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Category: Germany Post 2019 Move (Page 1 of 4)

My Life in Germany after I moved back there from Australia in 2019

Yearly trip to Remagen and Wiesbaden

After preparing the night before, we got up early to head off to Remagen. Given that Corona restrictions are still in place we decided to take a train instead of flying over this time. After our visit to Föhr, both Manja and I had discovered that we actually prefer train travel. Usually, though, it’s more expensive and slower to travel by train, so we fly. Now it really is ideal.

As is the way with the vast majority of the trains, we traveled without any issues, using the time to write my blog, read and relax. We even had a home-made couscous salad which we brought along for a late brunch. By around noon we arrived in Remagen feeling quite fit, and Stefan was nice enough to pick us up. He’s got a guest room where we were welcome to spend a few days, which really is luxury while traveling!

On the move and blogging

At his place we had some lunch and got settled in before Alex, Angi and the family joined us for a bit. The kids seem to have a new game: Playing horsey, by either trotting the “horses” in a circle on the lawn, or, if the “horse” seems willing, riding them around. It wasn’t long before they took Stefan for a trot, and then tried to get some of the other adult horses to play along. As it turns out, we were more like mules. Resistance caused bursts of energy and an attempts to get the adults moving by force: Put the reins around the hand and pull, while the others pushed. Manja cleverly side-stepped and tied them to me, where they discovered I was more of a stubborn donkey than a horse. As things were getting a bit energetic, we decided to go for a walk to the shores of the Rhine. I continued to be led along on my reign/leash, and occasionally, accidentally of course, got kids tied to each other and around trees. At the shore we spent about an hour skipping stones, and teaching the kids how to identify good skipping stones and skip them directly too. This, of course, did not stop them from bringing us small boulders to “try and skip” too – where the failure to skip delighted just as much as the occasional unexpected success.

As we headed back for dinner, the reign/leash was almost forgotten and left behind, but we went back and collected it just in time. The girls decided that they would take me back home a different route and we spent some time chatting about school and Australia and how strange it must be to have different seasons and move to another land.  We got back just after the other adults and the horsing around continued immediately. I helped Stefan prepare some pizza but as we waited for it to cook things got wild again. Manja escaped into the bathroom, and climbed out of the window while the girls waited for her to open the door. After that she was deemed to be too clever to be tamed, and the focus returned to me. Which went okay until the metal clip on the leash bent out of shape when there were two kids hanging on it while I was holding it up. A few tears, an ice-pack and a small band-aid later we were having a really nice pizza dinner and everyone was quite calm. After dinner Stefan even repaired the clip, so the leash could be used again in the future.

As evening set in Alex and Angi headed home and we settled in for a quiet night. Manja had brought a Rommé deck, Stefan and Manja explained the rules and we played for the evening. By around 11pm Manja managed to walk away with the victory, and were were in bed just early enough that I didn’t have to wish her a happy birthday.

Stefan is a freelancer, so he was able to work around our visit. So when we got up around 9 he was already up and about, making us breakfast. Manja got a small gift from me and an awesome electronic paper plane from Stefan and his family. I can’t wait to try it out when we get home! After breakfast we headed over to the castle Eltz.

We expected that we would park somewhere, tour the castle and drive home. Instead we parked, hiked 20 minutes to the idyllic castle and waited in line for a ticket. Due to Corona they can only admit 200 people at once, so the line progressed slowly as people left. We spent about 30 minutes in line, chatting the time away before we got in. The process was annoying but professional – you got a visitor pass, tickets to the two tours and an wristband identifying around when they expected you to leave again. The whole castle had been setup to have only one-way walking paths, so you had to go through everything in a pre-set order. This was okay, because you saw everything, but annoying because you had to wait in line at the tours again. The tour through the internals of the castle were really interesting – I learned a few new things.
The “Erker” (Bays) at the side of castles were added as a prayer space. It was added for two reasons: First, you could close the door, and with that the separation of church and private life. Second, you could not have anyone move above the altar – so no one could stand above god.
The lords beds were raised and boxed with logical purpose: Hot air rises, so between this and heavy curtains, one could sleep comfortably even in winter. You did, however, have to literally “climb into bed” which is where that turn of phrase comes from.
Candles and other fire-based lights were rare as the rooms were often flammable, and fire considered a real risk. Instead, benches were built into the windows, to allow for the use of as much day-light as possible.
Carpets were used to decorate walls to present an interesting and beautiful thing to look at, but even more importantly to insulate the rooms.
Kitchens often had parts of their walls turned into cupboards, essentially giving them an old-school fridge by utilising the cold of the thick castle walls.
Even the rich did not live long – their average age did not pass 50.

After our tour, we spent some more time in line waiting for the treasure chamber, where only 24 people could be at once, to have a spare slot. The chamber was nice, but not spectacular. Unfortunately it was forbidden to take photos of any of the internal areas 🙁

With the tour and the standing in line two hours had passed, and it was time for us to return to Stefan’s house. On our way there Stefan and I discussed the issues with multi-generational wealth and privilege until Manja got sick of us and changed to lighter topics of conversation. When we got back it was time for Stefan to spend some time with his daughter and Manja and I to head over to Alex and Angis place. We toured their house a bit, because they are doing a fantastic job at restoring a 1938 house bit-by bit. It’s a massive project, and the progress each time is amazing – this time additional walls had appeared in the top floor where there are now two rooms for the kids. The parents bedroom is now in progress, and I’m sure it’ll look just as fantastic when we come by again next time.

We had dinner together and Stefan and his family came and joined us. After dinner Manja got an awesome present from the whole group: She adopted an Orange-tree in Spain. I’d not heard of crowd farming before and was pretty amazed. Basically you help a farmer by supporting them financially and you get some sort of benefit for this – like Kickstarter for farms.
Eventually the kids headed to bed while we played a round of Level 8, which I accidentally won, before we headed back with Stefan for the night.

The next morning Stefan’s daughter woke us around 9, asking why we sleep so long. I explained that we were on holidays 😅
She had to stay home because she was a bit sniffly, and with the Corona rules even the slightest suspicion of sick meant a day at home. We spent the morning with her and Stefan before heading over to Angi for a day hiking a small part of the red-wine hiking trail in the region. When we arrived at her place we first got fed some nice chili sin carne before heading over to the train station. The train ride would have been uneventful, except that we were traveling at school-end time, meaning that all available seats filled two stations before we had to get off, and we got to observe the standard teenage shenanigans going on in the train. When we got off we headed straight for the top of the hills and to the hiking trail. It really was beautiful, and we had perfect weather for it. Not too hot, but not cold at all. We even walked slightly further than Angi had before, and found a few hills which made us sweat more than a bit. By the time we got back to town Angi and I wanted a coffee and Manja wasn’t super happy heading into a cafe all sweated through, but came along while complaining a little bit. The train ride back was a great way to relax after the day walking and we got back a bit after Alex had returned from work, just in time for dinner. One of the games which Angi and Alex had but had never played is Rummycub, so we set it up and I explained the rules to them. Their daughter and I proceeded to win a bunch of games as a team effort 🙂

Not long after we headed back to Stefan’s, and continued the night with a game of Rummy before dropping into bed near midnight again.

And just like that we were at the end of our stay in Remagen. Wednesday morning we slowly packed up and headed to the train station, taking a short detour to the shore of the Rhine again.  As there was a bunch of issues with the train network, our trip from Remagen to Wiesbaden, which is usually around 2 hours, took 4 hours today. None the less, we arrived in good spirit to a very very happy Doris. We settle in for a bit, but had to head off again a short while later. Manjas Aunt Jana and her family were coming by to visit as they live only about 30 minutes away. Jana had night shift, so we all decided to have dinner a bit earlier around 17:00 at one of the local restaurants near Doris’ place. It was a super nice evening, but Jana had to head off to night shift, so we split our ways around 20:00. When we got back we spent a bit of time talking and making plans for the next few days, before having a reasonably early night.

