An open letter to the people of Darmstadt

Dear Darmstadtians
You have a rockin fossil collection. This fact alone should be enough to put a smile on your faces, but apparently not. You all look so sad. Please consider smiling.

with kind regards,
Helen

Coin Slot

Dear Ladies of Germany
Your pants are very tight, and invariably low cut. As a consequence, I can see your bum cracks. It disturbs me greatly. Please stop.

Dear Men of Germany
If you are over the age of 45, you are wearing your pants way too high. You are the quintessential "high-pant wearer". This amuses me no end. Don't stop.

Letters from Home

Each week, like clockwork, a letter from my Dad arrives in the post. It is like Christmas when I see that blue, red and white striped top of the air mail envelope. His letters are filled with the weather (of course), what's going on in Newcastle and the Bay, and what he's been up to that week.

I keep in touch with the rest of the family via email and skype, but there is something comforting about my growing collection of letters from home.

Back in the Pool

After a 4 month hiatus, resulting from sheer and utter laziness, you will all be pleased to know, I'm back in the pool. It hurt. Alot.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I discovered my swimming cap disintegrated due to lack of use - I'm SO pleased I dragged that little piece of latex to the other side of the world.

Managed to get through my statutory 1 km without drowning, but it took a good deal longer than usual. Did I mention that it hurt? Alot.

Hoping to be able to walk and move my arms tomorrow, but I'm not overly confident.

Also - had my first 'in town' bike adventure today (definitely not to be confused with a 'town bike' adventure) and managed to not get run over. I did, however, suffer the indignity of having to get off my bike and walk it up the last bit of the hill out of town (oh the shame, the shame). I've got to work on my hill climbing or I'll never win the Tour de France.

Ikea - it's like lego for grown-ups

I spent a day (and I mean the WHOLE day) at ikea last week, shopping for the various pieces of furniture we needed. I love the crazy swedish names of all the products, the way you must follow the proscribed route through the store, otherwise you will be forever lost, and doomed to live in the store for eternity. I love the little pencils and paper tape measures so thoughtfully provided so you can take notes and measure stuff to your hearts content as you wander idly through the store. I'm not so much in love with the screaming children who dash out at you when you least expect it, so that your kneee connects with their wee heads with a sickening thud mid stride.

The boxes were delivered on Monday and Richard has spent two grueling evenings on his hands and knees assembling my purchases. My contribution to the construction process was fetching beer at regular intervals and passing him the screwdriver with the precision of a surgical nurse, "Screwdriver, STAT!"

In honour of ikea, we will name our first child Malm.

That's a big chicken you've got there mister

That's a big chicken you've got there mister
Originally uploaded by heliospheric

One of my favourite stalls at the markets is the Egg Master (Ei Meister) - I am so going to buy all my eggs from him from now on. I suspect that he has a bit of fishing line attached to the rooster's leg and when he makes a sale he gives it a tug so that the rooster crows - pure marketing genius.

Faunal deaths

When I worked in the Northern Territory at a mine, each week there would be a report on activities at the mine, x tonnes of ore dug, y number of safety incidents and there would be a report of Faunal Deaths on the mining lease, and a brief, but grizzly discription of the manner of the demise of the poor animal - 1 kangaroo stuck in the mud after wandering into the shallows of the tailing dam.

I feel it is my duty to keep a record of the native German wildlife that cats have been dragging in recently. So here goes - 5 small rodents (not mice exactly, but close cousins I suspect) met an untimely end at the end of a cats paw. 4 have so far been recovered.

It is not as if they catch them to eat them, it is purely for entertainment purposes. So it seems that my cats have taken upon themselves to decimate the local population of these small bewhiskered creatures. Bad cats. I suppose it could be worse, in Melbourne their favourite game was to catch a bird (usually a pigeon), and bring it into the house, and then release it, so they could catch again, and again, and again, until it didn't move anymore. The result was usually feathers from the front door to the back door, and a dead bird hidden somewhere in the house - they weren't always easy to find either.

