At the Hauraki Kapa Haka festival 2014

Sunday at home.

Sunday afternoon - The boys lazy playing Monopoly, me doing light stuff on the computer, and Elena the only one really working - preparing the garden shed for new guests.

Tui

Hariata and Blanqui

Excellent cookbook: Antimicrobial handbook Waikato DHB

Antimicrobial handbook

Eastern Beach, Auckland

Four Years in New Zealand, today! We had to pick up the big boys in Auckland, from a football training camp, at Eastern Beach. We went a little earlier and took a walk on the beach. I was a little bit reminded of the day when we arrived in Piha, 2010, by the weather and also the scenery of this Auckland shore. 
Thanks people for making us feel at home, more than ever!  You accept weirdness and imperfection easier than what we are used to in Germany and Spain. You see the good things and put your focus there.

Home again

Home again... indeed it feels like it. Still I am not sated of this place. Although I enjoyed the time in Germany and Spain, I see this as the centre of my life. This is such a good mix of immersion in a culture I am still learning of and some valuable isles of my own cultural roots (our German friends here).
Our daughter Clara (19) however widens her horizon now in Granada with a study term abroad, and Lucas (18) has applied for a study post in Munich. So we are six at home now and soon will be only five. Luis (16) is still at school but he also starts thinking where to do his "OE", overseas experience - in Canada where his cousin Boris lives?
Next week I will be back to work at the hospital, and I hope to be able to maintain some work - life - balance. This can be difficult as I have chosen my actual job and a parallel training in clinician-performed ultrasound following my drive to the unfamiliar, unknown. 

Last Night in Spain (Sol, Madrid)

Our plane: (Madrid -) Dubai - Melbourne - Auckland

Spanien - ein Wiedersehen nach fünf Jahren... hello again after five years...

...the summer house, the nature, life on the streets, excellent mediterranean cuisine, festivals and culture, the gym centre, the pool, warm stones, the mountains, the impressive monastery.

We are in El Escorial. 

If you really want to know Spain you have to get to know it from the inside, not from the coasts as so many only do....

The Summer House in El Escorial

Streetlife in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the monastery in the background.

Spanish lunch in Avila

Rest at the mountain climbing - on the way to Abantos peak

The monastery from halfway up

Top of Abantos

 

Navatejares

The odd visit to Madrid

The author

Church in Avila

Devotive candle for the risen Christ

Spain: next stage of the big journey

The next stage of our big journey is Spain, home of Elena. Here I am sitting in the winter garden area of this beautiful batch (holiday home), constructed about 70 years ago of granite ashlars (square stones) for eternity. On the journey to here we have stopped off and stayed at several very good friend's in Switzerland and been able to see Zürich and Bern. The last night we stayed at a hotel in Brive-La-Gaillarde in the middle of France, where we watched the semifinal Germany - Brazil in a local pub. Brive is a really cute little town which is good for a romantic trip with all it's old stone buildings full of character.
Our Mitsubishi L300 luxury bus has not forsaken us during all this trip.
On the 9th July we have safely reached this batch in El Escorial in the Sierra of Madrid and been heartily welcomed by Elena's parents and her sister. Fabulous aromatic food and spotless blue skies almost all the time over tones of light brown and olive green. Memories mix with new impressions. The huge monastery again, this impressive building radiating majesty and peace, unchanged for many hundreds of years, has become part of our own history as a family. Our kids have sat on the sun-warmed stones of the big patio from when they were little.  
And Spanish night life with many folks outside in the streets and the many bars and street cafés, voices, laughter, lights, scents of delicious food.
Two days ago we were joined by the family of my brother after Elena's relatives had rescued themselves to their flat in Madrid.
We watched Germany become Football World Champion in a typical bar in the centre with free tapas alongside fizzy drinks and beer!