Man, its HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, what a Summer!!! Remember 2003? I say, this even beats the "Jahrhundertsommer" from back then.

We are trying to stay cool here in Langen. Luckily, we have a/c at work but Diana and the kids have no choice but to shut the blinds and keep the cool air inside...thank God we have the Langener Waldsee around the corner where she & the kids will be heading off to today. It ain't quite Big Wave Bay but there is a cute beach and the lack of big waves is not too bad for Fabian as a beginning swimmer.

Hopefully everyone survived the WM. Quite a heated discussion about that head-bang....reminded me of Robbo in his best days ;-) Now, life is back to usual and people are getting unfriendly again here in Germany....it's really true! I am not the only one who is saying this! During the WM everyone was really tolerant and sort of happy but now we're back to good old square-thinking Allemagne.

OK, gotta rush of to work now. Take care everyone and keep on posting - it was great reading about all of you & your families.

Cheers and KEEP COOL

Oli the Otzman

VACATION!!!!

Well we're off, well almost... the bags are packed, the car is checked, the cooler packs are frozen... the last thing left to do is to sign for our new appartment! With legal requirements and delays left & right we've had to postpone the apointment from Monday to Wednesday, so we've had to hang around rather than head off to the sunny south.

It has given us the chance to finalise some admin details and clear up things in the house that we usually never get to - as they say every cloud has its silver lining, but I would much prefer to be contemplating the clouds or the "lack of" in the sky above St Raphaël!

If all goes well we should hopefully get there just after midnight tomorrow night :) Don't know where my parents stand on a broadband Internet connexion; I know my mother wanted one, now that she's gotten herself a Mac notebook. So this may be the last sign off for the next 3 weeks. If not I may publish a '2006' version of the photo above.

In the meantime I hope everyone is having a great Summer!!!

Have fun & be good!

Méli

Kobtzeff Update - for anyone who was not on the mailing list...

Well, following the e-mail updates sent out by Robin, Sherinna & Nadia I was too tempted not to "break the chain"...Some of this may be old news to some, but just to be sure you all are up-to-date with the latest here we go...

We've been living out in the country for the last 6 months in André's house where he grew up. It's only about a 40 min drive into Paris without trafic, but as we've come to learn, with trafic it can take up to an hour and a half!!! We didn't want to change Misha from the school he was in, so André has been a tough little soldier driving Misha into Paris every morning before driving on to work. I myself have learned about the joys of comuting by public transport - which is a real treat especially when the French decide to strike, which as you all do know they love to do.

We have finally found a place of our own West of Paris in St Germain en Laye (about 25km from Paris), and are now waiting to hear from the bank on our loan etc... If all goes well we should be signing and getting the keys on the 24th. So everybody fingers crossed!!! It's a 92m² flat and we'll have a Guest room/study, so hopefully we'll be able to welcome some of you in our home sweet home. Unfortunately Paris prices won't allow us to be in the city centre, and for the same price I'd rather have some more room.

Misha will be starting hist first year of school there in a public French school. He was in a bilingual Kindergarden in Paris which has allowed him to sort out French & English (plus a bit of Russian), so he's got a good base of both to work with. This last year he's been doing fencing, so we'll see what sport he'll want to pick up this year... he has spoken about football, but that could just be a World Cup phase?

I'm still with Disney Store and enjoying it although a bit stressed right now when I think of everything I have to get done before going on our Summer vacation to the South of France (as usual 3 weeks of sea & sun, not so much sand... it's pebbles there!) André is still working for a TV cable channel but wouldn't mind a bit of a change. I've gotten pretty much into the whole blog thing recently with Oli's HK Connection blog.

You can check out our family blog every now and then by clicking here: Kobtzeff Family. If you do stop by, please leave a little comment on the blog to let me know you've taken a peek. If you want to be part of the HK Connection blog, you need to ask Oli to "invite" you.

Well, it's way past my bed time now, so I'll be leaving all you good people.. do just update your files, as I still get some e-mails on our old e-mail address. The correct one is the Yahoo! one (makobtzeff@yahoo.com). As we say to Misha every day when we drop him off at Kindergarden : Have Fun & Be Good!
Méli

Schwarze Family Update

Hi Everyone,

Thanks Robin for the photos, your kids have certainly grown but WOW! They are unmistakeably little Wickli's, sooooo cute - even if they look like Robin's clones :) - sorry Heidi! I have to admit though I think it is great that we hear about the family news from Robin, oh sure Matti would also give you our family news more often if it came in the form of a football score or a captain's log! So without further adieu, her is the short version of our life in god ol' dim sum country.....

