The snow, Spain, and jobs

Well hello again everybody in the inter-google. We have some important breaking news... Steve has finally convinced some English suckers to employ him! Whoop whoop! It probably has a lot to do with his dapper dress sense and that snappy tie. He is working at Tower Hamlets Homes (part of the Tower Hamlets Council) as a communications officer, starting last Friday. Steve probably smells, cos his boss did not have her contract renewed on Friday afternoon and promptly left... oh what fun!

So it has been a while since you were bored by our travels, so this one might be a little long - but we'll make sure there are heaps of pictures or pix as they are known on the hyperweb.

Snow Day(s)


As you may already have heard it snowed in London last month. It was quite a bit of snow as you can see. This is our street with snow.








The white stuff seemed to bring out the best in people - even the grimy Londoners. It also meant that we had to have a snowball fight with the local kids - they won apparently...


According to the papers here after the snow came the terrible crack foxes and hoards of rodents and the black super squirrels. The snow also caused the roads to explode and cost the country all of its money for ever. Luckily for us we were able to hole up in our room watching movies, and missed most of it :)


Here are some pictures of the neighborhood and the Brixton markets (just down the hill).




Its all really Afro-Carribean and has some interesting sights - dried fish heads anyone?




Now for Espanyola!

We went to Mallorca (or Majorca in English...) in the search of sun and beaches. We definitely got the beaches, but the sun only showed its pretty face for one of the four days so we are still pasty white. We did lots of the typical holiday in Spain things, like:

Stayed in a dodgy Miami style hotel with the Spanish chapter of Grey Power - we were on the first floor directly above the "night club" and were kept up most of the night by the over 60's reliving their youth - which was obviously quite frisky!

Ate paella and tapas, and drank sangria in the sun (well, on one day at least).








Got lost down little back streets.











Hung out in amazing churches and galleries.







Among the less typical things we did were:

Arriving, by chance, on the weekend when Mallorca and the surrounding Baleric islands celebrate becoming semi-autonomious from Spain.
Not that exciting - but they had amazing markets and free wine and sausage tasting as well as "the human tower competition" (pretty sure its not called this but it describes what they got up to).



They also had toffee apples... yum!







We also caught this really cute old train to Port Sollier.





The journey was super, and like it said in the guide book, you could pick oranges and lemons from the train as it travelled across the country side.





It was quite nice...








Really quite nice

Christmas and New Years with the Germs

Now for the festive season, where the weather matched all the songs - for once!

So we decided before we left that we would try as hard as we could for a white Christmas. As Timo (our old German flatmate from Wellington - featured on the left over there) owed Steve a German Christmas for the Kiwi one he attended in 2005, we thought Germany would be a good place to try. As we found out later Germans celebrate Christmas for three days, so it was quite a good choice in the end. We were pretty nervous about "making" Timo's family have us for Christmas, and as we found out later - they were a little too.So we went to Peine to celebrate Christmas with German friends. We had the BEST TIME EVER! 

Despite the language barrier, Timo's parents (Klaus and Karin) were wonderful hosts, and Julia (Timo's sisiter) was such great company - her being able to speak English better than both of us really helped here! Both her and Timo did lots of translating as Karin (Timo's mum) spoke about as much English as we speak German. There were a few things over dinner that did not need translating though, like "Timo, you need a haircut" and "no mum, I like it the way it is". Pretty sure mum's around the world are all the same...

So we ate and drank for three days solid. Some of the delights served were, salmon trout (I really cannot explain it better - looks like trout and tastes like salmon), raw pork mince, liverworst (like pate, but more chunky), cheese soup - Sarah's favorite, and Steve's favourite blood soup - which he and Timo at at midnight. Blood soup for the curious is cooked ducks blood, with bits of heart and kidney thrown in for texture.

Three things we did not know about German Christmas:
They open their gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner
They ring a tiny bell before you can get your gifts - not too sure what this is for
You must have tea or coffee with your cake.

We saw snow on boxing day in Goslar, the home of witches and the Harz mountains.
 
We also went to the Goslar Christmas market, which was neat!

Then we zipped back to Hamburg on the train and stayed for a few nights before we went to stay with Timo's cousin Kulle in Berlin for new years. And what fun we had in Berlin!

A friend of Timo's - Thomas and his partner Antje (both of whom we knew from New Zealand) had us round for dinner with a few of their friends on new years eve. We then went to this crazy party in a huge villa somewhere in Berlin. The music was not great but the atmosphere was amazing.

