Wanted: Dead or Alive

So, now I'm a criminal in two European countries! I have my outstanding driving infractions in Italy and now, according to the police, I'm a criminal in Munich as well. When we first arrived in Munich, we bought a partner one-day transit pass from someone who had bought it to travel out to the airport. So we paid half the price, 10 euros, and used it to travel into town. So, of course, when we had to return to the airport ourselves, we thought we'd do the same. So, once we got out to the airport and checked in for our flight to Berlin, I hung out by the ticket machines looking for someone to buy our day pass so we could recoup some of our costs. I actually had to hang out for a while and was quite relieved to finally find a buyer. As soon as the  money exchanged hands, two plainclothes police approached, told me I was a criminal and pulled me and the poor couple who'd bought my ticket aside. They were extremely scary and in the end they let me off with a warning. I had to give the people back the 10 euros and they confiscated my ticket. I did work up the nerve to ask for their ID (and one cop said, "What do you think I am, an idiot?"). Surprisingly, I kept my tongue and didn't say yes.

So, Berlin. It's very different from Munich. It is shabbier and dirtier - took a bit of getting used to. But, it's history is so fascinating! And, of course, the main focus is more recent history, that of WW II and the Cold War. Life in that time frame would have been unimagineable. Berlin had the shit kicked out of it in WW II. Much of the city was bombed including its famous sites. The reconstruction of Berlin is extremely impressive as the united German government has worked very hard to restore the city. In doing so, it has racked up a huge debt. The city is a mishmash of styles since most of the building has happend in the last 20 years. I hadn't realized, but most of what I knew about Berlin such as the Brandenburg Gate, the Wall, the Reichstag, etc., are all in what was East Berlin. Our flat is in East Berlin and most of our time has been spent in the Eastern sector.

We spent the first day here just walking around and getting oriented to the place. We actually covered quite a bit of ground but without our own personal guides (which we had become accustomed to.....) half the time we didn't have a clue as to what we were looking at!! So, day 2 was spent on a 4 1/2 hr bike tour with a company called Fat Tire Bike Tours. We had a Canadian guide from Calgary and a hot, sunny day. Covered 10 lazy kms and most of the main sites of the city - a great way to get an introduction. Day 3, today, we were on our own again spending a good chunk of the morning at the Topography of Terror Museum which details the Third Reich.

Tomorrow is our last day and we plan on spoiling ourselves by not walking miles and miles. We do plan on going to the German History Museum and are still considering a side trip to Potsdam. Then, bright and early on Friday morning we will begin our journey home.

It has been a wonderful trip and we were blessed with terrific weather for much of the time. We've soaked up scads of knowledge and tasted countless excellent beers. Paul, I wish I could have bought (stolen?) all the mugs for you but, unfortunately, they aren't easy things to transport. Plus, with my current run of luck, I would have been caught and arrested for theft! Mark, thanks for the offer of the vacuuming. I accept! Make sure there is milk in the house! Daniel, rock Cape Town!

Love to all. Get ready to be awed and amazed by our pictures and accompanying commentary!! The pictures we're posting today are: the Reichstage (German parliament); the Brandenburg Gate (listen to David Hasselhof sing there); our travel gnome, Pinocchio, at the remains of the Berlin Wall, Rhonda at the awesome memorial to the Jewish victims of the war; and Checkpoint Charlie.

Rhonda and Laura

We Are Princesses of the World!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO OUR MOTHERS!! We are thinking of you and appreciating so much your love and support over the years. Thank you.

