O'zapft is...

The Oktoberfest in Munich is an institution since 1810 and attracts millions of people each year to come to the Wiesn for singing, dancing and drinking loads of Maß-Beer. This year also Vienna is hosting first time something similar: The Wiener Wiesn on the Kaiserwiese just by the Riesenrad has opened its doors on September 23rd and offers until October 2nd  a similar programme like its big brother in Munich: food, music and lots of beer.

The boys are ready for the Wiesn

As Peter invited us for an afternoon in one of the four tents and so we had a perfect opportunity to get our Lederhosen out of the closet and get dressed up. For Jakob it was the first time ever to wear his leather trousers and after initial doubts he very soon started to like it. Both boys looked almost Bavarian in their outfit when we got on the way to the other side of the Prater. Both Anna and Jakob were initially a little bit scared (or were they overwhelmed) by the larger number of people out- and inside the tent, but after a while they started to enjoy themselves, enjoyed the (sometimes awful) music, danced, chased each other and had a lot of fun.

What a cool ride home!

Several hours and a few Maß beer later we left the Kaiser-Zelt and got on the giant ferris wheel. Even though Jakob has not yet enjoyed this Viennese landmark he was less impressed with the great view over the city but he was more fascinated by the roller-coasters next to the giant ferris wheel. Once we touched ground again his first way led him closer to these roller-coasters and it became pretty obvious to us, that fairly soon our little dare-devil will be going on one of these. We rounded the nice late-summer afternoon up with another premiere: we rode the Liliputbahn ratehr tah  walking the whoel 1,5 km home. Both Anna and Jakob loved it, waved to the people nearby, laughed a lot and were smiling all over. The perfect end to a lovely Sunday afternoon.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Jakob's main summer activity: jump around

Since yesterday, when Markus returned to work again, our honeymoon is officially history.During the past two weeks however we probably have seen the best of the best of this summer in Austria: sunshine and warm weather returned just before our wedding ceremony started and remained with us until past Saturday afternoon when it cooled off with a heavy thunderstorm. In between we had almost countless days of ideal weather for the beach or outdoor pool with temperatures reaching up to 39 degrees and very mild (not to say hot) nights. As a consequence we spent almost every day a few hours by the water - be it in the nearby Stadionbad, the Neusiedler See or the St. Martins Therme in Frauenkirchen. Who needs to fly away for honeymoon if tropical weather comes and visits you?

What would we do without the waterslide?

Our junior not only loved the fact that both mom and dad were available for him but also enjoyed the hours we spent outdoors in and by the water. We could quite clearly recognize a certain preference towards pools where he can jump into the water rather than poools or lakes where one has to walk into the water. His enthusiasm about jumping around has been there for a long time - since months Jakob is jumping around at home on and off our sofa like on a trampoline - and this enthusiasm was further fueled by trampolines in the Stadionbad, in Weiden/Neusiedler See as well as in Geri, Lissi & Emma's backyard. Our sunshine used all these occasions to jump around like a rubber ball that seemed to never get tired.

Falling over on the trampoline is sooo much fun!

As mentioned earlier Jakob loves to jump into the water and that was his major exercise at the baby-pool in the first week of our holiday. Over time that was not exciting enough anymore for him and so in the next step he looked out for higher jumps and urged us permanently to join the queue with him for the 3m diving board in the Stadionbad. Not only that the diving pool was massively overcrowded and none of us really ken to jump of the 3m board on our own we clearly vetoed his wish. We had however to strike a deal with him and agreed on a compromise: the starting block 50m pool which is also used for official swim competitions. This block offers a ca. 1m jump into 2,5 m deep water and was just enough for our little crazy water-rat:

While this year the 3m board definitely is a no-go, we are somehow curious and worried about next summer as we are not sure if we can keep him away from that beast in summer 2012.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

We gotta feeling

When we woke up on Saturday morning everyone knew its gonna be a special day – not only the adults but also the two juniors Ylvie-Marie and Jakob sensed it. At 10.00 the flat was taken over by the ladies and Markus was kicked out from home. He drove through the rain to pick up his best man Peter and they then moved on to his brother’s flat where the boys had vintage champagne with pizza (unfortunately for all of them the pizza-service added garlic for free and made the experience of the food last longer). When the boys left for the Lusthaus, the location for both the wedding ceremony and the party, the rain has stopped and they could drive through Vienna with Markus’ open convertible. Upon arrival at the Lusthaus, where Sandra, Heidi and Flo have finished the decoration already, some guests have already arrived and thus the 45 minutes to the ceremony flew by very fast.

