Katie and Morgan in Germany

Wednesday – Friday

On Wednesday Natasha, a girl who works at the supplier Morgan was visiting, took me out for lunch and to two different game preserves- Seaview Predator Park and Kragga Kamma Game Park. On the drive to Seaview a group of monkeys (maybe 10 or so) ran across the road in front of us, sadly I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture!  We ate lunch at a restaurant right on the water called Barnacles. I tried Hake (a local fish) that was really good. Next we went to Seaview where we were able to check out the lions (white and regular), tigers, meerkats, servals, and caracals. Also, this is where I was able to pet the lion and tiger cubs! Honestly, when Natasha told me I could pet the lion/tiger cubs I was envisioning something a little smaller than these guys (they weigh almost as much as me and they are only 6 months old), but I figured I may only get the chance once so I still went for it. When it was my turn with them, Ice (the female white tiger cub) was playing in a pool of muddy water (and I didn’t really want to end up a mess) so I mainly tried to pet Igor (the white lion cub). When I first got in there he hopped up on my leg (which made me a little nervous), but the trainer just tapped his shoulder and told him no so he got down and didn’t do it again (thankfully!). Though Igor looks fluffy and soft, his fur was actually pretty course. In addition to the cats, you drive through the bush to get to the top of the hill (where the cats are) we got to see some Cape buffalo, giraffes, antelopes, warthogs, etc. We still had some time to kill before Morgan was out of work, so next we drove through Kragga Kamma. Here I got to see zebras, antelopes, ostriches, rhinos, warthogs, and cheetahs (who were having a snack themselves…). We stopped at the restaurant to have coffee and I tried milk tart (a South African dessert -kinda had the consistency of cheesecake but just tastes creamy and has cinnamon on top).  That evening Morgan picked up his Chinese colleagues from the airport and then we went to a local brewery for dinner.

Thursday and Friday Morgan worked hard and I stayed at the hotel, enjoying the sun and reading some more (I read War Brides and Inferno while we were there and I recommend both!). Thursday night after dinner we checked out the casino at the Boardwalk, never take us to Las Vegas.. we didn’t win anything. Friday night we met up with a group from the supplier for dinner and drinks. We tried out a shot called the Springbokkie (it is made of Amarula and crème de menthe)- it was delicious!

Sunday- Tuesday

It was just a short 10.5 hour flight from Germany down to Joburg (and I should add that on my flight, the inflight entertainment system wasn’t working.. so no movies or TV to watch- that was painful). So while I tried to sleep sitting up and had no TV, Morgan was on a different flight laying down in first class getting his beauty rest. 🙂 We were able to meet up in the Joburg airport and then headed down to PE together. Sunday after checking in we drove along the coast for a while and then drove about another hour to a little resort type town that has an old lighthouse. Right next door to the light house was a bird rehabilitation site so we got to see a bunch of African penguins (I didn’t know they had penguins!). The coast reminded us of California, lots of big boulders and cliffs going into the water. After that we headed back to PE and ate dinner at a Mediterranean place.

Monday turned out to be a holiday in SA (no one told Morgan that when he planned his trip down here) sooo he went in for half a day and then left to have lunch with me and check out Hobie beach before calling in to a conference call. The water was actually pretty clear and there were quite a few people swimming even though it is winter. It was in the high sixties/ low seventies during the day and totally sunny.. not a cloud in the sky, which is so nice after so many gloomy months in Germany. We ate lunch at a “afritalian” place right on the water- and got to sit on the porch.. it was so relaxing! That night we walked around the Boardwalk (a huge shopping center with lots if restaurants, shops, a movie theater and a casino). We grabbed dinner and then saw a movie (it was 43 rand per ticket., which is about $4.30).. much better than in London! Sadly it gets dark here around 6 this time of year… a big adjustment from Germany where it is staying light until almost 11pm! There were several “guard cats” here at the hotel… they mainly like to lie in the sun in front of our door and wait to be petted. We were lucky we got the only room with an ocean view!

Tuesday Morgan had to work all day, so after eating breakfast with Morgan I hung out at the hotel reading and sitting outside. Breakfast out our hotel was really good, they had fruit, yougurt, and cereals set out and then there was a list of 6 or 7 things the cook would make for you (French toast, English breakfast, omelet, etc). That night we went back to the Boardwalk and ate dinner at “Spurs” (a big chain restaurant in SA..kinda like their version of Applebee’s it turned out) and then saw another movie. We tended to go to the Boardwalk most evenings 1) it was only two blocks from our hotel, 2) it had lots of options, and 3) it was safe. They had lots of security guards and a well-lit and patrolled parking lot so you didn’t have to worry about going to your car, etc. During the day the area we were in was fine, but at night they don’t recommend you walk around by yourself/with just two people (I think this is the case for most/all of the bigger cities in SA).

