Tavira, Portugal - Sun, Surf, Sand and a short trip to Spain

boats at the waterfront in Cabanas

Hauke and I took the train from Faro to Tavira, 30km east, around midday. It only cost a couple of euros, so I was expecting the same level of service as I experienced in Sicily, but apart from the trains being several decades older than the majority of others in western europe it was great, having an actual timetable and sticking to it!

Tapas on our balcony in Tavira

Tavira is a smaller town, of around 10 000. Unlike Faro, its a small, sleepy town, with no big office buildings and a smaller amount of tourism. I found it much more beautiful than Faro, with old Moorish architecture and castle ruins perched on a hill that gives an amazing view of the town. After lunch at a cafe, we headed to Viva Rio to check in, a new guesthouse on the riverbank with cheap but really nice rooms with a bathtub that I made the most of, our own balcony, and a bigger rooftop balcony with a great view - I really recommend the place!

Me and Hauke on the beach in Ilha de Tavira

The best beaches near Tavira are located on islands a little out at sea past sea pans, so after dumping our stuff we took the ferry to Ilha de Tavira, which is claimed to be one of the best beaches in the Algarve. There are some tiny houses, built in the early 1940s there, and a bunch of restuarants and bars. It was later in the afternoon when we arrived, and I did have sunscreen on, but I still managed to fall asleep and get badly burnt. After a quick mojito, we headed back to the village and spent the rest of the evening enjoying tapas and wine on the rooftop watching the sun go down. Unfortunately, my level of discomfort increased to the point where sitting was painful and after the sun went down I ended up back inside lying facedown with the airconditioning system pointed at my back begging for more applications of aftersun every ten minutes of so!

Old church in Tavira

The following morning was Hauke's birthday so I headed out early to grab food for breakfast, and after deciding to go to the next town over, Cabanas, to reach the Ilha de Cabanas, we killed some time waiting for the bus by exploring the old section of the town on the hill next to our hotel. There is a couple of beautiful old church, a freshly painted convent and many amazing houses on steep lanes or small plazas, but the most incredible is the castle ruins. There is a section of walls still standing, with a beautiful garden planted inside. From there, you can climb up, walk around the walls and have an amazing view from the towers.

Ilha de Cabanas

After a quick beer, we headed to Cabanas, a small village just 7km away. While originally a tiny fishing village, it has been recently developed for tourism, with a new broad walk along the harbour and big resort hotel buildings along the shore. We took a boat to the Ilha de Cabanas only a couple of hundred metres away. This was one of my favorite beaches in Portugal, with raised wooden bridges leading up to a restaurant perched on the top of the island, and down to the main beach on the other side. I was much more liberal with the sunscreen this day, and we had a great time - I'm jealous that I've never got to spend my own birthday lying on the beach!

Tavira by night

For dinner we headed to A Ver Tavira, an upmarket restaurant next to the castle ruins, where we could again pass the evening sitting on a balcony watching the sun set over Tavira. I attempted to surprize and embarrass Hauke by getting the wait staff to stick a candle in his desert but failed by talking too loudly! But it was a nice meal, and we finished the day off with a walk around the city by night, and a few more glasses of wine back at the hotel. Its definitely convinced me to head away for another trip on my own birthday next year!

Convent in Tavira

After talking to a couple at our guesthouse, we decided to take the train east along the coast to Vila Real de Santo Antonio, a town of about 18 000 on the river that is the border between Portugal and Spain, and cross over by ferry into the spanish town of Ayamonte. They'd assured us that both were beautiful, but I'm not sure what they saw in Vila Real - being founded in the 1700s it doesn't have the amazing architecture that Faro and Tavira possess, and has been in decline for the last 50 years. We walked down the main shopping street of stores selling mass-produced straw hats and baskets and cheap chinese plastic crap and past an uninteresting town square to the harbour without spotting anything worthy of interest, and we both grumbled when we had to wait quite a bit for the next ferry, as there really was nothing more to see to kill time.