Just before midnight we went outside to light our fireworks. Germans have fireworks for new years like most places, except its more like Guy Fawkes, the 1980s version, with sky rockets and fire crackers as well as the big public displays! The German fire crackers were a little bigger than the Double Happies and Tom Thumbs we used to get back home when we were kids. To be accurate, the bigger ones were more like small sticks of dynamite than "crackers" - and we got the legal ones from the supermarket! It turns out that like most of Berlin, Timo and Kullah enjoy fireworks like we do. So we bought a few. Our few combined with everyone elses few meant that for most of new years eve and the following night it sounded like world war two - with running street battles, occasional artillery fire and exploding flares. This all culminated at midnight when it really did seem like the sky was on fire. And to top it all off it began to snow at around 2 in the morning. All really quite exciting and a very dramatic start to the year!

We also did a quick tour of Berlin with our fantastic tour guide Kullah.
The highlight being the holocaust memorial. It is a very subtle monument from the outside, but once you get to the heart of it it is breathtaking, not only for its significance and sheer size, but for the way the intent of the architects message creeps up on you.

We then went back to Hamburg and Timo showed us the shadier side of town, the other tourist attraction in Hamburg, the Reeperbahn. That was really interesting with all the peep shows, erotic toy stores and working girls.

OK enough of the boring bits, here are some photos...


Sarah at the Christmas market in Hamburg, where we had yummy mulled wine.


Timo also took us to the beach - so it felt like a proper January, except a little colder.







We got there on this boat...











Steve really like all the space needles. There was one in Hamburg







...and another in Berlin.














Mmmm more mulled wine in Hamburg.




The Berlin wall - some of what is left of it anyway...















More from Berlin

Some job NEWS!

Starting with the best news first...

Someone has a job at the Victoria and Albert Museum as a Museum Technician until November! Go Sarah with the dream job. For those of you who don't know, the V & A is one of the UK's largest museums and houses some stunning exhibitions of cultural artifacts from around the world - and Sarah will get to touch some of it!


Steve has had a number of close shaves with getting work, but has been 2nd place twice. At least he is in the running, and the interview feedback has been really positive, so hopefully it is just a matter of time before he gets to unleash his haircut on London's working world.

More on our Christmas and New Year celebration antics soon!

London town

This be London...

No that's tricks, this is Sarah out the front of Hamish and Anne-Marie's house in Reading. Not London, but very close.


















So what have we been up to? Steve got a haircut but no job.


















Sarah has no haircut, but has a job!
















Woo hoo. National Portrait Gallery look out!

We also have a pad now, in Brixton. Living with two Australian brothers and a couple of Brits. Its a big room on the 4th level, with it's own on suite - very nice! The last girl staying here, even installed a microwave and a kettle which she left for us. Thanks former room owner.

Brixton is quite an African area, so plenty of Jamacian food about and the famous Brixton Market. Also the Brixton Academy is just down the road, where people like the Kings of Leon, Radiohead and the Ting Tings play.


Went to Bristol and hung out with Matt and Shara. First proper Sunday roast with Yorshire pud!













We have also checked out a few of the museums and galleries about the place. It feels a bit like the Brits stole all the good stuff from all over the world and put them on show for tourists - like Sarah and Steve!






























A couple of things that are surprising:

• Riding double decker buses is awesome
• There is fried chicken - everywhere, and its shockingly cheap, Kenny's Fried Chicken (KFC) anyone?
• The local dairy (the off liscence or offie) and supermarkets sell spirit liquor, and if you like cider you can get 2 litres for less than a pound.
• And cheese is cheaper than back home! - why?
• Squrrel's in the garden.

A few things that are not so surprizing:

• English customer service is impressively bad. Way worse than Germany and back home even.
• Its cold and often wet and sun goes down around 3.30. That's not its on its way down - that's it is now proper dark, turn on the lights.
• The underground is grimy and not that reliable, and the further you go down the darker your bogies get.

Alrighty then, bye for now!

Fun times with the Germs

Okey pokey, its been a while and we promised some photos so here we go...

Munich, Germany.



This is Sarah in Munich skipping her way to breakfast








We found this on the way...


















and this is Steve at breakfast looking a little rough, but happy, because yes those are delicious german sausages on saurkraut, with a pretzel on the side. Oh and is that a beer on the side I spy. With that mess of hair and beard - Steve fits right on in...








Ah the beautiful couple, inside the town hall which features the Rathaus-Glockenspiel, which looks alot like this...









We then went on a great free walking tour with Travis from Oz. He had the best Dali Mo ever. The tour took us all over Munich, apart from all the amazing architecture, the highlight was his knowledge of Nazi Germany - apparently Hitler was from Munich (or there abouts) and the whole Nazi movement was started in the city. He showed us memorials to Jews who died there, but they were all so subtle that most people did not even know they were there or understand their meaning. It made us wonder about how well the people of Munich were managing some the difficult history of the city.


We found the market



Is that the cheese shop smile - ah delicious fromage!








And got some kick ass lunch!








which we ate in the park











We also went to the Museum, which was really quite neat Turns out it has the largest puppet collection ever. There were quite a few puppets there.










And we checked out some churches







and then the camera ran out of batteries...