Day 2:

–          We ended up back at Café Reichard for breakfast (we couldn’t find many places that were open for breakfast other than chains we have here in Osnabrück)… and I’m so glad we did! I had this amazing apple and cinnamon pancake I ate the whole thing (other than a few bites for Morgan) and felt sick afterwards, but it was totally worth it! 

–          Next we stopped at Groß St. Martin. It was founded for the Benedictine Order in the late 12^th century. The church was badly damaged during WW II and restoration was completed until 1985. The inside was much more plain than the other churches we’ve looked at, but we did think it was interesting that the stained glass windows used dark colors/looked pretty foreboding.

–          Schloss Nordkirchen- When we left Cologne to head towards home we decided to stop at a castle along the way – Schloss Nordkirchen. It is a huge moated castle nicknamed the “Westphalian Versailles”, built in 1703-1734 for the Plettenberg family. We got to walk around the outside and see the gardens, but didn’t get to do the tour of the inside (they have just 3 tours today and preset times). So, we’ll just have to go back again when we have some visitors! We saw at least 4 brides having their pictures taken around the house and grounds plus one wedding ceremony had just finished up.

–          Back on the road home we stopped at a far to pick up some fresh spargel. I have never seen spargel being harvested so that was pretty cool. The spargel was planted in the tall mounded rows and when it starts to poke out of the ground they know it is time to harvest. It looks like they just stick their tool down in the mound and cut it from the base. We had ours with some Hollandaise sauce that Morgan whipped up.. it was delicious!

–          The last stop of the day a quick walk around Münster. It was really pretty and has lots of nice shops in the beautiful old buildings. I can’t wait to go back and do some clothes shopping!

Another Side Note– Muenster is a cheese from the United States, not to be confused with the French variety, Munster. AKA- there is no special cheese that comes from Münster, Germany (thankfully Morgan looked this up before we asked all over town for some authentic “Münster” cheese).

Last weekend was a long weekend for Morgan so we decided to do an overnight trip somewhere and Priceline ended up having a good deal on a hotel in Cologne.. so Cologne it was! We headed down there on Friday morning (it is about a 2 hour drive) and when we arrived we left our car in the parking deck at our hotel (the Maritim). Our hotel was right on the water, but since we did the cheapest room and booked through Priceline, we had a view of the atrium rather than the Rheine. We walked along the river towards our first stop, the Romano-Germanic Museum an archaeological museum in Cologne.

Day 1:

–       Romano-Germanic Museum- It has a large collection of Roman artifacts from the Roman settlement of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, on which modern Cologne is built. The museum protects the original site of a 3^rd century Roman town villa, from which a large Dionysus mosaic remains in its original place in the basement (they found it in 1941 while building an air-raid shelter). They had lots of Roman and medieval glassware and jewelry.

Side note– They had a special exhibit set up for artifacts that have been found while digging for the extension of the U-Bahn (underground railway). What they didn’t mention (or maybe we just missed it) is that in 2009 the building of the City’s archive collapsed into the Stadtbahn’s tunnel under construction below it. Poor construction, the theft of necessary iron reinforcements and several ground water break-ins into the tunnel, which were not reported and not controlled properly by construction supervision, are among the alleged causes for this catastrophe. Given that they city had been achieving important documents since the Middle Ages, a substantial proportion of the written records of the city’s history is believed to have been destroyed. So sad! – If you had been incharge Bern, this wouldn’t have happened!

–       Kölner Dom (construction started 1248)- Catholic church and the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. It is Germany’s most visited landmark and after visiting I can see why! Between the stain glass windows, altar pieces, paintings, the Shrine of the Three Kings, and the relics held in the Treasury, we were completely amazed. The Treasury has a separate entrance and has an entry fee, but it is totally worth it.

–       Coffee and a snack sitting outside at Café Reichard. There was a nice view of the Dom from here.

–       Cologne Rathaus – Germany’s oldest city hall.

–       Farina Haus- The birthplace of cologne!  Italian perfumier Johann Maria Farina began producing Eau de Cologne in the cellar here. The Eau de Cologne composed by Farina was used only as a perfume and delivered to “nearly all royal houses in Europe”.  At the time, a single vial of this aqua mirabilis (Latin for miracle water) cost half the annual salary of a civil servant.Napoleon Bonaparte used an entire bottle of this stuff every day. We bought a 4oz bottle to try out and it has quite a strong smell. – I’m not sure how Napoleon didn’t get a head ache!

–       After checking into the hotel we headed out for dinner and on the way we checked out the colorful houses on Fischmarkt. We ate dinner at Peters Brauhaus, so we got to enjoy some typical Kölner Kölsch (the particular type beer they brew in Cologne). Kölsch comes in a fairly small glass (.2 liters), so until you put your coaster on top of your glass (to signify you are done drinking) they just keep bringing you glasses when you get low.  For dessert we tried out the rhubarb compote (other than the rhubarb liquor that is popular here I’ve never had rhubarb and I’d also never had a compote- so we had no clue what we were getting). It was kind of like a cold fruit soup, it had smashed up pieces of rhubarb and strawberries in it with ice cream and whipped cream.