MATTI: still with Dragon Arilines and despite it being bought by Cathay Pacific is going strong. He is now a TRE which stands for something I cannot remember but he is essentially a Training Captain both on the plane and in the simulator - the latter he assures me is more fun as he gets to push buttons to cause engine failures and other fun emergencies to make the pilots feel like they should have chosen accounting instead of flying school (its like a live Xbox game that Matti is controlling - what can I say my boy is finally learning to play nicely with the other boys!)

XANDER: he is 13 going on 35! We have officially reached our teens. He has traded in his pokemon cards for some gel and Dolce & Gabanna aftershave; his game boy for a Gillete Mach II shaver; his Lara Tomraider for a REAL girl in Klasse 8 (BTW he is in Klasse 7); his Nike for Converse; his classic guitar for a black electric Yamaha. Matti and I sure have our work cut out for us for at LEAST the next 6 years before we ship him off to some obscure University of his choice.

MAX: "The player" at 10 years old, true to form he is quickly following in his older brother's footsteps because we ALL know the second child learns a LOT faster than the first. He's got the gel, he's got the (cheap Manning's) aftershave, he's got the grirfriend (the 3rd in 3 months - he claims he gets bored of them easily!!!!! And he answers the phone: "Talk to me" OY VEY! One thing is for sure with Max: NEVER a dull moment!

TASHA: Our little princess has graduated from Kindergarten and will be starting Primary 1 in August but NOT at GSIS. (I can hear most of you gasping!). The short of it is they have raised the fees (again) and also the debentures from HK$40,000 when Alexander started in 1998 to the present price of HK$120,000 PER CHILD! Does not really justify the other costs. Anyway, Natasha will be going to the Peak School (part of ESF) and is really proud to be attending the "big girl school". Matti calls her his little cash cow as she has dabbled in a little modelling and earning her 'toys' money. Look out for her ads on the internet with Clipsal lighting, Henderson Land and Properties, and Walmart in the U.S.

SEAN: Our little baby has turned 1! Taking after his brother Max, started to climb and walk at just 11 months! He is huge and has already 10 chompers in his expanding mouth to match his expading gut! He loves to dance - his FIlipino blood coming out, and to play with his big sis who makes him laugh. A very happy and easy going baby whose personality matches his father's.As for me I am still doing property and sometimes even making a "fun" money for myself. WE are going to the see Coldplay with Xander and Max this week (I better listen to the album otherwise I won't recognise ANY song). In September we are going to visit Carsten and Yuko in Japan and Matti bought tickets to see Madonna in concert in Tokyo around the same time. We are off to the US this Summer but are planning to to go to Europe in the Summer of 2007, so watch out you people living in Germany, France and Scotland, we might just show up at your doorstep.

20 YEARS AGO!!!

As we were calling up friends to invite them to come over tonight to watch the final match of the World Cup it dawned on me that it's been 20 years - yes, June 30th 1986 - that we watched the World Cup final match at our place in HK. The famous match were I as the "froggy" at the time decided to bet on France and lost....which allowed me to spend a day in the HKCC walking around with erman flags painted on my face (Thanks Oli!).

Some of you may recall seeing these pictures at the runion, but for everyone's viewing pleasure here they are again.... ENJOY!

By the way, Congratulations to Germany last night and as they say here "MERDE" for the French tonight!

Check out Misha supporting France by clicking here

WELCOME BACK!

Sounds like you had a nice vacation... I'll be going in about 3 weeks time. I can't wait, but at the same time it stresses me when I think about everything I need to get done till then!

We should be getting the keys to the new place on the 24th, but that co-incides with our vacation, so we'll basically get the keys and leave - a little frustrating, but I do need this vacation!

So after 3weeks in St Raphael we'll look into moving into the new place sometime end of August. Misha will stay a little longer in the South with my parents which will let us move in without having to deal with the logistics of picking him up etc...

Right now we're stressing until the end of the week hoping that everything with the bank will go well, otherwise our plan to sign on the 24th will need to be reviewed... so please, whilst you're crossing your fingers for which ever country you're rooting for, cross your toes for me!!!

Take care & hope to hear from more of you soon!

Méli

HAIL THE FRENCH!

Not bad...really not bad. It was about time that someone whipped Brasil's little ass and nobody could have done it better than the French! Good going and hopefully we will meet in the Final!

I am back from my 2-week vacation and obviously totally thrilled to be back in the rat-race. But I must say, right now, soccer is keeping us alive here :-)

Vacation was great - we were in the Harz (near Göttingen) in a family-hotel. It was the first trip with Daniel and so we decided to take it easy. Everything went well and we even made it back in time for the Germany-Argentina match (only missed the first two minutes - talk about punctuality).

Tomorrow we will see whether this WM-dream can go a little further ;-)

Hey Melly, nice blog there with the pics. The appartement looks very cool - where is it located exactley and when are you moving in?

Have a good one everyone and cross your fingers for Germany's game tomorrow.

Cheers,

Oli the Otzman