T.T.N.B. Family Adventure

Isn’t it nice to know that creative people are all over the world??

Look what I have come across…

An angel in my favourite colour!

This one looks like she is really surprised to see me every time I pick her up.

aren’t these angels gorgeous?

Steffi (the mother of Max and Birgit’s neighbour) makes these little creatures (and many more).  Of course I had to make some of them part of our family 🙂  Steffi puts them together in all sorts of colours and combinations, depending on what you like.

Made to measure angels!  Too cute.

Tanja

Dear Readership,

I must apologise for not writing on my blog over this last week.  The worst  is that I don’t even have a ‘proper’ reason for it….it just didn’t happen.

Anyway, I am sitting at Starbucks in Moenckeberg Strasse, which is the shopping mile of Hamburg City, and the Chai Latte is as delicious as it is at home and if I may so, beats Chinese Tea at Starbucks any day.  (I just noticed that the scene behind me doesn’t at all look like Starbucks and that is because they are sharing the space with a ticket agency…).

This photo was taken by a handsome young German man (where were those when I was young?) who was at Starbucks with his attractive young German woman friend (they have always been around.)

So, first things first…A BIG THANK YOU to to Birgit and Ingrid who made this day possible for me!!!  They are sharing my children between them for the afternoon.  I am quite sure Tessa, Nick and Ben must be as pleased as I am to be apart from me for a little while, as we have been together every day since leaving Germany.  I will pick them up and say good night to them later today….

I have set out with a relatively short list and must say, had the most successful day shopping.  One of the items on my lists was a pair of new gloves for me as I have lost one of the ones I brought and one glove really isn’t good enough in this climate.  I guess one glove only is no use in any climate.  So I went into this huge department store and found no less than 12 stands of gloves!  It took me for ever and it felt as if I was making a vital life changing decision.  There were lined ones and unlined ones, there was every colour under the sun, plus all the same colours again but with stitching on top, then were the ones with fur at the end and one could choose those in short version or longer ones that go up your arms a bit further.  Oh, and the knitted gloves were somewhere else altogether.  These were just the leather ones…

These are two of the twelve stands…well, that’s six stands with two sides each.

I bought a pair of silver grey gloves to match the grey cord coat I have in Auckland, the glove I have here is a brown colour, I still have hope to find the lost one (I think it is somewhere in the apartment) so I made a very sensible choice.  For some reason I found the gloves quite expensive comparing it with other items of clothing.  In fact I bought a pair of summer jeans for the same amount, which was Euro 25, around $30 or $35 Dollars.

At this point I would also like to thank Sabine to send me all the names of all the shops I should go to.  I haven’t checked yet, but think I have been to quite a few of them and it is only 16:15 so there is still some time to go before I have to board the U-Bahn to head back.

If you are sitting somewhere south of the equator while you are reading this, you may be interested to know that it is getting very dark out there.  Also, as this is a pedestrian zone, they have started setting up for the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) which will start on Monday.  All the lights will be so beautiful.

Here is a little taster…actually the Christmas light photo didn’t turn out so I show you a different photo I took this morning just outside of the U-Bahn station…

This is outside a fruit and vege shop and they are selling advent reefs either made up or to assemble yourself. For those non Germans…4 candles go onto the reef and each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas one more candle is lit…1st to 4th advent! These are on sale everywhere now.

Bonnie, don’t worry I will remember to take many more Christmas photos. Oh, by the way this photo is for you, too, to remind you of your youth.

A demonstration!

Just as I was crossing Moenckeberg Strasse a police car and quite a few police men and women were coming up the road, followed by loud voices, banging and then a crowd of people holding up banners…a demonstration!

‘If Kids are united they will never be divided’ hmm I should look up what the actual issue was here.

Something about youth rights to work and their hourly rate (I think).  Another vehicle followed with a rapper of North African decent and dread locks, rapping (as in singing) in German about youth rates…quite a bizarre combination I thought.