On Thursday was Doris’ birthday, so we had arranged a boats tour. Before we headed off though, the whole family and all of her Friends had already called to wish her a happy birthday. When we got to the ship, the ticket-sales booth hadn’t opened yet, but there was a bunch of people waiting. We joined the line and they opened up just in time for us to get a ticket and head on board. We had breakfast as we watched the shoreline go by, traveling through the well-known wine region. We passed many interesting places, I never knew how many castles there were in the region. There were also a couple of places which inspired different legends. One of the places was the famous Mouse tower and another the famous Loreley – a pretty lady whose looks caused many a sailors demise. When we got to the end of the trip we jumped into the train to head back to Rüdesheim where we took a cable car to the Niederwalddenkmal which is a victory statue dedicated to the feeling of the German Rhine area from the French in 1871. (Colloquially, the statue to the only war Germany ever won). We wanted to have a small lunch and headed to a cafe in the wine hills at the foot of the statue, where there is a little hidden cafe with a great view. Manja ordered herself an ice-cream while Doris and I had what amounts to a BLT on a Panini. It wasn’t bad at all, but massive and not all that special either. Full of food we decided to take on the descent by foot, having seen nice sweeping paths on our way up from the cable car.

In google we trust, I said, as we headed off. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves heading down a wine-hill. Keep in mind that Doris is over 80, so I was impressed that she was okay going cross-country with us. Two more hills later the cross-country path we were traveling down ended in a massive cravice. Manja and I may have been able to jump across, but there was no way Doris would make such a jump. So back up the hill we went. Doris was not happy with this ascend at all – which was totally fair enough, it was STEEP. We got to the top and laughed about it in retrospect though, crossed the crevice at a small bridge and headed back to the main road. We missed the train we were aiming for, but another was only 30 minutes after and we made that one comfortably.

As we hoped to get a car share car for Friday, there was one more thing for us to do. While Manja already headed back Doris and I made use of her ability to travel the trains for free and headed to town to get the car-share card. Think of a hotel room key, but for unlocking car share cars. Just one problem: It was at the main train station “Bus stop A”.

Sounds easy enough, but all the bus stations had numbers not letters. Poor Doris had to do another lap of the train station with me before we found them: the local buses (as in, not the ones going to other cities) had the letter-based stations. And right next to stop A was a little glass house. We got the key card and I jumped onto my mobile to book one of the cars I had seen standing around…. only to notice that no available car was in the area. The concept of car-sharing was new to Doris, so I had to explain that it didn’t mean that we had a specific car. As there was no way for her to walk another 20 minutes to a car, we took a taxi to pick up our car-sharing car 😅

Once there, though the process was easy. We jumped in and drove back to Doris’s place, parked in the street and all was well. We had planned to go out for dinner, but we were not really that hungry, and we were definitely all tired. So we ordered some pizza instead and played Uno for the whole night.

It really was a fantastic day, full of adventure.

On Friday we decided to head out and check out some pretty cool history at the Roman Fort Saalburg, which was one of the forts guarding the so-called Limes. This was basically a border line of the Roman Empire; not so much in the sense of a defensible line but one which stopped people on either side driving stock or large good across. Individuals could cross without much of a problem, but larger groups would be seen by watchtowers – these were not well defended either, but were in turn the domain of the forts. Attack a tower and the fort would respond. As such, it was easy enough to get in and out of the Roman Empire, so long as you essentially used the doors they permitted.

We spent most of the day there, and even had an excellent lunch at the cafeteria. I do enjoy historic sites like this a lot, and this one also included some excellent exhibits on how tradesmen back in the roman days plied their trade. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves this type of history! In the afternoon we headed back to Doris’s place and had dinner at the local Greek restaurant once more before catching the train back the next morning.

Alps of Saxony and Sophias Wedding

On Monday night we had a nice date-night at our favourite asian place in Friedrichshain.

As Sophias Wedding would be the next weekend, we decided to make use of the trip and go hiking in the Saxonian-Alps for a day or two before.

So on Tuesday evening I left work to get a car and pack for our trip, so that we could head off on Wednesday nice and early. We drove to Dresden initially, where we met up with Alex, Angi and kids. Alex and Angi were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary in Dresden, a city in which they had lived for the early part of their relationship. The car we had this time was more expensive than average, thanks to Corona and people holidaying locally. It was a Renault Twingo, with absolutely no upgrades. Even the windows were manual. The trip on the autobahn quickly made it apparent that the car was just crap generally – by the time we got to Dresden two hours later I was exhausted.

As we arrived we were confronted with searching for a parking spot in the central carpark, but with no success. Manja jumped out to get a better view, and I suddenly saw Alex waving at me madly near the entrance. It took me a few minutes to realise he was holding a spot for us, so I rushed over and parked in the premium spot right next to the entrance. Score!
Next challenge: Getting a ticket. The machine accepts card and coins, but after three attempts with a card I gave up and started to search for coins. We managed to get within a Euro, and once more Alex was there to rescue us with the missing coin.

We headed off to have lunch, which was nice but plagued with the German summer-curse: Wasps. The kids were a bit scared by them, but Manja was there to the rescue. The wind-brakers on the candles, with a coaster to close it – made a brilliant wasp-holding vessel. Just catch them and put them together. Suddenly it was a game and everything was okay. Throughout the meal the wasps got names and we caught about 8 of them.

We dropped the kids off at the hotel where they wanted to watch some cartoons, while we went for a walk through the beautiful old inner city. In Dresden many of the really old buildings are blackened from the outside. Initially I thought that this was just from soot and exhaust fumes, but Angi and Alex explained that it was left after the Second World War, as a reminder how Dresden stood in flames. The only things which were clean were the parts which were replaced. The whole Frauenkirche, the monument to Dresden, was rebuilt after the war ended, making it a pristine building right in the center.

We wandered and chatted the afternoon away, before stopping for a cold drink. As we looked for a place we found the perfect place: the “Ayers Rock Dresden”.  It was an Aussie restaurant in the way that an Aussie pub that serves Crocodile, Emu and Kangaroo, with German beer and wines, is typically Australian. The Iced-Coffee/Tea/Chocolates we all had were really nice though, so it’s probably not bad for a meat-heavy night out.

And that was our time in Dresden already. In order to make it to our hotel during check-in we headed off in the late afternoon, saying farewell to Alex and Angi for the next few weeks. We will come and visit them at the end of the month at home, so it was more of a see-you-later than a goodbye 🙂

The hotel Manja had selected was “Hotel Rose” which was a quaint little place in the “saxonian alps”. It was pretty! By the time we got there though, we were both pretty exhausted and spent the night finalising a slideshow for Sophias wedding and having a light dinner of sandwiches and snacks.

Thursday was hike day. I was excited and ready to go – first time hiking in a long time. We packed and had breakfast at the hotel – a complete overload of food, some of which we had to take along as lunch so not to waste it.

We headed off right from the other side of the road. The day was pretty warm, so we were thankful for the shade. One of the things that we noticed a lot was that many trees were affected by the “Borkenkäfer” – or  “Bork beetle”. While there are many different types (Wikipedia says 6000 with more being discovered) the type here either flies or walks to the top of the tree and lays its eggs. The little larvae then begin eating their way to the floor – inside the tree or the bark. By the time you see the exit holes at the bottom, the tree is pretty much dying. In a healthy tree population, this isn’t a problem, but current climate conditions mean that the trees themselves are stressed, and that the beetle has perfect breeding conditions, and they are decimating a lot of forests, which in turn is bad for climate, causes more stress for the remaining trees… you get it.