Hanging on the telephone

It may have taken a good long while (around 2 and a bit weeks), but I finally have the marvelous technology that is the telephone connected at the house. The next hurdle will be to connect to the internet (this will take another week or so, apparently). Given that all the instructions are in German, it may take a good deal longer than that. It is just as well that Richard works at a Uni, and students still work for beer. We should be able to convince someone to help us get it sorted - I will even throw in a hot meal if the situation becomes desperate enough.

Since moving to Germany, I have finally begun to learn the art of patience. It has been a difficult lesson to learn, but I am getting there (she says rocking back and forth mumbling "I'm in my happy place, I'm in my happy place....")

There's no place like home

We moved into our new place last Friday, and are mostly set up, with the exception of a few rogue boxes that seem to being refusing to march themselves down to the cellar and neatly stack themselves away.

We have taken stock of what we have, what we don't have, what we need to buy, and what we want to buy (note the maturity and fiscal responsibility of that last part).

I made a prioritised list (I come from a family of list-makers) before we moved of the stuff I knew we needed and made short work of the purchase of the washing machine.

Now it is time for the fun stuff - a bed, some book shelves, dining chairs. You know what that means, don't you - yes, IKEA. IKEA is not easy to get to without a car (don't worry, a car is on the list too), so we may even do the whole thing on line. Keep your fingers crossed.

Copernicus' Lament

Copernicus misses being able to go outside whenever he wants. This video was taken on the front verandah of our old house in Melbourne. He used to love to lie there and bask in the sun.

Poppy is a high stepping kitten

Unlike Copernicus, Poppy loves going for walks. Note the happy tail position. Normally she breaks in to a trot and we can actually cover a fair bit of ground. Last week she tried to climb a tree. She's a quick little bugger.

Apart from the joy of taking Pop for a walk, I love how she asks to be taken outside. She gets into a fever pitch of purring and swishing her tail at the harnesses and then sitting underneath them as if to say, "Come on, take me for a walk NOW!"

Marriage - the first quarterly report

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Originally uploaded by heliospheric

Shareholders,

It is with great pleasure that I am able to bring to your attention the strong performance of H&R Inc in their first quarter together as a company.

Highlights:

• A fabulous wedding, attended by family and friends
• Frenzied, but utimately successful preparation for international relocation
• Arrival and negotiation of red tape in Germany
• Survival of the cats, despite one half (non-executive director) of the company threatening to downsize the corporation

Outlook for the second quarter:
Things are looking extremely positive for the second quarter, as the company moves into its new Bretzenheim headquarters.

Shareprice:
The shareprice remains steady and gains are expected during the second quarter.

With love,
the CEO

PS: The are more photos of the wedding

This Demeans us Both

For all those who asked to see Copernicus being taken for a walk. Note the classic "three-quarter crouch-y" walk and unhappy tail position - a sure sign that he definitely is not having as much fun as me.

St Kilda Syndrome

Think back to 1997, St Kilda had just played in the AFL Grand Final. The very next year, Richard and I moved to Melbourne. It augured well. Richard was a Mordialloc boy - in the heartland of the Saints - and now he could wear his red & black scarf and beanie with pride, right?

Wrong. Soon after we arrived, St Kilda started losing - alot. Richard was steadfast, staunch even, in his continued backing of St Kilda. This was perhaps their problem.

Eight weeks ago we moved to Germany (exciting isn't it). Lo and behold, the place we live has a team in the Bundesliga. We take an interest - afterall - embracing the local culture is important when you are new. With one game in the season to go, our local team is coming second last in the competition and is doomed to relegation.

Coincidence or something more sinister?

Haus Frau Disaster #1 - The mashed potato incident

In Germany, things are different.

The "Haus Frau Disaster" Series will be a regular feature on this blog.

OK, let's get on with the humiliation....

