back to the traffic lights

Just when you thought I was over traffic lights.... Kate has informed me that the mysterious Danish headings of the traffic light articles read: 'New imaginative traffic lights are illegal' and the other one says 'traffic lights change sex'. Cheers Kate!!

Visit to BASt in Köln

Yesterday I went to BASt, in Cologne. Within pavement* circles it's very famous so it was amazing to get to go there. I got to see their test track, which was similar in some ways to CAPTIF in Canterbury but, rather than having a circular test track that can be loaded with a large number of vehicle passes, they drive real trucks across the pavement. The experimental pavement is highly instrumented and so they can record the stresses and strains as the trucks pass. They'd also just completed some interesting experiments but for the sake of the younger viewers, I'll spare you the details. You might however be interested to know that they did experiments with using expanded polystyrene as a foundation for a pavement –conclusion, it's not so flash. BASt also do crash tests there but unfortunately there were no tests being performed the day I was there. The building itself was also amazing; built onto a hill, and nowhere more than 2 stories high, it's essentially four very long corridors connected by walkways. The design intent was to allow everyone to have their own office, access to natural light and a view of the gardens.

As I said the other day, these people are fußball (soccer) mad. This guy (photo) was in the entrance to the BASt building. I arrived at BASt the day after Germany secured their place in the Euro final. The previous night the screams and celebrations went for hours after Germany won. The streets were filled with cars honking continuously and one of the BASt people said that his trip home after the game, normally a 20 minute drive, took one and a half hours (he was honking his horn with the rest of them).

*one person I know thought that I worked at research on foot paths. This is not correct: my work involves looking at how roads are built and how to build roads better so they last and perform better.

**note from Rochelle:... but for some reason, those involved persist in calling them pavements- a reasonable misunderstanding, I think (btw- the person wasn't me :) )

Apartment living

So, our accommodation in Dresden has been in a 'studio' room in a 17 floor apartment building. For the first 2 months, we lived on the 11th floor and faced a quiet street and a loud church. It took us a while to get used to the church bells going 3 times a day for 5 mins at a time; the drunk students on the street; and the very loud emergency vehicle sirens from the adjacent intersection. However, it was colder then, and we could close the double-glazed windows at nights.

Now we live on 8th floor and face the noisy street. We barely hear the bells and, oddly, the sirens are used less on this side of the road. However, the road noise is MUCH worse. And it's turned into summer so opening the windows at night almost a necessity. We had just commented to each other that our neighbours on this floor seemed quieter than the last floor and we don't seem to hear the people around us nearly as much as we did on the 11th floor. And then the students down the hall had a party. On a Tuesday night. As well as partying in their room, some of the students were hanging out, chatting in the hallway. Loudly. At 4am, having been awake since around 2:30am, Marty finally went down to ask the students to take their conversation back in their room (they were outside because it was too noisy in the room). It's fair to say that we didn't get much sleep that night.

I don't think apartment living is for me.

Kiwis in Germany

Yesterday I bought kiwifruit from NZ in the supermarket here. They cost E0.19c kg (around 40c at the moment- the dollar is not being kind to us). And they were still green. I don't think I can buy kiwifruit for that price in NZ... CRAZY!!

PS Most of the onions in the supermarkets also seem to come from NZ. Apparently there is an onion blight in Europe and they are facing an onion crisis :)

Contact details

We are in a new room now, so consequently, our address has changed a little... I haev updated the address on the right but to be honest, the mail here is not that reliable, so if you are burning to send us a letter, let me know and I will give your m's work address. Otherwise, you can just send it to us in Welly :)

xxxr

icount... but not for much

Marty has just brought to my attention this new, er, politcal 'party' in NZ http://www.icount.co.nz/

I cannot actually believe that anyone thinks it a good idea to drive your policies with an internet poll... hello?!?! Especially when their polls seems so well considered (please note the sarcasm- hard to show clearly enough via text)... Current example: Does early childhood education require more funding? Eh, why don't they just insert any health, education, justice, infrastructure etc etc issue? Whatya gunna say? No?

Rant over.

Going wild

I know I have mentioned this before, but Marty's collegue Sabine has been amazingly kind to us while we have been here. Our latest adventure with Sabine, Robert and their little one was to Spreewald- a 'wilderness' area about an hour from Dresden.

When Sabine described this area to us, I have to admit that we were thinking wilderness-NZ-style, and it wasn't quite like that...

It was, however, very cool. The area is a UNESCO world heritage site and the 1500-odd-km of channels of rivers were created during the ice age. We took advantage of the water and hired kayaks for the day to explore the area and had a great time meandering through the channels. In that excellent German way, there were also beer gardens regularly throughout the area, so stopping for lunch was no trouble :)

Traffic lights again

Regular visitors to this blog will know that I have become a touch obsessed with traffic lights in recent months (here and here)... Anyway, knowing my fascination, while we were in Copenhagen, our friend Kate clipped these articles out of the paper for me....









Kate did tell me what they were about but I have forgotten, so I am hoping that she will read this and post a a comment reminding me... Still- thought you might like to see what they are doing with traffic lights in Denmark. Anyone seen any other cool traffic lights around the place?


And on a related note, my excellent husband and the wonderful Sabine recently colluded to buy me this t-shirt:




I'm luvin' it!!