As a silver lining though: in THIS part of Germany, the trees mostly being killed are introduced species, which the forestry department has a multi-decade plan to remove. In the case they’re really helping!

Along the way we also found a Frog!

What you do notice again and again is that there are large spots of brown dead or felled trees throughout the forest area. None the less the views from the top – in particular the Bastei bridge. One of the fascinating things here is a medieval castle, built into the rock formation. We were thinking about visiting, but between Corona and large visitor numbers on such a beautiful day, we decided against it after all. Instead we continued wandering through the forest a bit more.

By the time we got home it was starting to get dark. We briefly considered driving somewhere for food, but decided that our remaining sandwiches and snacks would suffice for another night. By around midnight I finally finished the slideshow for the wedding (technical issues, lesson learned: Don’t use apple Photos for slideshows you want to have any control in).

On Friday we had two things on the Agenda: A visit to a historic people lift in Bad Schandau, which my grandparents remembered fondly as they had a chance encounter there as kids years before getting together as a couple. The story is great: My grandmother was there on a school excursion and my grandfather and some friends had decided to cycle over from Berlin – the whole 250 km! While staying in the area my grandfather had an accident on the bike, and was put up in the same Hostel to recover. My grandmother was asked by the hostess to look in on him every now and then to make sure he had food and drink as he healed.

So this list has some historic significance to all of us – my parents had been there before too – and I was glad to finally get a chance to visit it myself. Nowadays it counts as an engineering monument, so while the lift itself has been upgraded a bit, it still works with the same principles as it did back then.

And I have to say, the view from the top was spectacular! We even managed to call Oma on Alexa and show her where we were and the view for a bit 🙂

Our next stop was the Castle Königstein, which frankly we underestimated. While I was my usual upbeat “let’s spend all day moving” Manja was, understandably, a little exhausted from the previous day 20km hike. So after making it all the way up the hill the castle is built upon, we decided to head back and conquer on another day. Instead we headed back to town for an iced-coffee. We mis-communicated a little and I was expecting food with the coffee, while Manja was happy to just have an iced-chocolate. So we wandered town looking for a good place to have a snack, but could only find places which sold cakes. So after walking around for a while we drove to a large cafe which we spotted on the way from the castle, but which I had deemed to be “too industrial” – meaning that it wasn’t like a nice little country bakery. They had everything we wanted and I had some scrambled eggs for brunch while Manja had a piece of cake. Of course, the cake once more attracted all the wasps in the area, so we retreated inside to allow Manja to eat in peace.

From there it was a couple of hours to the wedding venue, and our hotel in the area, so we decided to head straight there. Just as we were about to arrive, we got a call from Manjas mum, asking if we could pick up some extra tablecloths in Dresden, which we did, managing to drive back through traffic (The whole Autobahn was at a standstill for sections!) to get to the store 10 minutes before closing time. Of course, they took cash only, and we had insufficient cash with us, so we raced to the nearby petrol station to get cash and got the tablecloths moments before closing time. Phew!

To the rescue! Picking up table cloths!

From there it was about an hour of driving through now peak traffic to deliver the tablecloths and help with some of the final setup touches. By the time we got to our Airbnb we just grabbed a Döner at a nearby takeout, ironed our festive clothes for the next day and dropped into bed.

Our nice accommodation

Saturday it was time for the Wedding. We headed over to the venue by 10:30, and then over to the Standesamt with the Groom. The Bride arrived in her stretch-hummer a short time later, much to the amusement of passer-byes. Thanks to both, size of the office and Corona, only the closest family could be inside, so I got to have a break outside with a few people while the ceremony happened.
As they returned outside I got to point-and-click with Manjas camera, realising once again the difference between someone who knows how to use a camera and me 😅 The photographer arranged some photos before we all piled into the cars and headed back.

We were at the venue well before the bridge and groom, who were being driven around with their parents  in their hummer for a bit. This gave us time to sneak in our slideshow and prepare everything. By 14:00 they arrived and had to cut their way, using tiny scissors, through a heart on a bedsheet. The Groom then had to carry his bride through the heart, and just as he did someone set off confetti cannons. Now I’m not one for these things, but the timing created a truly awesome moment. They had to saw through a log before eventually getting inside of the venue and welcoming everyone. In the welcome they mentioned that we might start with coffee and cake a bit earlier, which everyone took to mean “eat it now” and promptly got into it.

After cake there was a bit of a gap in the program as the couple headed off to have photos taken in the ruins of the old cloister, which we used as an opportunity to also explore said ruins as well as the herb garden.

It’s a pretty spectacular venue, which they are restoring bit by bit, funded by events such as the wedding.

Toward evening we returned for some group photos before dinner. The dinner buffet was so extensive that one could not even sample it all – and it was all really good! Enter a few more wedding games and dancing, meaning time passed quickly. It was a bit past midnight when we eventually headed off.

Sunday we just drove home – Unfortunately Odin had been ill while we were gone and proceeded to vomit all over the place. The awesome cat-sitter had done much of the clean up in between already, but we still spent the afternoon cleaning everything up once more before eventually dropping off the car.

The next Wednesday we used the nice weather to catch up with Ilka at a local pizza-slice place just around the corner from us, after grabbing some slices we spent the evening chatting in our local park.

That Saturday the weather started to change, and we slept really poorly for it. We spent the afternoon at equivalent of Berlins Asian markets, the Dong Xuan Center.  Background to this is that we’re meeting Gaby next weekend for some Wok cooking – something I’d not done in ages. Gaby has a proper gas wok-burner in her new kitchen and a wok, so I offered to make a few things, but would need some specific ingredients.

On Sunday we headed to Ilkas garden once more. We had a lovely night and ended up heading out and having burgers together.

The next week it was time to cook some wok at Gabis! We took a train to a nearby station where she picked us up in her convertible. It was fun to ride with my face in the wind again!

I had found a few recipes which I’d made before including crispy fried eggplant, sezuan tofu, some fried rice and that type of thing.
I’ve got to say it was all good, but the crispy fried eggplant was fantastic. Unhealthy, sure, but fantastically yummy. We chatted the evening away before Robert eventually drove us back to the train station. We had to leave a bit earlier than we wanted to because there was a lockdown in place needing us to be home by midnight.

Sophias Polterabend

And with that we got to August already. On the first weekend we decided to rent a car for the day and walk around a lake. We’d not spent a day at a lake yet and given that this is the thing that every Berliner does in summer, we definitely felt the need to head out at least once. We also checked out the area of Caputh, where we had looked at a house a while back.

The next day we chilled a bit and made apple-rhubarb crumble. Yum!

On Tuesday we headed out and saw yet another house. This one was in the outer northern suburbs of Berlin. The biggest drawback was that it was on a main road, and that it had the strangest lounge room. I eventually figured out that it used to be two odd-shaped rooms and they had just taken out a dividing wall. This resulted in a narrow middle part and two “deeper” sections which went around the corner either side somewhat. Hard to explain. Like this:

The brown line represents a sliding door, and the narrow part was about 2,5m wide. Either way, we decided against making an offer.

On Friday evening we were invited to Vincents place for a BBQ with some colleagues. We had a great night and Manja got to meet some of the people I work with, which was nice too. My home-made dips may have had a little too much garlic though… Whoops!

On Saturday we headed off to Cottbus to meet up with Hagen and Kai, so that we could all go to Sophias Polterabend together.

What is a Polterabend? You ask, my international friends? Well, I’m glad you asked.

In German there is an old adage which says “Scherben bringen Glück” (“Shards bring luck”). As a little Side-note to this aside: Back when this adage became popular, shards referred to all pottery, not just broken pieces. Anyway, I digress from the digression. Back to the point.
To create lots of luck for the couple, and simultaneously send the evil spirits running (which is done with noise, obviously, hence bells and fireworks) the guests all bring some pottery, Porcelain or even masonry to smash with a simple premise: More noise & More Shards = More good.

