Leaving Germany

So after Innsbruck we headed toward leichtenstein, （sORRY ABOUT THE CAPITALS BUT I AM IN JAPAN AND THE KEYBOARD BITES!!!　aND I jUST CAN:T HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY ANYLONGER）
wE　ENDED UP WEAVING IN AND OUT OF aUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND AND LEICHTENSTEIN FOR MOST OF THE DAY BEFORE ENDING UP IN FREIBURG.　wE HAD BEEN THROUGH BREGENZ AND KONSTANZ　bEFORE THIS , AND ALL OF THESE PLACES WERE AMAZING.　wE SPENT OUR FINAL WEEK WITH KATE AND BRYCE NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO OUR GOODBYES! IT BRYCE NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO OUR GOODBYES! IT HAS BEEN THE MOST COOL OUR GOODBYES! IT HAS BEEN THE MOST COOL 6 WEEKS。（i AM SO GOING TO HAVE TO REWRITE THIS LATER!!）　oK.. RUNNING OUT OF TIME ON THIS MACHINE SO WILL CUT IT SHORT AND CATCH YOU ALL UP ON THE REST TOMORROW BEFORE LEAVING jAPAN.　cAN@T WAIT TO BE HOME BUT MISSING gERMANY AND kATE AND BRYCE LOADS ALREADY!

Innsbruck - Austria

We were warned that there was absolutely nothing to see in Innsbruck - and you may have been right about that, Gerhardt, IF buildings and historical sights was all you had in mind, But I have never been so enthralled by what I saw before in my life. If you look up Innsbruck on a topigraphical or contour type map you'll see it is set in a valley surrounded by mountains. The drive there was beautiful alone, but to find your hotel basically situated at the base of one of those mountains, and to wake up to it the next day, was glorious. Mike was hyperventilating with excitement at the thought of going skiing, sadly (for him) we only saw the mountains from the bottom. I will never forget Innsbruck for it's amazing location! This only gives you a sample of what it was like.

Munich/Kampberg

We spent the next 3 nights in Kampberg with my cousin Hansi and his family. They also were an unbelievably generous and welcoming family. We were blessed to have the use of most of a 2 room apartment to ourselves on the top floor of his house. We spent the first night playing wii games, much to the delight of Pete and Jorgi. Mike and I even had a go!! It was an enormously fun evening. This was the first time that I had had an opportunity to meet and spend a decent amount of time with this side of my family, and I warmed to them instantly. Hansi, Brigitte and I had some great conversations, over a glass of wine, about Germany's political and social mistakes - I mostly listened and nodded agreement, but my German had a fantastic chance to improve.

During the day, while they worked and their kids were at school, we were in Munich visiting with my uncle and aunt. They both work, so to arrive unanounced and find that they both happen to have the next two days off was a real blessing. They took us up the TV tower, and into the new, amazing BMW building, where we got to see all the latest models and find out about the way their features and systems work. Man, if only we had the money for one of those babies!! Later that evening we had dinner with them at their favourite pub.

Day two started with a traumatic walk through Dachau. I don't think I will ever be able to erase those images from my mind. Mike and I both had difficulty holding back the emotion welling up inside. At one stage, as a German school group of boistrous teenagers walked and joked their way past me, I resisted the urge to point out that their behaviour was not only inappropriate and disappointing, but disrespectful to the memory of all those that had lost their lives here. It would have fallen on deaf ears, as the overwelming concensus is that Germans just want to forget it ever happened. Ironically, we received a text part way through from my sister to say that she had had her new baby, a boy, Luca! Thinking about it now I realise that "regardless of all that man has done we still live under God's blessing" and can experience joy.

We met up with my uncle and aunt after this and together we took to the streets of Munich. Jorgi only had shopping on her mind, but I wanted a fresh reminder of the square and its fabulous Glockenspiel. Unfortunately we were not there at the right time of day to see it play, but it was nostalgic non the less. I also asked to be taken through the famous Munich Bier house - the Muenchner Hofbraeuhaus -

AWESOME is the only way to discribe the atmosphere. I just love folk music and they have it playing there, live, every day. The German Museum was our next stop. There we were bedazzled by the collection of authentic space craft and satellites. The real sputnik was on display!

It was difficult to say goodbye to everyone. We learned a great deal about giving from my family, and I feel very blessed to be counted as part of their family. I am working on not letting it be another 15 years before we see them all again. Thank you to William, Angela, Hansi, Brigitte, Maxi, Nadin, Elina. Es war einmalig!!

Nuernberg

Here we wanted to see the place where Hitler stood to give his famous speeches. It was a very eery feeling, knowing one of the most evil men in history stood here and
successfully 'conned' /scared so many into believing in his cause. He must have been very charismatic indeed. I also wanted to see Albrecht Duerers house, which is inside the very thick walls of the old city. I have a replica of his famous praying hands in my kitchen. Albrech drew the hands of his brother, who sacrificed his own career as an artist to work in the mines and pay for Albrechts tuition.

