Author: Fenton

Summer Holiday 2005, Part III

2005-10-31

10 August
Daytrip to Venezia (Venice). I was very excited to be visiting Venice. We drove to a parking lot on the mainland (less expensive than the few on the islands) and caught a bus over the bridge. From here we caught a water bus (vaporetto) close to San Marco — the main square in Venice which you’ve all seen pictures of in books or on postcards. We alighted from the vaporetto a stop too soon. Half the stops were ‘San’ something and when in unfamiliar territory all look the same. This gave us the opportunity to wander through a couple of quieter campos (like a common courtyard or a small square), cross the Grand Canal and see a couple of gondeliers at work. (Joshua seemed convinced we would be lost in Venice forever). Eventually making it to the main square, it looked just like the postcards but with more people and pigeons.

We queued to see inside the Basilica San Marco (Basilica of St. Mark) which was very beautiful though we generally agreed a little overdone. Mosaics every where with lots of gold. In the basilica we viewed the Pala d’Oro (translates as ‘golden altar screen’) which is decorated with icons and 2000 uncut, but polished, gems. I also saw the Treasury, containing a number of relics, which I found rather bizarre and grizzly despite their gold cases. Both the screen and the items from the Treasury were looted from Constantinopole in 1264, Fourth Crusade.

Another vaporetto ride to the island of Murano to watch a glass blower in action, browse the shops and make a small purchase. On the way back to San Marco the low-sitting vaporetto was hit by a wave completely drenching Ariana who loved every minute of it. From thence we caught another vaporetto down the Grand Canal and then to the Campo San Sebastian — to find the setting for one of my favourite novels ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’. We found the church and the statue featured in the novel and took a number of photos (to the amusement of some locals as this church is not on the normal tourist itinerary).

So our general impressions of Venice are that it is very beautiful but in parts quite showy and touristy. At that time of the year also very full of tourists. I am still amazed at how American accents carry. Also, we don’t recommend bringing a stroller. Plenty of foot bridges with stairs and no ramps.

Unfotunately Fenton became sick late in the day (coming down with Joshua’s bug), but still managed to get us back to the camp ground.

11 August
Fenton remains sick as a dog (or at least a very ill one).

12 August
We packed up camp in the morning and travelled on to Firenze (Florence). We had booked a room in a hotel since we were only planning to stay one night. The Hotel Dalí is right in the centre of the city and navigating the inner streets were very difficult — even with a GPS system (it had the direction of some of the one-way streets incorrect). Parking was hell but the hotel was very convenient being in walking distance of everything we wanted to see.

There was a museum dedicated to working models of Leonardo’s designs. This was very popular with the children and Elijah managed to injure himself. The Duomo (cathedral) was less showy than the basilica in Venice and in my opinion, more tasteful.

While strolling the streets I ducked into menswear shop to buy Fenton a 6€ tie. We ended up with an Italian-designer wool suit, a shirt and two ties — they gave us a great sell including a ‘large family’ discount! Fenton looks great in a well cut suit that fits. Finally we queued for Del Academia which is a famous gallery with the main attraction being Michelangelo’s ‘David’. It also contains many Catholic-themed paintings. ‘David’ was magnificent, of course.

Overall Florence was more to our taste, we think, than Venice. Fenton thinks it is because it is a comparison of academia to business (and which one does he prefer hmmm?). You’ll have to come and see it for yourselves.

Originally our plan had been to continue on to Rome but as were all tired we decided to spend a little longer in Florence before returning home. We’ll Catch It Next Time™.

13 August
Departed from Florence for home late in the day and stopped overnight once we were a few hours out of town.

14 August
We completed the journey home — stopping for a picnic lunch in Switzerland — with all the children travelling very well.
Summer Holiday 2005, Part II

2005-10-21

Apologies for the long time between posts but here is the second part of our trip to München and Italia. There will probably have to be yet another sequel — to round out the trilogy — before we are done with all we want to say and you are moved to tears (pick your reasons though). Part III will probably cover the visits to Venezia and Firenze.

