Wonderful Copenhagen

From Hamburg, we took the train from to Copenhagen and it was an excellent way to see some different parts of Germany and then Denmark.

Overall, we had a fab time in Copenhagen and would thoroughly recommend it for a visit. In particular: Copenhagen's beautiful- there are lots of parks and gardens; it is surrounded by water, so we felt right at home; and the weather was perfect for the whole time. We were also lucky enough to have Kate, an old friend from Dunedin-days to show us some of the sights.

Some highlights of Copenhagen:

• We took a wonderful canal tour and saw some of the city from the water


• The Brilliant National Museum- a wonderful collection of objects from pre-history through to the present day. You could easily spend the whole day (and it's free!)
  
• Christiania- a little subversive 'town' within Copenhagen. The community has been in existance for around 30 years and grew out of squatters taking over an abandoned military area. We are told that the residents refuse to pay city taxes and that no-one owns property within the community. I love the rebellious spirit!


• Of course, a trip to Copenhagen wouldn't be complete with a visit to the Little Mermaid...
  
• Copenhagen is thoroughly a cycle-city. We loved seeing the cycles everywhere- they seem to rule the road here!

Copenhagen is, however, breathtaking expensive. It's just as well we're getting tax cuts when we get home- Copenhagen has made a serious dent in our pockets! Just to give you an idea- a cafe lunch set us back around $80Nz and cheap-and-cheerful Asian for 3 with 3 soft drinks came in at about $120NZ. Ouch! Even the supermarket is mindbogglingly expensive- a bag of rice was about $4nz....

Anyway, we had a great time and I want to say a particularly big thanks for Kate for her kind sightseeing- we really appreciated having a 'local' to show us around and it was also great to be able to speak English!!! Thanks also to Lilian who hosted us for Risk- Marty is still gloating over his victory :)

Hamburg

The first stop on our holiday was Hamburg- in the north-west of Germany. Hamburg sits on three rivers (the Elbe, Alster and Bille) and an artificial lake and consequently, there is water's everywhere- in fact, I've heard it referred to as the 'Vienna of Germany'. With a population of 1.8million, Hamburg is also the Germany's second largest city.

We managed to arrive on Saturday evening just in time for a big soccer match (Hamburg v Karlsruhe for those who care) and consequently, the city was swarming with very enthusiastic fans.

On Sunday, we took a round-town bus tour to get a sense of the city and then spent some time wandering around the river front. Hamburg has the largest port in Germany and it's water front is full of sights and sounds- from buskers to enormous tankers. Marty's highlight for the day was going on board a genuine German u-boat :)

On Monday, we spent some time in the central city (which, by the way, has some seriously seedy areas) and visited the obligatory sites, like the Rathaus.

On the move

We are heading off for the next three weeks and so contact might be a bit intermittent. If you have the urge to write us a letter, please put it off for a few weeks, cos we won't have an address until we come back again.

See ya, see ya!

Poll...

Thanks to Tim for this week's poll suggestion: Castles or palaces?

PS Marty has sprained his ankle :(

Marty on Autobahns

One aspect of the trip to HAMM that I didn’t mention was that we drove there on the Autobahn. Another life long ambition fulfilled. We went in a pretty new fau vé (VW) and it wasn’t until the return trip that I realized we were averaging 160 km/hr! So all of those cars that were overtaking us and totally leaving us behind must have been doing close to 200 km/hr! But these speeds are expected, to calculate the trip time Google map had estimated the average speed for the trip to be 120 km/hr. I’d been thinking that the Autobahn was rougher than I’d expected but at that speed it’s not a surprise I could feel some of the undulations. Potentially the only criticism I can come up with was the speed transitions from 160 down to 80 km/hr seemed pretty dramatic. Then last weekend we went to Frohmut and Gudrun’s weekend home for a weekend away. I’d heard Frohmut teasing Sabine about how slow she drove so I knew it would be fast. This trip we were in the 200 km/hr car. Using the LTNZ ad as an inspiration, that’s a speed equivalent to falling down 65 stories (compared to 16 stories at 100 km/hr).

Erzgebirge, Saxony

Well folks, sorry to have held out on you so long- I have been meaning to write about our weekend all week but have only just got around to it….

