Germany

Well the first day back to school for the boys this week. Mike has moved to the big boys’ school, a year ahead of the rest of his friends to start in a bilingual preschool, housed just a room away from Max’s class. Nicole and I were both surprised when we left Mike with his new teacher, and there was barely any reaction. He had been the king of his kindergarten, and was one of the bigger kids there and here he starts right back at the bottom without knowing a soul in his class.

Summer is well and truly over and it feels as if the weather gods have decided we won’t bother with an autumn this year, and let’s just skip straight to winter. I unfortunately do not own any winter clothes and am forced to endure the cold chill in the air. This summer has been one of the hottest recorded in years, and it also strangely happens to be one of the shortest. But the sun could come back, you just never really know.

Nice and early on Tuesday I was sent to pick up a family friend from the Airport, the last person I expected to see through the arrival gates was my very own Mother all the way from New Zealand. She had been planning a trip to Eastern Europe months before I had even mentioned my intentions of moving to Germany. So she had contacted Nicole, and arranged to come and stay for just under a week, before joining her tour group for the rest of the religious pilgrimage throughout Croatia, Bosnia and Italy. She hadn’t even told my grandmother she was coming, until the day before she left NZ. I was a little taken back to say the least, and I my first reaction was of course to swear. I didn’t take any notice at the time, but apparently a few people around us were quite startled with my reaction. Mum even pulled out the digi to start snapping away at my reaction.

When I had composed myself and recovered from the shock, I took her shopping in Wiesbaden – to get some of the winter clothes I desperately needed and to show her the sights. On Wednesday we did the tour through Mainz, and I took her to several churches (dutiful daughter that I am). On Thursday we went to the Kaiser-Friedrich Irish Roman Thermal baths, which are famous in the area, and of which I didn’t realise fully until I had gotten there, were ‘textile free’. So I had to cast aside twenty-one years of inhibitions and get back to nature, my only saving grace was that I couldn’t wear my glasses, and so I had no way of being able to see peoples reactions and expressions. So we spent the morning going around the different pools and saunas, the Finnish sauna had an air temperature of 85 to 90 degrees celsius. We even went so far as to have a Rasul treatment, where we had to cover ourselves in different mud, then sit for half an hour in a scented steam room before rubbing oil all over ourselves. The Germans are crazy about ‘spas’ and there is a whole health-craze phenomenon surrounding them, they are even covered by their health insurance. I am glad I stuck it out, and it certainly opened my eyes to a different way of life. Germans (and most other Western European countries) are surprisingly liberal when it comes to nudity and censorship. Throughout summer, it was not uncommon to see women sunbathing topless in the cities parks during their lunch breaks, and boobs are flashed all over the TV and in normal magazines, not at all like our reserved attitudes back home in New Zealand, a hang up I guess from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.

Finally I took her on a tour of some of the villages along the Rhine. I even managed to find a historic Cistercian Monastery, a religious order my mother is connected with back in NZ. Thankfully, the monastery has been un-inhabited since the early 19th Century so it was more of a museum, than a religious institution. I took her to the touristy town of Rüdesheim, where we ate schnitzel and strudel then we walked amongst the tour groups of old ladies in twin-sets and loud touritsts along the famous ‘Drossel Straße’. The highlight of Mums day was seeing a small dog, with what appeared to be underwear covering its backside.

So even though it was an unexpected visit I got to show Mum some of the sights and sounds of my life as an Au Pair in Germany. She was impressed with how well the boys behaved, the standard of my driving, the life style the family lives and the ingenuity of the way the Germans do things or the way things are made.

This week I took the boys to Bavaria, to see their Grandparents. Oma and Opa live about an hour away from Munich, in a small village called ‘Burgau’. Thank god the navigator is back up and running otherwise I would have had a hell of a time trying to figure everything out. As I mentioned in the previous blog, I am getting quite used to driving on the Autobahn, and now feel completely normal driving on the wrong/right side of the road. I think my average speed is around 150 to 160 km/h and Mum before you freak out there are people going much much faster!