Nuremberg also has some other amazing architecture.

Dettenheim

This part of the journey was the coldest in temperature, but certainly not in reception. This is where my sister's inlaws live. Everyone was so lovely, generous and friendly, we could have stayed much longer than the 1 night, unfortunately we were on a schedule and running behind. Klaus's mum is amazing in the kitchen. We left with a bag full of home made jam, honey and nut liquer. I would have taken more if I didn't have to worry about the weight of my suitcase later! There's a bottle of Pear schnaps for you Klaus. The morning of our departure we had a chilly -18!! Thank you Birgit and Walter, who kindly put us all up in their beautiful home, Lydia and Wilhelm for sharing so much of your selves with us.

Heidenheim

Heidenheim an der Brenz is where some special people live. No blood relation and yet just as dear and loved. They are family. We were welcomed with open arms everywhere we went and here was no exception. Treated to delicious meals, our own personal tour guide through Heidenheim - thanks Hella, a seperate room for the kids - they were in the basement and Mike and I in the attic - it couldn't get much better than that, a romantic hour of alone time for me and Mike with wine, candles and bubbles, and many hours of great convesation, dice games and Jaeggermeister! What a way to start our family visits! Thank you Christl, Gerhardt, Hella, Anna and Oma Toni.

Between the 5th and the 9th of Jan

We drove home from Paris in the snow and there began the coldest European winter in 10 years. We took advamtage of the snow one day and went skiing. Jorgi had to give snowboarding a try and discovered that it was not going to be her life's passion, swapping to skis an hour later. Pete was the one slowly making his way slalom style across the mountain, and Mike was the one with skis pointed straight down the mountain, yelling 'yahoo', descending at lightening speed and scaring everyone in his path! He is a maniac on the mountain! The following day we took our frozen butts to Europa Park - can you believe it! Temperatures of -7 and we decide to go to a theme park for the day. We spent a lot of time around the open fires to keep warm.

The morning before we left on our tiki tour we visited a pet shop that held more exotic animals than our zoos. Tarantula's, snakes of many colours and lengths, birds of all shapes and sizes, turtles, geckos and other lizzards and these friendly koi karp.

I'm ba-ack!

Ok, so we have just arrived back from our tour arround the family and I have some time before we leave to catch you up on all the things we have done since I last wrote. First let me finish the paris addition, which I ran out of time for.

Our last full day was spent mostly at the Louvre, which we were lucky enough to view for free. However, being the first Sunday in the month meant that the rest of France also was lucky enough to come for free, so we arrived dot on opening time. By 12:00 the place looked like this!! you barely had room to walk. We decided to focus on paintings as the place was so vast that it would have taken us days to get around all of it. None the less I was still aghast at the number of paintings contained in these four walls (hardly just 4 walls, since this was once a palace with every room more elabarate than the last.) apparantly there are over 30 thousand! My favourites were mostly from the 1300-1400, because I had studied art history at school. I saw 3 Botticelli frescoes like this one - Venus and the 3 Graces, Raphael, and of course diVinci's the Mona Lisa. Photos were alittle hard to get because of the huge crowd. Everything about the Louvre was awe-inspiring!

Paris Day 3 - The Two biggies.

We took our time this morning since we have to be anywhere at any particular time, and we were tired. Today's schedule included

Pont Neuf - the oldest bridge to span the Seine

Notre Dame

a walk along the Seine

The Eiffel Tower

Shopping. No he didn't buy it!!

We achieved all of these things without mishap but would have enjoyed them more if we didn't all feel like we were being slowly frozen! I had to buy a new hat to keep warm!

Paris Day 2 - The Rendezvous

Up bright and early the next day, and prepared to give Paris another chance after yesterdays trauma, we were all rearing to go. On the agenda today was

Breakfast at 8:00

Train station at 9:00 to buy our Paris Visit Cards

Basilique du Sacre Coeur at 12:00 to meet with Mike's brother and family

Lunch at 1:00

Arc de Triomph, 3:00

Walk down the Champs Elysee towards the Place de la Concord

Home

Everything was proceeding round about as planned until Anna and my nephew took a walk on the wild side and disappeared into the crowd streaming down the Champs Elysee. If I was to say we all felt a moments panic, then that would be the understatement of the year. All was saved by an Angel in the form of an English woman, who spotted the two misfits helplessly searching for a way back to us. She made Anna stand on a park bench and call out 'mummy'. Safely returned, we all had a hug and a good cry and were on our way again. God is good! It could so easily have been much worse.

Dinner that night was with Andrew and Vic - Mike's brother and his wife. It was lovely to be able to spend some quality time with them after so many years.

We all just fell into bed about 11:00. What an eventful day!

