Heidelberg

As I've previously mentioned here, Heidelberg is extra special to me as my mum and family are from there (if you haven't already, you can read about the last time I visited Heidelberg while on this trip here). This visit was extra special as it was my auntie's first time back in Heidelberg since she left with her family at ten years of age. One of things my auntie was interested in doing while here, was to seek out the spot where her Grandparents were buried. On a previous trip a few years ago when mum and I were here together, we went to the graveyard where we know they were buried, but after almost an hour of searching, could not find the spot.

We stayed two nights in a lovely hotel that was in a perfect location we could walk everywhere from.

Our hotel in Heidelberg

One of the first things we did after arriving was to head to the Heidelberg University library to see if they could give us any information on how we might find the exact final resting place of my great grandparents. The uni staff were absolutely amazingly helpful and contributed further towards breaking down my aunties belief that Germans are cold, arrogant and not helpful people (yes I know - she said it not me!). The nice lady did suggest we confirm with the local Bureau for that sort of thing, but she also explained to us that in Germany burial sites are 're-used' after about 20 years if nobody continues to pay for their upkeep. This was news to us, I believe there's talk of doing this in Australia as land becomes more and more scarce, but the idea of it is just...well...creepy. Do they just dig the grave back up and chuck another on top? While my mind boggled, we left the University with an address for the Bureau but a little sad knowing the grave would most likely no longer exist. Another staff member also took down our details and said he would find out what he can find and email me back. I had an email the next day from him saying he'd had no luck on the 'grave-front' but he did find an old telephone book listing with my great-grandfathers' name in which he'd forwarded to me and was cool to see.

University Library Entrance

We spent the rest of the day exploring the breathtakingly beautiful old part of Heidelberg.

 

The next day we spent exploring the other side of the river, an area called Neuenheim which is where my family used to have a house, and is therefore the area where my aunty remembers best. At the end of what used to be her street, she had memories of an old church and courtyard where she used to attend a weekly market when she was a kid, and we found that they still have markets in that same spot every week.



The courtyard at the end of the street where they still have markets

Afterwards we went for an hour cruise along the Neckar...

Our vessel of choice - the 'Germania'

 
...and finished another beautiful day off with another beautiful piece of cake!

It's berry season -yummo!

Only 3 days left in Germany before I head off to the UK for almost a month where my mum, auntie and I are taking a coach tour of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (although only a snippet of each). I'm really sad to be leaving Germany and also sad that my trip is coming to an end, but I'm also looking forward to going home, so the feeling is bittersweet...

Zwickau - Clearly Still Some Catching Up To Do...

Our relos were so keen to catch up with us that they drove almost four hours just to pick us up in Frankfurt and take us back with them to Zwickau. I did suggest that we could just get the train but they insisted, which turned out good because my auntie got to have her first experience of what it's like to drive on the Autobahn (and she had the white knuckles to prove it).

In the time I've spent in Germany so far, most of it has been in what used to be West Germany, and what I have seen of the former East,has suggested the economic gap between east and west is no longer obvious. Although I have heard stories of Zwickau being a bit more 'behind the times' so I was keen to check it out, and in this respect, I was not dissapointed.

The apartment building the relos live in



An example of the sort of 'neglected' buildings we saw frequently

Even though we found this quite a shock and a bit sad and depressing I must admit (especially after just having been in the fairytale land that is Nürmberg), Zwickau also has nicer areas that have been fixed up including the town centre.


Us all in the central market area



The building my mums' dad was born in, only about a 5 min walk from central Zwickau.

My relos are elderly now and have always lived in the east so remember life in the GDR well and often talk about it. Even though building maintenance and the upkeep of Germany's beautiful building's was obviously not a priority for the socialist government, my relos say they miss some things about it, like the amazing free health care system (including dental) that has now been replaced by a system all but run by insurance companies.

The relos' apartment is a one-bedroom unit on the top floor and doesn't have much space so they kindly put us up in a hotel for the 3 nights we were there (actually we nick-named the hotel 'faulty towers' but that's another story). They also rent a small holiday unit about an hours drive out of town that they spend their Summers at and enjoy an escape from the city. On our last day in Zwickau they took us for a drive to their Summer home and we had lunch in a traditional pub on the way (that had vegie schnitzel on the menu - yum!) and headed back to faulty towers in the arvo.