When Kerstin and the girls – Evi, Lini and Lissi – together with our sunshine Jakob approached the Lusthaus in a horse carriage not only the clouds disappeared but also Markus left. He did not run away but went upstairs where he was awaiting the bride. A few minutes later Eugen, Kerstin’s dad accompanied his daughter into the room accompanies by live guitar music by Kerstin’s cousin Katrin and handed her over to the husband-to-be. The ceremony was personal yet pretty much straight forward and after 20 minutes Markus was allowed to kiss the bride. When a short while later the new family left the room the sky was clear blue and the backdrop could not be more perfect. While we accepted congratulatins from all our wedding guests the impressive Nebuchadnezzar bottle of Veuve Cliquot has been opened, served and enjoyed very much by everyone.

"You now may kiss the bride" - no need to say that twice

For us the afternoon went by extremely fast thanks to a walk through the Prater in order to find the right spot for wedding pictures and it seemed that our friends and family did not get bored while we were away as they all were still present when dinner was served upstairs again. Each table had a little guest in the middle – a beautiful butterfly was circling over the table flowers – and made the whole experience even better: delicious food, sunshine on the balcony, good wine and most importantly a bunch of cool people. Before the party kicked off our group of closest friends – the Bella Familia – presented a lip-dub video of “I gotta feeling” in which they wished us all the best of luck. It was hilarious and moving at the same time and definitely provided the hymn for (at least) our wedding and the first part song our DJ played was – surprise-surprise – ‘I gotta feeling’.

The party started relatively early but lasted long, the dancefloor has never been empty and both the delicious wedding cake as well as the late night goulash soup were highly appreciated by the party-people. Just after 0300 in the morning we closed the shop and we left the Lusthaus. We dropped off Viki and Stefan at their flat before heading to our room for the night – the Romeo & Juliet Suite in the Triest which has been organized by Kerstin’s cousin Anja. As the bar was closed already by that time we had the strawberries and water that was waiting for us in the room before having a wonderful first night of sleep as married couple.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Mission accomplished!!

Details to follow...

The final countdown

The clock is ticking louder and louder ahead of the big event tomorrow: our wedding. While one would immagine that after 12 years the ceremony is something like a formality, slowly but surely some sort of nervousness appears.

In order to cope with that we have family and friends who are coming to the wedding from outside and arrived already today in town as well as our witnesses Mary and Peter for drinks and BBQ at our terrace. The party weekend is starting!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Typical behaviour in untypical weather

The past 1.5 weeks the weather was anything but summer-like as temperatures dropped into the mid-teens and it was raining a lot. As a consequence we not only could not use our season ticket for the nearby Stadionbad and had to look for alternative entertainment for our junior. On Saturday we initially wanted to do some shopping at a Swedish furniture chain in the north of Vienna, but a combination of construction works and an early morning accident on the A23 made us postpone the trip to the afternoon . When Jakob woke up after a more than two hours long lunchtime nap we got into our car again and wanted to follow an alternative route to Ikea. However the inner city routes were clogged by that time as many drivers used this detour to avoid the still completely blocked A23. Hence we changed plans again, returned home and went into the Prater instead - Jakob was riding his bike and we tried to keep pace with him. We spent time on the playground on the large slide as well as the flying fox and our junior, who is currently ion the phase of “I can do that on my own” ordered us several times to stay away from him and not get near him to help. The following movie is evidence for that:

Sunday was a carbon copy of Saturday with weather not having improved at all, cloudy skies and temperatures below 20 degrees. We decided to go the zoo in the morning before lunchtime as we haven’t been there for ages and only last week Saturday had to call that plan off due to rain. We watched the feeding of the seals which as always has been a highlight. Jakob for the first time watched the whole procedure very concentrated and was laughing lout whenever a seal jumped out to grab some fish. The less than 1 month old newborn seal also used the morning feed to present itself to the public. It was clumsily getting in and out of the water and even made the typical seal-noise the animals make when the demand something (at least they do so here in Schoenbrunn). We afterwards went to the elephants as it started drizzling and hid in the indoor compound until it stopped raining , moved on to watch the white-hand gibbons playing outdoors in the trees and took a glimpse at the newborn giraffe. By lunchtime we were back at home again and spent the afternoon chilling and relaxing before getting to work and to nursery again on Monday morning.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Girls aloud - the story of a hen-night