About 15 minutes away from Burgau is Legoland Deutschland. So of course Oma and I took the boys along for the day. Now I have been to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast, but the queues for Legoland were just ridiculous. Apparently it’s in the middle of most peoples journeys to other places, so every man and his dog comes for a day. Luckily it was slightly overcast the whole day so it wasn’t too hot, but there really was no chance of going on many rides. Most of it was pretty well done and actually kind of interesting, if you were a kid you’d be in heaven.

Mike and Max at Legoland

I got a little nostalgic; especially when in the Duplo section as I used to have some of the books as well as all the bricks. You could probably spend several days there, but one was more than enough for me. That night before sunset, I took a walk out in to the country, past mostly fields of maize and listened to the glorious sound of nothing – reminded me of home until I turned a corner and saw Europe’s (and possibly the Worlds) biggest Nuclear Power plant. Ahhh bliss.

Guarding the castle gates, in Legoland

The next day the weather really turned bad, you would never believe it was the middle of summer. I took the boys to an indoor play centre, and then Opa took us on a drive out into the country and we had a tour through some caves. The region is famous for uncovering lots of dinosaur fossils and also bones of Neanderthals and Mammoths. The caves were ok, but as the tour was in German I switched off. I kept on thinking of comparisons to NZ. Although I haven’t been in the Waitomo caves, (so I may need to be corrected) I don’t think New Zealanders would actually intentionally destroy a naturally phenomenon like stagnites and stallites just to put some lights up would we? I am sure the caves I have been in before, you either individually carry torches, or the leader carries a big gas lantern thingee. Well in the cave I went to, they had strung lights up everywhere, and you could quite clearly see where they’d knocked things down, and then put putty like substance over cables to attempt hiding them. And sadly no glow worms.

On the way back Opa took me to some Bavarian churches in the Baroque style, which are quite different from other parts of Germany. Every village, no matter how small has a huge church – usually smack bang in the middle. It is incredible to think that most of these churches were built in the 17th Century and at the time there were probably at most only 200 people living in the actual village. The churches are massive, and because most of them are Catholic they are lavishly decorated inside, and would have been phenomenally expensive and time consuming to build. I left the boys in Bavaria, where their parents will join them tomorrow and then they’ll all head to Austria.

Well I now have two whole glorious weeks to spend as I please, so I am off to Italy - who knows what adventures await me.

P.s. For more images, check out my Image Gallery which should be accessible on your top right, under the authour section - click on my name and it should take you there or at least mention something about a photo gallery.

I have been quite busy lately so bare with me. First off, last Saturday night I went out for Cocktails and Tapas with Stefan, a guy I meet a few weeks ago from the English speaking group’s BBQ. The building was called the ‘Heiliggeist’ which I think translates into the Holy Ghost and turned out to be a 16th Century hospital.

It was pretty cool inside, but the toilets were really random with weird bird noises coming from the speakers, and doors you could see through. The next day I had to get up nice and early, and drive for three hours to a medieval town with Stefan. After swearing black and blue, that I was in fact cursed when it came to cars, and crossing three states of Germany, we finally found the small town. Of course by then I was famished and we stopped at the first restaurant we could find that wasn’t in a 70’s time warp and got Schnitzel!! And damn it was good. I never even attempted to make it back home, but it is soo good, they don’t use the same type of breadcrumbs we do.

A section of the Alt Stadt's defence wall, with Klingen Tower in the background.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is quite a touristy little town, and we were in hysterics throughout the English tour of the Alt Stadt (Old town) listening to all the crazy questions they were asking the tour guide. Although we could have done the tour ourselves, I think it’s usually nicer to go with a guide, because usually they’re locals and have random stories that you could never get from the brochures i.e. you get to find out the real reason the castle was destroyed and not by an Earthquake, as mentioned in the brochures – and if the tour is boring, at least the others in the tour provide some entertainment. The old town was pretty well preserved, even after numerous attacks and being bombed in WWII. The town is surrounded by high walls and all the streets are narrow and cobbled. All the shops have iron signs; even McDs has to have an iron cast sign. It was pretty impressive thinking how the hell did these people live back then, as there would have been animals everywhere, and sewage just thrown out on to the streets. The people had to store food for up to two years, at all times in case there was a siege. So you would have to be fairly creative as to avoid rats. We even got to see a cage used to torture bakers if they made their loaves of bread to small or to big, something to do with ripping people off and affecting the competition.

