Thankful

There are so many things I am thankful for:

I am thankful for my health and the health of my loved ones.
I am thankful for how I was raised and who I am today because of it.
I am thankful for my two cousins back home who make my world a happier place.
I am thankful for my mom for everything she is and does.
I am thankful for my dad who told the funniest stories that still make me laugh.
I am thankful for my big brother, and I love being his little sister.
I am thankful for my education, countinued learning and my freedom of choice.
I am thankful for my experiences with so many different people who make my day that much brighter, everyday. 
I am thankful for travelling, new languages, different cultures, and our beautiful planet that supplies so much life. 
I am so very thankful for being in Germany, living with a wonderful family and being a part of two childrens lives. 


This is my first ever holiday away from home and won't be the last in the upcoming year. Although I am not with my family and loved ones back home, I am not sad because I have to many things to be happy about. 

I wish you have a wonderful holiday, work or no work, family or friends, turkey or tofu, rain or shine! Life is beautiful, all life.

Until next time, xoxoxoxo
Tons of love from Dresden,
Hannah

Dresden love

I now live in Dresden, the capital city of Saxony in Germany!

When I became a registered resident I got a bag with everything to know about Dresden and even a welcome newspaper!

The picture the government has of me...

Being a nanny, I tried to be a good cook.

My dough ball turned our to be a glob of stickiness. 

FYI: I tried making biscuits. 

They are in such funny shapes because the dough was so sticky I had to scrap it off.

Fluffy/ flaky biscuits? Not today.

The outside was baked but not the inside so I had to cut them and put them back in the oven.

Needless to say, those didn't last until the next morning... they went into the garbage.

My first Saturday in Dresden!

Adventuring with the Fam :)

I didn't even spot this, but when it was pointed out, photo time!

Precious!

Opera house!

Oma, "Papa", Tom and me.

This was taken when I did my first solo bike ride along the river Elbe, about an hour from the city center.

Back in the city center!

An adventure day with Tom!

Frauenkirsche, this square is always packed.

Top of the church!

I love my new city!

Polish Summer!

For those of you who might not know, I am now an Au Pair. What is an Au Pair you ask? I don't have an exact definition but an Au Pair is a nanny. In my case I went onto a website called Aupairworld (I had been to others and I found this one worked best for me) made a profile and starting contacting or be contacted by families. What an Au Pair does depends on each families situation, it is mainly child care and some light house work. 

Two things I need to clear up!

1) Nannying is not being a babysitter. When you live with a family, you have a much bigger role and not to mention a huge responsibility to be a role-model in a child's life. I am only 18, I have a lot to learn still, but I make sure to do all that I can to be fun and caring with the kids I live with. 

2) I am not a maid! I do what any adult child would do in a household. 

Okay now that I cleared those things up! I spent the last 5 or 6 weeks of summer in Poland with my Au Pair family. The first week we were together we went on vacation to Krakow for one day than to a national park farther south in a city called Zakopane. After the holiday, most of my summer consisted of laying by the pool and relaxing while the kids were busy playing with their friends. 

Check out the photos; I said in an earlier post I am tired of story telling about things that happened what feel like so long ago. A picture is worth a thousand words right?

This was the day I arrived to our home in Poland, it was fabulous, loved the sign :)

Katja, 5, and I picked four-leaf clovers

Katja also loves the photo settings on my iPad

Katja's first swim solo!

This is from... you guessed it! Karkow

This is my Au Pair family and their family (cousins, aunts, you know), we had a fabulous week together.

Krakow was very crowded and very touristy,or  at least what I saw, which wasn't much.

We arrived in Zakopane in the evening after being in Krakow for the day.

View from our condo to the mountains we were going to be hiking!

Loved it, so pretty.

This was the last bit of our hike on the first day. 

I tried to capture how rugged the terrain was.

To get to the very top, you had to climb with a chain rope, but there was a huge line-up, I think we waited like an hour or something, but at least we had a nice view while we waited.