–       After dinner we walked across Hohenzollernbrücke. Since 2008 people have placed love padlocks on the fence between the sidewalk and the tracks (and then thrown the key in the Rheine). As you can see from the pictures there are thousands of locks… almost the entire length of the fence is covered!

     I will never take hanging pictures on drywall for granted again! Back home all you need is a nail, a hammer and maybe a level to hang a picture. Here, you need a hammer drill with a special drill bit for use on brick, screws, all-purpose fixings, and a vacuum to suck up all the brick dust as the hole is being drilled.  Yep, you have to get it placement right the first try because there are no re-do’s here (the screws with the fixings around them leave HUGE holes… thank goodness for caulking!). We are pretty close to being done hanging things for a while- which Morgan is really excited about!

     Last week one or Morgan’s colleagues invited us over for coffee with his wife at their house. When we first arrived we went on a walk around their village, Ostercappeln, with Jan and his son Jasper (who is about 15 months old.. just a couple weeks younger than Abbie!). There is a beautiful Catholic church there and a nice town square.. hopefully we can go back to look in the shops sometime.  In addition to coffee we had waffles (they were sweeter than waffles in the US) with whipped cream and warm cherry sauce on top. It was delicious! After eating we sat in their backyard to enjoy the sunshine (finally!) and let Jasper play on their new swing-set. They lived in Shanghai for 5 years, so they can relate to our predicaments of living in a country where you don’t speak the language!

When we got back from London, we were smack dab in the middle of Maiwoche (May 11th-19th). Maiwoche is an annual festival in Osnabrück that is supposed to let everyone celebrate the arrival of spring (but spring has yet to show up here in Germany- cold and near constant rain so far….). Anyway, they still had it – every night for a week there are several bands playing around the old part of town plus beer and food stands, rides, games, etc. We braved the rain one night to meet up with a group from Morgan’s work. My favorite part was the yummy srawberry drinks they were serving!

Sunday we took a drive to check out to see the Rapeseed -the bright yellow fields were beautiful!

Monday: Considering the “See London in Two Days” itinerary told us to “get our walking boots ready” for today, we should have guessed how much we would be walking, but it turned out to be sooooo much more than I imagined. We walked up and down both sides of the Thames and by the end of the day we all thought our feet were going to fall off!

–         We started at the Temple Church which was built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries for the Knights Templar (yep, think the Da Vinci Code). It was pretty interesting to look around and the stained glass in there was beautiful.

–         We walked up Fleet Street to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We walked all around the nave, checking out all the beautiful mosaics on the ceiling and then headed up to the Whispering Gallery (here if you sit on opposite sides of the dome you can whisper and the person on the other side can hear you!) and then up to the Golden Gallery (for a total of 1,161 steps (per the brochure). It was pretty windy up top but we had a great view of the city!  Then we headed down to the crypt where we saw the tombs of Wellington, Christopher Wren (the architect of the church), and Nelson.

–         Next we headed to the Tower of London (built by William the Conqueror in the 11^th century) to check out the White Tower (where Morgan and Stephen got to check out swords and suits of armor), the Jewel House (where the crown jewels are), Beauchamp Tower, and the Tower Green (where the aristocratic prisoners were beheaded- including a few of Henry VIII’s wives).

–         From there we walked across the Tower Bridge (from here you can see City Hall and the HMS Belfast) and prepared to walk aaallllll the way back down the other side of the bank to the London Eye.

–         While walking down the far side of the river we passed the Globe Theater (think Shakespeare) and the Tate Modern. We had hoped to stop by the Tate, but we were trying to make it to the London Eye as quickly as possible so we’d have time to ride it before we had to get ready for dinner and a show that night. I think it took about 2.5 hours of walking (pretty quickly) to get from the Tower Bridge down to the London Eye. By the time we got there it was about 4:30 and we needed to be back to the hotel by 5:30 to get ready for dinner. So, sadly the line was too long for us to wait for the ride and have time to make it to dinner before the show (and we weren’t willing to pay an extra $10 on top of the $40 it already cost for a regular ticket). So we decided to head on back so we could have a relaxing dinner and enjoy the show (about this time it started to rain on us, but thankfully .

–         We ate dinner at an “American” themed restaurant that had drink and meal specials on Monday nights.. so Morgan got to have a nice big steak (that is really hard to find here in Germany for a decent price).  Then we walked on up to The Ambassador where Stomp was playing. We all really enjoyed the show! It was funny, entertaining, and wasn’t crazy expensive. They played one set on metal kitchen sinks that I really liked and Morgan’s favorite was one where they played a song with lighters (I know, I can’t describe it very well, but it was a great show!).  

Tuesday we grabbed breakfast at a place between our hotel and Kings Cross Station called 06 St. Chad’s Place – and it was amazing! I would definitely recommend it! Then we started the long trip home (Kings Cross to Heathrow, Heathrow to Amsterdam, and then Amsterdam to several different stops in the Netherlands and Germany to get home by train).  But we did get to pick up some American and Dutch goodies before leaving Amsterdam so now we have some Mac and cheese and Hershey’s syrup to enjoy!

