Frohes Ostern!

Happy Easter!!! Last Easter I saw Shamu for the first time! In fact, it was the first time I'd seen a Killer Whale and the first time my family just didn't celebrate Easter. I remember not seeing anything to do with Easter, perhaps it was because of America's recession, I don't know. This definitely opposes Germany though. The Germans go all out for Easter. They even have Easter trees with eggs, some are just plain colours while others can be really fancy. In the shopping centre here are displays of mechanical rabbits and horses and eggs that move with the sound of birds and a little tune. I think it's the feeling of spring that makes Easter something special here, the wildflowers, daffodils which the Germans also call Easter Bells and the real bunnies running around in the city.

Steffen and I celebrated Easter last night (Saturday night) with mum on skype, so we had Easter in Australian time. This was good because Steffen had to leave for work early this morning and won't be back till about 5ish. It was so cute last night though. I was talking to mum, after watching Mary Poppins, then the door bell rang and when I opened it there was Steffen, hands full of flowers, and a Lindt egg and bunny. I then gave him my gifts which were a Lindt egg and a box in the shape of a rabbits head which was full of Toffifee (a German sweet with caramel, toffee and a nut). After we exchanged our gifts we both went straight for the two large Cadburry bunnies which we received from the family back home on Monday. As you can see Steffen's one may have been decapitated and eaten a little earlier.

Nevertheless, I hope you all have a fantastic Easter and don't get too fat. Easter doesn't really work with mine and Steffen's healthy food regime but I'm sure we'll survive ; ) Lots of love and I'll leave you with a video of my darling Steffen trying to catch the Easter Bunny in Frankfurt..

Köln, Cologne

Cologne.. Cute Cologne. Kalt Köln. This little city lives on the Rhein and is about 2hrs away from Offenbach. I visited on the 6th of March with Steffen and he's work friend Alex. Originally we were going to go to Hamburg but it got snowy (no surprise there) so we decided on Cologne. When we arrived we walked around for what must of been about 45 minutes in search of food All the bars and restaurants were stacked and it didn't help that there was a major football game later that day. Eventually we found this large traditional Italian restaurant away from the Cathedral area. Well, I have never eaten such a pizza in my life. It had sour cream, bacon, potatoes all sorts of things on it and was HUGE. I'm so proud I ate most of it and Steffen the rest.
After fattening our selves up we trudged back to the Cathedral. It was amazing, I honestly couldn't get over it, or a picture of it, it was so big. The detail was breathtaking and how they did that 100's of years ago I do not know. Around the building was a number of protesters and much more tourists than Berlin. Many people were being hit by large blocks of snow that were falling from the top of the cathedral and it was actually a little scary, if the snow hit the cement it made a huge slamming noise and one was so close to me I jumped so high. We went inside which was a slight disappointment. I must say, St Mary's in Sydney has a much nicer interior. However the stain glass windows were impressive.


After the Cathedral we walked along the Rhein in the freezing wind but for a very good cause. At the end of this walk was The Lindt Chocolate Museum! I am 100% positive that I will never ever have an iced chocolate as good as the one I had there. With Lindt chocolate ice cream at the bottom and all.. omg. They also had a shop there with endless amounts of chocolate and 80€ chocolate Lindt Bunnies. We left without one of those. We just walked around a bit more after this, saw some cute houses and shopped a little. Cologne has a great little shopping district. Its mainly just one street with no cars and a lot of shops and it was unpractical like Frankfurt. Which has 3 large H&M's in the one area, you can actually see all 3 at once. Soon after we left for home again, I was the little child that fell asleep in the car, Steffen got his picture taken, and Alex played beachie songs that reminded me of home. It was a good day.

The cute little houses, they're also a few centuries old.