Well the trip is almost over but it feels like the best is yet to come.... i.e. mountain biking in Chamonix. But before I start fanatsising about the future I'll labourously run through stuff and things Dani has missed out on.
So, we left Germany for the Neatherlands some time ago. For once in my life time, some one has managed to keep me at a state of feeling full by feeding me constantly. I think I know how those ducks and geese feel that are force fed grain all day... but this was in a good way! No more breakfasts that'd last 1 hour followed by dinner for lunch including desert, afternoon coffee and cake and finally dinner for dinner including desert, and then maybe something to snack on just before bed. We headed for a small country town just across the boarder from Germany in the Neatherlands to catch up with some of Dani's Dutch relatives. Once again we were treated like royalty and spoilt rotten by being given the grand tour of the region. Only spending 2 nights in the Neatherlands was not nearly enough and we'll have to head back again some time soon.
On the way to Paris we had a 5 hour stop over in Amsterdam to check the city out. I will breifly mention at this point that I now understand why Amsterdam has legalised drugs... it does'nt have much else going for it. Anyway, we arrived in Paris and were greated by pretty much perfect sunny and hot (we're talking about 30 deg hot) for 2 weeks that we were there. We had been lucky enough to have free reign of Dani's mothers cousins apartment in Paris. It was like winning Lotto! and we made good use of it. I highly recommend a 4 day museum pass to anyone going to Paris. We ticked off all the big attractions and managed to skip most of the 1hr + cues with the pass. We spent quite a few nights drinking hobo beers on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower chasing off the scamming gypsy kids with friends from NZ. Hayden and Gill were lucky enough to take a break from the tennis to spend some quality time with us and so were Mihi and Oli (who we can't seem to get rid of).
Our time in Paris sadly came to an end. We are now in Provence however being force fed rosè and fine French cooking by the people who lent us their Paris apartment. Life is difficult! I think all the weight I lost after Germany will now be flooding back on. We are in a small village called Forcalquier that seems to be several hundred years old and falling down on itself in typical French mediterranean style. On the 15th we pick Oli up in our hired Fiat 500 (the go kart of joy as Oli calls it) and head to Chamonix for some mountain biking... can't wait!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Deutschland
So Karl really hasn't said anything about Germany. I'll try to fill you in a bit.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Berlin. Andy, Helen and Oli joined us as we cruised around Germany's fantaistic capital. We have since found out that all Germans still pay an extra tax to the old East Germany which many believe they don't really need anymore, and as a result the old eastern parts are now new and fantastic and constantly getting better and the rest of Germany pays for it. Ah politics.
The Romantic Road was our next destination. This follows a series of rather attractive old towns in Bavaria. We ate schnitzel, späzle, knödln and other such local specialities and tried a few beers. Helen and Andy were great company despite Helen dealing with the cold the entire length of the trip- even on her 30th birthday which we celebrated by visiting Schloß Neuschwanstein - the best known castle here in Germany- and having a traditional Bavarian meal in a cute wee restaurant.
Stuttgart, to visit my host sister Mirjam, and then Freiburg, to see Karl's university supervisor, followed. We had a lovely time with Mirjam and Karl had a productive time in Freiburg.
For the last two weeks we have been in Solingen with my host parents, host brother and other relatives who I last saw 11years ago when I was here on exchange. They're still as great as they were then! And have treated us extremely well while we've been here. Rita has spoilt us with delicious meals and fantastic kuchen (cakes), while Peter has shown us all around the region including casltes, museums, cute wee medieval towns, close by cities and Brussels (not quite so close!).
We also visited Emma who I worked with at Wadestown School and is now teaching in Düsseldorf. It was great to catch up with her and easy to forget that we were in Germany!
I've also enjoyed using my rusty German. Poor hairdresser in Berlin who had to try and communicate with me for a whole hour at the very beginning when I wasn't in the swing of it yet! she was very patient. Frustrating how much I have forgotten.
Today we head to the Netherlands. I feel sad leaving here. Hopefully we'll be back in the not too distant future. Bis dann.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Berlin. Andy, Helen and Oli joined us as we cruised around Germany's fantaistic capital. We have since found out that all Germans still pay an extra tax to the old East Germany which many believe they don't really need anymore, and as a result the old eastern parts are now new and fantastic and constantly getting better and the rest of Germany pays for it. Ah politics.