Oh and talking of bizarre, when I was looking at yet another rack of clothes in yet another shop, I looked up because I heard a familiar language that was different from German.   Once I looked up I stared at a Chinese  woman and her little daughter, probably appearing quite rude.  It took me a moment to realise that what sounded familiar was the Chinese…how weird is that???  I am not sure if that is because we have just been there or because it sounds much like Auckland walking down the street.

Ok, I will head back out into the cold to see what else I can see and experience and promise to update this later on tonight.

It is now later on tonight, 21:48 to be precious (I had a long Skype session with Andrew) and you won’t believe what happened when I left Starbucks…

More police, this time heavy duty gear on and YES another demonstration, this time down Moenckeberg Strasse.

This group was against the war in Syria and the stuff happening in Gaza.  Many were carrying Palestinian flags and the shouting was about “Deutsches Geld, deutsche Waffen, Frieden schaffen, Gerechtigkeit” (German money, German weapons, make peace, justice”.

Sorry a bit blurry, was in a hurry, it was dark and raining. Well and it’s just a bad photo.

But check out the gear on this group of police people…

On the front he had heavy duty shin protectors that went above his knees. They were carrying helmets, too.

they were to the left and the right of the group checking out the pedestrians, searching for trouble.  They were all big blokes and the female officers were also big and scary looking.  Saying all this, the guy in front, whom I took the picture off, gave me directions to the underground station.

Following his directions I saw the ‘Europa Passage’ which Sabine mentioned to me and would you believe it the last item on my shopping list, which to this point I had not managed to find, was full filled….new boots!!  After a good 8 to 10 years of wearing my brown boots I have now found a new pair to replace them with.  I am most pleased and as I can hear Nalini and Jayna gagging for a photo I shall get the camera and take one…

The photo does not do them justice! They need to have a pair of legs in them.

Again, they were a steal in contrast to NZ and I bought two pairs of cotton long underpants for the boys for Euro 9 (that’s $12) for the two together!  Anyway, you can probably tell that I am well pleased with today’s results, so thanks again to my amazing aunt and cousin.

And look what I had for lunch…

MIne was the one in the front on the left!

It’s a local (as in northern) speciality called ‘Krabbenbroetchen’ and I bet all you northern German people just said the word out loud rolling your ‘r’s.  It’s a very cute word in deed.  ‘Krabbenbroetchen’ ‘shrimp roll’.  The reason it’s a northern speciality rather than any other region in Germany is that there is no ocean in the south (or anywhere else really), just in case the Antipodeans amongst you were wondering.

So, that’s it from me, we are off to the ‘Ostsee’ tomorrow, which is that bit of German coast line I just mentioned.  I am looking forward to the day and we promise to take all three cameras and see what we can come up with for you.

I also promise to update events from last weekend over the next couple of days.

Good night

Tanja

For those uninitiated…The Hamburger Dom is an institution, we first saw a little version of it at the Miniatur Wunderland, and it is only here for certain times during the year…perhaps Sabine knows when exactly.

For those of you familiar with Auckland, it is a mix of Rainbow’s End and The Easter Show at least I think so as I have been to neither of those two places yet either.  I am actually a bit of a fun fair gringe coming to think of it. So I surprised myself when I suggested to Birgit that perhaps it would be a good idea to take the children to this event.

They nearly blew it leading up to it with outrageous behaviour, but that would fill a blog all on its own, so it shall only be mentioned in passing here. We did go in the end, and as it so happened it was the first day since our arrival that even I was seriously cold…it had zero degrees that day!

We arrived at the Dom in the late afternoon via U-Bahn (the underground, which Ben takes particular delight travelling in.)  When we came up from underneath the ground there was a ticket control…but OMG I have not seen this many ticket controllers in one place ever!  No kidding, there were around twenty to thirty of them.  Birgit reckons it was because of the Dom and it being a Friday night.  They even had a dog there, a German Shepard.  When we left the Dom later on they were still all there and I took a photo of them.

Big, scary German ticket controllers with dogs.

The entrance to the Dom was immediately next to the exit of the train station and the very first  few stands brought back images of my child hood as the stands then looked not only the same but they carried exactly the same foods.  The most prevalent being the gingerbread hearts.  We didn’t buy any, but I am sure the ginger bread is still hard and old, just as it used to be all those years ago.

