Blogs from St. Gallen, North-East, Switzerland, Europe

Despite the March cancellation of our initially planned wedding, due to travel restrictions, lock-down and virus dictatorship, we have finally been able to say "yes" on July 3, 11:00 AM in Wil, Switzerland. Nui has decided to be called Butri Benko, keeping her nick name Nui of course. And I have also decided to continue to be called Benko :-). We are pleased to send you some pictures taken at the wedding. It was a small ceremony (bigger ones are not allowed yet anyway) with close friends and family. Alfred Koecher a friend Nenad knows since 1986, acted as Nenad best man, Sirinya Hauser, a university friend of Nui, was her bridesmaid. It was absolutely lovely to see the two Thai ladies being dressed in their traditional silk robes, something the Wiler community does not get ... read more

Our leaving GaPa to make our train connections today nearly didn't happen. We had stood around waiting for half and hour for our train to leave thinking that we were waiting for another train. A couple turned up one minute before leaving time with their bikes and we thought they were cutting it fine before realising that was our train! We moved fairly quickly to get on board just in time. The signs were confusing - well, that is our excuse. On a later train, we got on the back carriage which was being dropped off to another destination. That could have been interesting! Fortunately, the guard checked everyone and moved us out. We said good bye to GaPa at 10.00am and headed across southern Germany using a Bavarian ticket on regional trains. A Bavarian Ticket ... read more

Aus mehreren Gründen war ich heute in St. Gallen. Zum einen treffe ich morgen in Konstanz meinen Vater und seine Lebensgefährtin und ich wollte nicht am gleichen Tag von München anreisen. Zuerst plante ich dafür eine Nacht in Überlingen verbringen. Zum anderen hatte ich vor, nach meinen letzten Ausflügen in die Schweiz 2011 und 2014 wieder in dieses schöne Land zu reisen und nachdem ich zuerst im Herbst nach Luzern fahren wollte, habe ich nun eine weitere Exkursion ins erweiterte Umland von München gemacht. Und zum dritten habe ich einen Sondierungsbesuch in die Stadt gemacht, weil ich prüfe, inwieweit es als Neuselbständiger möglich wäre, meinen faktischen und Steuerwohnsitz in die Schweiz zu verlegen. Dafür bin ich gestern Abend von München los gefahren und nach kleineren Staus kurz nach der Stadt und bei Memmingen abends in St. ... read more

It was a travel day today so not so interesting. We were picked up from the hotel at 8.20 by SMS and transported to Munich Airport where we were met by the Peugeot representative. He ran us through the car controls and we signed the appropriate documents. We were now the :owners: of a brand new car with only 15kms on the clock and registered in France. Straight on to the autobahn¦ Lindsay learned very quickly about driving on the right hand side of the road. I never took my eyes off the road............ Cars wizzed by at extraordinary speeds. Many at speeds of 180kph or more. The general speed limit is 130kph. Linds had to quickly drive much faster than he was used to or he would stay in the truck lane. After following the ... read more