Hay rolls.
One of my favorite views!
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Showing posts with label Luxembourg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luxembourg. Show all posts
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
New soup restaurant in Luxembourg city
When I saw the white paper bag with the paper napkin and the Molière quote, I knew I was going to like this new restaurant.
"I live on good soup, not on fine words."
It is a soup restaurant in Luxembourg city ("à la Soupe"), not far from the main railway station. They offer menus as well, but their focus is on main dish soup.
Their soups are always fresh and really good!
We will definitely go back there again.
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Sunday, June 23, 2013
Luxembourg National Holiday
Luxembourg's National Holiday is celebrated on June 23rd.
On the 22nd at midnight, a huge fireworks show takes place in the historic city center, on the old Adolphe bridge.
After a nap in the afternoon we headed into town to watch the show together with the kids.
It was amazing. They were really impressed.
We all loved it!
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Sunday, June 9, 2013
Mother's day in Luxembourg
In Luxembourg Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in June. I don't like the commercial side of this day, but I love it when the kids bring home small thoughtful gifts. I really appreciate the time and effort their teachers put into the Mother's Day craft project every year!
What I also love to receive is "time" (to take a nap, do some shopping...). My sons' gift was the promise to accompany the kids and me to the swimming pool. Our youngest son, who is 8 years old, cannot swim (after two swim courses), but he thinks he can. He already jumped into the deep part of a swimming pool twice during our summer vacation and we were lucky that we saw him jump. It really takes two adults to supervise him. Love that gift!
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Article on expatmam.com
Nicole Orriëns asked me to answer some questions about my life as a mother in a foreign country for her interesting blog www.expatmam.com. On this blog she interviews mothers who have left the Netherlands to build up a new life in a far-away (or not so far-away) country. The interview is in Dutch.
*****
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Inmiddels is Natacha alweer 25 jaar met hem getrouwd, en hebben ze samen vier kinderen: twee zonen van twintig en tweeëntwintig die ondertussen op kamers wonen in Duitsland, en een negenjarige dochter en zevenjarig zoontje dat ze adopteerden in Zuid Afrika.
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You can read the rest of the article here.
Thank you Nicole, this was fun!
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Monday, October 22, 2012
The royal wedding
The wedding
was talking about.
Prince Guillaume,
Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg and
Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy
The parents:
Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Teresa
They have 5 children together,
Guillaume is their oldest son.
Did you know?
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Monday, March 19, 2012
Luxembourg
One of the best things about Luxembourg is the international character of the country. Most people speak at least three languages fluently and the next border is never far away. There are a lot of mixed marriages ("real" Luxembourgers are getting scarce, we didn't produce any :-)) and it is fairly normal to have classmates with 15 different nationalities.
Our community consists of three villages and we live in the smallest of those three.
It is a rather small community..... +/- 7.800 inhabitants. I knew there were a lot of foreigners living in our village and neigbouring villages, but I was quite surprised to see this list .... 80 different nationalities! How cool is that?! It makes Luxembourg a really great, tolerant place for raising a family.
Our community consists of three villages and we live in the smallest of those three.
It is a rather small community..... +/- 7.800 inhabitants. I knew there were a lot of foreigners living in our village and neigbouring villages, but I was quite surprised to see this list .... 80 different nationalities! How cool is that?! It makes Luxembourg a really great, tolerant place for raising a family.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Castle of Vianden
This country I have called home for so many years now, has a long history.
One of the most beautiful and impressive castles is - without a doubt - the old castle of Vianden.
Its history goes back to the 11th century!
It was restored to its formal glory in 1977.
Amazing, isn't it!?
Want to read more?
http://www.castle-vianden.lu/english/index.html
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Friday, August 19, 2011
"Pâtisserie Oberweis"
My husband took the afternoon off and we went to the fancy "pâtisserie Oberweis" - not far away from the city of Luxembourg - to treat ourselves to a coffee/tea and a piece of their tasty cake. They do not only taste very good, they look like little works of art.
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Friday, July 29, 2011
Languages
This is the book my daughter and I started to read during the summer holidays. She is really proud to be able to read a book (almost) on her own now.
As you can see, the book is in German, which might seem a little odd because this is not the mother tongue of the people in Luxembourg.
I don't think there are many countries in the world where so many languages are spoken as in this tiny Grand Duchy where I'm living.