We went to (from what I gather) Germanys biggest open year-round Christmas store. I am sure they even put spices in the air conditioner to make you feel festive. Of course I couldn’t be considered a true tourist unless I purchased a little ornament or two. I definitely didn’t go crazy like the couple in front of us. The old dear brought €350 of goodies which works out to be $NZ700, and from what I saw they only walked out with a small box. Stefan told me that most Germans buy new decorations each year, which must work out to be enormously expensive. And Christmas usually goes for three days, and is much more of a traditional holiday than our good old NZ variety.

Of course no town is complete without its terrifically expensive church. St Jakobs Church (Lutheran) is a little quirky as its unique architectural feature is that it is built over a lane, so you can actually drive right through the church so to speak. I won’t bore you with the details, churches are one of those things that interest a lot of people, but they all merge in to each other for me. However, I must note most of them have been pretty impressive so far.

Driving on the Autobahn is not that exciting really, yes we went over 200 km/h but I didn’t even notice until I was told. It doesn’t feel unsafe, and as the people in the slow lane were probably going 160 anyway, we didn’t feel like we were jetting past. There roads aren’t even that good really, when I am driving I keep thinking I have a flat tyre because the car is juddering so much, but it’s just the condition of the roads. So a lot of the time you can’t even go fast on the autobahn because there are roadworks.

Look out for the next instalment… my quick trip to Bavaria.

P.s. The real reason the castle was destroyed is because the villagers started to steal all of the stones for their own houses, and had to tell the Emperor something. Hence the excuse of the ‘earthquake’ - just seems a little strange when nothing else in the town was destroyed ;o)

Well I have finally managed to post this weeks blog – my internet has been down for two weeks. As the blimmen connection has been checked and fixed so many times I’m giving up hope that it will ever work. So anyway back to my life as I know it … last weekend I packed an overnight bag and headed to Heidelberg which is supposed to be one of Europe’s most historic and romantic cities and is Germany’s oldest University town. The city is split in two – the old and the new and is divided by the River Neckar. So naturally I focused on the old. The old part is dominated by the Heidelberg Castle (or otherwise known as the Heidelberger Schloss) which sits on top of a hill and for those of you into a bit of history (skip to the next paragraph if you’re not) is over five centuries old. Although a lot of it is in ruins, there is still some of the interior preserved; the ruins actually became a symbol of the entire era of German Romanticism. Over the centuries, many rulers made extensions to the castle, so that it now shows evidence of all style periods between the 13th and 17th centuries.

Seeing the Castle lit up at night is a sight I will not forget easily - simply breathtaking. As it was a warm summer night, everyone was out and I walked along the cobbled streets, watching as musicians played, fire eaters and mime artists entertained and drew crowds - all while locals and tourists alike ate their dinner at tables in the middle of the cobbled Market square with the formidable sight of the biggest church I’ve ever seen, looming above them. I walked up on to the old bridge built in the 1780’s and looked back on to the old city. Even though it really wasn’t that wide, there were theatre performances happening right in the middle of the bridge, and although there were quite a few people around it definitely wasn’t crowded. Somehow I had forgotten my camera, and in a way I am glad – the pictures could not have really captured it all. (Note: I thought I had to leave you with something, so the above photo is nicked from Google images.)

View of the Alt Stadt – the Heiliggesitkirche built in 1398 dominant in the centre.