Besides the breaking of things, it is also supposed to prepare the couple for working through tough times together – after all, they must clean it all. It’s the job of the guests to not make this too easy, many will walk right through the piles of shards which the couple has swept up, to spread it right out again. Or offer assistance, say with a broom, and use this to sweep the shards all over the place again. In Polterabend as in Marriage: Sometimes society just makes your life a bit harder 😁

Finally it’s important to note that you don’t get invited to a Polterabend. It’s for close friends and family only, and for every single person they can think of inviting. If you know of a Polterabend, says tradition, you are welcome to come. After all, more guests bring more shards, which brings more luck, right?

As the weather was still fantastic we decided to head over to Cottbus a little earlier to meet up with Hagen, Franzi and Kai. We had some light lunch in the form of pancakes at Franzis before heading over to a beautiful local lake. When we got there, ready to jump into the water to cool off before the Polterabend, we were disappointed. The lake is a Reservoir lake, and it was very recently partially drained – ostensibly it’s job but not ideal for the whole swimming thing. Some people had waded out about 100 m into the lake, and were still standing. The water wasn’t all that inviting either, as the remaining water was a bit sludge-like. So we cooled off our feet and walked around a bit before heading over to the Polterabend.

As you can imagine, a Polterabend with Corona restrictions is not exactly easy, but Christians Family hosted and did this really well. When you arrived you had to disinfect your hands and register your details (for contact tracing purposes) before coming in. They had setup the courtyard with benches and tables, which were disinfected every 2 hours and gave everyone plenty of space. When we got there we smashed some porcelain – we brought along some old espresso cups, which was all that fit into our luggage that day and wished the couple all the best. We were slightly outdone when a truck pulled up and dumped a literal truckload of ceramics including tiles, a toilet and such things!

After that we caught up with a few people we hadn’t seen in a while and a small group of us decided to go for a walk for a bit too. Along the way Carmen found a grasshopper and Kai a cat.

When we returned we sat down for dinner and caught up with Ruben, Manjas cousin who had recently returned from Singapore. We talked about all sorts of things, including work, career and international long-distance relationships, which he was just entering into. Eventually it came time to leave and Hagen dropped us off at the train station just in time for us to catch the last express train, so we made it back home by around 1 am, exhausted but happy.

On Sunday we headed to Ilkas place to take some photos of her loft, as Kais studies are likely to bring him to Berlin where he will need to find some accommodation. Katrin and Kilian also dropped by with the kids. We had some coffee and cake, and even found a cool looking spider. After my spider-photoshooting session, we had a really nice BBQ enjoying the warm summers night, during which I may or may not have taught the kids some magic. Oh, and we also picked some apples from Ilkas apple tree.

 

The following week we turned the aforementioned apples into apple sauce! Some we left plain, others we spiced with Cinnamon in preparation for wintery snacks!

?! Where did July go!

When we returned from Föhr we checked out a couple of more houses which Manja had found during our holiday, again, not finding much of what we liked.

On the first weekend we got invited to Gabys family boat-tour. She arranges a family trip with her father and sister each year, and this time we were invited to come along. She had arranged a river-cruise with lunch, stopping by the Brandenburg Prussian museum, a private museum which shows the history of the Prussian empire. It was a super interesting tour and we really enjoyed the food and company.

That Sunday I finally had some time to chat with Glen – a conversation which was way overdue. I’m noticing more and more that I’m pretty terrible at keeping in touch with everyone… Sorry! 😣

That afternoon we headed out to check out another place, which wasn’t that impressive. Amongst other things, it had a mancave style garage which water ran into when it rained… During the next week we also went shopping one afternoon, trying to find a suitable summer jacket. We found nothing, though there was a white leather jacked which just made me look funny….

The following weekend was excellent weather, so we made full use of it. We checked out a place in a town called Lehnitz and walked around the local lake for a bit while I was chatting to Niko, before heading to Ilkas garden to help her shredder some things and have dinner together. On Sunday we finally headed to Freyas place, to catch up and have some coffee and cake in her garden.

Monday night we checked out another place in Lehnitz, both because we thought the area was nice and because Manja had found a few options. The place was a dump though – someone had tried to renovate it but failed horrendously. It would basically have to be torn down – or at least gutted and re-started. We decided to drown our sorrows in an excellent greek dinner at a place just down the road. The Ouzos helped, we just had to take some pictures to check whether they still seemed to be leaning slightly the next day 😉

Monday afternoon we decided to go for a walk through the Volkspark, even though it was a bit cloudy.  As we were about to head back the clouds opened up with another downpour, and we got drenched to our underwear. Luckily we were not that far from home and could easily take a warm shower 15 minutes later!

By the 25th it was nice enough again, and we caught up with Anne and Jens in Cottbus. We had given them a voucher for a day on the spree for their wedding and today was the day to cash it in. We headed all over the place, from a small hand-made-things market to paddling through the canals to a really nice trash-and-treasure market. We also stopped for a traditional lunch and dinner together before we had to head off.

 

We had to part ways for the evening, as we had to head to Sophias hens night. She had no idea that the night was being organised and we were a part of the surprise – she was super happy to see us as we walked in on the wedding party in a bar. A few hours and drinks later, we caught the last express train back to Berlin.

Kangaroo Chronicles and Seals on Wyk

Monday was an early start so that we would make the 9am departure from the central station. We packed the last few things, patted the cat and were on our way. Everything worked really well, though our last connection of the 7 hour ride was a few minutes late, putting us at risk of missing the ferry…. Which made us worry a bit and we jumped out of the train as quickly as we could. On the ferry we spent the hour on the deck enjoying the sea-air and sun. When we finally arrived on Föhr, Stefan was already waiting for us at the dock.

We handed over “Stefanie” the chili plant which Manja had raised from seed for him, and headed to his place. About half way there, Manja suddenly realised that her mask was missing, and ran back along our route to find it, while Stefan and I chilled on the steps of the water fountain. She was lucky and found it quickly and we arrived a few minutes later.  Stefan tested our sense of direction the whole time, seeing if we could remember anything from the previous year. We did okay, but probably would have taken the very long way to his place 😅

After briefly unpacking we headed for a stroll along the beach while catching up. As we headed back, it was already time to head to the shops and organise dinner. Stefan made us some awesome meatballs, potatoes and asparagus.

As night fell, Stefan and I played a few rounds of Polarity before we all headed to bed.

Tuesday we woke up early to the sound of Manja forgetting to disable her alarm from yesterday. After breakfast I spent some time chatting to my family while Manja and Stefan headed to the beach. In the early afternoon I joined them, and a bit later we got the bikes ready and rode back to the Apfelgarten Cafe, which had the best cakes last year when we were here. The ride was nice, and the Cake was good, but unfortunately not the 11/10 we gave the raspberry cake last year. Ah well, it can’t ALWAYS be perfect.

The milk bar, however, which was closed last year was open, and we dropped by to buy some local cheese.

By the time we rode home we sat outside for a bit and enjoyed the warm weather, before eventually going on an epic quest for Pizza. We didn’t think it would be an epic quest, but it turned out to be one. The Pizza place across the road was closed, so we headed to one nearby, which was also closed. Toward the beach we went only to find this third option closed too, as was the one at the end of the promenade. By now we’d almost walked in a square, and were heading back along the street the house was on, all the way to the end of the street where the final pizza store was. And they were open – or more to the point had just opened. We could give them our order, but they would take another 30 minutes to prepare the pizza. So we walked back, set the table and then Stefan headed back over to pick up the pizza which we ate in the evening sun outside. As it cooled we headed inside and Stefan and I played a few rounds of Hanabi which were fun. Once we got the hang of it we got some pretty good scores too, even in the harder modes. Eventually Manja pointed out it was getting late and we called it a night.

