Europe Tour 2019/20

Today was the day for train trip No. 1 to Karlsruhe. We took a taxi to the Schieder station and took a regional train to Altenbeken station, a big railway intersection in a small town. From there we took an ICE (Inter-City Express) to Karlsruhe. On the ICE, there was a pretty long delay due to "human damage", which probably meant that someone had fallen in front of a different train and needed to be taken to hospital. Other than that, the trip was quite enjoyable. When we arrived, we went straight to our hotel, which was just across from the station. There we checked in, went to the toilet, dressed warmly, and left again, for Grandma Gisela and Grandpa Pico's apartment. There we also met Uncle Christian and his new girlfriend. Together, we all walked back to our hotel, where we had booked a table in the restaurant in the ground floor.Then we went to bed.

First of all, sorry that I am writing this so late. There has been lots going on, and I didn't have much time to write my blogs. Second of all, Merry Christmas! Third of all, the actual post. Today I was sooo excited. I just couldn't wait until SANTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! came. I had to wait until 6 o'clock though. I know what you're thinking. What does 6 PM have to do with SANTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA? Well, in Germany, for no particular reason, SANTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! comes at 6 PM instead of 12 AM. Anyway, 6 AM - 6 PM = 12 hours, so I had a long time to wait. At 2:30, our Great-Uncle Heinz came. Heinz is my Mum's  uncle on her dad's side. He has had 2 strokes in his life and is a bit wobbly on his legs, but he's really smart and funny. He brought four HUGE bowls of chocolate....

Today was shopping day. We drove to Detmold in Aunt Petra's second car and stopped first at a hardware store for light bulbs and a sink plug. Second, we stopped at a technology store for a charger. Last year, we bought a laptop for grandma, which she was meant to use every day to help with her dementia. But she never used it, and so the charger was lost for lack of use. We bought another charger, and I am writing on that laptop right now. And now the hard bit. Shoes and clothes. In Germany, in winter, it is extremely hard to find kid's sport shoes. This is because in winter, it is too cold to do outside sport, and so almost all sport is in a sport hall. For these, you don't use normal grippy shoes, but shoes similar to tennis shoes: with poor grip and a smooth sole. We did find a pair of shoes for me, though, but none for Niklas. After this, we searched for long pants to withstand the German winter. These were easier to find: go into any department store and you will find p...

Yesterday I said I was in the German rhythm. I was wrong. This morning, I woke up at 4:30. After whiling away the remaining hour till 6 o'clock, I went to the bakery with the remaining population of our household for breakfast. We ordered two "Sonntag Türme", which are towers composed of three plates: egg on the bottom, condiments (salami, cucumbers, tomato) in the middle, and sweet stuff (jam, honey, and berries) on the top. They were HUGE! After fighting our way through the bitter cold back to home, we put the lights on the Christmas Tree (we forgot to do it yesterday) and then started to practise our instruments. In the middle of this, though, Lunch-on-Wheels arrived, so we aborted the music in favour of food. After lunch, we were bored: music was quite forgotten. We played ''Mensch Ärger Dich Nicht'', which is Ludo in English. After this, Niklas was still bored (and so was I) so we went for a night time bikeride. We went up the Sehlberg (our living a...

Today, I felt like I was truly in the rhythm of Germany already. Although I did wake up at six, I didn't feel tired too early. The plan for today was for Mum and Dad to return the rental car that we used to get to Schieder (our Grandparents village) back to the depot in Detmold (a nearby town). While they were away, my grandad, Siegfried, Niklas, and I were to set up the Christmas tree. This went well, and by the time our parents were back, the tree was up. After eating our Meals on Wheels (or whatever the German version is) lunch, we set off for Detmold again, for Mum had seen a Christmas Market there. That was where we were going. The Christmas Market was a nice community affair with plenty of Currywurst, Bratwurst and Pommes Frites (a sausage with lots of spice, a normal German sausage, and chips respectively). There was also Glühwein, a hot alcoholic drink perfect to warm your hands, and Kinder-Punsch, the non-alcoholic version. We (Mum, Dad, Uncle Armin, Aunt Petra, Grandad ...

The first day (and a half) outside of Australia went surprisingly well. I have this kind of in-built dread of flying, because I always feel funny on the flight and the jetlag is the absolute worst, but this flight wasn't too bad. I suppose the secret is sleeping and not watching too many movies. There's  not much else to say. The flight was normal, if a bit better than the others, and that's really it.