Main square in Ayamonte

Ayamonte however, was a different story. This town is a similar size, but is much older and still has a beautiful medieval old town with the narrow alleyways that I love! The town square, and many other areas, are filled with palm trees and seats covered in brightly coloured and intricately designed ceramic tiles. We walked around for a while, checking out some old churches and monuments, and stopped in the city zoo to eat a picnic lunch accompanied by the spanish Shandy beer that I had missed so much! Being able to talk Spanish again for a day was great, it was kind of infuriating listening to Portuguese, as it sounded so similar but I could only understand snatches of what was being said. The whole town was dead during siesta time, so we walked up the hill in the scorching heat to yet another church, and were rewarded by an amazing view over the little town, and across the river to Vila Real and Portugal.

Me in Ayamonte

You can notice the difference between the whitewashed walls of the more moorish-influenced southern Portugal, with the bright colours of southern Spain, although the colours of both countries seemed to stand out a lot more against the amazing blue sky and sunlight of the South compared to back in western Europe, and I took a lot of photos of little architectural details - having not had amazing experiences in Spain before, it was great to visit such a beautiful place and have such a nice day. Finally, after one last beer it was time to take the ferry back to Portugal, grab our things from the hotel in Tavira, and head back to Faro for another two nights.

More photos of Tavira are here, and of Ayamonte here.

I've signed up for Live Below the Line, and will live off €1.40 a day for five days to change the way people think about poverty and raise money for charity. Read more here, and Support me here.

Queens Day in Amsterdam and Hauke's visit

Hauke and I on Queens Day

At the end of April the Netherlands celebrates Koninginnedag, or Queens Day. April 30th was the birthday of last queen, and the current Queen Beatrix kept the same date when she took the throne. It is absolutely crazy, the whole country seems to dress in orange and get out on the streets partying. The celebrations start on Koninginnenacht, or Queen's Night, and continue the next day as people get up early to participate in a giant fleamarket all over the country - apparently one fifth of dutch families sell things, and half of the dutch population buy things every year.

Hauke in Amsterdam

Normally the Queen heads to a different town to celebrate with the locals every year, but there are organized activities in Amsterdam too, like free concerts in the biggest squares. This year, a lot of official events were cancelled because the Queen's son is in a coma after a skiing accident, but that didn't stop anyone from partying! The use of orange as the dutch national colour comes from the royal family being the House of Orange-Nassau, and people were as into it as the Irish are into green for St Patricks Day. I'd heard about Queens Day years ago from an exchange student living in NZ, and been excited about it ever since I decided to move here with the family. They were nice enough to let Hauke come celebrate it too, so he visited for five nights over the weekend.

The World Press Photo Exhibition in Oudekerk

On Friday morning I biked into the city and hired a bike for Hauke, before meeting him at the train station. We spent the rest of the day bumming around the city, doing a bit of shopping and having a picnic in Vondelpark. It was pretty cool to reflect on all of the parks in different cities and countries that we've sat and had picnics in over the last 18 months! We then visited the World Press Photo Exhibition, housed in Oude Kerk in the red light district. Its the oldest building in Amsterdam, so it's a amazing space for a photo exhibition, and the photos were phenomenal, although quite depressing given all of the subject matter. We then biked back to Badhoevedorp to have dinner with everyone before biking back to the city to go out again. Pepi and Ollie were a bit shy around Hauke for the first 5 minutes, but then they quickly warmed to him again and Pepi banished Rogier to the far corner of the table so that Hauke could sit next to him!