Italia: 4th – 9th August
4 August
We packed up our tent in drizzly München and departed for Lago di Garda. Our original plans included at stop, at Joshua’s request, at Schloss Neuschwanstein. This is the fairy-tale castle constructed by the Bavarian King Ludwig II in the late 1800’s and is featured in many tourist brochures as well as in the opening title for the Sunday Disney program when we were growing up. We decided to by-pass it this time, due to a shortage of time (see below), but will Catch It Next Time™. This is a phrase we use when we can’t see everything we’d like to see but is in keeping with our general travel philosophy of ‘Do a few things well’. One reason for the lack of time was Gaynor had some last minute children’s clothes shopping to do in central München. So while Gaynor, Ari and Elijah chuffed off to the city, Fenton and the rest packed up camp before heading in to pick them up. Unfortunately, parking in the city centre and meeting up were endeavours fraught with frustrations. There’s a reason public transport works so well in big cities!
The trip to the lake campground (Camping La Rocca at Manerba del Garda) was roughly 450km (about 5 hours) and Joshua became ill and slept most of the trip. Not a happy camper. Gaynor couldn’t remember in which language to thank her first Italian shopkeeper going through German, French, English and finally grabbing onto some Italian. Once again, we set up the tent in the dark — this time with help from some nearby Dutch children.

5 – 6 August
These days were enjoyed doing next to nothing. It would have been exactly nothing but for the fact that we had given the staff the week off. Gaynor and Joshua’s idea of nothing (and usually Mara’s too) is reading for hours on end. Elijah and Ariana’s is swimming, monkeying at the playground and playing any ball sport. Fenton’s idea is laying next to the lake and/or exploring and Bryna’s idea is hanging out with whichever person is doing what she feels like at the time. Perhaps the main reason we went to stay at the lake was to do nothing and thus to come back feeling rested.

The campground — which also included many caravans and campervans — stipulated rules regarding siesta. No loud noise or swimming in the pool between 1 and 3pm. Most local shops are also closed during this time. Elijah seemed to have trouble getting the word ‘siesta’ out with alternate versions including ‘cemetary’ and ‘seminary’ — all synonymous with dull and boring in Elijah’s mind.

Lago di Garda is a glacial lake, very touristy — particularly popular with German and Dutch holiday-makers — but with beautiful scenery. There is a reason it is so popular. Here’s a hasty panoramic photo of it taken during an evening walk.

7 August
Drove the scenic route through the mountains on the western side of the lake and stopped for a light picnic lunch on Strada Panoramica (name says it all — see the postcard shot below which is overlooking the lower reaches of the lake) in San Bartolomeo. We then pressed on to the lookout near Tignale which was so high and had such a steep descent down to the lake shore that it was dizzying (Gaynor felt this literally). The view was too much to take a photo of so here (8.2MB file) is a short movie at the lookout. The rest of the drive continued among spectacular mountains, through deep mountain passes, impressive grottos and tunnels near Prabione, Prà da Bont, Sermerio and Tremosine.

8 – 9 August
Spent pretty much like 5th and 6th. 😀 Though did find enough energy to make it up a nearby hill to a small village for dinner.

So apologies that there are not many more photos of us lazing about or otherwise having a good time but were too busy doing nothing. All in all, though, a very relaxing and enjoyable time. Just the tonic!

Next post: Our intrepid adventurers move on to Venice, Fenton takes ill and they come across a navigational problem not even GPS and a map can solve!
Joshua’s Leisure Time

2005-09-12

Sports
Germans play some interesting sports such as table tennis, handball, soccer/football and tennis. Table tennis is a rather unserious leisure sport that we play during the break at school. There are four big slabs of concrete on concrete stands with a steel net and white lines marked on the concrete slabs. These are our tables and are situated in the school grounds. We play a version of table tennis which can involve up to 15 people. You stand in two lines at the sides of the table with the person at the front of each line standing at an end. One of these first people will serve and once they have hit the ball they will run around the table and join the next line. The person on the other end will return the ball. The next person in the first line will run and take the place of the person who served and hopefully keep the ball in play and so on. It very fun and very energetic once you get down to four people. This game is called ‘rundlauf’ (literally translated as ‘run round’). In this game you commonly have two ‘lives’, a zero and a nothing. When you fail to keep the ball in play two times you are out. When the final two people are left they will play a short match to two or three points to determine the winner.

