Haiyan

Nach einem Ausbruch des Mayon-Vulkans, Erdrutschen im Norden Luzons, zwei heftigen Fluten in Manila und einem Erdbeeben erst vor wenigen Wochen in Cebu, erreicht dieses tragische philippinische Katastrophenjahr mit dem Taifun Haiyan, der auf Tagalog "Yolanda" heißt, einen neuen Höhepunkt. Erste Schätzungen über die Opferzahlen belaufen sich schon auf 10.000 allein in der Provinz Leyte.

Vielleicht schaut ja der ein- oder andere unserer deutschen Gäste auf unserem Hochzeitsblog durch, dachten wir, deshalb hier schon mal die Info, dass es uns allen gut geht und wir keine Opfer direkt kennen. Trotzdem sind wir natürlich von den Nachrichten sehr betroffen und auch den Berichterstattern vor Ort sieht man den Schock an. Als Evakuationszentren ausgerufene Schulen oder Stadien waren entgegen allen Vorhersagen selbst von Überflutungen betroffen. Der Sturm brachte nicht sehr viel Regen, trug aber Meerwasser ins Land und im Gegensatz zu einem Tsunami kam das Wasser immer wieder zurück, so dass sich viele nicht retten konnten.

Wer spenden möchte richtet sich, sagt Carla, am besten an das philippinische Rote Kreuz: http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate. Paypal ist möglich, aber auch Kreditkarte. Einfach vielleicht mal ne Woche auf Biolebensmittel oder so verzichten und das gesparte Geld in die dritte Welt schicken :-)

Wedding Venue: Booked!

Hello Dear Friends and Family,

After much thinking and consideration  -- special thanks to Bu btw for patiently listening to my and Jakob's whole day conversation on the wedding venue topic hahaha -- We have decided to not go with a beach wedding.

As much as we want to do a beach wedding, we realized that August in the Philippines are usually with monsoon rains and typhoons. We don't want to risk our wedding with the crazy weather by then.

We have decided to go for a nice homey place in San Pablo, Laguna. Before Jakob left for Germany last September, we visited the place to check if we like it and if we could visualize it for our wedding. Well, we loved it!

I have heard of the place before but have never been there yet. One of the good things about this place is that it is only in Laguna -- just an hour drive from Calamba!

The place has a country feel and the rooms are really cute. The houses have this rustic feel I love it!

Welcome to Casa San Pablo :-)

Christmas in Germany

Carla's Visa got approved!!! :-D They even gave one week extra, that's how much they trust her ;-). This might come in handy if ever we'd find the time to extend the trip some days... But so far her travel dates are: Dec-15 to Jan-5.

To the Germans: Want to meet Carla one more time before the wedding? This is your chance! Just note that our schedules are tight - New Years, for example, we'll be in Madrid.

Anyway - wedding preparations are still going strong. Venue might be confirmed any day now. Cheers!

-Jakob

Updates

[Carla] Jakob wrote this two weeks ago. It's just that we did not have the time to update the wedding blog and yes it's because of my fault! Jakob is now back in Germany and I miss him so much :-( Anyhoo, here are the updates for the wedding! :-)

[Jakob] Out of the 6 weeks we’ll have together during my current stay in the Philippines, 4 have already passed. The good news: We’re both finally working full time! :-) The bad news: We’re both finally working full time :-(. But even if it’s mostly just the weekends, that we can spend a lot of time together, I feel like we started again right where we left off – and where we left off was at the peak of romance, being freshly engaged and having had nice trips to Iloilo, Jakarta, Ilocos, Batangas and Cloud 9. In wedding-related news:

1. A remarkable number of Germans said, they would come! This is super awesome to hear and we are truly excited! While always ensuring the Germans, that due to the high costs involved we’ll have sympathy for anybody unable to afford the trip at the time we’re all the more happy for all those who will attend! Flights might best be booked not later than early 2014, but prices don’t necessarily go up after that time. We’re happily assisting anyone in any booking processes!

2. A second trip for Carla to Germany has been arranged and she is happy to being able to spend Christmas in my family! During the 3 days festivities with excessive eating, drinking and family bonding, I will also turn 30 (yeah! :-| ). Carla will meet my older brother Jonas for the first time and will have another chance to bond with my little brother Aron, who is my Best Man by the way. For New Years we have a trip to Madrid to visit Carla’s old boss (Jose Ramon) and his wife and we’re looking very forward to that! [Carla] I don't have the visa yet but I hope to get it soon! :-)

3. We are planning a beach wedding and therefore are thankful for recommendations as to what could be a good location. The venue should accommodate around 100 people, have its own rooms for rent or close-by hotels and should be reachable by land in not more than 4 hours from Manila. [Carla] We are not going for a beach wedding anymore because of the crazy weather in August. I We do not want to risk the wedding for a possible typhoon :-( On another note, I think we have already found THE VENUE for our wedding! We will share with you once we have confirmed the place! It would still be outside of Manila so I encourage my friends to stay for the night :-)

So far we enjoy the planning (already had our food tasting ;-) ) and we get more and more excited about this very intimate and very public next step in our relationship!

One Year!

Today it is precisely one more year until our wedding! Who ever has been in the Philippines these days can imagine, how our biggest worry for an August wedding would be the weather :-|. Especially considering our german guests are very fond of the idea of a beach wedding and wouldn't want to negotiate on that ;-). And August 21 it has to be  because it is the only time that both Sonny (my mom) and Thilo (my uncle and our priest) will have holiday since they live in different parts of Germany and, as teachers, don't share their whole summer holidays.

But reading that it rained more in the last 24 hours than it usually does in the whole month of August makes us hopefully wish, that we'll catch one of these "usual" Augusts by 2014. It is not just about the wedding - we also want to travel with our friends and families and especially make the germans fall in love with the Philippines, so that we can be sure to be visited a lot over the next years ;-).

This is my summer break and I'm very happy to be able to spend 6 weeks with my fiancee! In all the dramas, damages and annoyances a flood like this brings to a country, at least for us it had also something good: We had a very close first together-week here in Makati which reassured us that together, we can get through any rough path without getting on each other's nerves.

We hope everybody affected by the flood is fine, as are our friends and family in Germany and around the world! Keep returning for updates and have a great remaining summer!

-Jakob