The old man we met in Badhoevedorp

It was a really beautiful evening so we first sat on the side of the canal by the windmill out here to drink a few beers. As we were sitting there, a old man jumped out of a car and started talking to us, eventually talking to Hauke in German for what felt like a good half an hour about Badhoevedorp and what it used to be like, and the Netherlands in general. He looked like real salt of the earth, wearing a fishermans hat, a woolen jersey filled with holes, and pants covered in paint, so I had to ask to take his photo! We then biked into the city and went to an Internations event at a club called Jimmy Woo. Internations here seems quite different from Internations in Luxembourg - people are a lot older and a lot more poncy! It was harder to begin conversations, especially because Hauke was there too, but we did talk to a group of younger people. This was also my first time in a club in Amsterdam, as my friends here normally prefer to drink in pubs or bars rather than go out dancing. It was a cool place, quite fancy and expensive, with a massive line queuing outside by the time we left. Biking home was an interesting experience, managing a straight line was a bit beyond me that night, but we made it in the end!

Hauke playing supermarket with Pepi

We were definitely feeling the effects of the night before when we woke up on Saturday, and took things pretty easy. Hauke conned Pepi into helping him get ready by drying his hair, brushing his teeth and putting on his socks and shoes for him. We didn't leave the house until after 3pm, and despite some pretty nasty weather, we biked out to Haarlem to have a look around. We didn't have so much time there, and I was feeling truly lousy, so we just had a walk around, checked out the fair set up in the main square for Queens Day celebrations, and then went to Joppenkerk for a drink. That night we babysat the kids - or I should say, Hauke babysat! Pepi doesn't want a bar of me whenever Hauke is around, so he played with Pepi and then put him to bed while I sat on the couch with a glass of wine!

The four of us up the windmill

Sunday morning we were also on duty, so we took the kids out of the house for a bit. I had planned on spending the day at the big playground out here, but for some reason the gate remained closed passed its opening time, so we messed around in a smaller park until it got boring and then took the kids up the windmill. The scraps of information I heard from the windmiller showing us around were interesting - he runs the windmill at different speeds when its raining to keep the place from flooding, instead of purely for decoration like I thought - but I spent most of the time trying to keep the kids in check. They seemed to enjoy it though, Pepi told Jacquie some crazy stories about where we'd been and everything we'd done that morning, like going to see a children's movie (probably the 10minute animated documentary on Rembrandt we saw at the windmill!).

Music stage at the Live I Live festival, the Hague

Then, we headed to the Hague to celebrate Queens Night. While the whole country celebrates to some extent, the Hague is supposed to be the place to be. Apparently years ago there used to be big riots there on Queens Night, so they started planning a lot of events to make the atmosphere more positive and put an end to the rioting. Now, they have the free Life I Live festival, which sees the whole central district shut down as stages hosting different bands are set up throughout the city and bars and restaurants spread tables and chairs out onto the streets.

Hauke and I infront of the Parliament buildings in the Hague

To get there, we biked to the airport out here and took a train, arriving in the middle of the afternoon. While I'd been to the Hague last year for a quick visit, I hadn't done more than find all of the shops, so after a quick stop at the tourist office, we set out to explore everything. I really like the Hague, its pretty and a good mix of old and modern, and seems like it would generally be a nice city to live in. Although Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, the Hague hosts the government and parliament, and the parliament buildings are pretty cool, you can walk right through the middle of them to get to the street on the other side. The palace is also located in the Hague, although the Queen lives at another residence - I don't really know what to say about the palace, I've seen so many here now and this one doesn't stand out in any way.

Scheveningen beach at the Hague

We also took the tram out to the seaside. While still part of the Hague, the district is called Scheveningen, and is a big beach holiday destination, with a huge esplanade filled with shops and restaurants and a huge pier. It is a little bit too commercial for me, and apart from the amazing Kurhaus hotel and restaurant building from the 1800s, I think the rest of the architecture there is pretty ugly. The pier is cool, we walked along to the end where people can climb a tower and bungy jump. There's several derelict builings coming off the end of the pier too, they look like former restuarants or casinos, and while I always love dilapidated buildings, I reckon these would make awesome night clubs or something similar.

Why buy one beer when you can buy five?