Wednesday we slept in. With no alarm clock we ended up getting out of bed well past 9 and had a relaxed start to the day. Stefan made us some awesome pancakes, with apples and cheese fried into them. Delicious!
Manja wanted to head back to the beach, so we went. At some point Stefan started to burn, having had less sunscreen on than us, so we decided to save his skin and head back, picking up a traditional 50c ice-cream on the way.

We spent some time inside reading and avoiding the afternoon sun, before heading out once more – this time with a mission. Get coffee and cake and clean up some of the plastic rubbish around the yacht pier, which we remembered from last year. Armed with our collecting bags, we had a really nice bit of cake for strength and then collected two bags full of plastic strings. We still have no real idea where it comes from – probably ropes used by the yachts.

By the time we got home we were a bit over-heated once more, so we chilled for a bit before I went shopping  for dinner. I decided to make burritos, but finding everything in the supermarket was complicated. It took a bit over an hour before I finally returned with the ingredients. Turned out delicious though!

In the evening I updated this blog, and we played an Exit Game (Escape room in a box) which Stefan had picked up earlier – The Kangaroo Chronicles! Took a bit longer than expected, so we ended up going to bed a bit before midnight.

 

Thursday we had an early start. There is this beautiful grandfather clock here, which tolls to announce each hour. Normally I don’t really notice it at night, but tonight I woke on every hour.

At midnight we went to sleep.
At One I thought “Huh, am I really still awake?”
At Two I thought “But I slept this time”
At four I though “Wow, I’m really noticing every time the clock chimes tonight.
At five I thought ” Wait, did I miss 3 am?”
At 6 I thought “I don’t think I slept well”
At 7 I thought “I have to get up in a moment”
At 7:30 Manjas alarm went off and I zombie-walked into the bathroom and got ready.

I did sleep between the chimes, I think, but I definitely felt groggy. So I prepared breakfast and woke Stefan while Manja got ready. A coffee and some toast later I felt good to face the day and we headed out to the bus stop. We were just discussing that the stop wasn’t all that obvious when a bus came by from the OTHER direction. Luckily he saw us and stopped, kindly picking us up where there was no stop.

It took about 45 minutes to cross the island and head to the “Watt” of “Wadden sea” – which is a flat area of sea where the tides completely recede meaning you can walk out on the ocean floor between the islands. Rather than wandering between two cities, we had decided to go and see some seals on the sandbanks.

Walking the watt is like walking along the desert floor at the precise moment that the water recedes for the first time. It’s both awesome and a little weird.

The guide was good, and had been doing these tours for around 20 years, making him knowledgable but also noticeably bored at some points.

Our first stop was around oysters. They used to have European oyster, but in the early 1900’s it was over-fished, and eventually became extinct when a super-cold winter hit in 1928/29. The oysters which plague the area now are actually imported pacific oysters, which have a distinct disadvantage for wandering the watt: They cut your feet open if you step on them.

The local seaweed, including free tasting, was next. A bit salty, it tastes a bit like plastic nori in my opinion. Crabs rounded out this stop – including an explanation of the difference between males and females, which I promptly forgot, and a demo of how they can take off a hat.

About 20 minutes later we stopped again, this time at a pitchfork which the guide leaves on a high sand-bank to use during tours. He showed us watt-worms, which are used for fishing and as a species turn-over the whole of the floor 1-5 to 2 meters each year, eating the sand and cleaning it by absorbing nutrients within it. They also have the brightly-coloured rubber-band worms, which are tiny but extremely stretchable.

The next stop another 10 minutes later was with mussels – showing how these dig themselves back into the sand. Fascinating to watch!

 

Eventually we has almost reached our destination when the guide pointed out a baby seal sunning itself. Mama seal had left It there in safety while going out to hunt in the low tide. This was lucky because the seals on the far side didn’t want to move, so we only saw them in the far distance.

On our way back we stopped at another pool of water where a couple of gray seals – the other type native to the area, were having a swim.

Walking back to shore was more difficult as we were suddenly walking into the wind, so by the time we got back to shore about an hour later we were all a bit exhausted. We had a short break at the foreshore before heading to the bus stop, where a small swallow had made its nest in the roof.

We waited about 20 minutes until the bus came, another hour and we were back home. I was super hungry, so I made a very late lunch of the leftover salsa and rice, which tided us over until dinner while we recuperated a bit. By the time it was dinner time we decided to walk to the Chinese place in Wyk, where Stefan even made the effort of putting on his red Chinese shirt. Dinner was excellent and when we got back we played a game before dropping into bed exhausted from the late night last night, the early start and the long walk along the Watt.

Friday was the hottest day in our trip. After Stefan made us his fried eggs and bacon for breakfast, we headed out with the intention of going to the beach.  Stefan had forgotten his bathers at home, so we headed into town to buy him some, also looking to get a haircut arranged for me. We arrived at the hairdresser who had a sign out front saying “You must call to make an appointment” with the number to call. I was just picking up the phone when one of the hairdressers came outside and took my booking directly for their next free slot: 5pm. Stefan managed to find bathers quickly, and we were about to turn to the beach when Manja suggested we should probably consider getting something to give us shade on the beach. Stefan actually had a beach tent, so we detoured slightly to walk past the house again and pick it up.

When we hit the beach promenade we realised that it was around low tide… Damn. This meant that the water was quite muddy, far away and about half a meter deep – just enough to cool our feet but not much more. So we setup the tent, got comfy and spent some time relaxing at the beach, reading and chatting. All of our legs were sticking out of the tent, so to prevent sunburn Manja decided to burry mine and Stefans while we read. I expected a small layer of sand, but when I turned around I suddenly found a pile of sand covering both our legs about 30-50 cm high, while Manjas legs dangled into the hole she made to keep them shaded and cool.

While I hated destroying her work of art, the tide had come in again and we could finally go for a swim, so I freed myself and headed into the water with Manja. We had just gotten to the point of actual swimming when a jellyfish strafed Manjas arm, causing a pretty strong burn. We’re pretty sure it was a so-called “Nettle Jellyfish” – painful but not dangerous at all. We’re confirming with iNaturalist though, having seen some beached once later on which Manja took some nice photos of. I immediately thought we should have brought some vinegar along too – and later confirmed that it would have worked too. Will add it to my beach-kit in future.

Manja just soldiered thought the pain and about 30 minutes later it was gone, leaving only a small red mark on her arm. We stayed a bit longer, giving Stefan an opportunity to also go for a swim while I built smilies out of similar stones I was finding in the sand.

Eventually we decided to head back to the house to cool down and get some shade before I had to head off to my haircut. Given that we had plenty of spare time, Manja even did a before and after 😂.

Having my hair shortened again for the first time since February, I left it a bit longer, but definitely felt much more civilised again. Stefan asked, retrospectively quite rightly “Wait, weren’t you going in for a haircut?”

We had an hour to kill before dinner, so Stefan and I played another round of Hanabi outside.

For dinner we had booked back into the Syd-bar, which was where we went for our last dinner last time also. It’s a beautiful little restaurant right at the beach – unfortunately not facing the sunset, but still good location and nice food. I say nice food, but the burgers which Stefan and I had were a bit too salty – not quite spoilt but close. I was super hungry, so eagerly ate mine, but Stefan showed great German principle, by leaving the last quarter and advising the waitress that it was spoilt. She apologised and said she’ll let the kitchen know, to which he responded with “Please do, and I won’t be paying for it”. The waitress agreed to this without missing a beat, offering an espresso to make up for it – and asking me if mine was too salty as well. I let her know it was very salty, but still edible. A few minutes later we got two espressos on the house by way of apology, and when it came time to pay later we only paid for one of the burgers. I’d still struggle to complain like this, and I’m always impressed when people do, after all the restaurant desperately needs this feedback.