You know you are a stranger in a strange land when …

You find out that there is only one pub in all of Dresden that shows rugby.
You write to them asking if they’ll be playing the All Blacks vs England game (Sabine edits your email and the only original words that remain are ‘All Blacks gegen England’) and they reply that the game will be shown.
You arrive at the pub at 9:20 am expecting a few England supporters and, just maybe, another Kiwi.
You realise at 9:40 that you will be the only person watching the game, indeed you will be the only person in the pub except for the four staff cleaning up after last night.
Your cheers celebrating the first All Black try echo in the empty pub.
The game finishes before the pub actually opens and there is nobody to ask the question "why didn't that team turn up to the world cup?".

Meanwhile, the lawn of the university has sprouted a marquee that is playing all of the Euro Cup games; surrounding the viewing area are beer caravans like circled wagons.
Many cars are bedecked with German flags
Many apartment windows are draped in German flags
At the gym this morning four out of the seven channels were playing football footage.
Prior to the German games starting, the streets fill with young German men, carrying beers, draped in flags, German hats, scarves etc all wandering towards a pub to watch the game.

Correction and apology to London

Ngaire has just informed me that I was engaging in a bit of literary licence when I said that it rained in London.... I could have sworn it did but she says it was no more than a clouding over (and I was inside- what would I know). Maybe we just made rain jokes!!! Sorry London- let your reputation be restored.

Back in town

Phew! After two weeks on the road, we are back in Dresden- and summer has arrived! It's 27 degrees and our new room gets evening sun! Next investment might be a fan!

Anyway, we have just returned from 5 lovely days in London. Particularly nice was the fact that they spoke English there, but it was also great catch up with some friends and family :) We were lucky enough to be collected from Stanstead airport by Jacqui and we also got to meet son Luke and hubbie Matt. From Cambridge, we took the train to London where we were hosted by Marty's sister Ngaire and her hubbie Paul, who were extremely kind- Paul went as far as vacating his office so that we could have somewhere to sleep!!

We spent most of Thursday at the Tower of London with Marty's friend Jin and her friends Donna and Joe. I'd have to say that I wasn't that excited about the trip, but it turned out to be fantastic and well worth the £16 (I've come to accept that you just need to close your eyes when paying in London). Once again, Marty enjoyed ogling the armoury, but the coolest part of the day was chatting to one of the Beefeaters who happened to be a Kiwi, and was the first foreigner to be employed as a Beefeater at the Tower.... It was also brilliant to have Jin showing us the sights and we had a fab lunch at the Borough markets- foodie heaven, through and through.

After a lazy day on Friday, we hiked across London (at rush hour) to see our friends Mark and Anita and their small fry. It was great to catch up with some Kiwis and hear a bit of news....

On Saturday, Ngaire organised a bbq with Paul's sister and her hubbie and they even managed some good old English rain for us. I'd have to say that generally, the weather has been amazing while we have been away, so the few drops of rain were a bit of a novelty for us! I also managed to get to the supermarket with Ngaire and we have been feasting on things we have missed- like yummy crackers and salt and vinegar chips :)

Sunday included a good old pub lunch (although we were too early for a roast, which Marty was a bit sad about) and a rest in the sun by the Thames.

So. Now we're back in D-town... 5 more weeks here, a week in Boston and then home. It all seems to be flying by, really.

Hope you are all well, thanks for your emails etc... (it's nice to hear from home- hint, hint).

Cycle touring the Ostsee

Well, we have just finished a glorious week of cycle touring. Last Sunday, we took the train back to Lübeck (about 45 minutes north of Hamburg) to begin our tour. Lübeck is a gorgeous little chocolate-box town and the buildings in the old part of the city have UNESCO heritage listing. Apparently Lübeck is also famous for its marzipan confectionary, but we didn’t manage to find the shop in our afternoon wandering- I am hoping to try again when we pass back through :)

From Lübeck, we set off on the first, and also the longest day of our trip- to Wismar. I’ll say at the outset that this trip was certainly at a ‘cruising’ pace, and we thoroughly enjoyed stopping off lots and seeing the sights… I’ve made a Googlemap with our journey on it, so you can check out where we went.

We were a bit nervous about our trip, as we knew that we would not have bike helmets. As it turned out, probably less that 10% of our trip was on the road. Generally, we biked on either radweg (cycleways) beside road or completely dedicated cycle roads. We have been constantly stunned by both the provision of cycleways and the number of people using them; throughout our whole tour, we have seen a constant stream of people riding. Our trip took us through a mixture of landscapes- from beach fronts to farm land to forests. We have loved the varied landscape and the chance to see some more of the German landscape.

Fortunately for us, the weather has been perfect for the whole week and, consequently, we are both brown as berries from spending all day out in the day. The only fly in our cycling ointment has been the prevailing easterly wind (we have been biking west to east) which has been with us all week. Still, we have had blue skies every day and lots of opportunity to laze around in the sun.

We’re now in Stralsund- having finished our 6th day of cycling. We’re spending tomorrow and Monday here, and are then back to Lübeck for a night before heading to London for the rest of the week. While we are here, we’re hoping to go over to Rügan Island. The whole region we are in at the moment was part of the old East Germany and we told that Rügan was a well-known holiday spot for the communists and, before them, the Nazis.