Christmas holidays 2010

Finally, Christmas holidays! I was one of the last ones in the office leaving on holidays. But since my direct colleagues Franck and Stéphanie were already gone, someone had to be in the office until it closed until after New Year.

The last days before the holidays passed so quickly, mainly because there was always something going on or to do. The Nobel Peace Prize Concert, something-red shopping for the Christmas party and the party itself in the office, the Christmas concert, Drøbak, then the goodbye dinner with Moritz and also the last two evenings before leaving I rushed around town to find at least some Christmas presents. I did have some ideas, but I hadn't bought anything yet and there were others I hadn't even made up my mind for regarding gifts.

Last but not least on Wednesday evening December 22 I packed and went to bed early. The next day I had my flight super early in the morning.

I was curious about how I would go with my flights, because it's right now a period of total winter-conditioned chaos on streets, airports and train stations. Whole Europe is totally blocked and - except for the Scandinavian countries and warmer South Mediterranean areas - unable to get any kind of traffic run properly.

I had a flight booked with AirBerlin from Oslo via Berlin-Tegel to Cologne-Bonn. For some reason (which was not weather related) my plane left late in Oslo that morning. Consequently I arrived also with delay in Berlin-Tegel where my scheduled transit time of 45 minutes was suddenly reduced to nearly zero. The moment I arrived, I had not even 15 minutes until my connecting flight was supposed to leave... and I still needed the aiport bus taking me from my just landed plane to the terminal C from where I had to run like hell to make it to terminal A. And even when arriving totally out of breath at terminal A I still had to pass again the security controls. Since they were already waiting for me at the gate, I could pass the controls without queueing.

Finally, I was sitting in the plane to Cologne-Bonn. I just made it... but did my luggage make it as well on board this plane?

The answer when arriving at my home airport was NO! I arrived, but not my luggage. That was the same for all of us 5 passengers coming from Oslo that had the same connection via Berlin-Tegel.

So before meeting my father outside who picked me up, I filled out a lot of paper work at the lost and found counter.

Let's see when I'll receive my luggage. There is still one more day to go to Christmas.

My father didn't bring me home straight away. He actually brought me to his wife's company's garage where he had parked my car. When leaving Germany last time in November I had left my car there, because my father was taking care of taking it to the safety standards authority/technical control board = MOT(?) (in German = TÜV) and also to put my winter tires on. So I picked up my car there, said good bye to my dad and drove home.

My mum had already warned me: the conditions on the streets were extremely severe. Though the highway was kind of ok, I drove carefully, because the temperatures were just around -2°C/-1°C and the precipitation could freeze at any time at any place.

However, the worst I had when arriving home, when turning onto the streets of our residential area. I cannot remember having had such slippery streets there - at least for sure not during the last 10 years of having my driver's licence. My car just slided along the street in the tracks formed in the snow by previous cars and hold by the amound of snow bordering the 20 cm wide tracks. When stepping out of my car it was slippery like glass. Rain that just came down froze immediately --> black ice! It took me over 5 minutes to overcome the 20 meters between my car parking and our entrance door. The ice was uneven and thus not easy to walk on. Luckily I didn't have my heavy suitcase with me.

But I eventually made it home, safely! I was happy being home again!

Later in the evening it snowed again and I took some pictures during the evening and the next morning.

At the entrance, in the front of the house:

 And in the garden:

 

And I assure you: it's a long time ago that I had seen that much snow at our place at home.

But I like it! Snow creates a magical, fairytale atmosphere and it really gives me the feeling of winter... unlike the rain, mud and grubby weather we often have in winter times.

Snow is winter! And I love it!