 

Sunday:

We met Stephen and Athena at Trafalgar Square around 10 to get our two days of our walking tour started (I’m not sure how they did it; they had flown in from Ireland that morning and had been up since like 4 am).  So we grabbed some breakfast (including big cups of coffee) and then started the tour which included:

–         Trafalgar Square (including Nelson’s Column)

–         National Gallery – to fit everything into one day, we had to pick between the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery and I think we made a great choice. The brochure they give you highlights the most famous/important pieces so we used that as a guide to see paintings by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and (my favorites) – Turner, Monet, Degas. We picked up two prints from the gift shop (The Fighting Temeraire by Turner (Morgan’s favorite) and The Skiff by Renoir (for me)) and even ended up framing the bag they came in (one side was A Wheatfield, with Cypresses by Van Gogh) and it turned out pretty great! We are so excited to have three new pieces of art for only £10!

–         Next we headed down Whitehall to Parliament Square. On the way we passed the road where the cabinet war rooms are and Downing Street (where the Prime Minister lives). We were lucky that when we made it to the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben we got to see some blue sky.

–         Next we walked around the outside of Wesminster Abbey a little, but sadly we couldn’t go in because it is closed to visitors/tours on Sundays. We hoped to fit it in on Monday but ended up running out of time.. we’ll just add it to the list of things to do next time!

–         From there we headed through St. James’s Park up to Buckingham Palace. I guess the Queen was still hanging out at Windsor because they were flying the British flag over the Palace rather than her standard.

–         We walked up Constitution Hill towards the Wellington Arch (where we were almost run over by a heard of roller-bladers) and then towards Knightsbridge and over to Brompton road where we go to look around in Harrods. We did get to walk through the accessories section, but then we went to the food halls and picked up some chocolates and coffee.

–         After eating our yummy chocolates we walked up towards the Natural History/ V&A/ and the Science Museums. We only had time for one, so we looked around the Natural History Museum.  We mainly checked out the dinosaurs and mammal exhibits before heading out to try to make it to our last stop of the day.

–         We left the Natural History Museum around 4:45 and practically ran to Kensington Palace because they cut off allowing people in at 5pm. We were literally the last people in the door! Here again, we sadly didn’t run into Prince William or Kate (they are moving in to part of the Palace later this summer). But we did get to check out the King and Queens apartments, including some clothes that Kings and Queens have worn over the years.

–         Once we finished up at Kensington we made our way back to Stephen and Athena’s hotel so they could drop off their bags and then we went to dinner at All Bar One (which turned out to be a chain because we passed 5 the next day while walking around town). It had a really good atmosphere and had really good food.. plus the manager let Morgan take home the Meantime beer glass he was drinking out of (this is probably the best souvenir Morgan could get)!

Saturday:

            Today we went straight to Kings Cross/St. Pancras station (which is really pretty itself) to get on a train to Paddington. From there we got on a train to go to Windsor. This was one day we were really, really happy to have bought the London Pass, the line at Windsor Castle was extremely long (a girl that worked there said it was as busy as a day in July, but in July they have twice as many staff) but our pass allowed us to cut straight to the front of the line.

-We checked out St. George’s Chapel first (thankfully Morgan noticed it was going to be closing early that day) we took lots of pictures of the outside but sadly they don’t allow pictures inside. St. George’s is the church on the grounds at Windsor Castle and is the chapel of the Order of the Garter. While in line to get into the church, the family in front of us (from Arizona but currently living in London) pointed out that the Queen was in the castle that day because her standard (flag) was flying over the castle. Sadly we didn’t run into her!

-Next we toured the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world (and the Queens favorite weekend home) Windsor Castle – it was just as beautiful as I remembered! Here again, no pictures inside, but I snagged some off the internet.

– Once we finished touring around the castle we headed across the street to the Horse & Groom for some fish and chips. This is the same place I ate with my mom and sister 7 years earlier when we visited Windsor!  When we finished lunch we walked around the town a little before hoping back on the train.

-When we got back to London we decided to head down to the Westminster pier and catch the Thames River Cruise up to the Tower pier. It was kinda chilly and windy, but it was so worth it! It was great seeing the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the Tate Modern, the London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben (and lots of other stuff) from the water.  When we made it to the Tower pier we only had 45 minutes until the last boat was leaving so we hung out at Starbucks to warm up and borrow the internet.

-After the cruise we headed back towards our hotel and decided to see Iron Man 3 (while we were in a country where they were showing it in English).  Turns out movies in London are kinda expensive!  It was £30 for two movie tickets and we had to laugh when we got into the theater because it was probably the smallest movie theater screen we had ever seen.  But, the movie was really funny so it was nice to just sit for a few hours and relax after two days of running around.