As the days were long, we walked back home along the beach while chatting. Well, while I talked. Between the beer with the burger and the shot of espresso I was in talking mode and didn’t really take a breath between thoughts and stories. Stefan very patiently listened to me blather on, while Manja hung back and picked up some rubbish along the beach.

By the time we got back it was around 11, and we all dropped into bed.

 

Saturday was the last day on the island for us. In the morning I made my poached eggs on avocado toast with salmon for Stefan and Manja, after which we packed everything and headed to the beach one last time. Stefan and I chatted while Manja picked up rubbish, on what was a Jellyfish littered beach today.
One of the random highlights of the morning happened while we were standing at the Pier. Two girls walked by, one carrying a skateboard and the other roller skates. Stefan struck up a conversation by asking if the skateboard could be used for surfing, and she patiently explained that they had skated along the promenade and were walking back in the water. When he told them to be careful, lest they cut their feet on the barnacles or razorfish, they cheerily replied “That’s not a problem. Our feet are all cut up anyway”. Ah, that youthful spirit of invincibility! 😂

On the way back we got a last ice-cream at Hansis which is a small bakery and ice-cream shop where the ice-cream is still constantly churned in old barrels and a scoop only sets you back 50c. If you go to Föhr, I recommend dropping by – you can only ever choose from Vanilla, Chocolate and Lemon and the Chocolate is definitely best.

It wasn’t long before it was already time to leave. We walked down to the Pier and headed back onto the ferry, saying farewell to Stefan and Föhr once more, but feeling way more relaxed. After the ferry ride we had a 6.5 hour train trip which took us right back into Berlin, long, but comfortable enough.

Not your average June

Remember that short note about elderflowers in the previous month? We collected a bag full from Ilkas garden and decided to make some elderflower syrup – by soaking the flowers, adding them to sugar syrup and storing them in a jar with orange slices. A few days later they were ready to bottle. Turns out neither Manja or I love the stuff, but it was fun making it anyway, plus we can just use it in any upcoming sparkling wines 🥂
After that we decided to head down to a local lake by bike, just to get outside a bit. It was really lovely at the water!

The following Saturday we headed back over to the house from the old lady, because she was willing to discount it…. Which made us take a second look. But even though we really liked her, and we really wanted to make it work, the low ceiling ended up being a dealbreaker even on second look. On Sunday we headed to a place near Heiligensee – a rather posh suburb by our standards. The place was unspectacular from the outside, but really quite nice on the inside. There was only one problem, which I was surprised to have to bring up with the Agent: The facade was made of Asbestos! It also had another quirk – a really old heating oil store was buried under the lawn….  It was apparently empty, but pretty expensive to remove, so they just disconnected it and left it there….. Seems a disaster waiting to happen! Needless to say we decided against the place pretty quickly. As we got out of the train at Alexanderplatz in the city center, we noticed that there was some sort of demonstration happening which the Police had come out in force to deal with. We didn’t know it at the time, but it turned out to be the Black Lives Matter rally, which was peaceful until the crowd got so large that they were breaching corona rules and were told to disperse. Apparently some people didn’t appreciate that, and started having a go at the police. After the dog squad were brought in to separate the crowd by creating a one-way line which allowed people to leave the demonstration but not enter, we left too. I have to say – respect for the professional nature in which the Police dealt with this here. We repeatedly saw them target and remove key aggitators from the crowd by going in as a small group focussing, removing and backing out; all without being needlessly brutal. (It’s always going to have a degree of violence to it, but it doesn’t have to be brutal).

Anyway after the dogsquad was called in we decided to leave before it escalated further.

 

The next Saturday we headed over to Manjas family early. The train driver had a sense of humour and when we arrived at the station all the displays suddenly said “Kiss me”.  Manjas Mum picked us up and was kind enough to loan us the car for the day, so we headed straight over to the Grandparents place for an early lunch. When we arrived we found that the whole garden had totally sprung to life!  Her Grandfather even has a Banana tree which is growing well. We fixed Omas Alexa before heading over to Hagens place for the afternoon.

At Hagens place we helped him prepare for his Birthday party a bit, which included putting up a rain cover across the whole courtyard to deal with the downpour which had been forecast. We also got to meet Franzi – his new girlfriend who is really awesome. She’s still a bit shy about meeting the whole family (it’s a new relationship, kids involved etc. etc.) and so we got to be the first people in the family to meet her. But of course the family were all super curious, and asked us to send photos. We complied with the request, and sent a whole lot of photos from the birthday party where Franzi was either just visible as a silhouette, or behind people or in some way unrecognisable. 😂
Hagen also once more made his famous BBQ – he really is the man at the grill. Beers were prepared in the kids pool and when the rain did come we all remained reasonably dry. I say reasonably, because I took a seat at the edge and only realised much later that the back of my shirt was soaked from a continuous subtle drizzle.

It was a great afternoon none the less, but we eventually had to head off to catch our train back.

We had to be back home because the next day was my birthday, and Manja and my family had gotten together to arrange a surprise. When we got up I got a Skype call from my parents, and to my surprise they had invited a whole group of my friends to come together and have a party to celebrate my birthday. It was really touching to see everyone, and I was honestly a bit overwhelmed!
In the early afternoon we headed over to Ilkas place to have a birthday party in the garden and make use of the really awesome weather.  Katrin, Killian and the Kids all joined too, so we had a day of playing in the garden, having some cookies, cake and coffee, dancing, having punch and champagne, being silly and eventually having a really nice BBQ.  It was a really really nice day.

Over the next week we checked out a few more houses in the evenings – one as far as Caputh; which is a 1,5 hour train ride away. The house was awesome, as were the surrounds. It’s pretty much living in a holiday location, near a river. We decided against it for one reason only: the 1.5 hour train ride. It would be too intense to loose 3 hours every day going to and from work. We also checked out a place a bit north of Berlin in a suburb called Birkenwerder, but it didn’t match our needs.

The following Saturday we were back to Cottbus once more – this time to the Grandparents place to celebrate all the Birthday which happened in June with the family – there’s 5 all up in the family!

The following Sunday we looked at another house, this time in Karow, wich was unfortunately a complete dump. We also prepared to head over to Föhr where we would catch up with Stefan again!

On the 28th, just before leaving, we had another house – this one we lovingly called “tiny house with big tree”. It was a nice enough place, but really not what we were looking for in the end.

In pandemic mode May

By the time it came to be mid May, I had setup the office for a soft re-opening, which really meant blocking half the desks so that there would be sufficient space, and ensuring that all the extra hygiene requirements, such as masks and disinfectant, were in place. By this point we’d been in home office for about 2 months and this would give people the option of returning to the office once in a while if this was more convenient.

On the way home I dropped past the shops, to a new phenomena: As of now, there was a limited number of people allowed in shops, and security guards made people stand in line and ensure they were wearing masks on entry. It was kind of strange to be waiting to go in, but at least there was plenty of stock of all essentials again. For a while during this crisis all sorts of things had been out, besides the worldwide toilet paper shortages, we also had delivery issues with yeast and flour, for example.

As we couldn’t get together with people to play games, that Friday night we played pandemic with Katrin and Killian virtually. It was not perfectly stable, but we made it work! We were on a roll with this whole pizza thing, so we made pizza from fresh dough for dinner too – Yum!

On Saturday we decided to check out Falkensee, as there is a house there we were considering in the area. It’s quite a nice suburb, so we decided to make an appointment to see the house. After that we dropped past Ilkas place to water the garden and feed her cats for her, while she was on holiday.

