Isabelle's 8th birthday was duely celebrated with her friends after our vacation with a wild pirates' party.
Happy pirates, a few broken swords and a successful bounty hunt.
20090317
Visiting Essen
Directly from the ski slopes, the two younger girls took the plane on their own and stayed for a long weekend with their respective god-parents (and fiancé, in one case....). For Nathalie, this visit was happily extended for some days, because (when the girls were finally joined by their mother) we were all graciously invited to stay in the "granny-unit" of their flat for some days(thank you!).
One day, we were joined by Omimi and had a real city day including a visit to the movie theater (Hexe Lilli).
At the end of the week, we flew back home and were greeted by snow flakes on the runway.
One day, we were joined by Omimi and had a real city day including a visit to the movie theater (Hexe Lilli).
At the end of the week, we flew back home and were greeted by snow flakes on the runway.
Alpbach under the snow
Coming back to this fantastic ski vacation:
we went to Alpbach, close to Innsbruck. On the invitation of Inge and Anders, we stayed in their extra-flat, that was fully equipped and super convenient for us.
On our first day, we celebrated Isabelle's 8th birthday with a Sacher Torte and she proudly wore her pirates' costume. Pirates are THE thing at the moment!
There was so much snow (falling all the time, except one sunny day), that we always put on our skis in the driveway of the house and skied down to the first lift. What a luxury!
The kids went to a very good ski school (Alpbach Aktiv) and were happy with their groups and instructors. They learned how to ski in the deep snow and they now always look for the bumps to jump on. The race saw them take all the turns without missing a pole :-) The award ceremony shows the rightful reward for this feat.
20090303
Future is looking good!
On the way back to Kiev after a phantastic ski-vacation, Peter reads "Kyiv Weekly", the only remaining Ukrainian newspaper that's written in English.
Apart from all the crisis -talk, there are also 2 interesting articles about the "rules of the Game".
1) Ukrainians never give in, and whatever happens, it's not bad, so don't worry!
So when the article writes about when and how, not IF the government should declare bankruptcy, the conclusion is simple: The outcome will not be that bad. People might maybe even not realize something has happened.
2) Inflation will be tamed by strong measures taken:
There is a lot of discussion about the inflation effects coming from the devaluation of the UAH versus the USD. Since Summer last year, the UAH has lost about 50% of its value compared to the dollar, which is the main currency for selling big-ticket items or renting flats, housing and the likes. So the described measure which "limits" bribes to judges to below 10 kUSD (If they accept more, then they will maybe get punished) is really good news! Will this bring down real inflation by up to 1%, as well-informed sources say over a couple of Vodkas? 
20090210
Skiing in Ukraine and Shashlik for everybody!
It didn't take a lot of convincing to get most of the people in Peter's
team to leave the office for a long week-end and go skiing to the famous Carpathian mountains in the west of Ukraine together with their families. So on Thursday after lunch we leave in 4 cars and hit the road towards Bokuvel (http://www.bokuvel.com/), the most prestigious ski resort in Ukraine.
Friday & Saturday we go out to the slopes. The ski resort is actually quite nice, offers some 50km of slopes of all levels of difficulty. Isabelle and Nathalie who have become good skiers during our last vacation in Austria enjoy themselves skiing over every "Buckel und Sprung" they can find. Their proud parents get many questions from admiring locals about the kids' age.
team to leave the office for a long week-end and go skiing to the famous Carpathian mountains in the west of Ukraine together with their families. So on Thursday after lunch we leave in 4 cars and hit the road towards Bokuvel (http://www.bokuvel.com/), the most prestigious ski resort in Ukraine. The way proves to be a real adventure: we have to go approx. 650km over Ukrainian roads that offer lots of holes in the asphalt, no lights, no reflectors along the road, but in return a lot of police and horse-carriages. If you're on a main road, you might have 2 lanes of which one is used by the horse carriages, this adds considerably to your safety. Round midnight we have to make 1 hour detour because a bridge has just fallen into a river shortly before we arrived. We're lucky today!
The highlight of this day in the car is "Kafe Kaska", a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere. There we get the best Shashlik ever (a lot of grilled meat on a sword) for unbelievably low prices. The foundation is laid for a weekend during which we will eat almost only Shashlik, but Kafe Kaska proved to be Simply the Best!
We arrive in our hotel at 1:30 after 10 hours driving, but there is still time & power for a couple of beers, while we wait for our 4 snowboarders who had left Kiev later.
When you ever come to Bukovel, you'll understand why Yaroslav, who had organized everything
(many thanks again, Yarek!) dreams about another car for such occasions...