We visited London from May 9^th to the 14^th and had the best time!  We took the train from Osnabrück to Amsterdam Thursday afternoon and then flew from Amsterdam to London. Once we got checked into our hotel (the Tune Hotel – Kings Cross), we hunted for a Barclay’s ATM (since we can get money out of our Deutsche Bank account without any fees), and then went back towards our hotel to The Lucas Arms for dinner. It was a typical English pub – I had some pretty yummy mac and cheese with bacon pieces in it.

Side note about our hotel – I tried to find the cheapest place I could – without being a hostel or looking creepy/unclean/in a bad part of town- so we thought we try out a Tune hotel (most of their hotels are in the Asia Pacific but they do have 5 hotels in the UK). You get a very basic, tiny but clean room and pay extra for things they consider amenities (towels, hairdryer, in room safe, TV usage, WiFi, etc). AND from you picture, you can tell we decided to try out a basement room – meaning no windows, but this took off about £100 from the cost of our stay. Kings cross has a major underground station (6 lines run through there) so it is really easy to get just about anywhere from here (our hotel was only a 5 min walk from the station) – so it was a great location- and we only paid €322 for 5 nights.  I’m not going to lie, I was a little worried what we would find when we checked in given it was so cheap, but we were pleasantly surprised. The staff were all nice and helpful, we couldn’t hear trains going past our heads (since we were underground), the room was clean, Morgan even enjoyed not having a window since it allowed him to sleep in later! We would definitely stay in one again!

Friday:

We headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum Friday morning and ate breakfast near the South Kensington Station first at Muriel’s Kitchen (it was delicious and really cute inside!). Across the street from Muriel’s was the Lamborghini dealership, so Morgan got to stare at the pretty manly cars during breakfast.

-The Victoria and Albert is the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design and is divided up into 5 themes: Asia, Materials & Techniques, Europe, Modern, and Exhibitions (there was a huge one for David Bowie – that we weren’t interested in at all – and one called “Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars” that looked really cool, but we had hardly enough time to see the regular museum so we decided to pass on the exhibitions). The V&A has 4.5 million objects, covers 12.5 acres, and its collection spans 5,000 years of art. Also, the building itself is beautiful. We enjoyed this museum just as much as the British Museum and may have liked it even more. Below we’ll include some pictures of some of the favorite things we saw (well at least things we were allowed to take pictures of, most of the Asian galleries didn’t allow pictures)!

-Next grabbed lunch and then picked up our London Pass tickets. Next we walked up towards the British Museum, but stopped first by Museum Street to look in the shops.

-I had been to the British Museum before, but Morgan hadn’t soooo I think we saw every single room in there (though some we walked through pretty quickly towards the end because our feet were killing us). The Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece and Rome rooms were amazing and Morgan also really enjoyed the Clock and Watches room. Oh, and the jewelry room was pretty amazing (too bad they don’t let you take pictures in there! Some of tiaras were just as beautiful as those you see in the crown jewel display at the Tower of London.

– By the time we left the British Museum we were completely exhausted from being on our feet all day so we ate a quick dinner at a fast food Mexican place (think Moe’s) and then got to bed early.

 

On Saturday we went to the VfL game since it was so nice outside. The stadium is just a couple of blocks from our apartment (which we were a little worried about when we first looked at our place), but we are on the far side of it (not between the stadium and downtown) so the traffic on our side really isn’t bad at all. This was our second game- we even broke down and bought a scarf to fit in with everyone else. When VfL scores everyone swirls them around in the air over their heads so their is purple everywhere. Thankfully VfL won this game 2-1 (the last game we went to they tied), so maybe we aren’t bad luck!

On Sunday we skyped with the Philo’s to catch up before baby girl Philo arrived (this was her due date). Little Mia Maria Philo was born on May 6th and we got to see her a couple of days later once they were home via skype. For the trip home from the hospital she even wore a onesie that was from Kelly, Morgan and me!  We can’t wait to meet our future God-daughter in person! 🙂

Also, last week we tried out Spargel (the white asparagus that is very popular in our part of Germany). Thankfully our German teacher told us that you have to peel it and that when you boil it you need to add some sugar to the water to help with the bitterness… we wouldn’t have known to do either since you don’t do that with green asaparagus!  We just put a little butter on ours and thought it was ok (I still prefer green asaparagus), but we’ve been told it is much better with Hollandaise sauce on it, so we’ll try that next time.

Tomorrow we head to London for a few days and we are so excited, time to finish packing!

 

Our new niece  Isabella Marie Siqueira Dawson was born on the the 23rd (she has the same birthday as her uncle Andrew!). We were sad we couldn’t be there in person like we were when Celo and Abbie were born, but we did get to see her two days later via Google Chat. Morgan was in China, I was in Germany, Vironica and Isa were still in the hospital (getting ready to be discharged), and Marcel was getting Celo ready at the house to go to pre-school for a little while – isn’t technology amazing? We can’t wait to see her in person at the end of June!