The Romantic Road was our next destination. This follows a series of rather attractive old towns in Bavaria. We ate schnitzel, späzle, knödln and other such local specialities and tried a few beers. Helen and Andy were great company despite Helen dealing with the cold the entire length of the trip- even on her 30th birthday which we celebrated by visiting Schloß Neuschwanstein - the best known castle here in Germany- and having a traditional Bavarian meal in a cute wee restaurant.
Stuttgart, to visit my host sister Mirjam, and then Freiburg, to see Karl's university supervisor, followed. We had a lovely time with Mirjam and Karl had a productive time in Freiburg.
For the last two weeks we have been in Solingen with my host parents, host brother and other relatives who I last saw 11years ago when I was here on exchange. They're still as great as they were then! And have treated us extremely well while we've been here. Rita has spoilt us with delicious meals and fantastic kuchen (cakes), while Peter has shown us all around the region including casltes, museums, cute wee medieval towns, close by cities and Brussels (not quite so close!).
We also visited Emma who I worked with at Wadestown School and is now teaching in Düsseldorf. It was great to catch up with her and easy to forget that we were in Germany!
I've also enjoyed using my rusty German. Poor hairdresser in Berlin who had to try and communicate with me for a whole hour at the very beginning when I wasn't in the swing of it yet! she was very patient. Frustrating how much I have forgotten.
Today we head to the Netherlands. I feel sad leaving here. Hopefully we'll be back in the not too distant future. Bis dann.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Request
We are in Munich, Germany after a few fantastic weeks catching up with friends. I'll write more about it all later, but at the moment we are in need of suggestions on what to do in southern Germany! Ideally i'd like to get outdoors and do some biking and day walks in the mountains. I have to be in Freiberg from Monday 9th however.
If anyone feels like emailing or commenting any good ideas please feel free!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
It's been a long time
So basically i've found that i'm too lazy to update this blog. We're in Berlin at the moment and we've caught up with a friend who came to NZ for a week or so, and after having a (large) beer on the lawn by the river by Berlin Cathedral... and then another beer now that we're back at his apartment whilst waiting for dinner, i've decided it's time to attempt to fill in some gaps.
Since we last left you readers we were somewhere in Africa. I'd repeated some stories about nothing much and that's essentially how the rest of Africa went for us. Although that sounds really depressing, it isn't really. We managed to leave Africa without contracting any diseases, parasites (as far as we know, although I was hoping for a worm in my chest), or being kidnapped (that did happen to two seperate groups we'd been travelling with). After Malawi we arrived in Tanzania and finally something other than deep fried chicken and chips, or meat and rice to eat. Fantastic country with a unique history for this part of Africa due to it's Muslim influence. Call to prayer was pretty cool (100000000 times a day), and in places I discovered my favourite prayer MC's. To top our trip off, we spent a week in Zanzibar and were chased off the island by Dani's drug addict friends.
Just to punish ourselves, we left the balmy 35 degree temps (and incredibly humid... like non-stop sweating humid) for the ever balmy London (all of 5 degrees when we arrived). Andy and Helen put us up for what turned into almost a week in their lovely flat in Fulham. We caught up with friends, visited the ever awesome Natural Histoy Museum and Kew Gardens and with Andy's guidence, undertook an adventure on Boris's Bikes (the mayors hire bike scheme).
Following London, it was time to touch base again with the family in Estonia. This was a bit daunting for me as I hadn't seen them in almost 10 years. London had been cold after Africa but had put on some amazing warm weather. However, after vowing never to return to Estonia in winter, as we approached the airport, Dani tapped me on the shoulder to point out the snow and ice that still lay on the ground. Even though it did warm up over the week we were there, the first day max temp was 4 degrees, and Dani was able to walk out onto the frozen Baltic Sea (never before has she been able to walk on water). It was great visiting places I hadn't seen in a long time, and my cousin Katre (not actually my direct cousin but will do for the sake of argument) spent a lot of time showing us around. Kristi my other cousin made it across from Sweden and on Sunday we had a big family reunion with about 20 people making it (all of who we didn't even know existed 15 years ago). A highlight of the afternoon was when my Nana's little sister remembered that our great great great great (or there abouts) grandmother was given to her husband for his dog in the 1600's by her father! Now this is something to brag about.
