Impressions from Paris

Click the link below to see some more pictures.
Few days in the most romantic city...

Visit from Bratislava

Back in August we had a first in series of visitors – Igor, Luba, Marketa and Richard drove up from Bratislava to spend few days with us. It was the first opportunity for us to present Hamburg as well as an occasion for a pilgrimage to Lübeck, the birthplace of marzipan. Here are few pictures from Igor.

August 21st.....First Day of Kindergarten

Sasha had his first day of school today and it was hard. There were tears and regrets... Jakub pulled himself together in time to say good-bye to Sasha tear free.

Sasha seemed to be ok as his Birthday Gnome (thanks Bibi) came to visit him and brought along two little helpers that were to make his first week at school a little easier. Jonas got the big brother gnome, so he would not miss Sasha, and Sasha got the smaller one, so he would not miss Jonas. The day went well so let’s hope...

Our little trip...

Our vacation was supposed to be 2 weeks this year so we thought we would take consecutive weeks on break – one week to visit family and one week in Greece. A quick look at vacation sites quickly showed us that Greece is not a good option this time of year, that is unless your idea of a good time is sitting on a small beach, shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of drunk, sun-burned tourists. That left us with a plan to visit family by train...Sadly trains were all booked up so we were forced to drive.

Here is an overview of our driving tour:

We had taken along “Germany’s best-loved driving tours” (thanks Filip and Misa) and had hoped to find a nice side-trip from the book. Obviously an entire driving tour was not possible but we figured we could certainly manage a good chunk We picked Goslar and spent a nice, relaxed afternoon there. It was a huge hit with Sasha as it had a real knight and probably the last Panini stickers anywhere in Germany!

We made it to Praha that same night, coming in through Teplice. Teplice, once a nice small town, now seems more like the Red Light District of Czech. As you come down from the mountains you are greeted with women “waiting” at bus stops, little huts along the side of the road that are open for business and finally girls dancing in windows in the main part of town. An entire town built on prostitution – a very disturbing feeling to say the least. (sorry no pics of this)

Jakub found his way quite easily to Mirek’s apartment – always an impressive feat given he learned to drive after leaving Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic). Mirek was happily waiting with his super home-cooked food for us and presents for his boys (Sasha, Jonas and Jakub). We were carrying our usual package of English books for him and a bottle of wine to share. We stayed up that night till 4:00am and Jonas woke up at 6:00am. Mirek took the boys so that Jakub and I could sleep in - I actually slept until 9:00 and Mirek had coffee and breakfast waiting. Ah, what a great start to a vacation.

We spent Sunday exploring parts of Praha Jakub had never seen - Vitkov (see pics below) - before heading out to Bratislava.

Bratislava for us always has a pretty familiar rhythm: fancy lunches with Babicka, lots of time spent around meals at Igor and Luba’s and the nightly swim in the lake with Igor. I think it is one of the times I really feel like I have come back to family. This is something I really appreciate right now given my parents and brothers are so far from us. After only a couple of days we had to head to Latky, one of our favourite places in the world (for a few weeks that is).




Life in Latky is simple. You go to bed early, a few hours after dark after all the wine and slivovice has been drunk and all the spec eaten - in our case after a glass of Grand Cru wine that was intended as a gift for someone that does not like wine. Get up early as the sun is bright and the crickets the most beautiful alarm clock in the world. Spend the day hunting for mushrooms, getting milk from cows, and resting in the grass.








Jakub and I both got to go for our first real runs since leaving Mill Valley - trees, hills and solitude! Heaven. The best part was there were meals waiting for both of us at the end of our jonts. I ran to meet everyone at Marta's for lunch and Jakub ran home to a great meal made by Jana, his aunt. Even got a great recipe out of it...

Babovka (Czech Bundt Cake)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
¾ cup oil
¾ cup milk
2 eggs
1 packet of baking powder

Mix the ingredients well, beating air into it for fluffiness
Pour most of mixture into bundt form, set aside small amount of dough
Add cocoa to remaining dough, pour in to form in circle as well
Bake 180C for about an hour

After only a few short days it was time for us to head back to Hamburg. We are always sad to leave this part of the country and often talk about buying something here, a small cabin is only $10, 000 USD. Just when I get really romantic visions about living here for a year friends are quick to bring me back to reality...

A neighbour of our good friends put an axe through his mothers head. His blood alcohol level was 2.5, hers was 3.0! No one wanted to press charges as there were sure the mother would not want this, the police therefore let it be. When the mother came home from the hospital, after being in a coma for a month, she desperately wanted to see her son. Unfortunately his brother had beaten him so badly he had run into the hills and was believed to be tending sheep somewhere.

Another classic....an extremely poor family sent their son off to the US to make some money. Things only got worse for them in their small town. One night a wealthy looking man came and asked if he could stay the night. The couple gave him shelter and decided they would kill and rob him. They did kill him only to discover it was there own son, returned from the US to surprise them with their new wealth.

So, real estate is cheap but.....

Copenhagen August 5-7th

We went to Copenhagen for the weekend to celebrate my birthday – Amsterdam was our first choice but a gay pride weekend in town made hotels 340euro or more per night. I love Copenhagen so that was an easy second choice. We found a great hotel on the water (Nyhaven 71) and fortunately got a room upgrade since the port-a-crib would not fit in our initial room.; yup, rooms are small!

Our first afternoon was spent exploring the Royal Residence. The guards were great, sweating like crazy in the full sun, walking around like they were hiking. Fortunately, we could make our way to the nearest water fountain and soak our feet to cool off.