Part two of our “farewell-to-singledom” took place this past weekend and this time it was the ladies’ turn. Hence Kerstin was picked up from home on Saturday just after lunchtime by her maid of honour Maria in order to kick of a weekend themed “Mad Women”. While Jakob was initially not too impressed with the fact that his mom would be leaving him behind – he tried several times to take off her shoes and make her stay – he soon after the ladies have left could be effectively distracted by playing with grandma Heidi, cousin Ylvie, uncle Flo and Markus. A total of 18 ladies congregated to celebrate Kerstin’s hen-night and gathered at Motto am Fluss for a warm-up and afterwards Kerstin checked into her hotel room, a stylish master suite in Le Meridien by the ring road. The girl’s plan to have drinks in outside the Moet Bar of the hotel but the fact that the funeral procession of the last heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Otto von Habsburg, was just passing by the hotel was a bit too depressing and so the drinks were in the outdoor-loungearea at the back of the hotel. Time now also was ripe for Kerstin to be properly adjusted for the night amongst other stuff with a little black dress and phenomenal high-heels which she was wearing for the rest of the evening.

So close, but no-one dared to jump...

For dinner the group had a reservation in Holy Moly – situated on the Badeschiff, a floating pool on the Danube channel – and they left the restaurant after midnight to hit the dance floor of Platzhirsch located right next to the Meridien. Kerstin not only endured dancing in her high heels for a very long time and only by 0300 decided to shrink by 10cm but also managed to have fun and enjoy the night without any drink while the girls around her had drink after drink after drink. The visit to the sausage stand at dawn however was a must and the sausage tasted similarly good with or without a drink. Having hit bed by 0600 Maria, Evi, Doris and Kerstin had nice breakfast/lunch in Palmenhaus on Sunday morning while Jakob was impatiently waiting at home for his mom and asked in regular intervals about her whereabouts. When the doorbell rang around 1400 and Jakob heard Kerstin’s voice on the intercom one not only could see his joy about hearing mom but also his relief that she returned. Our sunshine was awaiting her by the elevator and embraced her tightly as soon as she left the elevator. We are not sure, when he allows her to go out again without him!

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Jakob turned 2 - that has been celebrated!

When Jakob woke up on Wednesday morning he was well aware already that the day would be special as a chocolate cake was "parked" in the air-conditioned bedroom and as a consequence our junior asked for some cake for breakfast. By the time Jakob reached the kindergarten he was confronted with more evidence of a special day: Kerstin took along a (different) cake for J's comrades and he was immediately decorated with a crown and placed right in the centre of a children's circle. Our sunshine seemed to have been fully aware of what all that was about and put forth his hand to every child around him in order to accept compliments and afterwards they all had the delicious chocolate cake. At 1030 both Kerstin and Markus - who took the day off - picked up Jakob from the kindergarten and made their way across the bridge home where grandma Heidi, aunt Sandra and cousin Ylvie were already waiting for us. There was also something else waiting for Jakob: a fully assembled brand-new Duplo deluxe train set - the present from grandma and godmother. Jakob's excitement was so large and he liked playing so much that he completely refused to go to bed for his lunchtime/afternoon nap which we did not like too much given the programme we expected for the rest of the day.

Cool!! I've got my own railtracks!

Just after 1330 the doorbell rang and Markus' family - grandma and grandpa, godfather Stefan and Viki as well as aunt Ines - joined us to celebrate Jakob's 2nd birthday. The weather was very similar to July 13th 2009 with hot temperatures (reaching 35 degrees) and thus we spent actually most of the afternoon in the air-conditioned living room. After the birthday cake - a delicious Sacher cake decorated with a train made of marzipan which Jakob ate straight away - it was time for the second round of presents. This time our junior was allowed to unwrap and he very much liked doing that. He took his time for each present and celebrated the unwrapping procedure and to all our surprise spent some time to play/look at and show around each present before moving on to the next parcel. He is now proud owner of a few pieces of clothing, two more books, a carpet with roads and buildings for playing with cars and a basketball set with a height-adjustable basket and a ball in order to one day follow the steps of dad and godfather. The latter present was tested by all party guests and Jakob was all joyful whenever someone scored and exclaimed a loud "NOOOOO" whenever the basket was missed. Guess what we heard most?

