots more to tell for this month. As always I stayed with my parents in my brother´s old room. Mutti took a week of holidays and spoiled me to bits. Well, even when you are 42 years old, there´s always somebody who mothers you. And my mum is the best! She´s a great cook and I stuffed my face with all her delicious meals. June is the right time to come to Germany - the strawberries are ripe and the asparagus is also delicious. Honestly, there is nothing better than German bred and cheese, German sausages and cabbage of all kinds. I miss the German food when we are abroad and so Mum did all my favourite meals. Yum! As I was only here for a bit more than 4 weeks, I didn´t bother this time to work in between. My family is precious and I loved to spend the time with my nephews and nieces. They are all now at an age where they really understand what our life in the motor home is about. I spent most mornings at my brother Ralf´s house, because his internet connection was a lot faster than my parents. Ole, Anna and Torben usually came home at 1pm and their first trip was down to the cellar where I was sitting. I had to show so many photos and videos and answer millions of questions. Anna - my niece and 9 years old - kept saying: "You are so lucky to be able to see all this. I want to come with you!" The last time we saw them was two years ago and they have grown a lot. Each one of them is at least a head taller and except for Ole (5) most of their milk teeth are gone. Anna and Torben already wear size 38 (British: Size 5) shoes at age 9 - just one size below me! Boy, they are going to be tall! While I was in Germany the European Soccer Cup took place in Switzerland and Austria. Helen didn´t come because England didn´t qualify and she has just been to England over Christmas. Everybody missed her though. Especially the kids. They only know us as Helen and Kirsten and little Ole nearly made me cry when he said to me: "When are you coming back next time? And will Helen be there too?" - Sniff, sniff! The Euro Cup was great. Flags of all nations were seen in house windows and on cars. In Hamburg we have a large population of Turkish, Polish, Russian, Croatian, Spanish and Portuguese people and most of them carried both flags - their home country flag and the German one. We watched the first German game at my brother Göran. It tool us a while to set up the beamer the day before, but the whole family including my grandma enjoyed the game. Germany won 2:0 against Poland and we were looking forward to the next match. This was against Croatia and I went with Mum and Dad to the public viewing in the city center of Hamburg. 40.000 German fans gathered in front of a large screen and the atmosphere was fantastic. Before the match, during the half time and after the match, people were singing and dancing to the great Euro music. I always get goose bumps when so many people are singing the national anthem. It has never been a common thing in Germany due to our bad history during the Nazi times but since the World Cup two years ago everybody knows the lyrics and nobody is shy to sing the anthem loud and clearly. My mum was cool as ever. There was a big stand with comfy seats for families. Well, I guess it was for families with small kids so they don´t get squashed in the crowd, but mum didn´t fancy standing for hours and went ahead to the steward and told him she was here with her husband and daughter. I was about 10 yards behind, so she got the stamp on her wrist and the steward looked a bit funny when I finally went through as "the little daughter". Unfortunately Germany played really bad against Croatia and lost 2:1. Also one of our best young players - Sebastian Schweinsteiger - got the red card in the final minutes of the game. Now we had to at least draw against Austria. Normally an easy game but Austria was one of the two home teams and was highly motivated. They beat Germany once back in the 80s in Cordoba and the "Ghost of Cordoba" was in the news for days. This obviously had an effect on the German team. They played even worse than the match before and Austria was better in the first half. Thank God, Michael Ballack scored with a fantastic free kick and we won the match 1:0. Not good, but who cares about the match when you reach the quarter finals. Oh, I forgot to mention that I wore Helen´s England shirt with a black arm band to all the German matches - in her memory so to say! I didn´t wear it against Croatia and we promptly lost. In the quarter finals we played Portugal. They had three fantastic matches so far and were the absolute favourite for the match. Honestly, I bet 3:1 for Portugal in advance. Our coach was sent of against Austria and was banned for this match up onto the stands behind a glass wall. No communication to the team was allowed and we have never seen him so nervously. But for some reason it must have given the team the right motivation. We couldn´t believe our eyes. Germany scored two great goals in the first half hour and played like they never played before. It was one of the best matches throughout the whole tournament and in the end we won 3:2. My voice was totally gone from all the screaming and I had two large bruises in the back of my calves from jumping up and down and hitting the bench behind me. In between all the soccer matches I managed to visit with my closest friends and also did a lot of shopping. I came with two empty bags and a long shopping list from Helen. She even sent me to the English Shop in Hamburg to buy her favorite Galaxy chocolate and cans of beans and sausages. The bags were filling more and more every day and my wallet looked more and more empty. Life got even more expensive in Germany in the last two years. The weekends were usually busy with the kids. Chiara had a piano concert and I was positively surprised how cool she went up on stage and played her two pieces. She´s 8 years old now and hasn´t played the piano for long. Her older brother Kilian (10) has started about 4 years ago and both are practicing on Helen´s piano which is now at my brother Göran´s flat. Aunty Helen is really proud of them! Then I was asked to run 2km with my niece Anna at the Barsbüttler Volkslauf. 