Gingerbread hearts are part of the Dom.

We did buy a bag of ‘gebrannte Mandeln’ which are sugar roasted almonds, they are warm and yummy.  We also had ‘Schmalzkuchen’ which was a first for me and suggested by Sabine.  They taste a little bit like a donut and come in little morsel size.

Sabine, this ‘Schmalzgebaeck’ was eaten for you!

Have I mentioned it was cold that day???  When Tessa and I went to the loo she said to me that her legs were blue!  As far as we were concerned we were dressed to the hilt, a few layers under the jacket, scarf, hat, gloves, coat or ski jacket but then Birgit asked me if we had anything under our jeans and of course we didn’t.  Never occurred to me, while Birgit and Jana had long johns on as well as ski socks up to the knee and lined shoes.  Ah, we live and learn.

Birgit and Jana were dressed very warmly but even their noses turned red!

So our first ride was the Geisterbahn (the ghost train) which was fun but slightly lame as it was designed for younger players.  At this point we also decided to have some sausage to warm up.  Ben didn’t eat much of his as it wasn’t quite to his liking.  He really needs to learn to eat stuff that isn’t 100% as he is used to.

Die Geisterbahn

Tessa and Nick on the ghost train ride. Before the ride to be precious.

The children then went on a ride called the cattepillar.  It was great fun, however the speed of the ride made everyone slide to the outside of the cart, were poor Tessa was sitting, so she got a bit squashed.

Post caterpillar ride.

We then walked around and had little bits of this and that to eat and drink, except forBen who turned whiter and quieter by the minute and when I asked him if he wanted something to eat he finally said ‘no’, he was too cold.  Poor child probably was close to hyperthermia despite the various layers and ski jackets so we stopped at a pizza stand and I forced some hot pizza bits and a hot chocolate down his throat and after that his cheeks returned with some colour and he re-gained some energy.  We had a chat about cars & fuel and bodies & food….

Ben getting his energy back.

The children had one last ride each,

A bumper car ride.

then another last ride each

Nick and Jana after the ‘Kettenkarousell’ , the chain merry go round. the faster it goes the higher the chains fly.

Tessa really liked this ride, too.

and then we bought a very long gummi snake from the very first store where we entered the fair and took the subway to return home.  In the subway we could slowly start feeling our legs again and Birgit typed a message on her iPhone in slow motion because her fingers were too stiff to work properly.

On the subway on the way home.

Exciting news, my other cousin’s (Armin) daughter (Esther) from Munich has decided to come and visit  us on Saturday.  She is 19 years old and stayed with us in Auckland for six weeks, so the children are excited to see her the next day. We were all asleep within minutes of lying down in bed, which is why this blog didn’t happen until tonight.

Good night all Tanja

PS This picture of Birgit is too nice not to include…

Birgit is watching the children having fun.

So Ben wanted his hair cut to be seen as well, so here we go, with ‘creeper’ who was also impressed…

Ben with new haircut and creeper showing off his wing span.

Today I accompanied the boys’ class to Noctalis, which is the bat house in Bad Segeberg, a 45 minute bus ride from here.  It was a fun trip and I am glad that I went along as I know a lot more about bats today than I did yesterday! Here are some photos of a German class trip…I must say it is a lot easier to keep track of a bunch of NZ kids, simply because they have school uniforms on and when one goes astray, it can easily be spotted by the uniform colours.  Not that anyone did go astray, we were a very civilised group in deed.  Another mother was on the trip and she had a magic backpack in which she had little elves hidden that were cooking and cutting while we were talking.  She pulled out cute little meat balls (Frikadellen) which were super tasty, then gorgeously sweet tasting cherry tomatoes, then sliced capsicums, then delicious salami sticks, next came Frankfurter sausages, then some mini Hanuta (yummy hazelnut wafers that were favourites of mine when I was a child) and for deserta chocolate chip cake cut into small pieces.  I am telling you it was like magic in that back pack and I am sure had we stayed any longer her little elves would have cooked something else.  Thank you Jasmin.

