Hey Guys,

Thats my first Blog in english.

Because the family I spend Christmas with is Australian I translated the Christmas-days-Blogs into english. Every day I will upload a other one. Have fun reading.

Thanks Brett for correction everything ! If you find a mistake it’s Brett’s one 😛

Thursday, 24/12/2015 (Holy evening – but just in Europe)

My boss was nice and I just had to do the important things, so we put the horses all on the walker. I was slow with packing but I already started my way to Toowoomba at 10am. Surprisingly I got presents from my boss and his family. I am just allowed to open them at the 25th though. I thought it was really nice of them to think about me. James drew me a map with the fastest way to Toowoomba.

It rained really heavy and there were no cars on the way. The road was really narrow. It went along paddocks and everything was nice and green. After the two hour drive I ended up in a really nice living area in Toowoomba.

The house was big and the grass really looked after.

Last year I spent New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas (America) where I met the Australian guy, Brett. I didn’t even know him for five minutes and he invited me to spend Christmas with him and his family this year. He said that he doesn’t want that me to spend it alone. I am the kind of person who keeps promises but you never know what’s one year later. Brett is 27 and works close to San Francisco in America and see what happened: Exactly one year later we are still in touch and I’m about to ring on the door. Australia is bigger than Europe and his family lives so close to my farm. Really cool! Brett and his Mum Lyn gave me a really warm hug. Brett’s Sister Alyce and her little baby Charlie were there as well. We talked for a while and they are all really friendly and were so nice to me. Lyn even said thank you that I was to spend Christmas with them. I’m the one who has to say thank you They said I should park on that beautiful grass and I had a bad conscience because I don’t want to destroy it. It was pouring rain and it wasn’t even 20 degrees as we started a sightseeing tour with the car. I saw Picnic Point which has a great view, we visited Brett’s brother Jarrod at the pub where he works for some beer and saw Brett’s school. Toowoomba is really nice.

After the car was packed to the roof, Lyn, Brett and I drove to Church. Okay, Church is the wrong description. It looked more like a giant concert hall with a disco ball and big sound system. There were even guys who showed us our parking spot outside. The 1500 seats of the Hume Ridge Church of Christ were all full. Unbelievable! It was everything but a usual service.
A really good, modern band played one song after the other and on the big LED-screen was the lyrics to sing along. There was also many young talents who played the piano and electric guitar. I just knew the songs in German and “Silent Night” sounded funny in English. Suddenly there was Captain-Jack-Sparrow and famous faces from Star-Wars. In the acting they showed that God is the anchor because the pirate lost his one. After that there was a nice Christmas story in a video on the screen. The highlight was definitely a survey with kids. They were about 4-10 years old and they asked them typical questions about Christmas. The answers were hilarious and everyone had to laugh. With these answers, two men composed a song and the band sang it live. The song was great and totally funny. They said Christmas stands for: Christ – Man a Saviour and so on. This church is really unusual and something I`ve never seen before. If this is what it was like in Germany, I´m sure more people would go to Church.

In the rain we drove to Brett’s sister Renae and her husband Chris who also live in Toowoomba. They have two kids (Aria and Riley) who were really nice. They baked a yummy pizza and we drank beer. In Australia they celebrate Christmas on the 25th and it was a nice normal evening. Chris` Dad from England, David was also there and Brett`s brother Jarrod and his girlfriend Sherri. After dinner we sat in front of the TV and watched a really nice Christmas concert which was live from Melbourne. There were many celebrities who sang.

In Australia it`s a tradition to provide food for the reindeers. The six of Santa’s reindeer have official names. We spread oats with glitter on the pavement and put carrots out. I think it’s a really sweet tradition. The food for Santa is in the house.
The family is really nice. Renae offered me the Wi-Fi and that’s a real luxury. I finally could skype my family again after months. In Germany it was still morning. It was nice and I could see that they are all fine. Lyn asked me if I’m homesick but with Skype I felt like I was sitting at home and Brett`s family is a perfect alternative. They all wanted to say hello to my family and they enjoyed it much. My family isn’t really good in English and I had to translate everything.

Then we prepared our night dormitory and the people slept everywhere in the house. I slept in the dining room and the others in the living room.

The others were asleep already as I was standing in the garden and skyped in the dark with my Mom, Uli, my Sister Jolina and my brother Luca til after midnight. That was great and my siblings were really excited for their presents.
I had a really great holy night and was really excited for the following days.

Merry Christmas to Germany
Nadine