At the very top of the peak we climbed there was this massive cross!

This was another day when we hiked to this lake

Myself and Łukasz!

Tommy, 11 :)

This is when I was in WrocŁaw. It was a very nice city, I enjoyed it, only one night so I didn't get to see all it had to offer.

My Polish summer was so relaxing, I loved it!

We came back in time for the kids to go to school and now I can do current blogging about my new life in Dresden, yay!

xo

Köln or Cologne, either way, it's amazing.

We took the train from Lioba's house to Anna's village right outside of Köln. We went into the city and spent the night at Anna's. It was freezing cold, which was rather disappointing since it was the middle of July, and our train was an hour late, but we completely forgot about that since our afternoon and evening was so much fun.

We got out of the train station and the Cathedral was the first thing I saw. The Cologne Cathedral, or Kölner Dom in German, is a Roman Catholic church with authentic Gothic architecture completed in 1880 from it's original plan that dated back to 13th century.

Inside there were tons of people. There are an average of 20,000 people who go there every day!

I couldn't help but picture a wedding here, could you imagine walking down that aisle?

We left the Cathedral and it started pouring rain, and I mean pouring. The streets were emptied in a matter of seconds while all the people scrambled into the nearest covered areas. I bought some postcards in the store we ran into before we made our way to Starbucks! I wanted to order one of my normal drinks that I would get back home but no luck, so I just got a Earl Gray Tea. It was amazing, my first Starbucks since Canada.

We also got a carrot cake to share. I tried to get a picture of the receipt for all my fellow Starbuckers to see. 

I asked a man to get a picture of us with the cathedral in the background and he tried so many times to get all the cathedral. At this point, as seen in the picture, he was so far away and practically laying on the ground! We told him not to worry but he said no problem. We felt bad but thanked him immensely before carrying on our way.

We went to the bridge that is famous for all of the locks. There are so many  locks because couples lock their love on the bridge. After they put on their lock, they through their key into the river. Unfortunately the city has to cut off the locks since there are so many, and they weigh so much, it puts the bridge's infrastructure at risk. Nevertheless, they are colourful and all very unique, it is a wonderful site.

For Anna! We love you too.

We also found my name! Any Phil's out there?

We tried but couldn't find any locks with Lioba. No need to worry though, Lioba says she will come back and put her own lock on there one day.

We adventured through the streets, going into a variety of stores, like this furniture store. We were taking pictures like this and than the worker started following us around so we made our way out sooner than anticipated. 

Cologne is famous for their carnival and there are shops open all year for the one week in November. Basically carnival is a big party in Cologne that people get to get all dressed up for like how we do for Halloween. We had fun looking at the variety of costumes and accessorizes.  

We went into a cosmetic store where Lioba got her make-up done for free.

After, we found a restaurant that neither Lioba or Anna had been to before.

This was our appetizer and it was so delicious.

Basically, the restaurant was fabulous: the service, the atmosphere, the food and drinks! We could hardly believe we ate all the food we ordered. 

We walked around for a bit afterwards, got lost, and then Anna took us to the club and lounge street. We were going from one place to another, waiting to find the perfect place to get comfortable when we stumbled upon a small lounge that wasn't crowded. We spent the rest of the night there and basically everyone there had a great time together and we even made a new "friend". 

We went home later that night and the next morning Lioba and I took the train back to Lioba's house. We adventured around Lioba's city for one day and the following day, which was a Sunday, was the day I took the train across the country to Dresden, my new home, where I met my Au Pair host father. Taking the train with all my luggage was quite the experience and although I would take the trains again, never again would I volunteer to do so with the amount of bags I had. 

My travelling for 3 and a bit weeks was great and I had so many great adventures with my great friends. During that time, I went from vegan to vegetarian, I learnt how to ride a bike without holding on the handle bars, I learnt some German, had many laughs, good sleeps, short sleeps, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

Thanks and I can't wait for more adventuring. 

xo