Morgan got back from China on Sunday and had a few days off to relax at home… so what do we do Monday? – Paint the living room! We had to go buy the paint and a few other things, so we didn’t get started until 2:30 and several times I wanted to call it quits and finish the next day but, Morgan wanted to press on so we finished the entire room around 9:30 that night. It was a bright blue and now it is Seidiges Beige. One of our walls is slanted because of how the roof-line comes down in the front of our building so you can’t really hang paintings on it (without rigging something up special) sooo I’m thinking about painting some stripes on it (like the picture below)- just subtle stripes, using a color that is just a shade or two lighter/darker than the one already on the wall. For now we’re going to leave it… but it may end up with some stripes in the future!  In addition to painting, we worked on getting the paint off the glass in the pocket doors. We couldn’t scrape it off because of the etching on the window, but thankfully paint thinner did the trick and now they look a lot better.

May 1st is called May Day here in Germany and is a holiday sooo we went on a bike ride with a few other couples to Knollmeyer (a bier garden that also has a high ropes course, putt-putt, etc). Morgan described this trip to me (before hand) as a short ride to a bier garden in Osnabrück (I assumed he meant in the city limits, turned out it was about 6km away!- so technically it is within Osnabrück, but within the county not the city).  Needless to say I thought I was going to die. For someone who hadn’t ridden a bike in about 4 years, a 9 mile bike ride is pretty tough.. especially when you are with a bunch of Germans (who have been riding bikes long distances regularly since they were 3) and your husband who is a mountain biker! When we did get to our destination we were surprised how many young people were there.. there were probably 500 16-20 year olds hanging out in the lawn in front of the bier garden drinking. They all had wagons they had pulled on their walks there full of beer and liquor. It looked just like a tailgate that had gotten really sloppy (haha). Other than one guy who was being taken away in an ambulance, it seemed like they were all having a good time. We had some drinks and brats with french fries and then some ice cream before starting the ride home.  The ropes course and putt-putt looked like a lot of fun, so hopefully we can take some of our visitors there later this year!

 Morgan left for China yesterday and I spent the day with a few of our friends going on a short hike/walk up a mountain near Osnabruck and then to the Horses & Dreams horse show in Hagen . From the top of the mountain we could see the castle in Bad Iburg (this is the same castle that Morgan visited in December) as well as Osnabruck (and several other towns) in the distance.

The show had jumping and dressage competitions and is the second largest horse show in Germany (I couldn’t get over how many people where there!). Between the various rings there were tents set up selling all kinds of horse riding related gear as well as really expensive clothes and accessories (some of the tents had chandeliers…). A lot of people brought their dogs with them- there were tons of Jack Russell’s.. which made me miss little Maggie! The theme this year was “Horses & Dreams meets Russia” so towards the end of the day the Kremlin Equestrian Riding School did a performance – they were amazing! I included some of my pictures below, but because I was missing my super-duper tall husband and we were in about the third row back standing up against the side of the ring, I could only see bits and pieces. 🙂 

 

Before Morgan’s most recent trip to China, we went to Keukenhof, a HUGE garden in Holland. We were a little early, less than half of the 7 million flowers were blooming, but it worked out best with Morgan’s travel schedule and our trip to London which is already planned for early May. Even with only half the flowers blooming, I’ve still never seen anything like it! The greenhouse had every type of tulip you can imagine (plus several other types of flowers) blooming. On the way home (about 2.5 hr drive) we stopped in Amsterdam for a snack, which was a great end to the day.

I thought I would put up a few pictures from our time at home in March, we had a great time seeing everybody! 

Saturday I woke up a little late since I set my alarm for weekdays only by accident. It was actually quite nice to get some rest since I was quite tired during the week getting over the jet lag. After breakfast I took the taxi to the Shenyang North Train Station. The train station is quite large and is the stop for the high speed trains for Shenyang to Beijing. Trying to buy a ticket was interesting with the language barrier but after a lot of pointing I got my ticket for the train. I had gotten there a lot earlier than I needed since the first open train was not for another 2 hours. After getting through security (a x-ray machine with no one looking for anything, a metal detector that was going off for 100% of the passengers and security mainly looking for suspicious people) I sat down to read for a bit. At one point a small boy walked past me and looked at me wide eyed like he was seeing a foreigner for the first time. It was rather cute.

The train ride was rather long and was 30 minutes longer than expected. It ended up being a 4.5 hour train ride I guess due to the high amount of smog and limited visibility (possibly causing the train to have to travel slower). Unfortunately the ticket counter did not understand me when I had requested 1st class (only 50 RMB more for a lot more room) but it was not that bad. A lot of people staring when I boarded the train and started walking down the aisle. I was seated in a middle seat at first but a couple was trying to sit together so I switched seats with the man. His seat ticket was for another car back on the aisle next to a nice couple with a new born baby. The scenery on the way down was filled with a lot of smog, farm land, and a lot of dilapidated houses and buildings. However, there were also a lot of pretty views of mountains and the country side. I am sure even nicer if one could see it through the terrible smog.