I know that potatoes are not all the same - some are waxy, some are floury - and each is best suited to a particular use in cooking. At the time of the HFD, I did not know the German words for "waxy" and "floury", and took a punt on buying some good lookin' spuds at the market.

That night we had decided to pay homage to cross cultural cuisine and do the German version of Bangers and Mash (Würst und Kartoffel puree). Then came the fateful moment - time to mash the potato.

I knew something wasn't quite right during the mashing process, but I continued on valiantly - "a bit of butter will fix that", I thought, because as we all know, a bit of butter is always a good thing. But NO, people, it did not fix the problem, instead of fluffy, buttery mash, I had created a disturbingly yellow, highly viscous starch amalgam that would not be out of place in a petrochemical plant.

Who would of thought that mashed potatoes could go wrong?

Guess where we live now?

Bingen
Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

It has been over 2 months since we arrived in Germany, but due to lack of internet access, I haven't had an opportunity to post anything on the blog.

Here is Richard at the top of the Keep at Berg Klopp in Bingen as evidence that we are here and alive.

You can check out some of our other photos by clicking on the Flickr badge on the right hand side.

Home again home again jiggety jig

It all seems like a dream now that we are home - the claustrophobia on the flight home, the unexpected upgrade on the last leg, stumbling out of Melbourne airport at an ungodly hour on Thursday.

The one good thing about being home was seeing the cats again (crazy cat lady).

Work has been a struggle, but then again, only a week and a half to go until Christmas....bring it on.....

You're nicked

Here we are in the home of the Bill. The east end is full of geezers right, and we've spent a bit of time down the rubberdy dub for a bit of bendy elbow, you know what I mean?

Heading into town today to have a look around and hopefully catch up with Sue. The liver is struggling, send more champagne....

The home of golf

We managed to squeeze 11 holes of golf in while we were in Edinburgh. The golf course had a great view of the city. We were pretty crap and the very nasty gorse made searching for balls hit into the rough hazardous to ones health.

The eleventh hole was played in near complete darkness, which made for some interesting ball spotting.

Then off to the pub for a pint and a whisky chaser, or is that a whisky and a pint chaser? I'm sure we tried both combinations......

Caught up with Brett's friends for a few more drinks at a bar in town.

Highland haggis

We hired a car and took a trip to the highlands. The highlands in winter are pretty spectacular. There was a fair amount of snow around on the hills. We stopped at Glen Coe for lunch then on to Fort William. It was St Andrews day, so we hunted high and low for a place that served haggis, neeps and tatties. It was very tasty.

We stayed at Fort William overnight in an old hotel overlooking the loch.

We drove back to Edinburgh via Loch Ness and Urquhart castle. Didn't spot any monsters though.

Castles and kilts

We checked out Edinburgh castle today - it was great. All higgeldy-piggeldy, those crazy scots. It was, of course, freezing on the hill, not to mention windy, but we managed to spend about 3 hours up there.

The next challenge for the day was to get a new kilt for Richard (he's sure the other one shrunk at the dry cleaners.....). Several hundred pounds later (don't ask), he was sorted, and we could have some lunch and the obligatory pint.

Glasgow - our first day in Edinburgh

Arrived in Edinburgh and Brett promptly whisked us off to Glasgow for the afternoon. We checked out the Radiance festival where they had lit up some prominent and not so prominent buildings. We went on the tour with the most quietly spoken glaswegian guide ever...almost impossible to understand. An angry granny and the fire organ (don't ask, it was crazy) were highlights.

Eventually back to Edinburgh for dinner and beer at the local pub.

Shakespeare part 2

Fresh from Elinsor castle, we went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, continuing with the Shakespeare theme, to have a look around with Jon and Amanda. Saw all six of his birthplaces...hmmmm what's all that about?

Had lunch in a cozy pub and lots of pints.

Dinner of course was a curry from the local curry house - it was excellent.

Thinking of buying a castle around here, but am slightly concerned about Richard's obsession with having French maids to wait on us.....he is a bad man.