We woke early the next morning and explored the old canal in Nyhaven. This was a bustlling disrtict in Hans Christian Anderson's time - full of tatoo parlors, brothels and pubs. These days it is more of a tourist destination, with higher end cafes and pubs. Though we did see many drunk men peeing on telephone poles, sleeping on the sidewalk or having "a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you" with their young female friends.

On our final day we took a boat tour, compliments of our hotel. THis was super since we have wanted to take a canal tour in most of the cities we have travelled to and thus far have only managed it in Hamburg.


After much searching, we finally found a bakery with birthday worthy treats ( a day late but better late than never). We enjoyed them here in the court yard, outside one of the stores of a great Scandinavian Design team. Jakub treated me to one of their pieces for my birthday too!

A last look at the canal before heading home....

A last look at the canal before we headed home to Hamburg...

Blogging after 3 + glasses of wine....

Jakub's colleagues just left for the night and I am left here wondering....am I fooling myself into thinking we are having a good time here in Hamburg. Each time we see someone they ask me how it is here and I give them what I consider a fair representaion of Hamburg. The response is universally, "Oh, well I am sure in 6 months it will be better."

This tells me one of two things: 1) Either we are not really having a good time or 2) I am not portraying our stay very well. An interesting question and one that I would love to explore. For now, it is 12:30am and I need to get to bed.

Bonne Nuit, Guten Nacht, Dobrou Noc and Goodnight

Harbour Tour of Hamburg

On a sunny, yet surprisingly cool Monday morning the four of headed to Landungsbrucken to catch a ride on a small boat that would guide us through the Hamburg Harbour. We were all pretty eager to see what the harbour looked like; having put the tour off first for World Cup, then in hopes we would take one of our guests along.

We climbed in our boat with about 20 minutes to spare. This gave a chance to get a great seat and for me to catch up on my In Style magazine reading - yes, I have finally found the US edition for sale in Hamburg.

As the boat took off I quickly realized that the entire tour would be lead in German, not great for me since my full attention is required if I am to understand even a portion of what is being said. Jakub desperately tried to translate for Sasha and I but given Sasha’s incessant questions and my bored look – not due to boredom but sheer exhaustion – he gave this up about 20 minutes into the tour. I on the other hand sat back and let the sun and salt water air wash over me.

The tour from my perspective was beautiful. I understood so little it was almost purely visual and so surreal. Here is this huge “city” in the middle of the harbour with robots automatically unloading ships, so futuristic. A definite must if you visit Hamburg.

Vattenfall Cyclassics

On Sunday I took part in my first cycling race – the 11^th annual Cyclassics, which is a huge event with the top level pro’s riding together with 20,000+ amateur riders. I had a great time and enjoyed the race immensely. I did the middle distance which was 100km and the course was mostly rolling and through some very nice country side. Few downhills in the pack were exhilarating and fortunately I had mo crashes or mishaps. Despite finishing right around my predicted time I think I ran a tactically horrible race and have much to improve for next year.

Germany and culture shock

Culture Shock! The things that we find interesting these days deal with culture adjustment or culture shock. An adjustment is dealing with kids not being welcomed in most dining establishments, unless they are quieter than the adults that is, which somehow many Hamburg children seem to be. Culture shock is dealing with park etiquette - kids hitting and spitting at Sasha and Jonas or splashing me to the point that my dress is soaked. The mothers in these situations tend to either say nothing or vehemently defend their children. Yup, crazy but true. I had hoped that this part of German culture was a myth that the few other foreigners we had met were making up, but a few months into our adventure we have experienced it for ourselves on several occasions.

Other things that make us smile, smirk or grimace...., the worlds worst ketchup and possibly the worlds best mustard, no ice cubes anywhere (except in a mojito:-), beautiful shoe repair, ice-cream for only 80 cents a scoop, beach clubs with no beach in site, never saying "don't worry about the penny" (17.01 better have that one cent), little samples being given as "gifts" from the store, price of entry into a toilet bares no correlation to its cleanliness, meeting really friendly, smiley peple at sports events when in the "outside world" people never smiling despite you greeting them with a beaming smile, people bumping into you without saying sorry, straight men proudly wearing pastels, pink Lacoste and La Martina shirts indicating your status in the Schickeria, the worst cappuccino foam ever, never breaking traffic rules or rules of any kind, Jakub running every red light on his bike just to make things interesting!

Our apartment is beautiful but it lacks a balcony, an essential feature in this heat. All of the older flats in this building have at least 3 balconies so I have been turning a little green. To counter this Jakub grabbed me and a bottle of wine and took me onto our roof. We hid out there one night, right above the sky light in the boys room.









The boys headed to the zoo today to give me a much needed break. I had a great run in the rain and lazed about reading a chic mag and drinking a latte!

Sweden

Few pictures from our trip to Sweden. More to come...

World Cup Recap

So the Czechs started off with a convincing win over the US and everyone saw them as the next champions. For the second game we got all dressed up in national colour and went to watch in the public viewing area - a big plaza with beer and sausages and a really big screen. Before we settled down the Czechs were loosing and never recovered. At least there was still some hope.

For the game against Italy I snagged a ticket on Ebay and witnessed the final defeat at the stadium. The atmosphere was great, fans were all very friendly and the game was entertaining. Great game, wrong result - Italy and Ghana are through, Czechs are going home.
After that we cheered for countries in this order Sweden, Australia, Ghana, Spain, Germany and France and one by one they too were eliminated. At the end only Italy prevailed again... I think they deserved the win but their play was far from stellar. But there celebration sure made up for it.
It was a fantastic month, full of emotion and national pride. Germans embraced their Nation and celebrated the success of their young team with flags everywhere and on everything. Feels like a much more positive expression than the repressed notion that any expression on patriotism equals extremism.