On the way back to join the music festival we decided to stop for a beer at one of the bars spilling out onto the street. One beer turned into ten beers, and then we were in a pretty good mood for enjoying everything. The music was all dutch, and we didn't really find a stage playing a type of music that we were really into, but we had a good time checking them all out, wandering around and getting both falafel and Febo (a dutch fast food chain where burgers and croquettes are sold vending-machine style, you enter coins and the window opens and out they pop instantly, no waiting around or dealing with queues or cashiers). I really enjoyed the atmosphere there, the streets were packed with happy people and had we not been worried about getting home early and sober enough to go out and celebrate Queens Day the next morning, we would've stayed later and really let loose.

Hauke and Anissa walking through the Jordaan

Monday morning we donned our orange gear and biked into the city. The weather was insane, after a couple of weeks of windy, grey, drizzly skies, the day was brilliantly sunny and hot, I even got a little burnt. It was a weird atmosphere biking into the city, Badhoevedorp was really quiet and empty, although Dutch flags had appeared on flag poles at many of our neighbours' houses, and there was a steady stream of orange-clad cyclists heading the same direction as us. The streets were packed so it took ages to reach Westerpark on the other side of the city - what would normally be a 40min trip took us about a hour and a half. There we met Anissa and her friend Lex from Germany and Matteo from Italy, and we spent several hours lying in the sun drinking and enjoying the free music.

Street and canal filled with orange partiers

Later, we headed into the city, walking through the Jordaan neighbourhood. The Jordaan is a really old working class neighbourhood, now really upscale and artsy. The place was truly packed, there were kids out on the street selling second things in front of their houses, people busking, stages set up at street corners with bands playing, bars spilling out onto the street, and orange decorations everywhere. The canals were fill of boats jam packing with people partying to loud music, I would love to know how many drunk revelers fell from the overloaded boats into the water!

boat party on the canals

We went to Anissa's friend's place where they had set up couches on the footpath in front of their place, in the central city next to a canal. From there, we had an awesome view of the boats going past, I bought some weird wooden parrots from the neighbour, and we passed the rest of the day drinking with her friends. Eventually, we went to get food (more Febo and our second trip to Wok to Walk so far that weekend!) and moved location to another friend's apartment just off Leidseplein, where we stayed until we finally called it a night and headed home. There, everyone started to run out of beer, and we witnessed some bizarre arguments over it akin to what you'd expect on a desert island running out of fresh water! By the time we walked back to get our bikes from the Jordaan and set off for Badhoevedorp the streets had empty and barstaff were sweeping the sidewalks. The amount of trash on the streets was horrendous; beer cans, discarded orange accessories, unsold junk from the fleamarkets, and general rubbish, however the council cleaning staff was out in full force. It was a long day, and I'm surprized we survived the 12 odd hours of drinking in the sun as well as we did!

Anissa and Lex on the canal-side terrace at Soundgarden

Tuesday we got off to a pretty slow start, and biked back into the city to have brunch with Anissa, Lex, Barbara, a friend from Hauke's university city Mainz, and her friend. From there we headed with Anissa and Lex straight to a bar around the corner, and settled down with beer out on the terrace. I also wanted to show Hauke the Tara and the Brouwerij 't IJ, so we headed back to drop of the rental bike and then I fearful perched on the back of my bike while Hauke navigated the rush hour traffic to the Tara. This was a interesting experience, as I couldn't see anything past him and he's a bit more bold than me, so suddenly he would zip through lanes of traffic or wind around pedestrians!

Hauke and I at the windmill brewery bar

After a couple of rounds of pool and a few more drinks at the Tara, we biked out to the windmill brewery bar. This time I got the hang of the perching thing and really enjoyed the free ride! Carmela came and joined us there, and we continued drinking and snacking on fries and the dutch dish bitterballen, balls of stewy meat crumbed and deep fried. Around midnight we called it a night, and after a detour for more Wok to Walk and Febo, began the ardous process of biking the 13km home with two of us on one bike. Hauke did an amazing job, and I was quite impressed with myself for managing 4km with him sitting on the back - look how dutch I'm becoming!