The relos at their Summer home

One of many 'lovely' fake greeneries stuck to the walls in our room at faulty towers
 

One of three randomly placed antique sewing machines we passed (yes thats right I said three) on the way to our room at faulty towers - oh and look, more fake greenery 

Lonely puddy tat in the streets of Zwickau...

It was a great experience seeing Zwickau and seeing how some people there live, but my relos speak no English at all so it was also quite mentally draining trying to think and speak in German 24/7, so we were all looking forward to getting back to Frankfurt. We were also looking forward to getting back because the next day we had an early train booked to Heidelberg - yay!

Frankfurt and Nuremberg with my Mum and Aunt

After my mum and aunty arrived in Frankfurt more than two weeks ago, the time has flown as we have done so much. I was surprised when I met them at the Airport that they looked relatively refreshed and very happy, considering they had just finished a very long 22 hour journey to get here, with only a couple hours break in Abu Dhabi. I have never flown from Australia to Europe in one go, I've always had a night layover somewhere close to halfway like Singapore or Dubai,  as I believed that would make the horribly long journey more bearable and minimise jetlag. Although the flight I have booked home after this trip will be my first 'get it over as quick as possible' flight, and seeing that my family survived the same trip, with little to no jet-lag, it's very encouraging.

As I hadn't yet done many 'touristy' things in Frankfurt, the day after my family arrived we spent the day exploring the city. Frankfurt isn't exactly one of the most popular and recommended tourist destinations in Germany, it does have the third largest airport in Europe so loads of people certainly come here, but often only on their way to somewhere else. I'm here to tell you it's actually ok, sure there's a large commercial district and the city has plenty of sky-scrapers which you can see in plenty of other cities around the world, but there's also the beautiful old-town with it's traditional buildings and the huge saturday morning flea markets along the pretty river Main. Also, just recently I visited museum Städel which is one of many world class museums in Frankfurt, and was blown away by their amazing collection including renowned artists such as Rembrandt, Picasso, Monet, Boticelli, Van Gogh and Renoir.


Me and my cute family in Frankfurt

 The next day we caught the train to Nürmberg and stayed a night. I've been to Nürmberg several times now so I knew that it is like a fairytale city and would definately not dissapoint.



Albrecht Dürer's house

This strange thing seemed very out of place in front of old-mate Dürer's house,
apparently it's some artists take on Albrecht's famous sketch of a hare (?)



Actually the hotel we stayed at in Nürmberg is worth mentioning, even if only for the breakfast. The name was Hotel Keiml and when we first were trying to find it we got a bit concerned as to what we were in for due to the amount of strip clubs and sex shops on the same street. Once we found it and went upstairs though, we were not dissapointed, and breakfast the next morning (which also turned into lunch as the lovely staff instructed us to pack a roll for later) was so devine!

Cheeses and jams and fresh buns - oh my!



This is my aunty's first trip back to Germany since she left with her family as a ten year old after WWII. Although she speaks German, she is new to the idea of speaking it everywhere she goes, and sometimes forgets and starts off in English but then morphs into German before the sentence is up without even realising she`s doing so. It's quite funny to hear and luckily almost everyone she has come across speaks both German and English well so it hasn't been a problem. She is getting used to it and doing it less and less but she has said that she is finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that she is actually in Germany. My mum on the other hand, who left Germany as a baby, is a strange phenomenon as she can understand German almost perfectly, but cannot speak it. When she has to speak German it comes out as a cute mix of English words said in a sort of German accent.

My new home in Frankfurt and 1st German hair cut!

And then there was one....

My husband Zac flew back home to New Zealand a few days ago after first arriving in Frankfurt and staying one night in my new apartment in the city. The place I´m renting in Frankfurt is a really nice one bedroom place which is small but homely (and no more sharing toilets - yay!). The apartment is the bottom story of a three story house which has been renovated, has it´s own seperate access; and is only a 15min train ride to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (central station).