Two classes, 3c and 3a, were on this trip together. Here they are having their breakfast break around 10:00am.

Ben is the slightly pale looking boy in the red and white striped jacket in the middle of the bottom row (I caught him reading at 22:00 last night…Harry Potter has a lot to answer for!) and Nick is in blue with blue beanie in the middle, above Ben in the top row.

Nick at the later lunch break in the same spot eating a German roll for lunch.

And here is Ben at lunch, sorry couldn’t turn those two photos around…

Here is what the building looks like on the outside,

Noctalis, das Fledermaushaus (such a cute word).

I have learnt that there are up to twenty varieties of bats in Germany, that bats have habitats all over the world, except for Antarctica and theArctic, they hibernate for up to four months in winter in their winter quarters and in order to do so they have to eat a lot of food in summer, up to three thousand (3000!) mosquitoes a night! They store their fat on their back, between their wings and it needs to keep them alive for those four months.  Their heart beat during hibernation slows down to three beats per minute and theydrop their   body temperature to use as little energy as possible.  If they wake up too early, say January, and spring hasn’t sprung yet, they won’t find any insects to eat and die.  Females get together to raise their young and a bat gives birth hanging up side down and it catches its young in its tail wing.  That’s pretty agile, don’t you think?  If their young ever falls of the wall, bat mums don’t go and pick them up, they just die.  I guess they can’t really pick them up…nothing to pick them up with.  Ben got particularly friendly with one of the bats….

This bat ended up coming home with us. At present its name is ‘creeper’ but that seems to be a work in progress.

The area where Noctalis is located is very pretty in autumn, which as you might know is by far my favourite season and look at what I could feast my eyes on..

A German village along a river during autumn…sigh

more sighs…

Creeper also had a friend at the Fledermauhaus, Hedwig, who wanted to go home with Nick and then we found a little friend for Tessa, too who is yet to be named and who might spend  the rest of its day on our notice board as it is a clever little bat with magnets in its wings.

The clever magnetic bat.

Hedwig the owl.

It was a fun day with lots of learning and all of us are quite tired, yet again!  We had gebratene Maultaschen again for dinner…hm yummy we really like that!! Tessa is lying on her bed, giggling Harry Potter is doing something rather funny.  It’s very economical getting those books, because all of them are reading them, although at a frightening speed.  Oh well, once they are done, I could re-read them

Good Night from all of us
Tanja xxx

Today, being Monday, has been a day of chores like shopping, making arrangements for the week, lists oh and yes a little shopping.  Have two new yoga/gym trousers and two T-Shirts as well as some wooley socks with the non slip stuff on the bottom for the boys.  Normally Tante Ingrid sends me those at the start of winter, but this year I am here to buy our own!

Jana and Birgit came over for lunch and we had Spaghetti Bolognese.  Ben was very excited to have “some real food” (his words), as I have been warming up lots of yummy sausages and German meats and breads without much ‘actual’ cooking like I would at home.  Different kitchen, not the right gear…you know lots of reasons 🙂

After that Birgit kindly offered to cut the boys hair at her place, for those who don’t know, she is in fact a Friseurmeisterin (that is a master hairdresser) and I must say the boys have never looked so suave.  Daddy usually does a very good job, but watching the pro at work was impressive with some technics thrown in, that I might have to find out about so I can pass them on to Daddy for future use!

We took photos of Ben ‘during the act’ with Birgit’s iPad and I emailed them to myself on my iPad, but while I have them on email now, I don’t know how to put them onto my general iPad system so I can share them on the blog…any ideas anyone??

I took a photo of Nick when we were home again and here it is…

Nick after his first professional hair cut!

He then started messing around and looked like this.

Nick imitating a funny face Ben made during the cutting process.

Tessa had an invitation from one of Jana’s friends at school to join her at gymnastics.  This girl Teresa has been doing gymnastics at quite a high level for some time and as Tessa had asked me before leaving Germany if she could start gymnastics next term, I thought it would be a good opportunity to ‘check it out’.  She went from 17:00 till 19:00 tonight and really enjoyed it.  I think Tessa is missing all the sports she would be doing at home and while she is mentally tired, her body isn’t being employed quite enough.  I think she would love to go back on Fridays and the remaining Mondays.  I hope that will work out for her.