Handball is really fun because you are allowed to knock people over, at least if you are defending. It is a mix between basketball and indoor soccer. If you want to know more about the game go here. Last school year I played a handball tournament which our team won and I scored the goal that got us into the final. I did not really know how to play handball but my friend told me ‘Get the ball. Dribble round the court. Don’t step in the semicircle and throw the ball into the goals’.

As you may well know, Germany is hosting the 2006 soccer World Cup. Soccer is a very dominant game over here. Every little kid plays soccer and the sport gets serious very quickly. Sometimes kids are not allowed to take excursions with school or family because they have soccer training. I believe that often soccer players fake penalties to receive free kicks. I don’t really want to go into the theory of why they fake or how they seem to fall down so much and dramatically.

Entertainment
A few months ago, my family, some friends and I went to see Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith. It was in English with Dutch subtitles which were very funny. There were Dutch subtitles because it was a cinema in Holland. Last Friday evening my siblings, the same friends and their father and I went to see the movie ‘Madagascar’ in German. The voice dubbing was OK and the movie was still pretty good and I understood pretty much all of it.

At home we receive television channels in Dutch, French, English and German with the majority in German. We watch ‘SpongeBob Schwammkopf’ almost daily which is almost as funny in German.

I have finished the new Harry Potter book twice and I have just started to read books I received for past Christmases. Our Playstation still seems to be in working order and lately we mainly play ‘Gran Turismo 2’ and ‘Mission Impossible’. Elijah has taken a liking to ‘Gran Turismo 2’ because it includes his favourite car, the Audi TT Quattro.
Summer Holiday 2005, Part I

2005-08-23

This is the first part of the report on our summer holiday to München (Munich) and northern Italy. Apologies for the formatting. All the photos here (including larger versions and a few more) are available at our photo page at Flickr. More from the holiday will be added a bit later. We’ve also tried to include many interesting details in this post to give you a feel for how it was. We had a really wonderful time and saw many new and interesting things!

München: 1st – 3rd Aug
1 August
We had invested in a GPS-based navigation system and one of the main components arrived a few days before we were due to depart. Unfortunately, it was a slightly different model to the one needed and was unusable. The supplier (internet-based) was located in Frankfurt which was more or less on our way. So the plan was to depart early-ish Monday morning and pick-up the GPS gear on the way. Frankfurt is about three hours away. The plan went swimmingly well (i.e., we found Frankfurt) until the directions we had expected us to follow a non-existent sign! After a 2 hour unintentional tour of Frankfurt — including the city centre, a lengthy traffic jam and the same stretch of autobahn 3 times! — we got where we needed to go, made the exchange and were finally on our way. Subsequently we arrived in Munich later than desired (but the navigation system worked beautifully!) and set up the tent in the dark in record time.
The campsite was pretty crowded and the owner of one of the tents that we set up very close to came out to point out how close we were. Her concern was that having too many synthetic tents so close together was a fire hazard. In my most diplomatic manner I tried to reassure her (I wasn’t going to be re-pitching the tent then!). She wasn’t that difficult and once she got to know Gaynor a bit she was much happier about matters. Turns out she was an Englishwoman stranded in Munich with a blown car engine and 4 young children. We got to know her and the children well over the next few days.

2 August
Our general rule of travel is to try to see a few things well rather than more things with less time. So the plan of attack was to see inner city Munich one day and the Deutsches Museum the next. Though before touristing got underway in ernest we started the day with present opening for Ariana’s 6th birthday.