Anyway, we are now in Berlin and will be in Germany for a month. Andy and Helen from London are meeting us here in the weekend and we are off down the Romantic Highway together. Oli from NZ is meeting up with us this weekend as well so it'll be great to catch up with a bit of fresh NZ on the other side of the world.
Dinner is ready, but check out the photo's that DG has been putting up on Flicker. As i'm in Germany and using a crazy key board i'm going to smack in all the crazy keys these weirdos have ä ö ü € y § instead of z and a there's a bunch of other annoying misplaced keys!!
Since we last left you readers we were somewhere in Africa. I'd repeated some stories about nothing much and that's essentially how the rest of Africa went for us. Although that sounds really depressing, it isn't really. We managed to leave Africa without contracting any diseases, parasites (as far as we know, although I was hoping for a worm in my chest), or being kidnapped (that did happen to two seperate groups we'd been travelling with). After Malawi we arrived in Tanzania and finally something other than deep fried chicken and chips, or meat and rice to eat. Fantastic country with a unique history for this part of Africa due to it's Muslim influence. Call to prayer was pretty cool (100000000 times a day), and in places I discovered my favourite prayer MC's. To top our trip off, we spent a week in Zanzibar and were chased off the island by Dani's drug addict friends.
Just to punish ourselves, we left the balmy 35 degree temps (and incredibly humid... like non-stop sweating humid) for the ever balmy London (all of 5 degrees when we arrived). Andy and Helen put us up for what turned into almost a week in their lovely flat in Fulham. We caught up with friends, visited the ever awesome Natural Histoy Museum and Kew Gardens and with Andy's guidence, undertook an adventure on Boris's Bikes (the mayors hire bike scheme).
Following London, it was time to touch base again with the family in Estonia. This was a bit daunting for me as I hadn't seen them in almost 10 years. London had been cold after Africa but had put on some amazing warm weather. However, after vowing never to return to Estonia in winter, as we approached the airport, Dani tapped me on the shoulder to point out the snow and ice that still lay on the ground. Even though it did warm up over the week we were there, the first day max temp was 4 degrees, and Dani was able to walk out onto the frozen Baltic Sea (never before has she been able to walk on water). It was great visiting places I hadn't seen in a long time, and my cousin Katre (not actually my direct cousin but will do for the sake of argument) spent a lot of time showing us around. Kristi my other cousin made it across from Sweden and on Sunday we had a big family reunion with about 20 people making it (all of who we didn't even know existed 15 years ago). A highlight of the afternoon was when my Nana's little sister remembered that our great great great great (or there abouts) grandmother was given to her husband for his dog in the 1600's by her father! Now this is something to brag about.
Anyway, we are now in Berlin and will be in Germany for a month. Andy and Helen from London are meeting us here in the weekend and we are off down the Romantic Highway together. Oli from NZ is meeting up with us this weekend as well so it'll be great to catch up with a bit of fresh NZ on the other side of the world.
Dinner is ready, but check out the photo's that DG has been putting up on Flicker. As i'm in Germany and using a crazy key board i'm going to smack in all the crazy keys these weirdos have ä ö ü € y § instead of z and a there's a bunch of other annoying misplaced keys!!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Catch up: No photos though
Catch up on South Africa:
This is going back a bit, but quickly in case any one is interested where we visited. After leaving Botswana we had a bit of time to waste in SA so decided to head over towards the Drankensburg Escarpments where the High Veld drops about 1000m to the Low Veld (after visiting Pilansberg National Park). We stayed in a place called Graskop (sp) near Pilgrims Rest. Pilgrims Rest is a sleepy tourist destination with old wooden buildings nestled into the side of steep hills... could be mistaken for many places in NZ except there was a double shooting which we witnessed the aftermath on our way to Graskop Graskop is famous for its pancakes and amazing dramatic scenery as you look down onto the Low Veld.
