Europa Park and Ascent to Rosberg

We started early on Saturday morning, well we managed to get away from Gomaringen at about 7:30am. Our mission – to head to Europa park for the day and have some crazy German theme park fun. For those of you who don’t know, Europa park is a theme park situated just north of Freiburg in south western Baden Württemberg not far from the French border. We took the scenic route to get there, right through the centre of the black forest on highway 28. Well, it’s not really a highway more like a road that connects a whole series of villages every five or so km. It took us almost three hours to get to Rust (great name for a town) where the theme park is located. I thought that we would get there sooner as we were out of the black forest after about two hours and onto the A5. I thought nothing could stop you on the Autobahns but we managed to get stuck in our first ‘phantom’ traffic jam, so named because nobody really understands what causes them. One minute you are cruising along at 180 on the A-Bahn and then all of a sudden its virtual stand still for the next 10 km. When you finally start moving again, you keep thinking when am I going to see the massive accident up ahead but it never comes, and you are left none the wiser as to what really caused the slowdown. Apparently these mysterious traffic jams with no apparent cause are quite famous in Germany, so much so, that the government has even funded a study to try to determine what exactly causes them. Anyway we arrived at Europa park at about 10:30am ready for a full day of rides and entertainment. If you haven’t already guessed Europa park’s theme is…yep Europe! It is actually really well done, with about 10 different European countries to stroll through each with authentic houses, shops and loads of crazy rides from roller coasters to swinging pirate ships and giant plunges into water. The ‘silver star’ roller coaster had to gain the prize though as the best ride with a couple of incredible almost vertical plunges at huge speed. After almost ten hours wandering through the park, they finally shut up and booted everyone out at 8pm, everyone (us included) leaving happy, tired and keen for bed. Unfortunatley, we had a three hour drive to get back to Gomaringen but it all went by pretty quickly despite a few tense moments when we weren’t sure where we were – a reasonably common occurrence among German villages that all seem to look pretty similar at first glance.

Our weekend adventure wasn’t done with the trip to Europa park though. A couple of work colleagues invited me and Asia to go for a small hike through the back blocks of Gomaringen to a little restaurant at Rosberg on top of a small mount with pretty great 360 degree views out over the general Gomaringen area. It took us about 6hrs for the return trip after a couple of 'rest stops' at the local watering holes - I think I already mentioned how good the German beer is...We finished the day with dinner at our local Italian pizzeria in Nehren and then it was back home to bed after a great but exhausting weekend.

I’ve decided that I really must make the most of the time I’ve got left here (which sadly is now only just over a month) by getting to some places a bit further afield in Germany each weekend. Top of the list are Munchen and Berlin. The plan is for Munchen this weekend with a visit to the Nazi concentration camp Dachau.

Crazy Snails and Slugs

_{Went for a walk around Gomaringen with Asia on Tuesday night and we managed to spy this crazy snail. No wonder these critters are on the menu over here, I mean that is one seriously huge snail.}

_{How about the cost of fuel eh? I don’t think I’ll moan about it again though after being over here, check out the prices in the picture below, that’s Euros so basically you are almost paying twice as much as back in NZ. Here is a picture of my latest wheels, a black smart car. Despite my initial misconceptions, they are actually quite fun to drive. Hmmm, well I thought I had lots to write about today but it seems I’ve got a brain block, so until next time...}

Freiburg

Asia and I went Southwest yesterday to check out a place called Freiburg. It is a city nestled in amongst the black forest close to the French border, and not too far from the Swiss either. Freiburg has the typical German historic village/city feel with wide open paved roads mainly designed for pedestrians. As usual, there was some amazing architecture and the weather was a very nice 25 degrees. Speaking of the weather, it is has been decidedly shabby for the last three or so weeks (by shabby I mean shabby for summer, so somewhat like a Wellington summer I suppose, haha). It is often been rainy, gray and overcast with the temperature struggling into the early 20s. Apparently this is more typical of the German summer and quite a change from the 30+ degrees the first few weeks I was here. Anyway, so Asia and I stumbled around Freiburg most of the afternoon checking out the various sights, downed a quick cappuccino and then headed into the mountains for what turned out to be the highlight of the trip.

