Mini-OE to Germany

August 03, 2012

Mini-OE to Germany–Day 3

After 4 hours sleep we we woke up to sunshine and birdsong. The air feels so different here. I don’t know how to describe it. Is it because you are on holidays? But the cool morning felt like many holiday mornings i had for example in Italy. Even now sitting here on the deck in front of our room it feels like holiday air. It is hard to describe.

Breakfast! Oh wonderful German breakfast! How I missed you. Fresh buns from the bakery in the village. Luncheons and sausages. Appenzeller cheese, I still can hardly hold back tears of happiness. It was wonderful. The kids are so lovely. Of course they were shy as I expected but it took them only minutes and they opened up. Well I think it took Lars seconds and Lucy probably an hour. So “minutes” on average. Lucy is gorgeous. She is so clever and very talented with all sort of things. Lilo’s brother Joerg did a great job to transfer the garden into a huge playground for the kids, swings, a pirate tower, sandboxes and a big temporary swimming pool.

After breakfast Lilo and her brother jumped straight in to the first major tourist attraction – visiting a hardware store. Don’t ask, yes it is normal in her family. Her dad, her brother and Lilo are passionate DIYers. I even delivered the excuse for the visit because I needed a plug for a power adaptor. We decided to get a power adaptor the same way we had when we moved to New Zealand. Get a cheap three plug extension in NZ and change the plug in Germany to a local one and you have an adaptor for three devices. And Joerg was a certified electrician.

We hit our first traffic jam on the way to the hardware store. It reminded me of the traffic in Auckland and how the people there complain all the time. Germany is worse. The traffic grow over the last 12 years to proportions which is mind boggling. There is traffic everywhere all the time. People do arrange their activities around traffic peak times etc. Is this where we are heading , too in New Zealand?

Also the cars have changed. You hardly ever see a Japanese model on the roads. Mainly German cars like VW, BMW and Mercedes, a lot of Opel (Holden) and European cars like Fiat and Alfa Romeo, Fords and French models. But hardly ever a Japanese. This was very different when we left. Lilo’s brother told me that there was huge competition between the car makers and the Europeans were fighting to win back the European market with new models and low prices. They seemed to have won this battle.

The hardware store was huge. I was reminded by the cheap prices that we lived on a group of islands in the south pacific. The price differences are significant. It is also a good place to see new things. There were many tools and hand tools we never see in New Zealand and which would be very handy there. We bought our plug and Joerg bought a flag pole for the pirate tower at home. Coming out of the shop it is a tradition for the family to have a “Curry Wurst” which is sausage from the grill, chopped up in pieces, drowned in a sauce every take away does differently and keeps secret. I was challenged by my nephew to get a hot one which I of course obliged to. I’d say on a scale of 10 of my personal hotness scale the sauce was maybe a 3. But the little boy was waiting for my eyes to tear up. I am sorry, mate, no-can-do! I am a trained chilli aficionado. You gotta do better than that.

We then strolled through some more shops in the mall, Lilo and her sister in law of course had to browse through some fashion stores with the men sitting outside talking about the usual stuff millions of men talk about while sitting outside a fashion store waiting. We then had some ice cream which didn’t really blow my mind and went into a food store. Again the prices are often ridiculously cheap. Wine beer and other alcohol is probably a third to what we pay at home. I couldn’t go past a special of our two favourite Italian liquor and we bought a bottle of Ramazzotti and Averna. So now we are touring through Germany, visiting our relatives and having our bottles of booze with us. Ahh well, they need to accept we come for some barbarian islands in the south. And I am sure we will have occasions where some strong alcohol will come in handy.

Our trip back brought us to one of our favourite places when we were living here. A place at the river Rhine where people are gathering to watch the ships go past. There is a small beer garden where you can get the typical German beer garden food. I had a Wheat beer from one of my favourite breweries, a Hoepfner Keller Weizen. The kids made use of the swings and we enjoyed the scenery.

We used to come here often by bicycle which was about 50 km from where we lived. Riding our bikes was our favourite thing in the German summer and our route strangely enough always included some beer gardens. We have a lot of nice memories here.

Back home, more beer, another delicious meal with German meatloaf baked in the oven. It is interesting that the family buys their meat in a backyard butchery. This is a guy who loves butchering and just like our friend Frank back home has a small butchery where he sells to neighbours and people who hear about him. The products are outstanding, all hand made, he makes whatever you want. Prices are again very competitive. I was really surprised that businesses like his can actually exist in a country like Germany who has so many rules and regulations.

Of course Lilo couldn’t resist the children’s play ground for too long. And once she is in full swing you can hardly stop her.