The Big OE

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?

Since arriving eight weeks ago, I have been asked many times how have I found driving on the right (wrong) side of the road? Most of the time I reply “Not to badly, haven’t killed anyone yet!”. Don’t worry, in case you’re alarmed I haven’t killed anyone, but I have had my first official (and hopefully only) car crash in Germany, in fact my only car crash ever - where I have been at fault anyway. It wasn’t even because of being on the wrong side of the road, it could’ve happened anywhere. Let me explain – I was driving towards an intersection and I stopped at the traffic lights, in the far left lane, and indicated to turn left. I was the front vehicle in the queue of traffic, and when the lights changed to green, I drove slowly into the middle of the intersection, and waited for a bus going straight (northwards up the road I was waiting at) to pass, before completing the manoeuvre. The bus driver then gestured (rather rudely and aggressively I might add) that there was not sufficient room for him to pass easily (of which there was plenty). So, I put the car into reverse, and moved the car backwards. When doing so, I accidentally bumped the front bumper of the car directly behind me. Of course it had to be a brand new, flash convertible. Don’t ask me what kind – it was Blue okay! Actually I think someone said it may have been a Rover.

When the bus passed, I carried on down street until it was safe to pullover. There, I got out of the vehicle and apologised profusely to the woman driving the car. Thankfully she wasn’t really angry and spoke English. There was not sufficient enough force from the impact, to leave any visible scratches, dents or damage to either car, much to my relief. Details were exchanged regardless, and because of the apparent lack of damage – no police were called and neither of us had a camera readily available. The boys didn’t have a clue I’d crashed at all, and were wondering what all the fuss was about! The moment I got home I told Frank and thought that was that. But oh no! A few days later we got a letter from the Insurance Company saying that she’d filed a claim. For what I have no idea, as the phone number she gave me isn’t correct. So now I’ve written out a statement, and I am waiting to hear what’s going to happen.

Here is me standing in an old Castle Mote in Eltville, filled in now with roses. I just thought it might break up the monotony of all the text!

Now as you will remember, I said three things had happened. Yup, just a few short days later I got a speeding ticket! I wasn’t going too fast, I think 45km in a 30km zone. But as it was a speed camera, I will have to wait until the mail arrives to find out how much that will be. The streets here aren't as heavily speedsign posted like they are back home. If that wasn’t the final straw that broke the camels back then the next saga was. When Lisa was here we tried to find one of the big monuments, on top of a hill overlooking Wiesbaden. We were surrounded by a large forest, we had our maps out and after going around in circles (we were having a bit of a problem trying to match the roads on the map, to the roads in front of us as there were no signs anywhere, and after passing some very angry looking women) we stopped and asked some men working on the side of the road for directions. We basically had to speak ‘Germish’ (the pathetic little I know of German, mixed with basic English in which a lot of people seem to understand) and after only a few seconds it became very clear we most certainly were not allowed to be there. The paths (which look exactly like roads) are strictly for cyclists and pedestrians. The ‘paths’ were clearly displayed as roads on the map, there were no road signs at all that we saw indicating we weren’t supposed to be there. But the men said if we didn’t leave immediately they were going to have to fine us, and if we had come across their boss he would have done it regardless of our situation. So they opened a gate for us and shooed us out, with some very strong ‘tut, tutting’ directed our way. We learnt a lot about Germans that day, you are no allowed to make mistakes! In the end we found the monument, which is accessible only by foot and it wasn’t even that great.

I put this shocking last week down to several things. The heat at the moment is terrific, most days it’s around 34/35oC and the humidity is unbearable. You can’t think, sleep or move it’s so bad. Nicole says it’s never like this ever in Germany. The thunder storms, and lightning shows are almost worth it - almost. But I am not sure how much more I can handle. So the heat, mixed with feeling awful (I blame dehydration and lacking Iron) and concentrating so hard on keeping to the right side of the road, has severely compromised my concentration on everything else. Oh and Bus drivers are bullies, who need to be taken down a peg or two!

Well that’s all for the moment. Expect another instalment in the next day or two, going over Lisa’s stay, the boys and of course making new friends.