Jon and Amanda have a great little place near Birmingham and it was great to catch up with them.

Time and relative dimensions in space (TARDIS)

The second most exciting flight of our trip (what can be better than an upgrade to business?) was from Toulouse to Birmingham - because we caught the plane with Dr Who (Tom Baker), in fact he was sitting next to us, and said "bless you" when I sneezed. Richard was so excited he nearly wet his pants (obviously he is much more of a Dr Who geek than I am). Tommy, as we like to call him, was even wearing a long scarf...

Confit du canard

I've tried to eat as much confit du canard as humanly possible since arriving in the south of France. My arteries may never recover.

We went out for dinner last night with Mark, Esther and some friends, and you guessed it, I ordered the duck and it rocked. I managed to order the dish with duck AND froi grais. I am so clever.

Today is the first rainy day we have had since arriving in Europe, so we did a cafe crawl of Toulouse before catching the train back to Brax. I may never sleep again.

We are heading off to Birmingham tonight. Thanks for having us to stay Mark & Esther!

Toulouse - city of empty churches

IMG_0157
Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

We spent today mooching around Toulouse and saw some pretty impressive churches. The French don't appear to be overly religious folk and some of the churches have been turned into museums.

We went to a ripper art gallery today and saw some stunning impressionist paintings. It was definitely a highlight.

Spotted another poodle while having our 7th coffee for the day. Will find it more difficult to reign in the coffee addiction than to give up the cigarettes.

Toulouse and Brax

We arrived safe and sound in Toulouse yesterday. It is so exciting to see Mark, Esther and the babies again. We are having an official day of rest today. So we are taking it easy, and I've spent most of the morning updating this blog. It is so much warmer here than anywhere else we've visited so far and it we may set off for a wander around the village this afternoon.

A slow bus to a fast train

Today's adventure was to get from Lardy to Montparnasse via as many forms of public transport as possible. The physical challenge was to do it with suitcases at peak time. Thank god i don't speak french or I'm sure I would have been mildly upset at the abuse we copped from fellow commuters. The next challenge was to change our TGV tickets to today - ask three people - get three different answers. Lesson = if you don't like the answer someone gives you, ask at another window. Here endth the lesson.

Despite our success at getting to the right station, getting our tickets changed, and finding the right platform, we still nearly missed the train. Richard was to blame, and you can fill in the blanks.......

1 day in Paris

Due to the french propensity for striking and being generally disagreeable at the most inconvenient times, our stay in paris was cut short to one day. So we made the best of Sunday and walked around Paris, ticking off landmarks as we went. Paris, in winter, on a Sunday is fantasitc - not crowded but still enough going on to give it that proper Paris buzz. We spotted a poodle prancing along the Champ der Mars near the Eiffel Tower (bonus points for that one).

Charles de Gaulle Nightmare

This airport has prompted me to start a Charles de Gaulle is crap society. We got horribly lost trying to find our way from the baggage collection to the train station. Needless to say we were not happy campers for about an hour.

Finally found the train station and managed to get across paris, change trains and get to lardy without loss of limbs - Richard's grip on his sanity remains tenuous. Michel picked us up from the station and took us to their very beautiful house. We ate and drank ALOT (despite being told by our hosts that we didn't eat anything. Now anyone who knows Richard and I know this is not true - we eat lots (& lots), but is rare for us to eat a five course meal, and we perhaps didn't pace ourselves very well - we promise to do better next time.....

Day trippers - part 2 - Roskilde and the Vikings

IMG_0119
Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

Caught the train to Roskilde to have a look at the Viking ship museum. They have actual real life viking ship ruins. My favourite part was when we got to dress up in Viking clothes and take pictures standing on replica viking boats. Richard makes a fairly authentic viking, but I make a pretty crap viking. Also of interest in Roskide is the Cathedral - where most of the dead kings and queens of Denmark hang out.

