Munich - new home

Since the 1st of July, we have been living in the city of beer, pretzels, beer-gardens, Lederhosen and the Oktoberfest - Munich (or München). We were asked to shift here by our work, so that we can work from the office, as opposed to at home, the way we have been for the past 10 months. There were pros and cons, but in the end we were persuaded and we did the big move. As our company was paying for the move, we engaged some student helpers, who carried our heavy pieces, while we did the cleaning, tidying etc. It was still a lot of work, but it helped a lot to have some carriers. The most tedious part was the drive from Wiesbaden to Munich in the truck, as we had to spend the more than 6 hours driving in the right hand lane, in the slow traffic, with all the other trucks.

In the end we made it, and to thank us Munich put on fantastic weather for a month - to the point where we were surprised to see those cloud things again. Every morning the sun shone into our bedroom window and it was another 30+ degree day. When we wanted to go for a run, we had to do it around 6:30am, otherwise it was too hot, even in the late evenings. In the evenings we tended to go for a swim in the bathing lake, which is only a quarter of an hour walk away from here in the park. Since then it has decided to rain a little, but thats not all bad since it was starting to look like autumn with everything turning orange.

The location of our flat is great, it is set in between a park and a shopping centre at the eastern edge of the city. Work is a 10 min walk or 2 min bike ride away and the subway is by the mall (100m away), which then takes us into the centre of the city within 20 min.

We have most of the things organised in our flat, we just need a couple more pictures on the walls, some curtains in the bedroom and maybe a few more plants on the balcony. We are now ready to have visitors and we are already booked out a fair bit by friends and family coming to stay. No point in going away on holiday...

The crowd in the Olympic stadium during the soccer world cup

















One of the very nice bathing lakes surrounding Munich

England trip

On Friday 9th of June we skipped off from work a little early and did a marathon drive all the way from Wiesbaden to Bath, England. It was a long trip through a bit of Germany, all of Belgium, a bit of France, the Chunnel and then across the width of England - finally arriving at around 2am, having gained an hour through the time difference. We had a quick chat to Matt, our English friend who we knew from New Zealand, who has now moved back 'home' and then fell into bed.

Matt had a couple of other kiwi friends staying with him, so I spent the Saturday hanging out with Heidi, while her boyfriend, Matt and Lindsay went to Bristol for Matt's stag do. On Sunday we enjoyed the summer day in Bath and had a bit of a look around the town.

On Monday Lindsay and I headed up to Wales, to stay with his auntie and uncle in Llay (North Wales). They looked after us really well, taking a day off work each and showing us around. We first went to Chester, which has one of the few mostly intact city walls left in England. We walked around half of it and then wandered back through the town and saw the famous two storied shop fronts.

The next day we visited Conwy castle, which is situated halfway across North Wales by the sea. Each evening we ate out in a different cute little country pub, reachable only via the narrow single lane - but two way roads.

Old drover's inn













Conwy castle in Wales












After the far too short stay in Wales, we headed up to the Lakes District, one of the most popular holiday districts in England, right in the far north. Fortunately the peak season hadn't started, despite the weather being really good. So we had the narrow, stone-fence-lined roads to ourselves, when we went on our bike trips. We were staying in a nice bed and breakfast in a little village.


Nice butt!













Phone box in the middle of nowhere













Stepping stones













Ahhh












We then went from tranquil in the Lake District to madness in London, where we went next. It is a great city and we saw quite a few of its sites (e.g. Tower of London, Greenwich, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace), as well as catching up with our Kiwi friends Cynthia (who lives in London), Jo and Steve (who had just arrived in England) and Baz (also living in London). What made it the most hectic was the first night, when due to us not really understanding the public transport system and some of it being closed for repairs, it took us about 4 hours to get back to our camping ground in the North of London, after missing the last subway train and having to take night busses and walk.

Then taking Jo and Steve with us, we headed back out west for another short stop in Bath. Lindsay and I did a day trip to Glastonbury, with its alternative hippy shops, Abbey ruins and proposed burial place of King Arthur and Gwynevere and to Wells (10,500 people), with its huge cathedral and lane of the oldest houses in Europe where the choir members live.

We then headed to Exmoor National Park together with Jo and Steve on a little road trip. We saw the wild coast, looked at the quaint villages and naturally had a good English cream tea (pot of tea with cream scones).

Back in Bath, we had a nice reunion dinner at an Indian Restaurant together with our kiwi friends Alice, Cynthia, Jo and Steve, followed by Matt and Jo's (different Jo!) wedding the next day. The wedding was very nice, with a very personal ceremony, amazing weather, great food, nice speeches, fun games and dancing and lots of chocolate. The event was a very nice end to our holiday and far too soon we had to head back on our long journey home...

The bridal party

Holland visit

We visited Amsterdam on the Thursday - we did a touristy boat trip around the cannels, walked around the red light district etc. Its a pretty interesting city - very diverse with lots of history, lovely cannels, old architechure and museums, combined somehow with 'cafes' and sex tourism.

A standard dutch shoe store


















The coolest urinal in the world!













A dutch parking building












On the Friday we visited Alkmar - a small village that has a highly touristy, but nevertheless interesting cheese fair on Fridays. They have lots of guys running in circles carrying cheese for no apparent reason. Because the weather wasn't the best, we spent most of the time trying to not have an eye poked out by the millions of people milling around carrying umbrellas. After buying a bit of cheese, eating some raw hering in tradional Dutch style (see photo) and having a look around, we then carried on up North to cross the longest dyke in Holland. It is about 30 something km long, with a few parking spots on the way - one of which has a few pictures and the story of how it was built etc.

Kerstin eating herring the tradional way


















Carrying cheese in circles












Carrying on with our round trip, we visited Urk - a really small fishing village where they are still quite religious (all the girls have to wear skirts etc), and apparently they often still wear traditional Dutch clothes (although we didn't really see any). They were having some kind of show day with the fire brigade, so all the kids were having water fights with the high pressure hoses - looked like it would have been a lot of fun if it hadn't been so cold... The other interesting feature of the town - most of the men had little sailing ship errings (a sign that they were fishermen).

On the Saturday we visiting a park that was like a 'little Holland' - it had everything that was supposed to be typically Dutch. The highlight was visiting a windmill where they 'made' linseed oil. The old guy was not only great as far as explaining how everything works, but could do it in at least 4 languages. Watching how basically everything that happened in there was powered by the wind and seeing just how much power there is in the wind was really fascinating.

Could be any street in Holland...












After that we went to Zandvoort (guess why??) which is normally a very popular beach resort (when it's not so damn cold).

We discovered that we are actually Dutch not English

















On the Sunday we did as the Dutch do - we went cycling! We went to a big wildlife reserve and hired bikes for the day. Actually one of the highlights was going past the modern form of the Dutch windmill - massive wind turbines that always look close until you try and go up to one...

We then had to go home :-(

Skipping into the sunset