We drove up to the top of this hill just outside of Freiburg. It tops out at about 1250m but still high enough to get some pretty amazing views and judging by the ski lifts also plenty of snow in the winter. Apparently on a clear day you can see the Swiss alps in all their glory but alas we were not so lucky. Nonetheless, it was still pretty cool and I even managed to spy a couple of wind turbines. After a little wander around the summit and to this viewing platform we cruised on down to this amusement park, we you must give over you left arm and a couple of toes to get on each ride. Me being a stingy bastard, we only went for a few trips on this thing called the space runner which was quite cool. Unfortunately, they shut down the luge just as we were arriving, as it looked like it would have been even better than the Queenstown one. Just as we were leaving the heavens opened in what was pretty much the most torrential downpour I have ever witnessed in my life. I mean the roads were covered in water at least two inches deep, despite their being plenty of drainage. Of course, rain like that can’t last for very long and within 30 mins the storm had passed leaving the area a few degrees cooler in its wake.

Did I ever mention how good the German beer is? Well, you have to try it to believe it and I’m not kidding. It is damn cheap too. You can pick up a crate of 20 500ml bottles from the local bottly for about 12€, amazing stuff!

I'm back, with dialup...

Okay so I'm back in action with the blog. I managed to sort out some kind of makeshift dial up deal from the hotel room which seems to be working okay if a little slow. There a like a million providers in Germany and all pretty cheap which is good. So hurrah, I can start blogging again with fervour.

Thought I'd post some pics of our trip to the burg Hohenzollern in the weekend, some quite good shots I must say...

It´s been a while

Okay so it has been a while since I last made a post. The main reason I have been such a slacker is that I lost my free internet connection about a week and a half ago. I had somehow managed to pilfer the internet through the wireless on my laptop, but I think they are on to me now and so I haven´t been able to get online, apart from at work and I don´t think it is such a good idea blogging from work.

Anyway, this post is taking me three times as long as usual to write because I´m in an internet cafe using a crappy german keyboard with the keys in different places...Okay enough moaning, what have I been up to?

Well, Asia arrived on Wednesday, so it was pretty great to see her again after about a month by myself. Today, we went to check out the castle that I took a photo of a couple of weeks ago. Man, it was even more amazing up close, we spent about three hours just looking around it. We had intended to go to Freiburg this weekend but by the time we got organised in the morning it was practically lunchtime, so we decided on the castle and a visit to Tübingen instead. Quite good anyhow since Asia is still feeling a little jet lagged. I took some great shots (as did Asia), I will get round to posting them at same stage but for now you will just have to make do with your imagination.

How about that bomb threat at Heathrow? I think Asia just missed all the commotion by a few hours, so that was pretty good timing...

Hmmm, what else? I went into Stuttgart last weekend to check it out properly for the first time. It has much more of a big city feel than either Tübingen or Reutlingen but it still manages to retain some of the charm of the smaller places. I have got a trip back there planned probably for next weekend. We are going to go check out a Bundesliga game, with a few of the guys from work so that should be pretty interesting. Apparently Stuttgart has quite a good team, they finished fifth in the league or something last year.

Work has been really hectic, I´m still feeling pretty overwhelmed by how much I don´t know but hey it´s great to be learning some really interesting stuff. I have been working with the Australian system quite a bit a that is a nice change from the central North Island (Auckland...). For you lads at Transpower, I hope things are going well. I think I will be back in New Zealand for a week or so on the fifth of October, so I will try and pop in for a visit.

As for this blog, well I don´t know know how often I will be updating it from now onwards, the lack of internet connection at home is a bit of a drag. I will at a minimum try and post at least once a fortnight maybe more often we will see how things go. Okay everyone, keep well and Ciao for now.

Brad