We caught public transport around Munich with a unlimited family day ticket setting us back 8 euro. Quite good value we thought. A bus to the nearby underground train and then half a dozen stops into Marienplatz itself.
This photo (boys and Bryna in foreground right) shows the old town hall (very Gothic with plenty of fabulous gargoyles) facing onto the square and the twin onion-domed towers in the background belong to the Frauenkirche (Women’s Church). This is the main (certainly the biggest) church in Munich and was the cathedral for the current Pope when he was First Bishop of Munich. Photos show some interiors of the Frauenkirche as shot by Joshua including looking down the central aisle and the elaborate tomb for King Ludwig Some-Or-Other.
Other highlights included the street performers (see the photos of the children’s favourite and them watching him) , wandering the English Garden and sitting on a rug listening to some light jazz at the old Royal Residence. Gaynor also squeezed in a bit of shopping and Mara and Ari went to the Toy Museum.
The trip home was eventful since we were now travelling with the English woman (Wendy) and her four children and had a desperation to obtain a suitable birthday cake for Ariana before the shops closed (She can ‘kitchen sink’ with the best of them and we didn’t feel the need for the ongoing grief). Rain and public transport did not improve the mix. Fortunately all turned out well with some creative train-hopping by Fenton and (since there wasn’t much pre-planning before separating) a good working knowledge of Gaynor’s thought processes (also by Fenton).

3 August
This day was reserved for the Deutsches Museum (go to your preferred language and check out Exhibitions for a listing of the Museum’s contents). We didn’t take many photos of this fabulous and large place, instead purchasing a guide in English. It is a technical museum and if you’d like to know more I’d encourage you to check out the website and then book your airplane ticket! Remember, there’s always free accommodation (for selected guests) in Juelich a scant 6 hours away.
Family favourites included the complete V2 rocket (Joshua), the solar-powered plane (Elijah), the gondola (Mara), the history and techniques of glass and ceramic manufacture (Gaynor), flying the model plane (Ariana and see photo below) and pressing any button within reach (and many out of reach, Bryna).
Met up with Wendy and her children just before closing and joined them back at the campsite for a barbeque dinner.
Holiday Plans: Summer 05

2005-07-13
Just quickly, we are planning a trip for the summer down to Italia via München. The itinerary at this stage is:
- 1/8 Depart to München (Munich)
- 2/8-4/8 See München, including the Deutsches Museum.
- 4/8 Depart to Lago di Garda in Italia via Schloss Neuschwanstein (Joshua’s request).
- 4/8-12/8 Enjoy relaxing at Lake Garda, probably at Manerba del Garda (close to Brescia on the map below).
- 10/8 Day trip to Venezia (Venice).
- 12/8 Depart to Firenze (Florence).
- 13/8 Depart to Roma.
- 15/8 or 16/8 Return home.
Here is a map of the trip to Roma (we’ll come home with a slightly more direct route via Switzerland) and some vital statistics on the trip, courtesy of some nice route planners (routnet.nl, mappy.com and viaMichelin.com)

Jülich-Roma (via München, Manerba del Garda and Florence)
- Distance: 1623km
- On motorway: 1502km
- Tolls: 63,80€
- Fuel cost: 122€ @ 1,00€/l and 7.5l/100km
Roma-Jülich (via Switzerland)
- Distance: 1437km
- On motorway: 1416km
- Tolls: 59,80€
- Fuel cost: 108€ @ 1,00€/l and 7.5l/100km
And to make it more of an adventure, we are planning on camping! Hopefully, we’ll have a digital camera before we leave and can share some photos soon after our return.
Recent Events: 27 June 2005

2005-06-27

We recently had a friend from Australia, Kali, come and stay for a few days. She was studying in the US for a term and then touring England and Germany for a little while. She’s been to Europe a number of times before but never to our part. Though it was a short visit, she hopes to return next year for a little longer. It was great to have another Australian accent around and she kindly looked after the children one evening while Fenton took me on a date to the Netherlands.

So the date was a trip to the movies to see the latest Star Wars adventure. While there is a cinema in Jülich, we went to Heerlen because the Dutch don’t dub their movies. So we could see it in English with Dutch subtitles. So while it sounds a bit decadent and/or bizarre to go to a whole other country just to watch a film, it was only a half hour away. It was nice to spend sometime with Fenton without our beautiful children.

