The end of the road - Wolfsburg and Berlin

The last part to the Germany holiday. We spent a few days in Berlin where we caught up with Andrew and Grace (our friends from NZ that are living in the UK at the moment). The main reason why we ended up going to Berlin was to catch up with Sascha (my best friend from school in Germany) who was in Berlin for a few months. Sascha kindly put us up at his flat which saved us a bit of money. Given that it was now Nevember too, we bought Gluehwein (Spiced red wine that you heat up) and lots of 'christmasy' food to get us in the christmas mood. Had lots of fun and managed to teach Andrew and Grace a bit of German and taught Sascha how to play phase 10. And just like his father he ended up being the 'champion'! :-) Anyway; the weather turned out to be not that good (one of very few days that were wet!) for one day but that didn't stop us from seeing a few things anyway. It was good having a 'local' to show us around and as Andrew and Grace had been in Berlin for a day on their big Europe trip they knew a few spots that were really cool too - neither Sascha or myself knew how big a piece of the wall is still left standing! Below are some of the many photos we took (tourists!) of the Reichstag (the beehive), the holocaust memorial which was quite impressive with all the concrete blocks, the new 5 storey central train station that was more like an airport and the Berlin wall.



After our days in Berlin Beck and I then got on a train to Wolfsburg for a day trip to the VW factory. It's about 200km from Berling (an hour on the train) and so of course we had to go there! Unfortunately Andrew and Grace couldn't get a cheap train ticket and the standard fare was far too expensive for a day trip, and Sascha had to be at work (it was monday). It was really impressive and a lot better than I imagined it. There is so much to see and do in Autostadt - which is the exhibition part with individual buildings where each VW owned brand has their own 'experience'. As well as that there are a 'Time House' which has all sorts of old cars (not just VW) to take you through the history of the car, a general VW experience world where you can play around with designing cars, driving simulators and learn about all sorts of things and of course the VW customer services centre where buyers can pick up their new cars that are waiting in one of two towers. Everything is lit up at night which is quite a sight! We also did a small tour of a tiny section of the factory where you get a snippet of how cars are made. They manufacturing site is massive and some of the statistics are almost unbelievable. We were both really glad that we had done the little side trip and spent a day there.

In the photo below you can see the two towers that are full of cars waiting for their new owners and the customer services centre (blue/green light to the right) and one of the pavillions to the left.
Below are some massive car seats that were part of the Skoda pavillion. Just an example of some of the 'experiences' that each pavillion offered. And of course each had a different theme.
This is the 'time house' at night from the outside all lit up. Following are all photos from inside the time house - inlcuding Beck and her dream car. All the cars you could walk right up to and have a good look at!

The photo above is the millionth beetle that rolled of the line, which has all parts that are ordinarliy chrome covered in little polished glass pearls and was painted metallic gold to make it unique! Below is an old BMW roadster.

The beetle cut in half in the photo below was quite funny as the caption said that this was done to highlight the technological advances of the beetle! Technology in a beetle!?

After our trip to Wolfsburg we caught an overnight train back to Munich where we spent another couple of days before we headed back to NZ. And so five weeks had flown by but we had seen lots and caught up with most of the family and friends we had planned to. Hopefully it won't be too long before we'll manage to go back maybe during summer to see a little more of Europe too. For now we've got a few exciting months or years ahead of us with beck rapidly growing now - still a few months till April though!

Neuschwanstein, Hirzing and birthday - Germany part 3

Following our sightseeing in Munich we headed towards the Alps with Caro, Christian and Franziska to the Edwin's place in Kempten for the weekend. They had sent us a booklet as a wedding gift they made with three sightseeing choices, one of which we could do when we would come to germany. So of course we used this voucher and chose a trip to Neuschwanstein - a famous castle that king Ludwig built. Unfortunately the sunday was one of two days where the weather wasn't that good (the second day was when we were in Berlin later on) and so we spent the day inside playing cards and chatting. Still a really nice day and actually quite nice to relax rather than be out and about all the time.



Following the week in Kempten with the Auer's we then spent another few days in Hirzing with mum's parents. One of those days we spent walking through a wildlife park. A lot of the enclosures you could walk right through. The wolves and brown bear enclosures you weren't allowed to walk through though! And only two of the animals were hiding from us but we saw lots and it took almost 4 hours to walk through it! The possum like creature is a Mader which is a pest in germany as they chew through radiator hoses in winter - probably Beck's favourite animal in the park.




We had a nice breakfast (not that we didn't have nice breakfasts anyway every morning! - but) as it was my birthday at Hirzing and then drove to Munich. Had a little bit of snow in hirzing on my birthday and then again the next morning in Munich (photo is of wad-wad oma and opa's garden in munich). Once hirzing oma and opa dropped us off in Munich we went to the 'human and nature' museum in munich with my aunty and uncle and kids before all of dad's family went out for a birthday as well as early leaving dinner that night.

Swarovski Museum and Munich - Germany part 2

After our weekend in Issing Christel took the day off on monday and drove with us to Innsbruck (in Austria) where the Swarovski factory is located and they built a huge Crystal World - a huge exhibition and 'adventure' world. The whole thing is inside an artifical hill with a face on the front as per the photo. Once inside there a many things to experience and lots of crystals to see. They have the biggest crystal in the world - a 300000 carat crystal! - as well as lots of exhibits made out of crystals or covered in crystals. It was amazing and definately worth the long drive. Beck even got some earrings as a little memory of her visit to the Swarovski crystal worlds museum. The photos are of the biggest crystal, a crystal christmas tree and a crystal and fibreoptic jellyfish.