Pepi brushing Hauke's teeth

Wednesday morning we were up early and Hauke was off. I took the kids with me to the bus stop to say goodbye, Pepi handled it pretty well but Ollie cried and cried, it was really cute, and then the whole morning he would ask for "Hauk" and then tear up when I said he'd gone. I had a really good time with him here, but after five days of alcohol consumption and numerous trips to fast food places, I think my body was glad to say goodbye!

More photos from the long weekend are here.

Freezing February in Luxembourg - Part II

Me and Hauke covered in snow and confetti at the Diekirch Cavalcade

Wow, I've really failed at keeping the blog updated haven't I? The end of February, and also the last month here in Amsterdam have been crazy busy, so I've got a bit of catching up to do, so please excuse a couple of bad blog posts until I'm up to date again. Part I of February in Luxembourg is here, and my mid-month trip to Metz is here.

To summarize the last half of February:

I spent an insane amount of time running around completing a ton of errands and working extra. Despite my best intentions of crossing off everything on my to-do-before-leaving-Luxembourg list, there is still a lot for me to check out next time I visit!

Ollie and Pepi being all cute on Valentines Day

I went ice skating one night, at an indoor place in the city. It was actually really boring, in the memories I have of ice skating in Christchurch, with the music, disco lights and constant games and competitions, it's a lot more fun!

Valentines day was pretty quiet, I just stayed home with my two boys. It marked one year since I first set foot in Luxembourg, as I'd come out here for one night on Valentine's Day while I was staying in Brussels. Its amazing to recall my first impressions of the country and contrast them with my current feelings towards it now. I should do a round-up of seven months in Luxembourg post sometime.

Ollie, Hauke and Pepi off on an adventure!

Hauke came to visit. As I expected the kids fell in love with him immediately, especially Pepi, who spent whole weekend either tailing Hauke like a baby duck, or repetitively asking where he was. We walked all around the city checking everything out, actually managed to take Pepi out for hot chocolate without disaster, did a lot of shopping, spent an awesome night out with my spanish-speaking friends, a not-so-awesome-because-I-got-really-sick night out visiting a few clubs (Hauke got bounced from a club for being too young!) and another relaxed night out visiting a few very fancy bars. We also took the kids out to Esch-sur-Alzette on the train, and went to the Cavalcade in Diekirch, so a very intense but awesome weekend.

Diekirch Cavalcade - candy in one hand, vodka in the other!

Diekirch Cavalcade is the biggest Carnival celebration in Luxembourg. Carnival in Europe is similar to carnival in Brazil, a huge celebration before Lent begins, with a parade/street party type thing going on. Think Santa Parades in New Zealand without the Christmas theme and a whole, whole lot more alcohol. I was amazed, despite the event being 'kid friendly' with kids marching in the parade and lining the streets, the majority of adults in the parade were drinking and smoking really heavily.

Pepijn's birthday cake

I remember that they banned throwing candy in parades in New Zealand because of the dangers of kids running out onto the road, but here in Luxembourg they threw not only candy but miniature bottles of spirits, and people were walking around offering candy to kids and pouring alcohol for the adults. Very strange. You get more of an idea what it was like from my photos here.

We celebrated Pepi's fourth birthday. I made a Postman Pat birthday cake that wasn't quite as cool as Ollie's train cake, but still took quite a bit of work!

Me with friends on my last night out in Luxembourg

I went to strip clubs three times (they're the only kind of bar still open after 2am on a weekday). Definitely time to move to a new country when you're visiting strip clubs so much...

I went out with friends for a last-hurrah, it was a really awesome night and I'm so glad that my various groups of friends all got along so well when they finally met! I arrived home at 6.15am and was still awake when Ollie woke up and started crying at 6.30am.

We packed up and moved out! Ok technically this was March, we left Luxembourg on March the 5th. More on the move later...

More photos are here.