So,  tomorrow I will be a parent helper for Nick and Ben’s class going for a school trip to the ‘Fledermaushaus’ the bat house…watch this space…!

Tanja

Today Birgit and Jana took us into Hamburg city centre via U-Bahn (underground train) and the bus.  Curtesy of Sabine and her birthday  present to the boys and in fact Tessa and I, we went to the miniature world, which is located right in the harbour in Hamburg.  I really like the area there and remember it well from a previous visit.  In fact we are planning to spend more time there next weekend, so for today I will just insert a little taster…now that I can!!! 🙂

The Speicherstadt, a unique historic warehouse complex, where boats used to ‘park’ alongside and cranes unload the goods through the windows straight into the warehouses.

Anyway, back to miniatures…this wonderland is set in one of these fabulous old storage houses just like the one on the photo above.  Floor after floor it is laid out with amazing little worlds.  Each room or area has a theme, starting with various ages in the story of mankind on the ground floor, to Hamburg specific attractions on an upper level.  I must confess we missed out the Scandinavian section altogether, as after a couple of hours we were saturated and needed some good fresh harbour air!

I did notice a few grandfather, son and grandson combinations around the place, and it seems a popular place for small groups of young male adults, too.  There were lots of local people on a Sunday and a few tourists, just like us.

I think the Hamburg specific miniature areas were the most attractive ones and the most relevant to us.  The children really liked it all and there were lots of amazed “oh” and “ah”s as not only were there plenty of trains driving past everywhere, but there were buttons to be pressed that made the little figurines do things.

Here are some examples…

Ben admiring one of the scenes. It looks weird with ‘real people’ in the backgound, doesn’t it?

Could be a photo of any German city itself, don’t you think?

This was ‘back stage’ at a concert…public toilets ha ha

;

Hauptbahnhof in Hamburg

We were quite hungry after all this and had ‘Asian’ food in a pleasant place in ‘Hafencity’ which reminded us a bit of the Viaduct area in Auckland.

There was a nice little playground where the children could get rid of some energy gained with lunch.

At lunch in Hafencity.

Me at the playground, chilling.

;

Birgit cuddling Jana

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Nick and Jana being pushed by Tessa (note the new shoes with purple laces!) after Ben abandoned post ( he was meant to help pushing!)

After that we went to see the ‘real’ Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (the main city railway station) which is a very impressive building and we went to book our ongoing train tickets.  I am amazed to report that any children under twelve traveling with a grandparent or parent travel for free!

So all our ongoing tickets from here to Fulda, from Fulda to Heilbronn and from Heilbronn to Munich, including seat reservations, were Euro 149 (just under NZ$200).  That is very reasonable, considering we are travelling the entire length of the country.

Excellent, I will email all relevant times to all relevant people in the next couple of days.

Needless to say everyone was extremely tired tonight and Ben mentioned that he was looking forward to going to school again tomorrow!  That’s just dandy, don’t you think??

That’s it from me,

Bye for now

Tanja

xxx

Dear Readers,

I have just spent the last hour updating a few blogs with a few remaining photos on the iPad, which the children had uploaded from their cameras tonight before going to bed, as by deleting all the other photos on the iPad earlier this afternoon, we had created space for the first time in over a week for them to do this!

So if you want to catch up on photos…the first blog I updated was ‘Our Last Day in China’, then ‘A Day Travelling’, and ‘Sunday’.

Can’t wait to hear from you all and am soooo happy to feel connected with you again and finally be able to share some photos.  I am such a dope…!!!

Much Love

Tanja

PS and just because I can I shall add a couple of photos here, too…

A row of houses in a nice suburb, close to the horse stable and the boys’ school. In the north far more red brick is used than in the south, so this is all quite special to me, too.

Even the wood piles are exemplary in their tidiness!

This horse stable is minutes from the boys’ school…just look how tidy it is!