Practice for the NBA Slam Dunk Contest 2032 has started already

Later on we moved up to the terrace where the children's pool was waiting, but for some reason Jakob was less excited about swimming and playing in the water and thus it was mainly the adults - Stefan, Viki and Kerstin - who cooled off in the water. We did not find out whether it was due to Jakob being a bit tired, the water being too chilly or because of the many presents one floor lower. When Anja, Lini, Peter and Jakob's friend Anna completed the round of party guests junior could unwrap yet another present - a "travel highway" with a few toy cars made by Lini which impressed pretty much everyone. The day was concluded with a big barbecue whereas we did eat inside due to the heat that was still intense after 1800 and when bedtime came Jakob was fast asleep within a very short period of time. The excitement of the second birthday was obviously very tiring.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Past weekend it was time for Markus' stag weekend which was organised and coordinated by Peter, Markus' best man. As it is tradition, the groom has no idea what would happen to him and had to be "ready for take off" Saturday morning at 0830. After a breakfast in Do-An at the Naschmarkt Peter and Markus together with Flo, Stefan, Bruno, Mirko, Geri, Christoph and Oliver got into two cars to drive on to the destination of the bachelor party. Markus, still not knowing where they would end up and what he had to expect, could only guess and was extremely confused when the convoy was split (unintentionally) with one car following the A2 southbound and the other one the S6 westbound. After the re-union on the A2 at the Pack however he was sure that the destination would be the Woerthersee in Carinthia. The guys checked into a hotel in Reifnitz - famous for the annual Golf GTI meeting - the wolf pack, joined now also by Christian, made its way to the lake where they enjoyed the sun, had several beers and did some watersports - wakeboarding and waterski. Markus' 4 wakeboard attempts anded all abruptly after a few metres whereas his 4 water ski attempts at least took him a total 100 metres into the lake.

Markus' outfit for during the day

In the evening the 10 boys met up with Fritz in Velden and Markus got the instruction for his evening's job: an accelerated bookbuilding of 50 useless shares issued by himself and signed by his honorable supervisory board consisting of Mr Madoff, Mr Strauss-Kahn and Mr Kulterer. Via speedboat they crossed the lake to reach Lakeside, a nice restaurant in Reifnitz where Andi and Klaus joined and completed the party guests. After dinner the majority of shares has been placed with other restaurant guests and at midnight the guys crossed the lake by speedboat again to Poertschach where drinks at teh bar of Schlosshotel Miralago and party at Anna W followed. Even though are mostly remembered but remain private.

Sunday was for some people slower than for others, was spent again by the lake in Reifnitz before drinving back to Vienna in the late afternoon.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus

Back in the box

Almost 20 years ago, in March 1992, Markus travelled for the first time to London for a 1 week Easter city break organised by a teacher of his high school. At that time they travelled to Budapest, boarded a British Airways airplane and stayed for 5 nights close to Hyde Park in a pretty shabby hotel on Inverness Terrace. The city left however a great impression on though Markus thinking that he would ever live in London for a while he was sure that he will come back at one point of time.

That is how the City of London looked like in 1992 from Tower Bridge

A few hundred flights later Markus did travel to the airport again o Sunday night – this time it was though the airport in Vienna – and boarded a flight to London again for a whole week of meetings with clients. The weather on the weekend was just fabulous and so we spent all Saturday and Sunday outside on our terrace protected from the sun by our new Soliday sunsail which has been mounted Saturday morning as well as in the Prater where Jakob practiced and further improved his skills on the trainer bike. Given the summer weather and similar forecasts for London Markus decided to leave jacket and umbrella at home and travel light and appropriate for summer. When the plane touched down with an hour delay in Heathrow Markus could not believe his sleepy eyes as it was raining cats and dogs outside and it was pretty cold – at least if one is wearing only a polo-shirt and is used to 30 degrees.

Just larger than a shoe-box - Markus' room for the week

Due to the rain he jumped into a cab at Paddington station to take him to the hotel he was booked into for the week. For any unknown reason London was pretty booked out and so there was no room in any of the usual hotels Markus usually stays, but it turned out that he would not be staying in a new hotel: When the taxi stopped and the cabbie indicated that they have reached their destination Markus yet again could not believe his eyes as he was standing right in front of the hotel he stayed back in 1992! The hotel has got a new name – Grand Royale Hyde Park – but did not change much otherwise from the outside. Inside they seemed to have redecorated and renovated a little bit, refitted the rooms, but the changes can rather be called “cosmetical”. The “big” slap came however when Markus entered the room and found himself in a shoe box. The single bed took 40% of the bedroom, the shower did not allow to turn around and overall the room had an estimated 8 square metres – more memories from 1992 returned to his mind.

Jakob, Kerstin & Markus