Strasbourg at Christmas time

Strasbourg - Capital of Christmas

This weekend past I headed to Strasbourg, France, to catch up with Hauke who is there for a year on a study exchange (between European universities it's called Erasmus). Strasbourg is only about 250km away, so two hours on a direct train. I'd been there for a day trip back in March when I'd been visiting a friend further south, in Mulhouse.

Hauke and I before the ball

I arrived at 3pm, and after dropping my stuff at his place we headed to the mall. Shopping usually isn't on the cards when we get together, but we were going to a ball at the university that night and we needed formal stuff. We were dashing from store to store, and kept bumping into another Erasmus student on a mission to find tights, but finally got everything done and after a few laughs at the awkwardness of Hauke trying to ask the lingerie shop assistant for a backless bra for me in french, we headed home to get dressed and have a few drinks before we went out.

A bunch of the Erasmus students

Rita from Ireland and Majorie from the USA came over, and after we were all dressed up and well-watered and had taken the obligatory prom photos we headed in. A lot of people had paid to go earlier and eat, so we were arriving as everyone was already into the swing of things and lost no time on catching up by drinking the cheap beer. A lot of faces of other Erasmus students became a bit of a blur, and while we had a good time, nothing exceptionally remarkable happened, and then sometime around 4am we toddled home with us girls feeling rather sorry for ourselves after a night in extremely high heels.

One of the many squares in Strasbourg

Saturday got off to a slow start, we didn't make it out the door until after 3pm, but we headed into town to see the Christmas Market. Strasbourg has a really famous and large one, which unlike in most cities, is spread all around the place, with many sections having specific themes. Each year they invite a different country to have their own section as a guest of honour, so this year there was a 'Little Switzerland' section with a lot of cheese and watches, including a fondue stand where instead of dipping things into a pot full of melted cheese they had cut massive wheels of cheese in half and had managed to melt the cheese on the inside, so that the half wheel was working as a kind of bowl that they could dip things into.


Hauke drunk some Gluhwine (mulled wine) but I was doubtful that my stomach was prepared to hold that down after what I'd put it through the previous night, and so I stuck to spiced hot orange juice, a nice alternative that I haven't seen before.

Christmas decorations in a pedestrian alleyway in the centre

The Christmas decorations in Strasbourg are really hard to convey through photos, just the shear volume of stuff decorating each tiny alleyway and each shop made it hard as photos where too noisy for you to be able to recognize individual decorations, and photos can't show the atmosphere or how packed the place was. It really was incredible, I thought the Christmas markets and decorations that I've seen in Germany and here in Luxembourg were amazing, but they have nothing on Strasbourg. One street even had a row of actual chandeliers encased in glass or fabric boxes suspended down the middle. The council's electrical bill must be massive, as would be the amount of money poured into buying and installing the decorations, but I guess they get it back from all of the tourists. I also didn't take so many photos because it was just too damn cold to seriously consider taking my hands out of my pockets!

Woman serving Gluhwine

The sun is currently setting before 5pm here in Europe, and it was really windy in Strasbourg, so while I think it was a lot warmer than Luxembourg, with the wind chill it was really freezing and we ended up sitting inside the massive Cathedral for quite a while just to try and keep warm! We had another quick gluhwine with a guy Hauke knew from highschool and some of his own Erasmus friends, the three of them had come for the weekend too, and then headed back home to warm up again!

Dinner at the Mexican place

We'd planned the night before to go out for dinner with some of the other Erasmus students, so we met them and went to a mexican place that Latin-American-born Majorie insisted was awesome. Unfortunately it was so awesome that it was really full, so we ended up going away for a beer and not getting to eat until 10pm! Luckily it was really worth the wait, everyone enjoyed their quesadillas and fajitas, and Hauke managed to eat his own 'plate full of different meats' (just meat. Big hunks of fried meat. Crazy!) meal and then finish off two of ours' as well!

Wandering around the city

We'd wanted to go out that night, but everyone was so tired from the previous night and so full from dinner that no one was really up for it, and we kept having issues with bouncers and places being full. After one last attempt to go to the University nightclub, a random place above what I think was a small shopping mall in amongst all the uni buildings, we called it a night and went home to bed instead.