On Sunday we did yet another bike tour, this time deciding to visit Gabi in the process. She’d invited us over for some seasonal fresh white asparagus and homemade hollandaise sauce. We spent the whole evening there, by the time we left it was getting dark. Rather than ride all the way back, we just rode to the train station and caught the train back.

On Sunday we spent the day at home, and I spent the morning playing board games online with Glen and Johan. It was great to get together again; I really do miss the board games nights with the gang!

The following week we had an appointment to go to our first house inspection. Yes – in Germany you need an appointment to view a house, they don’t just have open houses the way they do in Australia. To be honest, the whole real estate website in Australia is soooo good. You don’t really appreciate what you have until it’s gone sometimes.  Anyway, just after we jumped onto the tram there was a loud ringing of a bell and a massive “THUD” as the tram lurched to a halt. Manja and I were both startled as the doors sprang open. Turns out the tram hit a car which had stupidly turned in front of it. The driver, a mother, was temporarily distracted by her kids in a bad moment. Luckily the damage was only to the car and tram, no one was hurt at all.

The house wasn’t bad, but we decided not to make an offer. The property was being subdivided and a house put into the front part of it. The back property had an awesome view of a field, Buuuut: There was another vacant lot between the house and the field. If anyone ever builds there, we’d be completely closed in.

A bit later that day we had another appointment – this time to consider building a place.  Manja had found an agent who connected vacant properties and purchasers. As we waited for the bus, it decided to drive right past the stop without stopping… We called the agent to let him know we’d be about 30 minutes late and he also just said he’d swing by to pick us up. “Look for an old American car” he said. A bit later a white 1980’s Chevy limousine pulled up. Turns out the guy spent some time in America and fell in love with the cars. When he moved back, he imported and restored one.
He took us to the lot where the house would get built, and found that it had a really old wooden house on it. It would get torn down in the process but would have almost been worth restoring – I can only imagine how nice it would have been before the city sprawled around it. Unfortunately in the last few years it had squatters in it, so it was definitely rundown. We left with some idea on prices and options on what could be built there.

On the weekend it was mums 60th birthday, as well as Gabys. As we couldn’t be there to celebrate with Mum, we decided to at least surprise Gaby – including a gift from mum: A purple hat. Now that will not make sense to most of you, but it’s related to this story. Basically it’s about a woman who looks into the mirror at different ages, cumulating at 80 where it says “At 80, she no longer looks into the mirror. She just puts on her purple hat and goes out to have fun – perhaps we should all put on the purple hat a bit sooner?”

But it begs the question: Where does one get a purple hat at short notice, especially during Corona times? The answer was more obvious to me than to Manja, at a costume shop. But where is there a costume shop, asks Manja. Across the road from the Board games shop, says I, the newcomer to Berlin. I guess one remembers what’s important 😂

So we headed down the road by Tram, picking up a card game as a gift from us, some flowers and the purple hat, as well as some “60” Balloons. All from the same corner.

When we returned, it was time to call Australia to wish Mum a happy birthday – they were celebrating into her Birthday from Windy point. The restaurant was only doing takeaway because of Corona, so they improvised: Trestle tables in the carpark where the view of the city was spectacular.

On the 17th we were on a mission. Gaby had invited us for dinner, but we were going to be there a fair bit earlier: Midnight Australian time, with my Mother on Skype. We inflated the balloons on the bus ride to Gabys and walked in perfectly on time. One small catch with surprises: Sometimes people are not home 😅.
So we setup in her backyard and waited for Gaby to return. Eventually she did return and was thrilled to have us waiting there for her, and to chat to my mum a bit.
Gaby had invited a few more people and we had a lovely dinner chatting the evening away together. Oh! And I made a greek-yoghurt orange cake, topped with roasted pistachios and honey. With a few fresh strawberries, it ended up being really nice!

The following week we found a place which was a couple of houses down from Ilkas place. We went there one evening, it was a really good deal for the area, but the house itself was just too small. That and the proximity to the traintracks made us decide against it in the end.

We also had an extra day off on the 21st. We made use of the awesome weather to explore Potsdam a bit by bike. Potsdam is the next largest city near Berlin and the capital of Brandenbug – the state surrounding Berlin. There were many nice moments, but one of the highlights was a creek we crossed which had a massive amount of frogs just croaking away. We also saw something else move slowly on the shore, but we could not see what it was. Even when I went down for a closer inspection of the moving leaves, it managed to stay hidden.

Friday night we went off to see another two houses. One was under heritage protection and would have needed to have the foundations redone – something out of scope for me as a handyman. But the place had an awesome 1900’s charm. The second place was a really odd house: It was basically super high-tech in the 1930’s with all sorts of odd little quirks, including a hidden doorway. I SO wanted to buy the place, but Manja and I both agreed it was too remote. Travel to Berlin for work would have only been possible by car, which is something we both don’t really want.

On the weekend we spent some time refining our ideas on what we actually want to buy. Being the nerds we are, we built a complex spreadsheet with what is important to Manja and what is important to me. We gave it some weighted averages, and included transit times to various places we are likely to visit regularly. We then added financial and renovation factors. Based on over 50 criteria, it would bring it down to a single score.  Yes. We are nerds 🤓

On Sunday I chatted to Oma in the morning. It was her birthday the next day and I knew I wouldn’t get to talk to her much then. So we chatted and the next day I just briefly called to wish a happy birthday.

Wednesday evening it was time to check out the next house. This time we missed our connecting train and ran about 30 minutes late. The real estate agent actually came and picked us up from the trainstation – we felt both thankful and embarrassed at the same time. Turns out we were the last people to view the house that day, so everyone was relaxed. The seller was an older lady who was selling her nice little house in a perfect location. 20 minutes by train to the city center, with a nice sized garden. Her husband passed away after a longer illness, and she had moved to Germany 50 years ago from England. We really loved the garden and the location, but the house was poorly cut for our purposes. That would have still been okay because the house had a cellar. Unfortunately the ceiling height in the cellar was only about 1,9m. Too low to really make use of it; one just felt a bit claustrophobic down there.

On Saturday we headed over to a local plant center, which had an awesome sign “Entry only with wheelbarrow”. Instead of shopping trolleys, they had just arranged wheelbarrows 🤪. In the afternoon we checked out yet another house – this time near Gabys place. The location was about a 20 minute bike ride from the nearest trainstation,  but it had a nice property. The House itself was from the 1950’s and the property included a concrete barn. I would have loved to renovate the place for the next 20 years, but Manja rightfully said that it’s not much fun living on a construction site. So we decided against this one too.

On Sunday we inspected another place – this one was nice, but a bit pricey for its location. The owners were selling directly though, without a realestate agent, which makes things about 7% cheaper for the buyer.  They were selling as they were moving to Turkey. The place really was nice, but the one bathroom it had was just too small. It was squeezed underneath the stairs.  We thought about it for the next week, but decided against it in the end. After the inspection we headed to Ilkas place for her Birthday. We had great company, rhubarb cake and a fantastic BBQ.

 

Home time during Corona

As we started looking for a house, we needed to explore areas of Berlin a bit. Given the whole pandemic thing, we didn’t really want to take public transport, so decided to do another big bike tour. This time “only” 70km. I guess we could use this corona time to get fit if we keep doing this 😉

Anyway, today our tour took us into the area of Spandau, and we even rode through the Spandauer Forst a bit – a public forest where I spent a lot of time as a kid. I really enjoyed the day, and we really need to come back here at some point to just wander through the forest!

On Sunday we headed over to Ilkas garden, where we had a surprisingly buggy day 🕷🦗

On the 24th of April 2020,  it was time for a final farewell to Opa, as his ashes were scattered from a Jetty in Adelaide. The whole family came together and, except for some small technical issues (which he would have loved), it was a lovely farewell. Niko did a fantastic job at taking me along too. I’m deeply thankful that the technology to make this possible exists now, and that we have the skills, resources and care to utilise it.

