The handover

Yes, you read it well. It's not Hanover but Handover this time. Or the handover of Hanover, and our Gunni in Neustadt.

The Monday after my last article, we had a special dinner. Two Ukrainian girls had joined us: Rymma, who the kids and I had already met on the day we went to the zoo, and Kateryna (Katya), her younger sister. The reason they met us was that Kateryna had come for an important function: au-pairing Gunnar part two! In August, she had already visited us for a "job interview", and I got a good feeling about her. She was interested and sweet to the kids. Malte wasn't so interested because he had fallen on the street while waiting for her and was sobbing. But since she arrived the 16th, he

is completely in to her. Gunnar however, was very suspicious at first. He didn't leave my side for days and we had to babysit him together, to let him get used to her. Something I admit I liked :) But after a week, he seemed totally at ease and even let her put him asleep. I showed Katya everything and we went to babyturnen and Spielkreis together. Surprisedly, there were a lot of Russian women (Katya speaks Russian) too, which annoys her (she wants to learn german, and fast!). Gunnar has to learn Russian now. What a challenge! Rainer demands that Katya speaks only Russian to him, like I Dutch, but we find that is impossible. She has to throw in some German keywords, otherwise communication becomes a problem for Gunnar doesn't understand a word yet. But she reads him a lot and at first Gunnar found it funny and asked me for translations, but now he just nods and listens, also when she speaks. And of course, the family learned to say goodnight ("[Spakoja noche]") in Russian..

My Dutch lessons however, got a painfull setback. I must have catched a cold on the roof of the Hanover observatory, and for almost a week my throath was so bad that I wasn't able to speak, not even sing songs! And that in the Sint Nicoals period.. :(

But somehow Gunnar still remembered "Sinterklaasje, bonne bonne bonne.." and ev

en made his own version of it (" Gooi wat in m'n Schupkarre..")! Sinterklaas was so flattered that on Friday he really threw someting in his shoe (and Maltes)..

Katya and I now share my room, because it will be hers soon, and that is very "gezellig" :)
The first weekend, the family was not there and I went with Katya to Hanover to search for the Dance school. I also got my last german haircut from the nice guy of the Cut Club that even remembered me. The next weekend, we also were alone, but Sunday Katya and Rymma took me to an anatomic exposition with REAL bodies..! It was a bit creepy but very interesting. One body was slashed in hunderds of pieces and so you could look into everything. We also saw a baby skeleton: it had a laughing head! Isn't it wondeful, babies are born with a smile..

The Christmasmarket had begun and on Saterday we walked a bit through it. It was exactly so like last year. At nine we went to World Coffee, were I had organised a little "carrotmob" to celebrate my last days in Germany. I had invited most peope I knew here (10 oder so) and they didn't all show up but Katya, Rymma, Isabelle and Benni had come, and that was really nice, not only because of the delicious hot chocolate/whococinos and cake. I

was happy to see them again before leaving.. and Benni even had made me a "goodbye gift".. a mug with a group picture of this years weekend in Bückeburg! Awesome.

Now I'm still enjoying my last days in the family and with "handing over the stick" to my "trainee" Katya. I guess poor Gunnar still doesn't realize what will happen this wednesday, and actually me neither, but Malte reminds me sometimes about it: "The dinosaurus is sad, because he's exctincting, Silvia is sad, because she's leaving.." :'(