I ended up staying in a hostel, and luckily got one of the last beds left. It wasn’t too bad, but the weird thing is that the girls in the dorm I was in, left the lights on all night. I was already in bed by the time they’d settled in and I was on a top bunk – so I didn’t think they were expecting me to turn it off, so it just stayed on. They fell asleep immediately of course, but I lay there for hours thinking of ways to ignore the light. It is only now as I type this – in which I think why didn’t I just climb down and turn off the bloody light?! But I am irrational at the best of times, I didn’t want to wake them up and I didn’t want to piss them off etc. I really want to know why I am such a mental case when it comes to sleeping, what the hell happened in my childhood to put the fear of God into me about waking people up? It drives me nuts, especially when others so blatantly, couldn’t give a damn. Like you even wanted to know all that! Anyway I eventually dragged my self out of bed, and got in the shower. I’d only just gotten my kit off when there was banging on the door, asking how much longer I was going to be in there. I didn’t even bother to wash my hair, so you’ll have to excuse my scummy hair in the photos - which brings me to another point actually. Kj rang me on Sunday night – bless her soul, and said that it had only really hit her I was on the other side of the world when she saw the picture of me ‘singing in the rain’ in last weeks blog. Until now it hadn’t really sunk in for her that I was anywhere different, and I hadn’t even noticed myself that that photo was the first one with me actually in it. So just for Kj, here’s another wee pic of me.

Me on top of Königstuhl Mountain

This may not be entirely true, as I haven’t actually been that far but I have observed that Germany is not really that tourist friendly in regards to signage. You will see a sign randomly once pointing you somewhere, but then it will never show up again. So you end up going down really weird narrow roads with no way of being able to turn around so you just have to keep driving then get completely lost, because you are no longer on any maps. Then the further you get, the less people you see and the less your chances are that you’ll find somebody who speaks English. Also like I have mentioned previously the road signs aren’t always what they look like they are, and you can very easily get yourself in tricky situations. But I have been informed that Germany has some of the best signage in Europe compared to France and Italy – yay for me.

Me in front of some of the interior ruins of the Heidelberg Castle

Ok back to Heidelberg, got a little sidetracked…when I finally got to the car park for the Castle I took the 100 year old wooden tram which brings you creaking and rumbling to the very top of the Königstuhl Mountain (550m above sea level). Then on the way back down I had a tour in English through the interior of the Castle. Well worth doing, and a bit awe-inspiring. The cool thing about the castle is that you can actually go into some of the rooms, and it’s not all roped off and untouchable. I think the guide said that they open up several rooms, and then rotate them around so that things are not as likely to get worn down so fast. I was there in total about four hours and as the heat was starting to make me melt I headed back slowly to Wiesbaden. Although it wasn’t action packed, it was a great weekend away, and Heidelberg was well worth a visit.

Just for something a little kooky - I was watching some TV here, and I saw Lionel from Shortland Street talking in GERMAN!! Well he wasn’t actually, someone was speaking over him but jeez it was funny. I’d flicked through some channels and came across an American movie, with the guy from ‘Dharma and Greg’, which was dubbed over in German. After watching it for a bit, I started to get the feeling all was not quiet right. I got the weird feeling that I’d been to the places they were at and it turned out the whole thing was filmed in Auckland. I saw the Auckland Museum, and what’s that park called in Greenlane? Cornwall? Ahh you know the one. Then suddenly Lionel pops up out of nowhere, then all the old Shorty crew came out – basically every actor in NZ was on it. Old Tandy Wright, and Lionel’s evil lady friend Mackenzie, I think there was also the guy who played the nurse ‘Cameron’ and ‘? Thornton’ you get the jist.

Something else random that’s popped up unexpectedly with NZ in it, is this months edition of the German Playboy magazine (Nicole gets them from work, because her company’s got advertising in them) had a picture of the 1904 All Black Rugby team! This is weird for several reasons – most Germans do not know about Rugby, and a lot of Germans do not even know where NZ is! I think they were trying to sell Canterbury jerseys but I can’t be sure.

Till next time … tschüs!

After the whole ‘feeling sorry for myself because I had no friends’ episode – I took everyone’s advice and joined a club. I racked my brain, thinking of something I was passionate about, but I was stumped. So in the end I found a group on the Internet called the English Round Table (ERT) which as you may have guessed is a group of people – mostly expats, who live in the Mainz area and get together occasionally. As luck would have it, they had their annual BBQ just last weekend. There was a wide mix of people from the UK, Australia, the US and of course people from Germany. I was the youngest and only New Zealander – but they instantly welcomed me and I ended up staying until the very end. I got lots of new contacts, and met a few people who are keen to catch up outside of the group and do things i.e. tours of the area, going to the English Theatre they have in Frankfurt, and teaching me some German. I met a lovely woman who is an Irish Author – my favourite kind! And she has a daughter my age; I am going to meet as soon as she gets back from Africa.

