New friends

Its funny, coming somewhere where you don't know a soul. Where no one knows who you were a year ago, let alone three years ago, or five.
No one knows how much you've grown and changed, or what has made you the person you are today.
Sure, little bits get shared. It comes up in conversation. Or you make an effort to say it. But its just not the same as having known someone for years and years.

Its nice though, I suppose, being able to be whoever it is you want to be, with absolutely no expectations on you.
Not that that should change who you are but there is no denying that it usually does.

I love my friends here and never would have thought that I would make such good friends in such a short space of time. It makes all the difference too.

Germany part 4

Once I'd left the herb garden I had a couple of days to myself, which I spent by the Rhine. I spent my time sitting reading by the river, went for a long walk to another village, looked in the wee touristy shops, went to a concert in the church, and befriended some Americans at the hostel and played carads with them. Some of the time we played uno and the people at the next 3 tables along were all also playing uno, which made us laugh. That hostel was also super cheap, it was great.

I then got the train up to Bonn, checked into a hostel there, and got a train and bus to the airport to meet Gemma. It was such a badly signposted airport! I was going all over the place to try and figure out where to meet her. Got to the right bit in time though. It was exciting to see her again :D

We spent a few nights in Bonn, a few in Cologne, a few in Brussels, and a few in Amsterdam. We had fun doing touristy things. I think Amsterdam was my favourite of the cities, but Bonn was also a lot nicer than I expected, it had plenty of green spaces. Brussels had far too many tourists. Cologne didn't have an awful lot to do, other than the cathedral of course, and the weather wasn't fantastic which probably didn't help. We went to a number of markets in various places, I love markets.

We flew home from Amsterdam and it was so nice to get back to the greenness here!, although I had a fantastic trip, of course :)

Germany part 3

After my 3 weeks in the Black Forest were up it was onto another 3 or 4 trains to the Moselle Valley, to work on a herb garden for a fortnight.

I loved my two weeks there.

Got on very well with the woman who ran it, Maiga, and also with an Australian volunteer who was there for the second week.

The work consisted mostly of watering, repotting, and plucking herbs for restaurants. I now know more herb names in German than in English!

For the first week I was using German pretty much the whole time, and then once Sophie was there, she doesn't speak German so when Maiga was there we spoke English and when her parents were there I interpreted.

Maiga lives in a flat above her parent's house, and we had the house next door. Her mum made our food for us, and we had some yummy meals - lots of herbs of course, and lots of healthy stuff.

Her dad was a great one for talking and loved to tell stories, he was very interesting too.

One day we decided to take the afternoon off and drive to Trier for lunch and to look at some Roman ruins and stuff, and once we were done there we decided to go to Luxembourg for dinner. Had a bit of a walk around too, it has a pretty park bit in a valleyish part but other than that it didn't seem like an overly exciting city.

While I was at the herbgarden there were some serious thunderstorms, but there was also plenty of lovely sunshine.

Photos from the garden (lots of plenty photos! are here)

Germany part 2

Having left Sophia, I took 3 or 4 trains to end up in the Black Forest.

On the way I stopped for a picnic lunch in a town called Villingen and had a bit of a walk around there. It was pretty. I then continued on to Sankt Georgen, where I was met by Hans Hartwig. There weren't too many people on the platform, so it was easy enough to figure out which one was him, and he immediately recognised me thanks to the resemblance on the Orr side of the family. We went to the car, which turned out to be one of these:


A two-seater electric car, with pedals too but thankfully we didn't have to use them! The whole top opens forwards. And my rucsac just about fitted into the back!

We arrived back at the farmhouse just in time for Kaffee und Kuchen, after which it was straight out to the vegetable field to do some weeding with Anke.

The next three weeks consisted of more work in the vegetable field, including it being plowed by oxen; bringing the cows up to fields in the morning and back down in the evening; helping to make cheese; selling cheese at the market (and not being able to understand people!); getting stung by nettles; getting chased by geese; looking after the children; eating lots; making hay; and other farm-ish work.

They also involved meeting lots of people. When I arrived on the farm, as well as the family (including 4 children), there was one guy there for a year, one school pupil there for 3 weeks, a woman and her daughter there to learn cheesemaking, a pair who had been building a raft to sail along the Danube, who set off a day or two after I got there, as well as a couple of others who were sometimes there and sometimes not, to make cheese or help with the market, or do finances. It took a while to figure out who everyone was, but they were all very friendly! During my stay a few others came and went, so it was very interesting to get to talk to all these people - and definitely improved my German!

The area around was beautiful, and one afternoon we went and climbed a near by tower to get a better view of the area, but even around the house and fields it was beautiful. The weather wasn't fantastic, and there were a number of thunderstorms at the start, but it did mostly stay dry.

I don't have an awful lot of photos but the black forest ones are here:
http://s303.photobucket.com/albums/nn157/clareorr/Germany%20etc%202009/Schwarzwald/
and Spiekeroog ones are here:
http://s303.photobucket.com/albums/nn157/clareorr/Germany%20etc%202009/Spiekeroog/

Germany part 1

So I figured I may as well resurrect my blog and write about what I did in Germany. Probably in 5 parts or something. In the unlike event that someone is reading this, hello!

First I flew to Stuttgart, with a change in Heathrow on the way. My plane to Heathrow was late, and I just about made the connection, switching terminals, so it was no great surprise that my luggage didn't show up in Germany. I was met by Sophia, we talked to the BA woman about my luggage, then got the train back to her house - in a way it was quite handy not having to carry all my luggage on the journey home! The next few days were spent in Stuttgart, and my luggage was delivered to the house about 2 days late.

We then set off on Thursday at about 12:30am, to drive 700odd km to the north sea - me, Sophia, her brother, and parents. Dozed on and off throughout the drive. We made it up well on time to get a coffee then catch the first ferry across to Spiekeroog, one of the East Frisian Islands. Cars are banned from the island (hurrah!) so we loaded our stuff into containers to be put onto the ferry.

The crossing took roughly 40mins, during which we ate our picnic breakfast, and on the other side we were met by 2 friends staying in the same place as us, who had brought a wagon to transport our luggage back there. We stayed in familyholidayhouseishthing, which had lots of family-sized flats. Well, when I say family-sized, I mean they had everything you needed for 2 weeks crammed into the smallest possible space.

After a nap and lunch, we went for a walk along the beach, and this set the precedent for the next fortnight. Sophia taught me to knit, we spent lots of time reading, sitting on the beach, a couple of chilly swims, walks, and with the others staying in the same house as us, most of whom know each other from many holidays there.

Sophia and I were then to leave before the rest of her family, taking the train back to Stuttgart. After paying a couple of limbs, we spent most of the day sitting on trains from the top of germany to the bottom. Thankfully it all went smoothly, connections worked, and we even got back earlier than we expected. I had 2 more days at Sophia's, during which we relaxed, watched a couple of films, got all my washing done, and just about managed to squish it all back into my rucsac!

What can one man do?

Inspire a million.

I have a new blog

for while I'm away:

http://clareinsenegal.blogspot.com/

(How original, I know!)

I like this.
(Its a past postsecret)

Icicles.

We went for a walk yesterday, in the Mournes. It was cold and grey, but it was (mostly dry). Some of the paths were icy. It was strange. Meant we had some pretty funny near-slips. We also found quite a few icicles along the edges of bogs. Baaaah.A big ugly fire.
It was really good day though =]

2 Timothy 1:7

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.