Happy Birthday Broogle

I should call you Broogle because you help me solve all the problems to which I can’t find answers in Google.

Happy birthday Little Big bro, love ya.  Hope you have a great day, you deserve it.

What have I created

When GO and I began seeing each other he was happy to hang around the pub and relax.  I dot know why but I like to do stuff.  I blame Papichen, he always woke us up early on Saturdays made us go into town, then we'd be back by lunchtime and would chill the rest of the day.  My doing something is a little less retail more cultural.  I love my National Trust

membership and the nature that is one our doorstep.  

I have discovered this has rubbed off on GO, its something that I hit me this morning as we sat in the car at 6.30am and he said "what would we be doing otherwise?"  He complains that he never gets time to relax and do his own thing but he then plans stuff for us to do with every free second we have.  I am not complaining, I just didn't see it coming.  

Onward to our next adventure.

For whom the bell doesn't toll

With the silencing of the Big Ben until summer 2021 I began to wonder/completely stole this idea off a lady on Facebook about what summer 2021 may be like for GO and myself.  

When I think back to where we were four years ago and how much our life has changed since then and yet in so many ways it is still the same.  

In summer 2013 we were still basking in the newlywed glow, we were most definitely in the honeymoon period.  We had taken a trip to East Germany/Poland with my parents.  We were both in jobs that we wanted to leave but didn't know quite how to go about it.  We had kicked our fertility explorations into gear and we're still at the "maybe this will be our month" stage (we weren't cynical then).  There was an frisson of change in the air, the world was our oyster. 

Summer of 2017 we are now well and truly old marrieds, we have habits and foibles that only we understand.  We have managed to spend almost six weeks together (24 hours, seven days a week) without harming each other.  Yes we've bickered but then that it a lot of time to spend with one person.  We attempted to Interrail, it became InGermanrail.  We toured Germany hitting München and Berlin and the chilling out at Mamilein and Papichen's for a week.  We have, in my opinion had an absolute blast this summer and have made the most of it.  A particular higlight has been the day we spent sailing (bucket list) it was so much fun and may be something I need to look into doing properly.  Work wise I am between schools having just finished a year long contract in quite a tough school, I have learned a lot about myself as a teacher (the job may have lost some of it's sparkle for me).  GO seems to be very happy working as a lead chef at the OA centre.  He is beginning to make friends and is always making plans with people.  Family wise we began the adoption process last summer and were paused early this summer as we "don't seem to have any fire under us".  It stung at first but now I'm wondering maybe it's not for us.

Looking forward to summer 2021, four years isn't a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things but...  We'll both be in our forties, perhaps we'll have a couple of big trips under our belts, did someone say Canada?  Maybe we'll be homeowners, parents.  We could even have fur babies.  That's the thing about the future it hasn't been written yet and we can and should make it what we want it to be.  Now where is the nearest lottery kiosk?

Egg Scare

It's been in the news for a while, today was the first time I saw it in action.

As far as I know some chemicals got into the chicken feed which has made its way into the eggs.  They don't think it will harm humans but for the best avoid Dutch and Belgian eggs.

Summer days in Bünde

We'd had a fabulous time exploring Germany together that I didn't want the fun to stop in Bünde so I vowed to make the most of the time we had there.  Of course we had some down time (Sunday) but as well as the usual supermarket and shopping centre business. Mamilein and managed to throw in a few new stops along the way. 

We visited Schloß Benkhausen, it was on the road to Real. It had a nice garden featuring wind themed sculptures.  Like many rural tourist features it tripled up as an adult learning centre and a day centre for adults with learning difficulties.  As long as you ignore the random screams it was quite a relaxing place.  It even had a British themed Berlin Bär.

I made Papichen stop 

Berlin Day 1

There was a slight delay on arriving in Berlin, I presume it was just rush hour traffic but as I was asleep I just don't know.   So we arrived at

nearly 11am, feeling dazed and very confused I told GO to wait with the bags while I got some information.