Zac was super excited to be getting home after almost five months away, but he also admitted a couple of things he would miss, such as; the relative freedom (naturally he has to start working not long after getting home); the snow in Europe (during snowboarding season); the awesome public transit system; and the cheap food and drink (eating out included!); oh and the big German pretzels! (he could not get enough). As much as he was dying to get home, on his last day here he said he could've stayed longer (mind you I´ve no doubt he meant only an extra week to see Frankfurt - but I´m going to pretend he meant months longer!).

I´m just grateful forever that this trip, and Europe, will always be a part of our lives together now, *note: that ís not the same as saying I am content with having completed only this trip of Europe together, think of it more like now we have a stronger base to build from...

My 'building'. How do they get the grass SO green?

My 'seating area' - posh eh? Well maybe it would pass as such
if it wasn´t for the snuggly draped over the chair...

 

Now that Zac´s gone I have mostly been spending my time trying to get work completed before my mum and my aunty arrive on Sunday (exciting!), but today I ventured out to get my first German haircut. I was a little bit apprehensive after making my hair appointment as, at this point I realised the hairdresser didn´t speak any English, but I got by well enough, so I was determined I would get by at the crucial point when she was armed with scissors.

You can´t tell from the outside or even when your standing at the reception desk, but it turned out the Salon I picked, has likely not had a client under the age of 70 for some time. I felt like the hairdresser (who was younger herself and closer to 50ish) was extra excited to see a client who 1) didn´t want her hair done in rollers and 2) still had a full head of hair to play with. After explaining in German that I wanted 'something more natural looking but not drastically different', to which she replied with a rather long story about, from what I could understand anyway, two of her sisters are blonde.........one sister may or may not have a daughter............some one else is blonde? (a neighbour maybe?)...............these colours would suit you *she is now pointing at a picture in a hair magazine (or is that the neighbours hair colour she is indicating?). Suffice to say I was a little worried at first but she was quickly well on her way and I could tell she´d made her mind up (maybe this happened during the story...).

I must´ve been in the salon for around two hours, and in this time, little old ladies came and went and every single one of them got rollers. One particulary old lady had really not much hair left to roll (let's be honest!) and so the hairdresser had to use these teeny tiny little rollers, the likes of which I had never seen before. At one point one of the ladies tried to get up from her chair but struggled a little and made 'ähhh ohhhh' sounds then she made everybody giggle when she exclaimed 'äähhh meine Knochen!' (which translates as 'ahh my bones' - sounds a lot funnier in German!).

All in all the salon visit was a great success having met some sweet old ladies as I was honoured to be privy to their weekly tradition that is the hair salon visit.
Oh and I even came out with a hair cut I liked too...


Lé Result - with all 'Knochen' still in tact

Köln AKA Cologne

We have almost been in Cologne a week already and the time has flown. After being relatively isolated in the German countryside for six weeks, it´s been like a different world here.

We are renting an apartment right on top of Zülpicher Straße, which is a student area full of bars, pubs and restaurants. Our apartment is small and has a shared loo (but own shower), but it´s clean, cheap and the location is just unbeatable! The only downside is that we have spent a lot more money than we normally would this week on drinks and meals out, as it´s SO convenient and the food is great AND with 4€ cocktail happy hours! It also sucks that our room is 85 steps (!) up as we are on the 5th floor with no elevator - on the flipside we are both well on our way to buns of steel!

Our 'cosy' one room apartment in Cologne

Our first day after arriving was discount day at the zoo (Montag ist Zootag!), and seeing as the zoo here was rated in the top three things to do in Cologne by Tripadvisor, we gave it a go. I always love watching animals be silly and, although it was a hot day, the animals were being quite active and we even saw the tigers swimming.

Saw some parents pulling their kids around in these cute carts which
were all fine & dandy untill you have to pull them UP hill!

The absolute must see attraction in Cologne is offcourse, the cathedral, which is actually also the only attraction you cannot avoid seeing in this city. As soon as we arrived at the main train station and walked outside to find a cab it was right there and blew us away! I still can´t believe it somehow managed to avoid bombing in WWII, it´s HUGE, just as well though as rebuilding it would´ve been a bitch!