Next we visited Nelspriet where we met Happiness the unhappy receptionist, also a weird hippy English woman... another long story. Then down to the Cradle of Mankind an awesome museum and cave net work where they have discovered many early huminoid fossils.Finally we were down in Kestell near the actual Drankensburgs, an amazing mountain range where we did a walk up to about 3000m over some chain ladders, etc. Then we finished it off with a trip to a couple we met in Pilansburg NP in Delmas just outside of J'burg. They put us up for a night, fed us, washed us and even helped us clean out 12,000km's of dirt from the car. We had a brief visit to J'burg and visited the Apartheid Museum which was interesting but a bit in depth.
Finally we are up to the last post here in Malawi!
So after out 34 hour bus trip from J'burg to Blantyre we jumped on a bus to Monkey Bay which is the largest port on Lake Malawi. Not much of a town, no ATM to get money out, a couple of supermarkets (that stock tea, soap and rice) and a large market. The best bit though was this camp we came across called Mufasa. It had no power, but had the best location we've come across to date on the lake. It was nestled in to its own bay surrounded by hills, a little island you could swim out to and at night was surrounded by fireflies when they lit the lamps and candles. It was so good that after we went to the back packer mecca of Cape Maclear in the next bay, we decided to come back to Monkey Bay.
The lake is home to about 600 species of Chiclid fish and when you jump in you are surrounded by a multitude of different colours that makes you feel like you're snorkeling off a tropical island. There are so many that when you stand still they start nibbling at your skin! The water is also extremely clear and you can see for about 20m whilst you float around in 28 degree water. The other thing Lake Malawi is known for is the Ilalla Ferry that Dani and I spent 2 nights on whilst we chugged in 1st class to Nkahata Bay. 1st class consisted of a bar, access to the restaurant and an open deck that you can sleep on (and get covered in diesel soot). We stopped off at a few ports and took the life rafts to shore whilst they ferried people, chickens and corn, for a look around a few towns and islands. Otherwise the rest of the time we spent stuck in Nkahata Bay doing pretty much nothing. We had this amazing accommodation where our room and big deck over hung the lake. Great for sitting around and reading all day.
Finally we dragged ourselves away and are back on the lake at a place called Chitimba. We climbed up a 4WD road to Livingstonia yesterday and hitched a ride on the ambulance back down. Tomorrow we are off to Tanzania and then we take a train to Dar es Salaam.
This is going back a bit, but quickly in case any one is interested where we visited. After leaving Botswana we had a bit of time to waste in SA so decided to head over towards the Drankensburg Escarpments where the High Veld drops about 1000m to the Low Veld (after visiting Pilansberg National Park). We stayed in a place called Graskop (sp) near Pilgrims Rest. Pilgrims Rest is a sleepy tourist destination with old wooden buildings nestled into the side of steep hills... could be mistaken for many places in NZ except there was a double shooting which we witnessed the aftermath on our way to Graskop Graskop is famous for its pancakes and amazing dramatic scenery as you look down onto the Low Veld.
Next we visited Nelspriet where we met Happiness the unhappy receptionist, also a weird hippy English woman... another long story. Then down to the Cradle of Mankind an awesome museum and cave net work where they have discovered many early huminoid fossils.Finally we were down in Kestell near the actual Drankensburgs, an amazing mountain range where we did a walk up to about 3000m over some chain ladders, etc. Then we finished it off with a trip to a couple we met in Pilansburg NP in Delmas just outside of J'burg. They put us up for a night, fed us, washed us and even helped us clean out 12,000km's of dirt from the car. We had a brief visit to J'burg and visited the Apartheid Museum which was interesting but a bit in depth.
Finally we are up to the last post here in Malawi!
So after out 34 hour bus trip from J'burg to Blantyre we jumped on a bus to Monkey Bay which is the largest port on Lake Malawi. Not much of a town, no ATM to get money out, a couple of supermarkets (that stock tea, soap and rice) and a large market. The best bit though was this camp we came across called Mufasa. It had no power, but had the best location we've come across to date on the lake. It was nestled in to its own bay surrounded by hills, a little island you could swim out to and at night was surrounded by fireflies when they lit the lamps and candles. It was so good that after we went to the back packer mecca of Cape Maclear in the next bay, we decided to come back to Monkey Bay.
