City v farm life

After a few wonderful days spent with our new family we caught the train to Memmingen enroute to Munich. Train travel in Germany is simple and very cost effective and is also very relaxing. We love cities but to go out to rural Germany was fantastic. A couple of surprises along the way. It is summer here and we were very surprised to see it so green here. In Australia is is always dry at this time of summer. The other surprise was the use of solar energy here. It is incredible to see these very old homes and buildings with whole roofs covered in solar panels.

 

We sat there passing steep hills covered in grape vines..I mean steep. We do not have that at home. Then to see castles dotted throughout the landscape high up on the hills and wonderful villages each with their spires reaching to the heavens along with the minarets of mosques

 

. There are homes with window boxes overflowing with colorful displays of flowers, now we knew we were in Germany. Did I mention how green it is here?

 

We have been to Germany 13 years ago with a tour company and remember driving through Bavaria wishing we could stay in one of the little villages. Our dream has come true.

 

 

Maja, Tomi's niece, collected us from the station. She is pregnant with her first child. What an amazing girl she is. More about her later. We stopped to pick up Veit (Sonja's partner) a great guy, very funny and he gets our sense of humour. Then home to see Sonja, Tomi's sister. Again we felt straight away at home. Maja had prepared a feast for us as her mother only returned from hospital that day. Traditional German food and so much of it . Enough for lunch today.

 

Maja took us for a walk in the hills that overlook their village. I felt like we were in the set of The Sound of Music. ...not a Julie Andrews in sight. It was a great opportunity to chat to her and unwind from our journey so far. We have heard so much about her from Tomi so it was easy to know her. After meeting Jens her partner, I know they are going to be great parents.

 

Sonja is fun loving and I suspect as hyper active as her siblings. Even though she was still sore from her recent op she insisted on Veit her partner taking us to all their favorite spots. We are thankful for that xx

 

 

 

We were shown to our room. A huge bed with Moroccan like adornments. The four poster bed is handmade from raw timber and and has been carved..... luxury. We have the whole place to ourselves. Maja and partner live upstairs and his brother lives downstairs. 13 people in the house but living separately. All his family live nearby. What a great life. The only noise I can hear now is the tinkling of the cow bells. The farm and house is away from the village. The houses are large and three stories high sharing common ground without fences with their neighbours.

 

Maja drove us around, also taking us to a beautiful lake.We have nothing at all like this in our country.

 

They live a healthy life with locally grown food and the only meat they eat is locally produced or killed..tonight we had deer that Jens had shot while hunting. Our evening meal with deer was delicious...another first for us eating deer. The vegetables and fruit are also locally grown at the farm nearby where Maja, Jens and Sonja work. They have a market where they sell their goods on a Friday afternoon. It is still like the ways things were done in the old days. There is a trend here now for people to go back to the land and start changing what they are doing about the environment. I know understand why Tomi and Rachel want to do this...it is the way to go. We have travelled around the countryside today trying to imagine what it would be like once winter comes and they are snowed in. I would love this life.....

 

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What a start !

At 7.00 am, two hours before we were due to leave Gawler we had a telephone call from our local Post Office to say our passports and visas for China, Russia and Mongolia had arrived. Talk about a close shave.

We are so blessed to be able to go.

We never had a chance to be excited until we were on the way to the airport. It was a weird feeling. Lots of ups and downs over the last week.

 

We are so excited to finally have met some of our new son in law's family. Tomi is an amazing person so this adventure to meet his family to see where he was born and raised this will give us an insight to what makes him the person he is.

 

We just had to try the local beer

 

 

His sister Marijana, partner Giancarlo,nephew Danijel and Danijel's partner Kristina have been so good to us. We certainly love staying with local people and have immersed ourselves with abandon into their way of living.

Marijana has made sure we have been eating traditional German food. We really appreciate their hospitality as the are all either studying or working two jobs. She is in her words" hyperactive". A little like Tomi....

Frankfurt is a very peaceful city. They live very close to the centre, so we have walked our legs off. The architecture and surroundings remind us a lot of living in San Francisco .

Great restaurants and lots of laughs.

Marijana and her partner Giancarlo are so lucky to live right in Frankfurt and can walk or cycle to work or to restaurants and great markets and bakeries .

The streets are tree lined and the apartment buildings are a work of art.