A quick look video of our first day in Berlin 

Souvenirs we were too cheap to buy in Muenchen

Rather than spend an exorbitant amount of money on souvenirs, I took photos of all of the lovely tat that we liked but didn't buy.  Also the funny things that your can get in supermarkets.  I know, I know, I am so tight I squeak when I walk.

Travel Blog - Muenchen to Berlin

Our second day started with a “quick “trip to the Bahnhof to book our tickets to Berlin, I had sold this trip to GO way back when by saying it was cheaper to travel to Buende via Berlin than travelling direct.  As we started to make our next plans I couldn’t find the deal I was looking for on Deutsche Bahn, which was when I remember that there was coach company called Flix, it had two tickets from Muenchen to Berlin for 50 Euros. The coach would take 6 hours (half an hour longer than the train) there were no transfers and we would arrived at 10.30 am leaving us time to find our hotel and explore some of Berlin. It sounded too good to be true and… it was… amazing.  Yes, we did have to get the coach at 3am, there would be only one pit stop and no food trolley, but we could sleep the whole way.  We bought snacks from Aldi to have on board (croissants and Frappuccino anyone?), the pit stop came at just the right moment.  I randomly met an English guy who was trying to make chatty conversations with me about my accent at the pit stop, I couldn’t even try to be civil at 6am.  Sleeping was a bit tough, but GO had bagged the back seat so we luckily had a bit more room and no one knocked us as they made their way towards seats or toilets.

We were sat adjacent to a couple of guys, GO said they  had never met before and spent the first half an hour buying tickets to Latvia, so that the second guy could get home.  Which I think is quite nice.  In front of us we had the two Irish girls from the Brauhaus who had been flirting with the Aussie guys.  I was tempted to ask them how it had gone with the guys, but within minutes of getting on board they were both asleep.  When they did wake up they began frantically looking for flights to London from Berlin, what I could gather (GO was asleep and I was bored of the scenery) they were supposed to fly back from Muenchen the following week and rather than spend extra time there they had decided to move onto Berlin.  I got the impression that while it had seemed like a great idea to go to Berlin (tickets were only 50 Euros) the flights from Berlin were coming in at £100 +, I wonder if it had been suggested by the Aussie lads.

On our arrival we made our way to our hotel, I suggested that we should get travel cards, like we had in Muenchen, this was when I realised how different Berlin is to Muenchen, the travel card cost 25 Euros, each!  My budget was blown, as was my mind.  Buying the card wasn’t easy either, there were a lot of options on the automat.  It wasn’t helped by the “friendly” Berliners who just pushed past and ignored my pleas for assistance (Auf Deutsch, I should have tried English).  Finally we worked it out and were on the way to our hotel.  At least we knew what to expect there, didn’t we?

Guess where we are?

It's not where you think either.

The university of Muenchen

Travel Blog - Muenchen Tag Zwei

Day two was a wet one, after we had purchased our tickets to Berlin we explored the outskirts of Muenchen. We began with a trip to a Bier Garten, as it was 9am and raining it wasn’t open but it was nice to walk around without being “bothered”.  I can imagine that during Oktoberfest it would be a great place to go.  My favourite part is the sign that says they will no longer allow stag/hen parties, oh how the British manage to ruin everything.

All of the BierKeller's have Stamm Tische which are tables that regulars buy/reserve.  Most are just normal tables, but at this Bier Garten they were decorated with personalised murals and quite a few had the symbol for Muenchen, the lion.  We hadn't really noticed this to begin with but once you know you can not help but see lions all over the city.  So began our Lion spotting fun.

As is usual, I am lead by my appetite and was beginning to feel “hangry”, the rain wasn’t helping so we decided to visit the English Garden, we hopped on the U Bahn and before we knew it we were munching on a Brezeln and drinking Starbucks, it was nice to have a smoother coffee.  German coffee is so strong, lovely but strong, a real kick in the face.  We sat in a huge courtyard in the middle of a rose garden, now it being August and quite a wet summer the roses weren’t blooming, this however didn’t stop a long American woman complaining.  “Oh My God I thought there would be some flowers in the Palace Garden!” “Well it is nearly autumn.” Replied the exhausted looking tour guide she was with. 