The lake is home to about 600 species of Chiclid fish and when you jump in you are surrounded by a multitude of different colours that makes you feel like you're snorkeling off a tropical island. There are so many that when you stand still they start nibbling at your skin! The water is also extremely clear and you can see for about 20m whilst you float around in 28 degree water. The other thing Lake Malawi is known for is the Ilalla Ferry that Dani and I spent 2 nights on whilst we chugged in 1st class to Nkahata Bay. 1st class consisted of a bar, access to the restaurant and an open deck that you can sleep on (and get covered in diesel soot). We stopped off at a few ports and took the life rafts to shore whilst they ferried people, chickens and corn, for a look around a few towns and islands. Otherwise the rest of the time we spent stuck in Nkahata Bay doing pretty much nothing. We had this amazing accommodation where our room and big deck over hung the lake. Great for sitting around and reading all day.
Finally we dragged ourselves away and are back on the lake at a place called Chitimba. We climbed up a 4WD road to Livingstonia yesterday and hitched a ride on the ambulance back down. Tomorrow we are off to Tanzania and then we take a train to Dar es Salaam.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Malawi... Quick update
We're still alive and loving Malawi. Internet is rubbish though so will update properly when we have more time and a better connection.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
35 hours of hell... but at least we are in Malawi!
Well we are in Blantyre, Malawi after 35ish hours on the bus from J'Burg. It was an experience that we are pleased that we did but will probably never do again. Below is a bit of a rushed hash out of where we are at:
The bus itself was great, much nicer than the buses back in NZ but after several hours things got a bit pongie with B.O and the toilet smells. The best bit was that the onboard entertainment was basically B grade christian movies and worship music, followed by a contrasting adults only comedy with full on swearing. As we didn't know the system of bribing the guys at the check in counter to ensure we had seats together, I had to pay the guy I was sitting next to 100 rand to swap seats with Dani. This wasn't so bad as he was a student and his passport wasn't quite legal so he was having to fork out a heap of money to get across all the boarder posts. In fact half the bus didn't have quite the right documents to get through all the boarder crossings so it was interesting watching passports handed across with 50 Rand notes tucked in them and big smiles and hand shaking's going on. We crossed over the boarders to Zimbabwe and Mozambique before reaching Malawi.
Highlights of the trip have been the people on board the bus. It was nice to hang out with a bus load of Malawians, we ended up being accepted as the buses token whites and were helped out whenever anything started going wrong. Everyone wanted to make sure we were ok all the time. The boarder police in Malawi were also awesome. The rest of Africa's police forces should take note of how to gain respect! These guys are underpaid, overworked and don't carry guns.... BUT love talking to you. Whilst we waited for 4 hours for customs to check the bus over, Dani was suffering from the heat after 30 hours on the bus and so had a wee vomit in a drain at the boarder post between Malawi and Mozambique. Next minute this police officer was out and walking towards us. If this was any other country in Africa we should have either run for our lives or been prepared to bay a "fine" (donation for cleaning up the mess), but instead he was extremely concerned for Dani and wanted to make sure it wasn't something serious like malaria. He insisted we take a seat on the grassy bank on the official plastic police chairs overlooking the boarder post where we were joined by the whole boarder police force (3 guys and a women) for a chin wag until the bus left.
Lowlights were the Mozambique boarder posts. These guys are the laziest losers in the world!! We had to fill in these forms which were in Portuguese only so had to ask the boarder guard pretty much what everything was in which he'd reply in a mumble that we'd have to ask him to repeat several times before he'd raise his voice to a level that we could decipher his verbal mess he'd attempted to create. Then it took close on to 30 minutes for the guy to stick the visas into our passports. We were watching him through the window and between bouts of sleeping and standing up for a stretch the bus driver finally arrived and managed to get him to finish his job.... This would have been fine except he'd ripped us off by US$10, so we would have expected a faster service for our "tip".
Anyway, it's nice to be here in Blantyre and it's actually safe to walk around the city for a change. We caught our first real mini bus taxi today all by our selves into town with 15 of us packed in a 12 seater... not bad really! Tomorrow we catch the 7am bus to Monkey Bay (about 5-6 hours away) on Lake Malawi and then we catch a "boat" to Cape Maclear.
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