At home Luxembourgers mostly speak the national language called "Lëtzebuergesch". Although this language has an official grammar, most people still write it phonetically. The official language is French, however - being so close to Germany - the first foreign language children start learning in 1st grade (at the age of 6) is German. In 2nd grade they start learning French. Starting these languages at such a young age makes them really fluent in both German and French by the time they leave school. They have no choice, a great number of students has to leave the country to study at a French or German university. In the 2nd year of high school English lessons are starting. This means that every Luxembourger graduating from high school speaks four languages. At a minimum, because there are a lot of mixed marriages in this country (like ours) and parents try to speak to their kids in their native language as much as possible. I had a colleague who spoke 6 languages fluently because she had Greek parents and her husband was Italian. The funny thing is that it is considered completely "normal" here, nobody thinks you're special or super-intelligent or whatever.
In my family my husband and the children all speak Luxembourgish together. However, he and I switch to German when we are alone. This is the way we started our conversation in the train between Luxembourg and Belgium more than 20 years ago and it feels kind of strange to speak anything else. With the boys I speak Luxembourgish and with the younger kids I try to use Dutch as much as possible. This sounds strange and confusing doesn't it?! But for us it is normal, we are so used to it, it is just the way we speak together.
Wishing everybody "e schéine Sonndeg"!
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Thursday, July 21, 2011
Luxembourg couldn't be prouder!
Sons come running home from vacation jobs and husbands show up early after work just to see Andy and Fränk finish.
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Friday, April 8, 2011
Spring feeling
Do you see them?!
Let's zoom in...
Cows in the meadow. The first time after all these long winter months. They belong to my friend's husband, the Swiss farmer. The ultimate spring feeling. Seeing them makes me happy every year.
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Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Fueskichelcher recipe
Bex from New Zealand, who is spending her first carnival in Luxembourg, asked me for the recipe of my "Fueskichelcher" and I thought maybe someone else is interested too. It is my late mother-in-law's original recipe! I hope my translation makes sense.
700 g plain flour
125 g butter
250 g caster sugar (not powdered sugar)
5-6 eggs
1 package of baking powder
touch of salt
1 small cup of creme (liquid, not whipped)
1/4 lemon peel
Melt the butter and let it cool off.
Stir and slowly add sugar, eggs, lemon and salt.
Take the flour, sift it and and slowly add it to the paste.
Add cream, knead and add the baking powder.
Knead dough until smooth (when the dough is too sticky, add some flour).
Roll out, cut stripes and make knots (ideal size = 15 g).
Heat 2 litres of frying oil in a pan.
Turn when slightly brown.
Sift some powdered sugar over the top.
Enjoy!
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Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Liichtmëssdag
February 2nd is "Liichtmëssdag" here in Luxembourg. It is a very exiting day for the children. The young ones make a beautiful lantern at school. The village children are divided into small groups and go door to door.
"It is the feast of Saint Blaise. There is a local tradition that children go out with lanterns and sing songs on doorsteps. The point is that they are wishing you good health for the rest of the year and you are supposed to reciprocate with sweets or money. Modern children are likely to be rather disappointed if you hand out bacon and peas, which is actually what they are asking for in the song."
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Wednesday, December 8, 2010
More snow
Last night it started snowing - big time! And this is what we saw at 06.30 am, so beautiful. The best things in life are free!
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Monday, December 6, 2010
Bazar international
Every year in December a "Bazar international" is held in the city of Luxembourg. Countless market stands are offering Christmas decorations and food specialties from different countries all over the world. It really brought me in the Christmas mood.
^ Portugal
^ Lebanon
^ Mauritius
^ Iran
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Monday, October 11, 2010
Madonna
Luxembourg is a very catholic country. You can find these chapels (is that how you call them?) with Madonna statues all over the country. This is the one in our street.
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Thursday, October 7, 2010
Wedding anniversary
Today is our 22nd wedding anniversary, let me share some photos with you.
We made these for all the guests.
I always wanted a short, simple, ivory wedding dress, no veil, no headpiece, just some white flowers in my hair.
The weather was terrible, it was cold and it rained.
The beautiful church of Echternach was the perfect, romantic location.
And this was the hotel/restaurant with the beautiful name "Vieux moulin d'Asselborn" were we had dinner afterwards with family and friends.
We booked the whole place because there were a lot of guests from the Netherlands and most of them stayed for the night.
Who would have thought that we would be a multi-cultural family of six twenty years later (lol sometimes it is better not to know).
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