Christel then dropped us off in Munich after the visit to Innsbruck. We spent another few days in Munich however spent two days sightseeing rather than shopping! The first day we went with Wad-wad oma and opa into the city centre. Visited the usual tourist sights as well as some less common ones probably. We walked past the National theatre, a couple of churches as well as the Frauenkirche, the city centre markets and of course poked our noses into the Hofbrauhaus - a big beer hall. Because it was a nice sunny day (like most we had actually!) we went up one of the Frauenkirche towers and had a really good few of the city and as far as the Alps (which isn't always the case). Quite close to the Frauenkirche is the old Rathaus (council building) of which there are a couple of photos below, which two times a day plays bells and has 'puppets' or figures that dance in the tower. By coincidence we managed to just arrive as they played even though they weren't supposed to (they usually do at 11am and midday whereas we were there at 5pm!). They were created to represent the celebration of the end of the plague.

Because of the soccer world cup earlier in the year there were lions everywhere (a Munich/Bavarian symbol) some of which were pretty funny so we had to take a couple of photos of those too, including one with grandma and granddad.

The next day Beck and I went sightseeing on our own in the greater Munich area. we started off by heading into the city centre again for a walk through the english gardens (like the domain in Auckland but heaps bigger) where we had lunch in the beer garden by the chinese tower. Then took a little trip out to the soccer stadium which turned out to be a fair walk from the S-Bahn station and so was more than just a 5 minute look. Again the weather was perfect and so we went up the TV tower in the olympic park from where we had a nice view again of the city but from a different angle - the Frauenkirche is in the city centre whereas the tower looks back to the city centre. Got a nice view of the olympic stadium and events halls as well as the olympic village. The BMW headoffices are nearby too in the shape of 3 cylinders.

We arrive in Munich and make to Issing - Germany part 1

We arrived in Munich after a 'short' flight of only 6 hours from Dubai and didn't really need to catch up on a lot of sleep as we'd got over the jet-lag realatively well during the three days in Dubai. Had a couple of nice realxing days at Wad-wad Oma and Opa's place in munich with shopping in two different malls to get us some new clothes - we didn't take much so that we could go shopping! The first saturday they had organised another wedding party for us with almost all the family there which was really nice. We got some food in so that grandma wouldn't need to spend all day in the kitchen, which she really did anyway though to make a nice wedding cake for us! Hansi (mum's brother) took a couple of photos of all the family that was there which I'll have to find on one of the CD's I burnt and add later! But at least here's a couple of photos of the cake and coffee in the afternoon.




After the party on saturday we then went to my other grandparents in Hirzing on sunday. Given that we thought we were going to Germany to see family and friends we had a pretty busy schedule - Hirzing Opa had planned a few nice day trips which after consultation with us of course we headed off on. So no rest but lots of history and culture for Beck. And impressed she was! We went to a museum that had a lot of old buildings that were shifted onto the site to re-create an old village. You could walk through the houses and sheds and everything was labelled and explained. It was really well done. We also had a nice lunch there.


We also visited Passau and Hildegardt (one of Granddads friends) was our guide who spoke english which was nice for Beck. Most impressive was the Passauer Dom which has an organ with almost 18000 pipes and they had a lunchtime 1/2 hour 'concert' which taught Beck that organs can sound nice! We also went on a river cruise on the Donau on one of the other days which gave a different perspective of Passau and also a nice impression of the surrounding landscape - the forests looked amazing with all the different tones of green, red and orange as the trees were shedding their leaves before the winter cold. The other two days before we headed to Issing - the village where I grew up - we spent visiting three different churches and also an old castle. Lots of photos but too many to put on this website! So here a couple of the Passauer Dom and the organ inside it, and of Hirzing Oma and Opa outside the restaurant at the Aldersbach church (monestry).

From Passau we then caught the train to Munich and the S-Bahn from there to Geltendorf which is as close as the S-Bahn travels to Issing. Christel and Klaus - the parents of my best friend - picked us up from there. We spent three days with them in Issing and surrounding area showing Beck where I grew up. My best friend was in Berlin but we would go and visit him there later. With Christel and Klaus we spent a day at Andechs - another monestry with it's own brewery where often Australians and Kiwis can be seen dancing on tables and behaving badly. We reckoned it must have been the dark beers and the size of the handles! Beck thought it was probably lucky she wasn't allowed to drink otherwise she definately would have been dancing on the table after one of those 1L handles!

Also drove to the little church where mum and dad got married - Beck said they can't have had many friends given the size of the church/chapel. It's in a forest clearing so the surroundings are pretty amazing!


Beck and I went for a walk around Issing too and even got to walk through our old house that we used to live in. Nothing had really changed but everything seemed a lot smaller! Not surprising really given that last time I'd been there was when I was 13. We had lots of fun with Christel and Klaus even though Klaus became very annoying after he won a round of the card game phase 10 - he only refers to himself now as the champion! They are coming to NZ over christmas and new years so we'll have to train hard so that we can beat him when we play again!