The arrival into Beijing Central Rail Station was cool getting to see a lot more of Beijing from the train. The smog in Beijing was even worse not allowing you to see the top of buildings that you were looking up at. I got off the train and the large amount of smog had immediate effects, making my eyes and lungs hurt.  I found the taxi stand with a long line of 100+ people waiting but it also gave me a chance to take some pictures of the rail station and stretch my legs after sitting for so long. The line moved slowly and we were all constantly being barraged by illegal taxi drivers wanting to over charge and fill out their cars. After an hour wait I was able to get a taxi to the hotel. The drive to the hotel was not too bad other than the taxi driver not knowing where the hotel was (mainly since it is a little further away from the city center). Beijing is surrounded by 5 rings that are the main roads. The hotel was on the outside of the 5th ring since it is closer to the ZF plant which is right across the street from the BBAC/Mercedes joint venture. We ended up finding it OK and after a long day I ate a quick dinner in the hotel and relaxed in the hotel room the rest of the night.

After waking up on Sunday I hopped in a taxi and headed to the center of Beijing. The taxi driver tried to trick me and take a super long route all the way to the north of the city before heading into the center which doubled the fare but I caught on so I only paid what the fare should have been since I knew from the previous day. I got dropped off near Tiananmen Square which unfortunately was shut down due to the newly appointed Chinese President holding political meetings in the area. The smog was rather bad which put a downer on the day and made it rather difficult to take good pictures. After walking around the shopping area to the south of Tiananmen Square I walked back up towards the imperial palace. On the way I passed at least a dozen security checkpoints where I had to show my passport due to the political meetings.

The imperial palace was huge! After walking through what I thought was the main area I came out of a small gate to the large main gate to the central palace. There were tourists everywhere. I ended up walking through the center of the palace, straight north. After checking out the palace I walked across the street to the Qingxiu Tea Garden which has a great view of the palace.

I ended up walking around a bit more and exploring, I could not find anyone that could point me in the right direction for other places to see so I headed back to the hotel. Mainly because I was exhausted. The map for Beijing looks simple and small but the scale is much bigger than expected when walking around.

Katie and I took the train to Dusseldorf this past weekend to start our travels. After checking Katie into the local Holiday Inn (she was flying on Sunday and I was flying on Saturday) we ventured out into the rain and found a great little restaurant attached to a local horse training facility. The food was great. After we took a taxi back to the hotel (to keep from getting soaked again) and I continued on to the airport to catch my flight. The first flight was quick to Copenhagen. It was super cold getting off the plane and onto the transfer bus. I am very glad we are not up there permanently during the winter. The layover was a little longer than expected but was still OK since we actually originally would have been rather tight on the connection. The next flight was 9 hours to Beijing. The food was good and interestingly I sat next to a German who lived near Charleston, SC for 7 years working for a steel manufacturer. It was great talking to someone about South Carolina for a little bit. We arrived in Beijing a little after noon (cutting 40 minutes off the flight!). My next flight was a short hopper to Shenyang but of course was in a different terminal 5 minutes away so I had to completely recheck everything.

The arrival into Shenyang was easy except for the fact that the ATM at the airport was broken. This was rather interesting trying to get a taxi driver to understand that he had to bring me by an ATM if he wanted to get paid! Luckily pointing at my ATM card he finally understood. The ride was immediately interesting with the realization that there are no rules for driving in China! Included was my taxi driver driving 3 lanes over into oncoming traffic, not staying in any lanes, honking constantly so that we would not get hit by other drivers, avoiding rickshaw size potholes, etc.

I have noticed over the week that driving in China is taking your life into your own hands. Chinese drivers have absolutely no fear, combine all the “a-hole” driving techniques (cutting people off, honking constantly, not staying in one lane/riding the line, pushing people out of the way, stop in the middle of the street to talk to someone they know, running red lights, tailgating, etc.). I am sure the number of accidents is the reason why so many cars are being sold in China. Luckily I made it to the hotel in one piece!  On the way in we passed a crazy amount of high dollar stores (Prada, etc.) and car dealerships (including a Bentley, Maserati,  Ferrari dealership). The city is in a constant stage of development and new buildings are going up everywhere. I thought we were in the city center at one point due to all the high rise buildings but we were no where close! It almost feels like I am in the movie Inception where Leonardo (Dom) is in his dream landscape that he put together with Marion Cotillard (Mal) since so many of the tall high-rise apartment buildings are copies of each other and are in groups of 5 – 10 in the same block

Sunday night after checking in and getting settled I grabbed dinner in the hotel (really good Chinese food) and then went to bed. Monday was another “interesting” taxi trip to the BBA/BMW joint venture plant where our axle systems plant LAS2 is located. The trip took about 45 minutes in insane traffic. The traffic itself was not that bad… Just the drivers like mentioned above! After being dropped off at the wrong place, I was able to finally find the correct entrance to the plant and found our ZF area. The day was quickly filled with project work and meeting people. Everyone has been very friendly and nice.