Vale Opa. May you rest in peace, I’ll come and visit you by the sea when I can visit next time.

The following weekend I spent a bunch of time on Skype with the family and also a lot of time getting Alexa working for Oma. Well, after making a cheerful breakfast anyway 😁.  If we could have, we would have left to visit Australia today, but Corona forced us to remain here. To commiserate we made ourselves a comfort-food dinner. First we went shopping – now with masks – and even found a whole pallet of toilet paper – something which had temporarily become rare as people went crazy.  We decided on a nice pumpkin and potato soup, with nice rye bread, with a nice white wine. After dinner we watched a movie  and  treated ourselves to some Pringles in Tzatziki – one of my mums specialties from when I was a kid.

The next weekend was one of the many long weekends of this time. Unfortunately we really couldn’t do all that much with it, as everything was in lockdown. So we made some home-made pizza and granola for the week and cleaned up some of our IT infrastructure, including setting myself up a windows option for gaming with Australian friends in the future. That future came the next day, where Glen, Johan and I played Wingspan via a virtual tabletop game.

 

On the last day of the long weekend we headed over to Bernau, just to check out the area and get a feel for how far away it would be for us. Turns out the train ride was quite comfortable, and the town is just my kind of thing. It’s basically an old medieval town – city wall and everything – where they also have a massive medieval fair each year. Now that I know about it, we’ll definitely be at the next one!!!

Tough start in April

We started April with a day in Ilkas garden where we re-claimed a bit of the front yard from the Hops. It was hard work, but it was nice to be out and about working away in the sun.

Unfortunately the weekend before easter my grandfather passed away. He was in hospital still the previous day and had just returned home. He died peacefully with my grandmother at his side. In case you don’t know, we have a very tight knit family, and although this wasn’t unexpected, it hit me pretty hard causing me a few days of uncaring numbness. Manja was a godsend walking through it with me and helping me cope. This was the first time I really struggled being so far away – but with the coronavirus going on it would have been extremely difficult for me to support terribly much anyway.  Most of all, though, I’m sad that I did not get to see him again after leaving Australia.

The easter weekend held a lot of sadness and doubts for me as I adjusted to this reality. Manja and I went for a 80 km ride, which actually really helped. Just having time to exert physically. We also spent the evening playing some online games with friends, which was a fantastic distraction. On Sunday I also made “Oster Zopf” a traditional sweet yeast bread…. It may have turned out a bit larger than intended 😅

Monday was easter Monday, and as we couldn’t do family things thanks to Corona, I had setup a video call to chat with Amy for a bit. One of my highlights was virtually meeting her daughter Paisley 🥰

I spent the remainder of Monday putting together a slideshow of Opas life – of the photos I could get my hands on anyway.

On Thursday was his funeral – which my family arranged specifically late in the afternoon so I could join by Skype. So it was that I was at the funeral on my couch, at 10 am my time. It was a short service, but many, many of the moments moved me to tears. After the funeral we walked around the park a bit and chatted to my family.

You’ll have to bear with me here, as I write sort of a eulogy of what he meant to me.

My Opa taught me early not to take life too seriously. It took a long time for me to really learn it, and be able to relax, accept my faults and just enjoy life anyway. His guiding voice allowed me to get there. He was truly inspirational to me in how he talked about his flaws and mistakes openly to us. He explained difficult situations and decisions he faced in life and what had happened. Opa didn’t hide lifes messy twists and turns, wanting us to be able to learn from his mistakes . He was always so thankful that Oma stuck through everything with him, and was totally devoted to her. He taught me to hold a hammer properly, and to not be afraid of power tools.  Opa saw my leadership traits before anyone else, and reminded me early to keep my feet on the ground. He let me make the mistakes I needed to but was always there to counsel me by way of stories of his life. Each had a moral, usually “be humble” “trust people” “love unconditionally” and “believe in yourself”. I will miss his insights when I find myself at a crossroad.

But for every wisdom that he presented, he was always the jester. He could tell you stories of his youth, unable to deal with authority. If I were his boss, I thought many a time, I would have fired him for that. It took a long time to understand that people who are truly excellent at what they do don’t need strict rules; just the freedom to do what they need to. The moment I truly understood that was as he was telling me a story about jumping onto a workbench and yelling like a gorilla first thing in the morning just to scare his up-tight boss. Then he went on to fix the thing that no one else could fix a shot time later. And in that moment my potential as a leader doubled, and my career took off all on its own.

I’ve always said that my family forged me into the Man I am today, and I learned a great deal from each and every one of them. I am so very thankful to have every single one of them in my life, and Opas passing will leave a massive Opa-shaped hole in my heart. It can never be filled, and should never be. The sorrow I feel, though, means that I got to love him and be loved so unconditionally. I will forever be grateful, and hope to one day inspire someone else as he inspired me.

… and when my overbearing arrogant self comes to the front next time, and he will, I will hear his voice telling me to “lower my nose” and to always give everyone understanding and compassion rather than judgement.

Thank you Opa. I will miss you, and will carry you in my heart forever.

Urban ruins and Entering into lockdown

March started with a Jazz Brunch with Gaby and Mathias, to which Gabi had invited us. Mathias is the head of a Rowing club in Berlin and this was one of their fundraisers. While there we talked to some older people, one of whom was a photographer in London his whole life, specialised in American sized passport photos. It was a fascinating conversation, as you can imagine he photographed all sorts of celebrities over the years!

After the event we decided to go for a bit of a walk along the river, when we stumbled across this massive abandoned building.
Now, anyone that knows me knows that I’m not one to break rules. You could put a sign up saying “please only stand on one leg here” and I would probably do it. Manja on the other hand is fabulously rascal-spirited and sees things like “Don’t enter” as though it says “Enter here”. If there isn’t a big razor-wired fence to re-enforce the point, they are probably not serious.

As we walked across a fallen construction fence, I said “Funny, the facade reminds me of the old BLUB”, which was like a massive waterpark in the center of Berlin as I grew up. That was all it took for Manja to drag me into the building. I may or may not have squeaked.

As we entered, it became clear that it actually was the place. It was amazing to walk through it, and on the way back we checked out the history.  Turns out the place had a problem with a rat-plague, which infested the whole waterpark from a nearby river causing it to close down initially. They were not able to get it under control on the lower floors, but re-opened the upper floors as a modern spa for a few years before running out of money. It stood empty for quite a while until eventually a fire started inside, collapsing the roof of the largest pool hall. I would have NEVER done this on my own, and I am so thankful that I got to see this.

The following weekend started to get a bit more quiet as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) arrived in Berlin. On Saturday we spent some time outside and attempted to go shopping – with that weird feeling of shelves cleared out by people hoarding. So we did what any responsible person would do, we baked a plum strudel.

On Sunday we headed over to Ilkas for the afternoon. On the train Manja randomly found a snail, and took it back to the garden for a second chance in life.  We cut back a tree and Manja spent more time  in the garden while Ilka and I played guitar inside where it was warm 😅

We actually wanted to do gardening more regularly again in March; every Sunday in fact. But that was not to be. By the second weekend we started to self-isolate, spending the time sorting out the cellar and storage instead. By week three we were spending the whole week in Home Office, leaving only for grocery shopping and the occasional walk in the park in the afternoon.

As everyone caught on eventually, Germany went into lockdown with Coronavirus. Over here this meant that we spent most of our time at home and that we moved all of our social gatherings online.  We did occasionally visit Ilka in her garden and go for a bike ride to various areas just to get out and get a bit of exercise. We also got some surprise snow a few times – Odin was not impressed.

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