He got a nose bleed, how attractive

The English garden wasn’t as close as we had originally thought.  We were by some parliamentary building, it has a memorial to the soldiers killed in the World Wars.  It was humbling to be reminded that it wasn’t just the English and the Americans who suffered losses in the wars.  I am always reminded that my own Opa spent time in camps, as he was a conscientious objector, and was quite vocal about it too.

We eventually made our way towards the English Gardens, using my trusty Google Maps app.  I can’t say how fantastic it was to be able to use my Data in Europe and now worry about the cost.  I was so happy to be on holiday with GO.  In the past few years we have never booked a holiday, just in case.  With the adoption being paused, we were given some freedom to plan a holiday, too late to go anywhere exotic but still we were away and it was fantastic.  As we crossed a bridge over a stream I challenged GO to Pooh sticks.  As mentioned before GO never really planned games in his youth, so each game I introduce to him his loses because he doesn’t know how to play,  Poohsticks however is purely down to chance.  While for a while it looked like he was going to lose again, his stick even got trapped in some weeds, right at the last moment he grabbed victory from me.  What a smug face he had, not looking forward to seeing that face again to soon, I can tell you.

As we walked around the garden, it was massive, it all looked vaguely familiar.  There were some lakes and ponds filled with the strangest looking geese I have ever seen/heard.  There were waterfalls and brooks.  Lots of like alleyways leading to secluded little nooks and crannies and then in the centre a huge field. I am sure on a hot day it gets very busy, but as it was raining it was quite empty.  Don’t get me wrong there were a lot of people, but it didn’t feel crowded and you were able to find places to be on your own.  I remember watching a clip on the internet about a surfing competition in Muenchen, which at the time I didn’t think anything of, other than how odd that they could have a surfing competition in a city at the foothills of the Alps.  It was only as we were taking more cheesy photos of ourselves (GO is always taking photos, he can’t let a moment pass without capturing it for posterity…..  Alright, it’s me), that I remembered the video.  “They do surfing here!” I announced, GO didn’t look convinced, I think he thinks I make things up just for the fun of it.  Well he had to eat his facial expressions and private thoughts when we came across a group surfing on the river.

 

After a while hunger came a knocking, I was determined to have a Weisswurst in Muenchen, so that is what I did. We “found” (I was headed towards it the whole time) a Japanese Tea Garden, it seemed like the perfect place to stop, and as it was raining, at least we’d be dry for a while.  We decided to try some Weiss Wurst and Sauerkraut, G.O loves his fermented cabbage and well, true German I love me some sausage.

The rain didn’t let up, I had made the fatal mistake that morning not to take my jacket with me.  I thought that my umbrella would be enough.  I was wrong, it started lashing it down, then somehow I miraculously found one of the ponchos that we had taken from Friends Fest in Cardiff.  I put it on, it make you looks like a giant human condom but at least I was all covered.  It wasn’t warm but as it was so big I was able to pull my arms in and walk along feeling rather smug.

Berlin?  Not quite.

We gave up, the rain beat us so we decided to go back to the shopping center by the hotel and dry off.  Hopping back onto the bahn, we settled for the ride, as the train arrived at the station for the Olympic Park I convinced GO to get off.  We had to have a proper look, while we were there.

It was only as we stood under the canopy that we realised, rather daftly that it was all outside.  Nevertheless we couldn't get any wetter.  We then noticed people heading for the BMW visitor center.  I was sure that it was a ticketed thing, but it may also have a toilet and a café, so we thought we'd give it a try.  Turns out the ticket is for the factory tour which we weren't bothered about.  The actual exhibition was completely free.