We again didn't make it out of bed before lunchtime the next morning, and in the afternoon headed back into town. There probably is more to do in Strasbourg than either of us realise, but with me having been there before and it being so cold and christmas-dominated, we mostly just kept wandering around. We did manage to climb to the top of the Cathedral, which was cool but not as impressive as it once would have been, having climbed up church towers with similar views in most European cities that I've visited!

View of the rooftops from the Cathedral

Finally, we met up with Rita for a little bit, got our photo taken with a random drunk Russian, and headed back to the warmth to watch a movie before I headed to the train station for the evening train back to Luxembourg.


Photos are here, or even better ones from the last time that I was in Strasbourg are here.

Mainz again - my introduction to Spanish liqueur!

The train journey to Mainz was interesting, my train to Frankfurt was running really late so I missed my connection and had to wait half an hour for the next train to Mainz. While on the train, I got accosted by some young and very drunk German guys wearing lederhosen who were walking around trying to sell things from their tray of dodgy wears. It took me a long time to persuade them that I didn't want to buy their last candy g-string!

Hauke met me at the station and we went straight back to the currywurst stand, where I proceeded to eat the most spicy currywurst that they have, something that Hauke had said I couldn't do way back in December when I bragged about my ability to eat spicy food! I finished it, although it brought tears to my eyes and my mouth was in agony for a little while afterwards. This time he refused to video me, he doesn't like proof of him losing, so there's just a photo of the remnants!

We took the tram home. In most places here in Europe the transport ticketing system is really different to NZ and most people buy a longer-term pass. On trams, they normally just jump on without the driver checking tickets, and only occasionally do ticket controllers get on the trams or buses to check, so I've got quite blasé about buying a ticket myself, especially in Mainz where they cost about $5NZD. This time, we got caught out, as soon as we got on an authoritative guy said something to Hauke about his bike, we should have cottoned on then but didn't until three controllers started moving through the tram, so we stood up to get off at the next stop, which being only 50m away from where we had got on was really suspicious. They got to Hauke just as the tram stopped and he took his time getting his pass out, allowing me to jump out of the tram when it stopped, but even then the guy was asking me for mine, holding up the tram, and I slowly started trawling through my bag for my wallet, hoping that they wouldn't want to hold the tram up too long. Luckily they didn't, and another guy just asked Hauke if I lived here and then let us go. Phew! We had a really long walk home. So I might start buying tickets again now...

Feli, me and Hauke

Hauke had just finished his exams that morning, so we were heading out to celebrate. We had a few drinks at home, and then a few more at Feli's house before we went to Nora's birthday party. Because neither of us had drunk in the past month, we were a wee bit messy even by then, and there we finished a bottle of Cuarenta y Tres, a Spanish liqueur. After this introduction, I don't think Cuarenta y Tres and I will be the best of friends!

We headed with some of them to Schon Schön, where I've been a couple of times and danced for a little while, before we left them and went to Red Cat, where Hauke works (read: also gets extremely cheap, extremely strong drinks). As I've said before, Red Cat is synonymous with us drinking far, far too much and consequently suffering exceptionally the following morning, and this night was not an exception. We left after maybe a hour, with my lack of German I thought that the bouncer was actually kicking us out, which considering Hauke works there would be a good indication of the state we were in, but apparently he was just making sure we didn't fall down the stairs. We walked most of the way home, a long trip that only I can remember and is best forgotten anyway.

Hauke, Nora and I

So Saturday was a write-off. I was awake really early, and spent the day reading the news and cleaning Hauke's flat, but he was in worse shape than me for once and barely moved until the early evening. We didn't leave the house until after six, when we just went to eat at the asian place here that I think makes the best thai food in Europe (it's still nothing on Satay Kingdom) and then for a walk, before he went to work and I went for a run and then to bed early.