Danijel is Tomi's nephew and Kristina is Danijel's partner..a lovely couple. Kristina was so wonderful on our first day to show us around and help prepare our lunch that Tomi's sister had cooked the day before. We all spent a lot of time together

Our last meal together at the train station in Frankfurt

 

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Off again

2 weeks and we will be in Frankfurt. Yahoo !!!We will be away for nearly 9 weeks.First stop...Frankfurt to visit Tomi's sister and her family.Just a tad excited. We never know what is in store for us. Watch this space for updates and photos.Of course that is dependent on us receiving our visas on time for entry into Russia and Mongolia.It will happen :)See you soon

Road trip to Seattle

This is one journey no one wants to do over 2 nights. It is over 850 miles from San Jose to Seattle and is go go go. The scenery along the Pacific coast was breathtakingly beautiful and rivalled our Great Ocean Road. We could have stopped every few miles to see something but having such a short time to get there... another time. We saw huge elk on the side of the road which we were told was out of the ordinary. I would not like to bump into one of those with the car. The road at times passed through dense pine and fir tree forests. So nice. There is nothing better stopping alongside a lake or in a forest having a picnic lunch with your family. The closer we got to Seattle the colder it got. Getting to minus temperatures. Then we hit the snow. Lucky for us it had snowed heavily earlier and was only snowing lightly while driving so it was not slippery driving. The upside was the trees were covered in snow. It was truely a winter wonderland. The kids were in raptures while we found a radio station that played non stop Christmas Carols. I won't forget those moments. Just enough snow. Arriving into Renton about 18 miles out of the City of Seattle was a treat. We had never been in a neighbourhood with snow before so as we drove up to our next host's front door it was the most beautiful scene...right out of a christmas card. Beth and her sister Susan live across the road from each other so we were billetted out with plenty of room for all of us. Thank you Susan, Andy, Nicky and Amanda for making us feel at home right away. It was the night before Thanksgiving so we all went out for dinner all 15 of us..enjoying the food and the beer. Not a good idea when you have to go out grocery shopping to contribute to Thanksgiving. Our contribution to the lunch was a traditional Pavlova...without a recipe, and potato salad. Rachel, Tomi and the kids stayed at Beth's..... tomorrow Thanksgiving.

The City of calm and peace

San Francisco...from the moment we arrived in this beautiful city I knew it was special. We rented an apartment right in the city for 5 nights. After weeks of sleeping with each other in motel rooms and in close proximity in the RV the adults had their own room.Yahoo!! The apartment had its own garden and loads of room to spread out. Bliss. After watching many movies and documentaries over the years about San Francisco it was everything and more. From the architecture of the beautiful wooden homes to the peacefulness of the city...which might have been due to the wafting haze of marijuana as I discovered on my venture into a park. It is indeed a hilly city. The steepness of the city streets has to be seen to be believed. Where ever you look it seems to be surrounded by the sea. The bay is immense and there are several islands dotted around...the most famous being Alcatraz. On the day we decided to visit this place it was so cold and drizzly...actually the only day we had weather like it. ...It suited where we were visiting. I really enjoyed the tour of Alcatraz and was surprised it was only used for 20 odd years as a prison. We certainly visited all the landmarks of San Francisco and felt the vibe.

Big trees,big dams and glitz

We had 7 days to pack in a whole lot of miles... We had to pass over the Hoover Dam and that was a sight to behold. Sometime ago we watched a documentary on the building of this incredible structure so were keen to see it in person. Like most things you see, it exceeded our expectations. It was Veterans Day so was hugely busy so we could not tour the dam as the queues were so long. The glitz was Las Vegas...interesting place day and night. One day and night was plenty when you have kids. Our RV park was right off the main drag so we were able to come and go. Night time was the best. We went into the main casinos primarily to see the incredible things money can buy...like fake ceilings painted to look like cloudy skies so it seems like daylight anytime of the day. Mind boggling and mind numbing. No gambling at all for us just looking and looking. Nick and I had a 12.00 pm curfew so we couldn't stay out all night...kids they spoil all your fun. The best part of this stage of our RV week would have to be the Death Valley and the Sequoia Trees. We drove through Death Valley on a beautiful sunny day. Rachel was driving and had some hairy times in the mountains either side of the valley. The scenery was stunning. Give me nature any day. It was memorable to say the least. The best part about camping in out of the way parks is the next morning. When you drive in at night you don't really know where you are and what is surrounding you. Getting up in the morning before sunrise is my favourite time...me time. I arose to the soft hues of the mountains surrounding the camp site...how wonderful. Watching the sun rise slowly across the mountains then touch the prairie...bliss. Better than the glitz of Las Vegas. Onto the Sequioas. Driving into the National Park where these trees were was not easy. To start with our RV was toooo big to go up the mountains so we had to camp half way up and could not see the General Sherman tree. We shared our campsite with bears so all food inside and outside had to be placed in special bear bins if you were not near your tent or van. Yes they open doors and windows. Even deodorants, shampoos etc, were delicious to the bears. The next morning after an exhilarating hike up the mountain we set off to another entrance to the park that would take our van right to the Giant Sequioas. They are huge!!!! The General Grant tree was there and very few people so it was a very peaceful site to visit. Magnificent, amazing, awesome...... we had a fantastic time there and there also was snow again.. We had to return our van the next day. It was like leaving our second home. ...but San Francisco beckoned.