Friday & Saturday we go out to the slopes. The ski resort is actually quite nice, offers some 50km of slopes of all levels of difficulty. Isabelle and Nathalie who have become good skiers during our last vacation in Austria enjoy themselves skiing over every "Buckel und Sprung" they can find. Their proud parents get many questions from admiring locals about the kids' age.
Our friend Anders will love the pictures of all those snow canons (they are needed, the ski resort is quite low at 900-1400m height). The rumour has it that the Austrian Chamber of commerce has donated the first of all those Doppelmayr lifts that were installed during the last 5 or so years. Overall, we enjoy great skiing and a great company.
Saturday evening we finish a phantastic weekend with - yes, you're right! - a round of Shashlik. The hotel owners finish the open fire place for us and grill a couple of kilos of Shashlik. Our mood is great again, although Kafe Kaska remains unbeatable ... The kids have become friends and play cards all evening.
Sunday morning we hit the road to go back, and we make it 2 hours faster, with only 8 hours driving! So we almost get home in time to bring the kids to bed, they'll anyway be tired when school starts again on Monday morning.
20090202
Philharmonia and Ballett
The Cultural program is taking shape:
1) Philharmonia is a great place to listen to classical music.
Sylvie and Peter went to listen to one of the local "great names", which proved to be a great event. Sylvie accused the Ukrainian solo-singer for too much decolletee, this view has for sure not had a negative influence on our total impression (sorry guys - no photo allowed).
2) The week later we listen to Mozart and Mahler. This time the complete "Ukrainian National Philharmonic Orchestra" is on stage, including Solomia, Nathalie's violin teacher. What we did not know: This concert was sponsored by the Austrian Embassy. So we met some well-known fellows: Mr. Wuketich, the ambassador and his familiy, whom we know since our visit to the German church (Mrs. Wuketich is the red-haired lady sitting one row in front of us). Also the riddle of some well-known faces without name from the Austrian Stammtisch is solved by the Kulturattache and other people from the embassy. This time the solo singer is Austrian, Ms Wallisch, no Ukrainian styling on her, but also a good voice and nice to talk to after the concert.
3) Kid's opera and ballett: There are probably few places in the world, where there is a big theatre for "serious music" only for kids, on Kontraktova Ploschad in Podil, a famous part of Kyiv. We saw Tchaikovski's Dornroeschen. The kids took a close look at the Orchestergraben before the performance. During the break we went up under the cuppola. We find a huge empty room with a red piano which is used as atelier for the painter of the next scene. Whose shoes will these be?
Beauty. Isa and Nathie think it was very unjust that she did not get flowers in the end, so we have to goback with flowers and give them to her next time.
1) Philharmonia is a great place to listen to classical music.
Sylvie and Peter went to listen to one of the local "great names", which proved to be a great event. Sylvie accused the Ukrainian solo-singer for too much decolletee, this view has for sure not had a negative influence on our total impression (sorry guys - no photo allowed).
2) The week later we listen to Mozart and Mahler. This time the complete "Ukrainian National Philharmonic Orchestra" is on stage, including Solomia, Nathalie's violin teacher. What we did not know: This concert was sponsored by the Austrian Embassy. So we met some well-known fellows: Mr. Wuketich, the ambassador and his familiy, whom we know since our visit to the German church (Mrs. Wuketich is the red-haired lady sitting one row in front of us). Also the riddle of some well-known faces without name from the Austrian Stammtisch is solved by the Kulturattache and other people from the embassy. This time the solo singer is Austrian, Ms Wallisch, no Ukrainian styling on her, but also a good voice and nice to talk to after the concert.
3) Kid's opera and ballett: There are probably few places in the world, where there is a big theatre for "serious music" only for kids, on Kontraktova Ploschad in Podil, a famous part of Kyiv. We saw Tchaikovski's Dornroeschen. The kids took a close look at the Orchestergraben before the performance. During the break we went up under the cuppola. We find a huge empty room with a red piano which is used as atelier for the painter of the next scene. Whose shoes will these be?
Beauty. Isa and Nathie think it was very unjust that she did not get flowers in the end, so we have to goback with flowers and give them to her next time.
Ice-Skating in "Arena Bolshevik"
Weekends we usually go skating, and the arena in the shopping centre "Bolshevik" has become our favorite place, Saturdays 11:00-12:00 before the big crowd wakes up.
Nathie and Isa both love this little sports activity and last time we brought "the bigger family", with Marie, Nathalie's puppet, and Simon, Isabelle's friend from school with his papa and brother. All these new-joiners had some more hardship on the ice, but enjoyed their time. And the little "Puppen-Mamas" are dedicated skating teachers.
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