Paris Day 1 - The journey

Well this is my second attempt at writing an account of our trip to Paris, as I accidentally deleted the first one. Because this is going to take a long time i will split each day up into a seperate post, so here is day one. And sorry guys I have no photos of this leg of the trip.
What can I say Paris is AWESOME! It did however take us a day to warm to the place. Our drive over was in pea soup. It must have been one of the most boring drives I have ever undertaken and not just because of the weather. Our return journey revealed there was absolutely nothing worth looking at, except flat land and an odd attempt by the French at roadside art, presumably to enliven the monotony of the countryside, but colourful spheres, squares and triangles don't really do it for me. Aside from the geometric shapes our trip was intermittently broken up by toll gates, designed to rob you of your last penny - probably to pay for the hideous roadside decoration. We almost paid more in tolls than we did petrol.
Arriving in central Paris we came face to face with the reason people advised us not to go by car. 1) They have a phenomenon called a round-about. What is so unuasual about that we have them in NZ I hear you say - well not like these. Wide, 5 lane monsters with no road markings to prevent you from straying into the path of the car next to you, and at least 4 sets of traffic lights evenly spread around the round-about to stop you from being able to safely make your way round the thing without having to break suddenly at regular intervals. I'm sure the city has an arrangement with heart surgeons! 2) French drivers make full use of the lack of road markings and treat round-abouts as if they only had one lane especially for them, crossing to exit right infront of you, at random, without indicating!! - a particular penchant we also encountered on the motorway.
Finally at the hostel, alive and safe we met with our next problem. Our confirmed 1 room, 8 bed dorm had become 3 rooms on two floors. Kate and I 'sacrificially' volunteered to sleep in the large women only dorm leaving Bryce and Mike with their respective children in two 3 bed dorms. Unfortunately the late arrival of the 8 Thai women with no concept of respect, courtesy or the meaning of quiet, now filled our previously unoccupied room, leaving Kate and I less likely to be so keen to want distance next time. While kate and I organised the bedding, dinner and the kids, the boys braved the Parisian streets again in search of the recommended parking building. Three hours later and decidedly less impressed or enthusiastic about Paris, the wary adventurers returned without having found the elusive parking building. Moods were bleaker than the weather! finally in bed, there was evening and there was morning the first day!!

NEW YEAR

Mate! If you have never experienced a German Sylvester - the name given to New Years Eve - then you will have to add this to your 'must do before I die' list!!

The evening started like most others with a shared meal, only ours was shared with 20 other people at Steiger. We enjoyed a French dish called Racklette. I likened it to pizza without the base. Each individual serving is prepared on a shovel like pan filled with different ingredients varying from salmon, salami, and pickles to peaches, pears and walnuts, topped with a special melting cheese and then heated under an element. Very tastey!! After dinner we entertained each other with a variation on Karaoke - lipsinking popular songs dressed up in costume - a bit like Stars in their Eyes. Kate, Jorgi and I performed to 'Man I feel Like A Woman' by Shania Twaine. Everyone got into it, with none of the usual inhibitions. It was Awesome!

At about 11:55 everyone headed for the roof top of the 4 story Steiger building to prepare for midnight. Right on the minute all of Karlsruhe seemed to explode in a shock of noise and colour. Every household was now letting off all their fireworks at once. Within 5 mins distant buildings were nolonger visible in the haze, and all you could see was the clourful fireworks display lighting up every corner of the sky. In the morning the fallen remnants of the night before covered the streets like a shredded blanket, left for the city to clean up. It seems one night a year the Germans take leave of their festidious environmentally green senses and let loose! Photos of this later, as they are on e Kates camera.

Herrenberg/ Rohrau

Between the 28th and the 31st we took a little drive to my home town and the surrounding villages. We visited with my Uncle Heinz and his family in Herrenberg, this is the town my dad grew up and where I was born. They were all extremely welcoming and their hospitality could rival any 5 star hotel. After lunch We took a walk through the town and up into the local 750 yr old church. This amazing building was built on unstable soil and the front of the church has been subsiding 1mm/yr faster than the back, causing a gradual downward lean towards the town square. To rectify this, and prevent the church from crashing into the houses below, the town has spent a good part of the last 30 years and millions of euro adding concrete supports. It has given the gracious old lady about another 100 years. This is my grandfathers house.

After spending a good part of the day with them we made our way to my Godmothers house in Rohrau, where we spent the next four nights being pampered and spoilt. We had the whole ground floor to ourselves including a double lounge, kitchen, two bathrooms and a huge bedroom.If these lovely people and my Uncles family are indicadive of what Germans are like in general, then make sure you put Germany on your holiday destinations list, because you wouldn't regret it.

On the day of our Wedding Anniversary we took a nostalgic walk throught the region to the village where I spent my last years in Germany before moving to NZ, Nufringen. This is where I went to Kindy and started school. Unfortunately our jaunt through the countryside was 5 km longer than expected, due to an accidental turn in the wrong direction. Not a bad thing normaly, except for the -7 temperature, as we discovered later.

Later that we drove to Sinsheim where we were treated to an educational wonderland in the form of the Auto and Technik Museum. Here we were able to hike from the tail to the nose up the belly of a genuine Concord. Quite an adventure for a 13 yr boy. Oh and the rest of us. This museum was full of planes, trains and automobiles!