2km? Me? I didn´t even bring my sports shoes and I didn´t think I´d make it. I´m not fit enough for this anymore. Thank God, Anna practice the day before and her mother Mareike said to me: "It´s OK if you could give her support during the last 700m." Now, that sounded a whole lot better - although the start was at 9.10am (I´m normally still fast asleep at this time) and I didn´t have time for breakfast either. But of course I didn´t want to fail - imagine an embarrassed Anna explaining that her aunty was throwing up somewhere along the track ... I managed and so did Anna and Torben. Little Ole ran a stadium round in under two minutes and his mother Mareike went on the 10km an hour later. For her it´s peanuts - she runs every morning 5km at sunrise and participates in a lot of triathlons throughout the year. Maybe, I should start doing some sport again ... We played the semi final against Turkey. They have been the luckiest team in the tournament so far with last minute goals in three matches. We were warned but after the fantastic match against Portugal very optimistic. But Turkey got the better start. They had one big chance after another and scored the first goal after 20 minutes. They were never leading in any of the other matches so far and we all had a bad feeling. But then Schweini scored only 4 minutes later for Germany and it was 1:1 at half time. In the second half the match went from one side to the other and all of a sudden the picture was gone. We were watching the game in a restaurant and thought the beamer was gone, but no - a heavy thunderstorm caused a power cut in the main TV center in Vienna and the whole of Europe had a black out for 10 minutes. The German TV reporter got on the phone and did a little radio commentary. Thank God, the picture was back before the other goals were scored. Germany scored the 2:1 and Turkey tried their best afterwards. Knowing that they were good for goals during the final minutes of the match, our knees were shaking. And indeed ... in minute 85 they equalized. Sh...! We were all devastated and hoped for the extension time. But then Philipp Lahm - the cute little German defense player - scored a fantastic goal in the 90th minute and we won 3:2. I still had a scratchy throat from the last match and lost my voice in all the excitement again. Unfortunately we lost the final against Spain with 1:0. To be fair, Spain was the best team throughout the tournament (won all matches) and could have/should have won 5:0. Germany kicked the ball towards the Spanish goal keeper only 4 times in 90 minutes - the worst performance in the German soccer history. Of course we were really disappointed but hey ... the Euro Cup was a fantastic event! Fans all over the continent enjoyed it peacefully and celebrated together. I personally think, that sport is the best peace keeper in the world. Why do we have all these wars, when we could all enjoy life a lot easier. We are definitely looking forward to the next World Cup in 2010 in South Africa! Then it was tearful goodbyes to everybody. I had a great time with my family and friends in Hamburg. Thanks to all of you. I miss you loads! And here is Helen's report and what she has been up to while I was gone: Life in Huatobampito was nowhere near as hectic for Helen as it was for Kirsten in Hamburg. At least not at the start. Helen's daily ritual was to water the plants and make sure that the security lights were switched on. It was also too hot to go outdoors and Helen was grateful for the air conditioning in the house. It was still very windy and Helen had to constantly sweep up leaves from the patio. The leaves also had to be removed from around the plants and trees and from off the grass and then taken across the road to an unofficial dump site where Esther burned them at regular intervals. Bin loads of leaves and debris were carted over there. It was a constant battle! Helen didn't manage to get onto the internet very often and had to make do with just reading the results of the European Football Cup matches. Not a very exciting way to keep up, but she couldn't watch any of it anyway. At least Kirsten sent thumb nail sketches of the matches so Helen could get an idea of which teams were playing well and who deserved to win. Helen also cleaned Winnie inside and out and got onto the roof to clean that aswell. She only had to drive off once to Huatobampo to get some supplies whilst Kirsten was away, but it was so hot that she had to switch on the fridge inside Winnie the night before to transport perishables back to the house before they went off! It was also too hot to go walking on the beach and Helen only managed one walk. But there seemed to be plenty to do, keeping the house and gardens in order and making sure Winnie was clean. About eight days before Helen left, she started with all the major cleaning, and washing that needed to be done. She and Esther also managed to clean out the large barrel that collects the water from the washing machine by hauling it outside and spraying inside with water and then using Clorox to clean it. They were both sweating buckets after that operation! There were also a couple of power cuts that didn't help. Especially the one in the middle of the night, where Helen woke up sweating because the fan wasn't on and it had heated up too much to sleep! Helen also did some cooking to put stuff in the freezer for the journey up to the border so we didn't have to cook if it was too hot. Finally it was the last day and Helen hosed down and cleaned the patio and finished off all the rest of the cleaning and got totally exhausted in the process. She was really looking forward to having Kirsten back... and get her to do all the cleaning for a while!!!