The weather has warmed up and we've had sun and heat. It has been beautiful and was perfect for our short side trip to Salzburg. What an enchanting city. It's surrounded by the Alps and is centered around a fortress built on a hill. Visually, it is striking. We stayed in a family-owned hotel conveniently located between the city centre and the train station. We spent our first afternoon wandering around the old town (but not climbing up to the fortress). We poked into shops, a cemetery, an exhibition on the making of the Sound of Music, a beautiful garden and finished off our day in the biergarten of a local brewery. It was massive and we can't even begin to imagine the amount of beer that must be consumed there. In these beer gardens, we are ordering our beers in the 1 L size! So, when we say we had one beer you know what we mean..... The second day, we took a lift up the Mönchsberg which is the hill the fortress, the Festung Hohensalzburg, is built on. The top of the hill affords a view of the Alps and the city on all sides. It was glorious and quiet up there. We are really impressed by the large green spaces both here and in Munich.Then, we treated ourselves to a full afternoon in the Alps. We bussed 45 mins out of the city and took a cable car up the Untersberg, a height of 1853 m. The view was absolutely stunning! We wandered around the peak of the mountain and then sat (with a beer, of course!) soaking up the sun and the splendour of our surroundings. We almost didn't want to come down but we had a train to Munich to catch.

Yesterday, we walked along the banks of the Isar, the river that runs through Munich. We started near the zoo and walked maybe 4 K into the centre of town. We certainly witnessed a slice of Bavarian life! Since the weather was so fabulous and it was a weekend, the citizens of Munich were out in full force. The river was lined with families, young people and old couples who were picnicing, swimming in the shallow river, BBQing, and sunbathing. Many people sunbathe in the nude. It's not sexual at all. It's just the way it is and it's fascinating because it's so different from the stuffy Canadians! We ended up back in the centre of the old town at an outdoor market and then Marienplatz. The whole area was teeming with tourists and 20 somethings enjoying the biergartens which were doing a booming business. When a couple get married here, they have a stag and bachelorette party where they may have to dress up and do crazy things like sell condoms in the square. We witnessed several groups of young people doing this. Returned to Steffi's for a farewell BBQ. The one younger neighbour couple joined us as well as Steffi's dad and his wife. Enjoyed a fire in the firepit and fell happily into bed after midnight.

This morning, we bid a fond farewell to Steffi as she left on a 2 wk business trip to Italy. We plan on spending the afternoon downtown at the Pinakotek, one of the most important art galleries in the world. We then see Ines one final time for dinner and tomorrow we leave for Berlin.

So, the pictures we're posting are of: nudist sunbathers; young guys in the biergarten getting drunk and dressed up like red-headed hula girls (stag party?); the city of Salzburg looking up to the fortress from a garden; and a hazy view from the top of the Alps. I haven't edited that last picture to sharpen up the image but at least you'll get an idea of how breathtaking it was!

Hi to you all (family, friends and workmates). We arrive home Friday dinner time. We will no longer have access to our own computer but will probably blog one final time in Berlin from an Internet Cafe.

Daniel, have a fabulous final week on your tour. Crossing that finish line will be an experience in itself. Well done!!

love,

Rhonda and Laura

The Many Sides of Munich

Three days have just whizzed by. It's 10 pm and we are bushed. We leave on the train in the morning for Salzburg, Austria, birthplace of Mozart and the city where the Sound of Music was filmed.

But first, things I have to write down before I forget: we have now stayed in two Munich apartments. When you rent an apartment, it comes without anything, and when I say anything I mean kitchen cupboards, closets, stuff like that! You have to put that in yourself and you take them with you when you go; the z and the y are reversed on the German keyboard and it's driving me nuts; the city is very dog friendly; and the cafes put blankets outside on the patio chairs to keep you warm.

We have now spent two days walking kms around the city and one full day at the memorial at Dachau concentration camp. Dachau is heart rending. I constantly marvel at the terrible things that man does to his fellow man.The old part of the city is charming in the way that only historical European cities can be. But there is also a very modern side to Munich. It is the centre of the arts here and one sees sculpures scattered throughout the city. There are loads of museums but we haven't actually gone into any yet. Hopefully this weekend. There are many large green spaces. Right in the middle of the city is a huge park, English Gardens, that is larger than Central Park in NYC. Rhonda and I ate our lunch there today. And churches, so many churches of all styles - Baroque, Roccoco. There are architectural wonders built for the large businesses such as Mercedes and BMW. We see many signs of wealth such as the stores, the cars, etc. And, we were impressed by the ingeniousness of the design of the 1972 Olympic site.