Well after my sad pathetic ‘poor me’ rant from last week, lets just say I have found the light! Last week was not good, I was sick, Max was sick and we were both housebound, so let’s just put my entry last week down to ‘Cabin Fever’. This week however you could almost say I have a spring in my step. It all started getting a bit brighter when I got my act together and hopped in the car and speed off to Frankfurt for the day. Now bare with me, I’m just going to blow my own trumpet for a little bit, although I may end up occasionally in a few sticky situations (get your mind out of the gutter!!!) I actually have a pretty good sense of direction. Somehow I have miraculous found numerous places, with no navigator, map and with only vague directions not to mention also driving on the wrong side of the road – and I’ve only been here a few weeks. As I’ve never been there (to Frankfurt that is), I had no idea how to get there, and my navi refuses to work for me so I just headed east, and miraculously I made it to the centre. Found a parking building and started walking around. Frankfurt is often described as the Manhattan of Europe, and although I didn’t see all that much I was pleasantly surprised. As the World cup was drawing to an end there was still a festival/party atmosphere in the streets.

Ok what was I talking about? Ahh yes Frankfurt, well right when I was about to accost a poor couple who were walking beside me and talking in English, and begging them to talk to me “Please just talk to me, say anything I don’t care” (I didn’t do that, just in case you were confused, just being hypothetical) I found the movie theatre with the Original English versions. Can you be in love with a building at first sight? I went to see the ‘Lake House’, new Sandra Bullock-Keanu Reeves chick flick. Pure escapism, just what the doctor ordered. I think I should just point out at this point, that Germans don’t just put subtitles on top of English movies/television. Oh no, they dub over everything!! They have one person who does all of Tom Hanks movies, and another who does Julia Roberts etc, consequently who ever does Julia Roberts is also likely to do Monica on Friends – you get the gist. So you can imagine just how heartbreaking it is for me to watch them destroy House and Lost, way too painful to sit through.

After feeling positively rejuvenated I then decided to hop into the car and played the game ‘Left, Right’ usually played with other people (only a minor detail). For those of you clueless, when ever you come up to an intersection, just pick the most interesting looking road, and take it. Or if you’re lucky enough to have a passenger*, flip a coin. (*Sorry just a bit of sarcasm). I ended up in a small country town, up on a hill in a middle of a whole lot of vines. Not sure if I was allowed to be there but no one came running at me in shorts, braces, socks and sandals! So I sat on this hill, looking at the village, and church bells started to ring, I could see all the little people as small as ants on their weekly Saturday bike rides (which is big here, bike riding that is), and I began to think – this is why I am here.

The next day was even better, after a glorious sleep in (oh I’ve got curtains now by the way.) I got back into the car, played another game of ‘Left, right’ and ended up in Rüdesheim. Rüdesheim is a very touristy little town right on the Rhine River, and is surrounded by hills which are covered in lots of vines, which is mostly Riesling I think.

I then met up with some of René’s friends in Mainz, for another tour of the City. Torben and Yvonne, are lovely. Both born and bread Germans, and they both speak excellent English. Torben’s even been to Gisborne, and I am also told he even has an NZ flag in his kitchen (a remnant of his Tour of NZ, when going to visit René). They are the answer to my prays! One of Torben’s friends, had a friend that is learning to be a tour guide, and used us as test dummies. So I happily went along (Lisa’s wise words of wisdom, to never say no to an opportunity, ringing in my ears) he basically took us on a loop around the City showing the various churches and statues.

Now it wouldn’t have been everyone’s cup of tea, but as some of them were 1000 years old I was a little impressed. They’ve survived bombings and floods, and attacks from various other elements. Having a wee bit of prior knowledge about the old Catholic religion and so fourth, actually came in rather useful, just don’t tell my mother! But of course the best part of the tour was being around fellow twenty-something’s. When they decided to go for drinks afterwards I was in heaven. Torben has a bit of free time up his sleeve at the moment, so we’re going to go explore some of the surrounding area together in the next few weeks, and Yvonne is going to Paris for a couple of months and has already invited me to go and stay with her! We’re also going to the Open-air movies they have here, down on the Rhine. Can you see my glow, from here?

To top it off I have found an English-speaking group who meet twice a month, and I am going to a BBQ this Saturday to meet the crew and see if I am interested in joining. I’ve also found a small job, talking English to a Turkish couple for an hour each weekend, which is paid!! I also have a brand spanking new Gym membership. Things you could say are looking up!

Look after your selves, and I miss you all heaps
Niki

P.s. for those of you who don’t actually know me, and for whatever reason have actually made it to the end of this odd blog – please rest assured I am not a fanatic of the English language, or desperately needy for friends, I am simply a small duck in a rather large pond, and clinging to whatever is familiar as I find my way