Anyway, last weekend the Professor of the department Marty is working in invited us to join him for the weekend at his country house in Crandorf. Frohmut and his wife Gudrun were incredibly hospitable to us and we had a fabulous weekend.

We started the weekend by travelling to F+G’s home in Crandorf- one of the country villages in the Erzgebirge region of Saxony. It’s a gorgeous little village and F+G’s house looks out over the countryside. We then went to Fichtelberg- the highest ‘mountain’ in Saxony. At around 1200 metres, it’s really just a big hill but does have outstanding views in all directions.

We also visited Schwartzenberg and Marty was very excited to see a castle. We then returned to F+G’s house and met their daughter Anya and her partner Uwe who had come down from Berlin for the weekend. In a little taste of home, we had a bbq for dinner with plenty of beer for Marty. It was wonderful to sleep in the country for a night- our building in Dresden in on the corner of a major intersection and right in the middle of studentville… between the sirens and the drunks, it can be a little noisy!!!

On Sunday, F+G took us to a wonderful little village called Seiffen, which is famous for its woodcraft- particularly Christmas woodcraft. The entire village seems devoted to these products and we succumbed and bought a little Christmas windmill. The village was lovely but I’d have to say that I felt like I visited at entirely the wrong time of year. I could just imagine it all lit up at Christmas and I’m sure it would be glorious.

The final stop was Freiberg. If you have ever played Thurn and Taxis with us, you might recognise this building… (right)

So, all and all, we were very spoilt this weekend. F+G were exceedingly kind hosts and we really appreciated getting to see a little of the Saxon countryside. Thanks guys!!!

Traffic lights

I think someone in power must have seen my earlier post about traffic lights here in Dresden ... Check out this article from stuff today:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4513442a11.html

Happy Birthday, Mum!

Hope you have a great day : )

Go Spring!

Well, Spring was the clear winner in the best-season poll... I'm certainly loving it here :)

I've been planning our trip away so have been investigating modes of transport. So here's your question for this week:

Plane, train, boat, bike, walk, car, bus... how do you prefer to travel?

It's been a while...

Well, it's been a while since I have talked about what we have been doing so here's a quick update:

Last Thursday was a public holiday. Because we are going away soon, Marty and I decided that we should work for the day. However, Sabine and Robert did lure us away in the late afternoon in order to visit Radebeul- a vineyard area nearby. Like all good vineyards, there were lovely grounds and a beautiful restaurant (looked, didn't eat- E20 mains!).

This Saturday, the Dresden fire service celebrated 140 years and marked the occasion with a display of firetrucks through the years. It made Marty very happy.

The week before last I had a bad week. When we visited Tirschenreuth, I bought a gorgeous Rosenthal Dresden mug. Two days later I dropped it on the floor and smashed it. I also managed to wash (and almost totally destroy) my year card to the Dresden museum :( This weekend we wanted to go to some more museums, so I mustered my courage and took the remnants of my card to the museum. The woman didn't speak English so I had to cobble together some sentences to try and explain what had happened. I felt VERY pleased with myself when I actually managed to communicate my problem and although she couldn't give me a new card, she did give me a free day pass!

So we spent the rest of Saturday in a couple more of the galleries. A real highlight for us was the Old Masters gallery. It is the most amazing collection of art from about the 1500-1800. The painting they are most proud of this one- you might recognise the bottom of it.

Sunday was a beautiful day here- possibly the nicest we have had to-date- so we decided it was a good day for a bike ride. The Elbe River, which runs through the middle of Dresden, has purpose-built bike paths on both sides and you can bike from Prague right the way to the coast following this path. And on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it felt like most of Dresden was out on the path! Conveniently, there are beer gardens every 5km or so you if you need a wee break... However, you can lose your driver's license if you're caught riding under the influence... so beware!

This photo does not do any justice to the number of people on the track- most of the day, we saw a continual stream of people in both directions.

Single sex education

There was a really interesting interview on RadioNZ yesterday about gender and schooling.... look for the interview with Leonard Sax

http://www.radionz.co.nz/podcasts/ninetonoon.rss

Ball rolling maze

This was on Campbell Live a while ago and lots of you probably saw it but I thought it was worth putting on the blog.... Hope you enjoy :)

http://www.tv3.co.nz/Video/Elaboratemarblemazeenchantsthousandsthroughtheworldwideweb/tabid/367/articleID/51230/cat/100/Default.aspx