We have now seen my cousin's daughter Emily and her brand new husband, Jarno. Had dinner together and then I got to see their apartment in the university area of the city.

Will close with a few pictures: the interior of my favourite church, the Olympic park, a view of the old centre from a tower and the ovens at Dachau.

What about those elections results! We would never have anticipated a Conservative majority. I, for one, am not pleased but will be very interested to see what Layton does is the Opposition.

Weather has been cool but not rainy. It's supposed to warm up for the weekend.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye,
Rhonda and Laura

Party Time!

We have arrived in Munich and we have to admit that we haven't done a heck of a lot of sightseeing since we last posted. Rather, it's been a time of making new friends and catching up with old ones. What a ride!

Last day in the Czech Republic was spent packing up to leave, running kms to pick up gifts we had seen before but not bought and still wanted (we know, we know....), saying farewell to Rod, taking the metro back out to Unhost to pick up our car, and spending several hours trying to match our new friend, Marta, who is 80, drink for drink! There wasn't time to go anywhere around Unhost so we'd decided just to take Vic out for a beer to say thanks. Marta pulled up unexpectedly so now there were five! Terrific surprise. So, we started with a beer and an absynthe at the local bar. (picture) Then, we retired back to Vic's house supposedly just to get rid of our beer before getting into the car. A shot of slivovich (spelling?), a shot of rye, a shot of something else (?), a shot of a creamy liquer and a glass of a fizzy beer later, we managed to pour ourselves into the car to leave. When I say we, I mean Rhonda and me. Thanks goodness for our DD, Ines! Vic urged us to stay overnight but we pressed on. A big thanks and a hug and kiss to Vic and Marta for their wonderful friendliness and for looking after the girls from Canada.

So, next day the transfer was made from Ines' apartment to Steffi's apartment. They´only live one S bahn stop apart. Steffi and Alex picked us up at 2 pm and said they were taking us back for a brei (African for BBQ). It's a long story but the short of it is that Steffi also has a house which she is going to renovate and move into by Christmas. You can see her house from her apartment. It has a big backyard so that is where we were going to BBQ. We walked into the house and it was set up for a big drinking party (picture). Rhonda and I couldn't imagine the 4 of us drinking all that booze (yes, even we weren't up to the task). But, HUGE and FABULOUS surprise, who should walk in but Ollie and Dani, the other German couple I had met on my trip to South Africa!! And, in order to avoid complaints from the neighbours about our revelry, the neighbours had been invited so we had 13 people in all. Many happy hours later, we fell into bed.

Yesterday, Alex, Steffi and Ollie and Dani and Rhonda and I did go to walk the beautiful grounds of the Summer Palace built by King Ludwig II (the same king as the other castle we had visited - sorry, got his name wrong last time). The palace, Nymphenburg, currently houses the Museum of Nature as well as being open to the public as a tourist attraction in itself.(picture) The grounds are huge with a botanical garden, a cafe, a lake filled with geese and ducks and kilometers of walking paths. From there, we retired to a local cafe for a final coffee before we waved a very fond farewell to Ollie and Dani. (picture) We look forward to keeping in touch on their future which will soon include a home they are building and a baby.

Back to Steffi's for another walk in her neighbourhood which seems more like a village than a city. Right next to her building, is a large area where people can buy a plot to garden. Although we have this even in Ottawa, as Rhonda and I walked around, we discovered that the Germans have taken it to another level. What they appear to do is buy a backyard! From what we could see, they have a small building and a piece of land that they use to have BBQs, play structures garden, etc. Kind of neat!

Today, we're gearing up into tourist mode and plan on spending the whole day doing a walking tour through the Old Town. Alex will join us in the early afternoon.

Hello to our family and friends! Kisses to my 3 boys. Until next time!

Rhonda and Laura