Beard envy

IMG_0091
Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

Richard had beard envy after seeing this statue in the bowels of Elinsor Castle. I don't blame him

Great Danes - 0

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Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

From a national dog perspective Denmark was a great disappointment. We travelled far and wide, and did not spot any Great Danes. We did however discover that Copenhagen is indeed wonderful - with lots of museums and galleries well worth a look.

Richard nearly died when we arrived at Julie and Mark's place to discover that they lived on the 5th floor of a beautiful old building that did not have an elevator.

He managed to make it up with the bags with only minor injuries. I'm sure we got much fitter while we were there just because of those stairs.

Danish breakfast

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Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

Breakfast in Denmark.

Day trippers - part 1 - Elinsor castle and Louisana gallery

IMG_0078
Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

We headed off to Helsingor for a day trip to visit the castle made famous by Shakespeare and his whinging, crazy Hamlet. The castle was very impressive and we got to explore the tunnels and fortifications under the walls.

Swedes to port
From this part of Denmark, you can actually see Sweden. It is about a 30min ferry ride to get there. This freaked me out a bit. Due to their proximity, like all neighbours, the Swedes and the Danes apparently don't like each other all that much, but it doesn't stop the Swedes coming over on the ferry to buy their beer - all I can say is, beer must be VERY VERY expensive in Sweden, cos it ain't cheap in Denmark. The Danes apparently all go to Germany to get their beer. Crazy beer economy.

On the way back to Copenhagen, we stopped in on the Louisana Gallery of Modern Art and saw their Matisse exhibition - it basically rocked. The gallery has some really cool paintings and sculpture. I saw my first Picasso, Matisse and Warhol.

what did the romans ever do for us?

IMG_0017
Originally uploaded by heliospheric.

Here is richard standing in front of some very impressive ruins on a roman aquaduct that is near to where we stayed in Mainz.

They built the railway through the amphitheatre...oops.

Let´s look through the Chagall window today children

Richard is doing the talkfest - interview thing today so I´m a free agent and am wandering aimlessly around Mainz checking out all the crooked little laneways.

The highlight of the day was St Stephen´s church. The windows are pretty amazing. The church apparently had a big red target painted on it during that event that we daren´t mention, because it was blown up a couple of times.

I´m considering a cruise up the Rhine this afternoon, but it is really foggy (not to mention freezing), so I might find a cozy little bar somewhere and sample a few beers.

Dachshund 1, German Shepherd 0

I thought I´d take the opportunity to write a few lines this morning, as Richard is holed up in the hotel room re-doing his talk for Monday - there is only so much I can get out of a german newspaper.

So I hopped on the bus and found an internet cafe to perch myself in for a half hour or so.

We had a great trip over (see last post). Comfy seat, good food, great service and managed to get about 7 hours sleep during the flight.

We arrived early on Friday morning and Richard managed to navigate us from Frankfurt to Mainz on the train without any drama. We had a poke around the university to see what it was like and it is like any university anywhere in the world, some really beautiful old buildings and some truly atrocious 1960s architecture.

Mainz is a beautiful city with way too many churches, lots of old cobbled laneways and an obsession with the printing press. Good for them, I say - everyone needs a hobby.

Spotted my first dachshund yesterday - real german wildlife. Keeping my eyes peeled for a german shepherd.

Travelling like a rock star

Sitting in the Qantas lounge feeling like a rock star. Why? Because our business class upgrades came through!

If it were possible to express through the medium of typing just how exciting that is, it would look something like:

da da di !!!!!-----$$$$$-----di da

Richard is worried that I may socially overheat in business class and is urging restraint. He is so wise.

Did I mention that we got upgraded to business class?

A huge thanks to Bella for lending us the points - we'll pay them back, promise!

1 day....and counting

Not long now.....just a few last minute things to do:

• pack
• unpack
• repack
• breathe
• smile

Passports - check

Passports - check

Tickets - check

Set up blog - check




Three weeks and counting until we take off for Europe. The preparations have been flawless up to this point...all that's left to do is send the link to family and friends so they can read about our adventures.