That night, after returning to the hotel, I decided to venture out a little bit. After walking around the area I found a restaurant that had a lot of traffic in and out so I figured it must be a good place to eat. However, I quickly realized that I was the only foreigner that had ever gone there because people were taking pictures and their mouths were wide open in amazement when they saw me. The food was extremely authentic and I am not really sure what I ate (may be the reason for my stomach being off today). After giving up on the questionable food I ate some fruit and returned to the hotel hoping I would not wake up regretting my food decisions.

I woke up Tuesday feeling OK and started my day with a good Chinese/American breakfast (fried rice, rice noodles, bacon and an egg). Tuesday was another full day of project work back at LAS2 with a more familiar dinner at an Italian restaurant at the hotel. It started snowing at lunch so everywhere was blanketed in snow. The ride home was very interesting with combining normally bad driving with the winter element. However, what was also interesting was the number of people out clearing the roads of snow. On many main roads there was a worker shoveling snow from the street every 50 meters. They had most sidewalks cleared as well.

Wednesday, I moved over to LAS1 which is another ZF plant a little closer to the hotel to start the torque procedure training. The training started at 9:30 and I found myself lecturing to 1 German Manager and 20+ ZF Chinese Engineers and Managers. The first day of training was very successful. However, something I ate (possibly the McDonald’s for lunch, started to not agree with me in the afternoon which made it difficult. After finishing up, the Shenyang Quality Manager (over LAS1, LAS2 and future LAS3 plants) invited me to join him and his girlfriend for Peking duck at a local restaurant. I had a great time and the food was delicious.

Today was another training day that went well. I ate lunch in the canteen which was actually pretty good. It consisted of typical Chinese dishes. Tonight, since I was still not feeling too great, I stayed in and read most of the night. I have not had another chance to venture out yet to explore other than walking around the other night. I hope that during my next trip here I will have more time. I am also hoping that I will have some time on Sunday to explore in Beijing.

Tuesday:

–  HafenCity- This part of town hold most of the warehouses and lots of new/modern looking office buildings, hotels, shops, residential buildings, and the almost completed Elbe Philharmonic Hall. Also this is where several of the museums/ attractions are including the Miniature World which was our next stop.

–  Miniature World- This was probably Morgan’s favorite stop on our entire trip. It is two floors of a ware house with HUGE model train displays, each one featuring different landscapes from around the world (aka there was a US Section which had a wild west scene and a Las Vegas scene), a Scandinavia section that had a miniature cruise ship sailing around, a miniature airport, etc. All the displays were so intricate… Morgan was in heaven! He took about 500 pictures while we were there.. we’ll just include a few of our favorites. J

–  Fabrik – Avett Brothers Concert- Our last night in town we had a great time at the concert. The venue was pretty small compared to what we are used to in the US, so we ended up really close to the stage- actually we were right above the band. It was a great way to end our trip!

Whew, that’s all folks!

Monday: Lübeck

–  Holsten Gate- Originally it was the only entrance into the city.

–  Marienkirche-  A Lutheran, gothic style church, construction started around 1250. The painted detail on the ceiling was beautiful. The church also held several beautiful pieces of art (you can Wikipedia it!). The Palm Sunday air raid in 1942 badly damaged the church and the bells of the church, which fell down during the ensuing blaze, still lie where they fell.

–  Rathaus – City hall – famous for its unusual turrets.

– Dom zu Lübeck (Lübeck Cathedral)- Another Lutheran church- construction started in 1173 by Henry the Lion. It also suffered a lot of damage in the Pal Sunday air raid (are you sensing a theme here?). Though it is the Cathedral in Lübeck, it is not the tallest church in town (which is unusual)- Marienkirche is taller and had priority in being rebuilt after the war.  There is an inscription in the church that I thought was pretty interesting: “Ye call Me Master and obey me not, Ye call Me Light and see Me not, Ye call Me Way and walk not, Ye call Me Life and desire Me not, Ye call Me wise and follow Me not, Ye call Me fair and love Me not, Ye call Me rich and ask Me not, Ye call Me eternal and seek Me not, Ye call Me gracious and trust Me not, Ye call Me noble and serve Me not, Ye call Me mighty and honor Me not, Ye call Me just and fear Me not, If I condemn you, blame me not.”

–  Travemünde – Before heading back to Hamburg we drove a little farther up to the Baltic Sea cost. It is pretty much a resort town (there were lots of older, rich couples strolling around, shopping, having coffee, etc). They did have some pretty cool roofed wicker beach chairs that would come in handy for a day at the beach!

–  Tower Bar- When we got back to Hamburg, we got drinks at the Tower Bar (a bar at the top of a tower attached to a Hotel that is up on a hill overlooking the harbor) and had some really tasty frozen drinks. Then we ate dinner at the Hamburg Hard Rock Café – it is right on the water. Morgan had never eaten at one and it was close to our hotel so we got to enjoy some hamburgers!