There´s even boats all along the river that will take you up and down the Rhine for an hour for only about 8€ to give you a different view of the city so we did that a few days ago too for something different. Actually I was surprised Zac agreed to do this with me, as it´s not typically his thing, but I think the fact that it was only for an hour helped me sell it.

Our cruise vessel of choice - including 'oompa loompa'
Music blasting from strained speakers

Oh and that bridge you see in the photo above is the Hohenzollernbrücke, famous for it´s 'love locks'. What are the love locks you ask? Well I´m glad you asked ;-) There are so many of them that you can even see them from the ground, they are colourful padlocks that span the whole bridge mainly put there by couples who engrave their initials on them and lock them to the bridge to signify their commitment to each other. They are a nice idea and a beautiful sight, does kinda make you wonder how many of those couples have actually stayed together though...

 

...I know, I know, I´m missing the point right?

Renting an Apartment While Travelling Germany

I thought I´d better blog today as we only have one full day left pet-sitting the sausage dog in this pink house in Bavaria, and most of that time will be taken up with cleaning and packing, so if I don´t blog today it may not be for some time.

As we no longer have the van, the rest of our trip will be by train, and on Sunday our train leaves here (departing at 6:30am no less!) and we head up to Köln (Cologne) for a week. It´s a trip that is around four and a half hours by car,that will take us almost eight hours on the train as I booked the cheapest tickets possible (damn budget!). The good news is we´re being met at the other end by the lady who is renting out her apartment to us for eight nights. I found her on the German real-estate website Studenten-WG which has lots of ads for share-house accomodation, but also has the option to restrict your search for what the Germans' call 'Zwischenmiete'. Zwischenmiete is when a persons' apartment is available to rent for a short period only, usually just while they are away on holidays or similar, in my case it's because the renter spends most her time at her boyfriend's apartment while on uni holidays. Zwischenmiete is great if you want to spend at least a week in the one place, as they´re not usually available for less than this, and the apartment's come completely furnished with everything still in them. It does help if you're flexible with your travel plans and dates though, so that you can work around when a Zwischenmiete is available, the same goes for pet-sitting.

So yesterday we gave the sausage a bath so that she´s super pretty for when her owners get home (considerate much?) and afterwards she just went psycho with energy. Between appearing to be digging to China and barking at the wall, it was all pretty entertaining to watch, I even made a video out of it:

We´re both more than ready to move on and explore new places, but boy am I going to miss my little sausage friend, even though lately it seems to be Zac she´s more in love with than me.

haha man these dogs crack me up! Found this one on dachshundlove.blogspot.com



Awwww I´m gonna miss that face!

 

 

What to do in rural Germany

We´ve now been pet-sitting the sausage dog in rural Germany for four weeks, and we still have just over a week remaining. Since we sold our van almost three weeks ago, we are definitely more restricted with where we can go and when we can go there. Living here is great but I think we´re both ready to move on and explore elsewhere.

My husband, Zac, is well and truly over it and just wishes he was at home, in fact, he changed his flight home bringing it forward 2 weeks earlier than originally planned. He was definitely only here for the snowboarding and now that all the snow has well and truly melted, and it´s so hot out we try not to leave the house in the middle of the day, he´s super keen to get home. I definitely have to give him credit for sticking it out though, we last snowboarded about 3 months ago and after the visit to Miniature Wonderland in Hamburg, that was already everything ticked off Zac´s Euro wish list with still three months left of his time here. Since then he´s been ready to go home but has been following me around to humour me.

We´ve found ways to pass our time in rural Germany, however creatively, Zac brought a GoPro nearby at Media Markt so we tried to strap it to the sausage dog like a 'day in the life' sort of thing. The results were a little dissapointing as she has such a tiny frame that the camera was too heavy for her and the mount we used (a spatula taped to a wooden spoon) was not ideal. Having said that, it´s still pretty funny to watch, you can see it at the link below:

Also, I have taken the opportunity of having a postal address again to ensure I get as many things delivered that I "need" as possible...

A bit of excitement for little Miss sausage

It´s like Christmas time!