Lisa one of my high school friends from Gisborne, came to stay last week. She was on her way back to Sicily and managed to get a 4 and ½ day stop over here. Although it may not have been the best time for her to come stay – the school holidays have just begun and I have the boys full time, and the weather is almost unbearable – it was good to catch up all the same. My severe tiredness (combo of the heat and undiagnosed Anaemia methinks) and Lisa’s jetlag made for a good combo, neither of us were up to doing much – so we bummed around a lot. I did however manage to show her around some of Wiesbaden and Mainz.

We even went to a birthday party of René’s friends, out in the middle of nowhere (we couldn’t even locate the town on any maps) but we miraculously didn’t get lost! Well ok, maybe we did but it was for like five minutes and only because I couldn’t remember the exact address. It was Yvonne’s 26th birthday, but they were also celebrating Torben’s which was back in May. Yvonne and Torben are lovely – can’t remember if I’ve said that already? We met some locals, who tried to convince Lisa to drink Wine mixed with Coca-cola. I was driving, so luckily I missed out! But seriously, most of them were drinking the stuff, and swearing that they enjoyed it. Apparently red is better than white! When I told Opa about it he said “Young people are not crazy, they’re SUPER crazy. If you did that in Bavaria you would get shot.” Good to know. I have also seen Cola Beer here as well, and that is much more common, than you would think. Oh and before I forget I have also seen Guinness with ice, which I am told is not the done thing! We felt a little awkward because we were a little too dressed up, but better than the alternative. So I kicked of my shoes, and began to feel right at home. A lot of the people could speak English, and it was funny listening to their interpretations of life in NZ.

Before Lisa left I got to have one whole day to drive out into the countryside and show her a bit more of German life. After the incident in the forest, and only seeing the two cities, her opinion of Germany wasn’t exactly glowing. First we went to Eltville, a small Wine village which is around 1000 years old with the narrow streets to prove it, and we strolled around. Then we went to the Schloss Vollrad which is like the equivalent of a French Château. When we got there the sky turned dark, and the thunder/lightning started, we had just made it back to the car when the rain started. We got to see a very surreal windstorm as we drove along the Rhine, very eerie. Then we stopped off at the very touristy town of Rüdesheim. The rain had set in, but it was a nice change from the heat. We popped into a bakery and sampled some of the local pastries, and walked around the streets. Unfortunately the only picture that wasn’t fuzzy is this one above of me singing in the rain. We had begun to get a little silly at the craziness of the situations we were constantly getting in and I was just so overjoyed at the relief from the heat – I got a little carried away. We then drove through the vines on the hills - growing grapes for Riesling, with castles popping up at you around the corners and in the distance, and churches everywhere, mostly gothic and all old. We were going to have dinner on a boat in the middle of the Rhine, but the weather put a stop to that and we settled for Sushi. It ended up being one of my favourite days, since arriving here.

Mike, Max, Jaoa-Gabriel and Andre at Taunus Wunderland

I will eventually get to describe the boys in more detail – but I might wait until the holidays are over and I’ve been with them for weeks on end. Right now, I find the boys relatively easy to look after. They’re used to having Au Pairs, and they’re used to seeing their parents only at the weekends. They have everything in the world, but not the attitude you would expect them to have. Max can be quite a serious wee thing, and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He is incredibly intelligent for his age, and is wiser than his seven years. He is crazy about Pokemon and Soccer at the moment, and loves Lego. He helps me chop the veggies, plays cards with me, lets me read Roald Dahl to him, explains the ways of the Germans to me and is my personal translator. Mike is the one I can’t put my finger on – well not just yet anyway. He has taken the longer of the two to get used to me – and is still not completely there. He is mischievous and cheeky, but quite sensitive at the same time. He has made huge improvements with communicating with me, for awhile I don’t think he could quite work out my accent. He is not as keen to try things as Max is, although you would expect him to. He can sleep anywhere, and is quite the exhibitionist. He is the king of his Kindergarten, and is a real little cutie. His favourite things are Pokemon, Soccer and Lego – are you noticing a pattern?