[LuganoPirate]

If you’re off to Bauchi in Nigeria, I’d suggest going easy on the hand baggage as you may have to board using a ladder 😉

http://www.olisa.tv/2015/12/20/bauchi-airport-authorities-explain-why-passengers-were-forced-to-board-aircraft-using-ladders/

[CXDiamond]

Apologies for resurrecting this thread in the second half of January but I want to thank you all for your good wishes.

I’m now in Germany and while the temperatures are very different to Singapore, I’m delighted to be here. I’m not sure the reality has properly sunk in and to a point I feel that I’m still on holiday.

Charles, you ask why from the options Germany. It’s true, I did have a range of choices and when I weighed them all up I preferred Germany. To begin with, although he lived in the UK from 1937 my father was German and I used to be sent to stay with my grandparents near Munich during the holidays from a very early age, the beginnings of my long career as a Lufthansa frequent flyer and of course I’m also bi-lingual, well I’m also fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese too but I don’t know what the term is for four languages!

I always loved going there and my grandfather was such a determined man I learned a lot from him. He worked hard and often said that if he had to hew stone with his fingers he would see to it that a better country was built than there had been. He did badly under the previous regime and had been interned for a while for speaking out to defend some Jewish friends.

Anyway, after thirty seven years of living in Hong Kong and Singapore I needed to live somewhere where things work and of the options Germany fits the bill nicely. Healthcare is good, roads are well maintained and pricing is fair, things that cost £1 in the UK usually cost €1 here and most of all I feel safe as a woman in her sixties living alone, comfortable and at home.

I love my new house and it’s convenient for the autobahn, the ICE and MUC. It’s in a relatively small village where I know three families and have a couple of friends of my own age so I’m not starting from scratch with friends and indeed I’ve been here for almost a week and have yet to cook a meal and people have turned up several times each day to see if I need anything or a bit of help with moving in so I feel very welcome. The young son of a neighbour has even been told he must come and carry my fire wood in every day!

I had had enough of the frenetic lifestyle of south east Asia though I did find Singapore easier in that regard than Hong Kong but even if I had the choice, I wouldn’t have wanted to settle there.

So where next? Well I plan to be at home for the foreseeable future but then I will look to see more of South America, a place I’ve hardly ever been and my one major desire to fulfill which I will include in that is to visit the Falkland Islands probably during the next northern winter.

That’s all for now.

CXD x (Who won’t be a CXD for much longer!)

[MrMichael]

Best of luck CXDiamond, hope you have a long and happy time there. Will you be getting yourself a new monika if no longer Diamond?

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