Yesterday morning I took the train to Frankfurt, to catch my pre-booked train from Frankfurt to Luxembourg. I should have looked more closely at my ticket though, because the train actually headed back through Mainz anyway, so I wasted several hours training into Frankfurt and waiting around.

Messy...thankyou Cuarenta y Tres for this stunning photo

I'm looking forward to getting into Luxembourg and settling down again. Part of me really loves traveling around and seeing new places, and doesn't want to be limited by working in one place, but the other part of me is ready to have somewhere to call home again, and to start putting down some real roots. The longer I am over here the harder it is to reconcile the over-achiever, involved in a million things and feeling like I was going somewhere in life old me, with the transient, involved in nothing, with no consistent support network and with no intellectual stimulation or sense of achievement new me. Hopefully I can make some friends and get involved in some projects in Luxembourg, and start learning German, to start to feel more like me again.

Back to Harste - Göttingen in summer

I'm tempted to write that summer in Germany sucks - I've been here almost week now and the weather has been terrible, it was really hot and sunny the day that I arrived but ever since its been cloudy and raining. I'm back in Harste, just outside of Göttingen where Hauke's parents live, having convinced them to let me stay in their empty house while they are away on holiday.

Church in Lenglern

I caught the train from Liege to Frankfurt on Tuesday morning, and ended up sitting right up the front of the train where I could see through a glass panel into where the driver sits, very cool! After my second train arrived at Göttingen I had to find the right bus stop and take the bus out to Harste for the first time, which I managed ok. I got inside the house without any problems, and Karin had left heaps of instructions and emergency numbers and stuff I might need all lined up on the table, she's so cute!

View of Harste, you can see it better following the photos link below

It's a little weird to be back here. When I was here over Christmas everything was covered in snow and the house was full of people, it's strange to wake up in the morning and hear only silence! I was planning on not doing very much while I was here as I am really broke, so I've spent five days just sleeping, reading and going for runs, bike rides and walks everyday to explore the surrounding countryside. Biking around has taught me to stop moaning about how flat Europe is - while Lower Saxony might not have any mountains, it definitely isn't flat! But, I'm much more used to biking around the countryside than the crazy cities here, and I'm on a bike I feel comfortable on, so I haven't had any repeats of my biking misadventures in Mainz and Gent. Late one afternoon when the sun was almost out I walked up the hill behind Harste, something I wanted to do in winter but couldn't because of the snow. The view is pretty good, you can see Göttingen in the distance and the other villages all around.

Houses in Harste

Harste is 10km outside of Göttingen. I'm not going to guess at how many people live here, but it's tiny! It has a church, a bank, a kindergarten and school, and maybe a couple of hundred houses, and rather randomly is home to the national base for Tedox, this huge discount chain shop. There are other villages only 2-3km away in several directions that are very similar, I biked around half a dozen of them. Arne said that they are becoming more like commuters suburbs of Göttingen rather than villages though, when he was a kid there was a lot more here, like resturants, pubs and shops. I don't see how even what is here gets by, with their being a bank every couple of kilometers along in the different villages.

Cows in barn on the main road, Lenglern

The countryside here is really different to countryside in NZ, in that here almost all of the farmhouses are in the village proper, and their land is bordering the village. It's common to see tractors heading down the main road of town, and I've seen cows poking their heads out of a barn on the main road of one village too! Many of the old farmhouses have the barn attached to the house, and both are attached to the neighbours' houses and barns, all in a row. It still seems a bit odd to me, I'm used to each farm being ages away from each other!

Gladebeck, the next village along

Friday night Hauke's brother Arne came out and picked me up and I watched a movie with him and a friend, and then went for a few drinks afterwards. It was good to catch up with him, and good to have an actual conversation with someone! I do think that having all this time here on my own has done me good though, it's been a really intense seven months, or even longer if you think about everything I was doing before I left NZ, and I haven't had much space from other people for that long either. The little things like sleeping as long as I want and eating whenever I want have been good. I feel a lot more relaxed now!

More photos are here.