Fenton spent the last few days in the Netherlands learning Dutch. ‘Why?’, you may ask. It’s a requirement of the job. Despite living here, he officially lives there and is required to do an introductory Dutch course. This has caused havoc with his embryonic German.

The weather lately has been almost like an Australian summer with temperatures in the low 30s and has made me feel much more at home. If the temperature gets above 30 here the children are sometimes sent home from school, which they look forward too. The higher temperatures mean we have had more water bombs fights, more ice-cream and more visits to the park.
Going Dutch

2005-06-22

Even though we are living in Germany[1], I am employed by a Dutch organisation, FOM. For foreigners coming into the Netherlands, they invite you to a Dutch language and customs course. This is to help you assimilate and acclimatise and so even though I spend very little time in the Netherlands I was obliged to attend. I have very little reason to learn the Dutch language, even though I was quite interested to. (I’m finding out that you can’t speak too many languages.). There’s little reason, since, not only do I spend very little time in that country, but my Dutch colleagues (and Dutch people in general) all speak excellent English.

It was originally a five day course with a weekend after the second day. However a Dutch train strike on the Friday meant there was no course for that day. So perhaps that was a reasonable introduction to some Dutch customs. I took the trains from our village to Utrecht with a total travel time of about 3.5 hours on three different trains. The train from Köln (Cologne) to Utrecht (known as the ICE – International City Express) is quite nice, travelling around 130 km/h, with airline-type seats which have a power point and head phone jack (you provide the head phones) with audio programs available.

I enjoyed the course — there is a fair bit of overlap between German and Dutch and with my German vocabulary getting much bigger this made it easier — though I do seem to be coming home with a sore throat from trying to pronounce some of the sounds. The course was taught in English and, even though everyone spoke it (other participants were Bulgarian, Ukrainian, French, Italian, Pakistani and Turkish), I was the only one who spoke only one language. Sometimes I really feel that here mono-lingual is mono-brow. *chest thump* “Ug. Me Fenton. Me speak English.”

[1] Technically, I live in the Netherlands. That is, I have an official address there and Gaynor and the children official reside in Germany. Hopefully soon my Dutch residency permit will be approved and I can then officially move to Germany. So at the moment, I just holiday in Germany a lot. 🙂
The Girls

2005-06-09

Mara
Mara was quite keen to come to Germany and, even though she has had her own challenges, seems to be generally happy about life. Her biggest trial to date seems to have been the teaching style and personality of her teacher. She is still enjoying school but, with the language and cultural barrier, initially found it difficult to understand the requests of her teacher. This, along with the early starts — their bus leaves around 7:45am and Mara, like her father, is not a morning person — made for a few weeks of personal adjustment. She seems to be pretty much back on top of things again, learning the language quite quickly.

Her teacher likes the children to memorise poetry and Mara has done quite well at this, despite not being able to understand the first few. Here (wav file, 691kB, higher quality) or here (mp3 file, 63kB, lower quality) is a recording of the first one she did, receiving many compliments for her pronunciation.

She has made good friends with a local girl in the village who lives with her three siblings on a small farm. They have horses (the girl’s father trains them) and a lovely yard with various swings, see-saws etc. and consequently it’s a popular place for our children to visit.

Ariana
There is a kindergarten in the village — the group is known as the “Wild 13” from a German children’s book — which Ari is attending until the summer holidays. One of her teachers speaks a little English but Ari, in general, doesn’t need to know a lot of German to get by. She is picking it up reasonably quickly and is now becoming very interested in reading and writing. Her progress in these skills has been a little hampered by her insistence that she learn it on her terms, which, however, do not always correspond well with reality.

German children generally start primary (elementary) school at 6 years of age but it’s certainly not uncommon for them to also wait until they are 7 before beginning. It’s quite a flexible approach and they seem to be keen to make sure that children are mature and adjusted enough to be able to make a successful transition. Ariana, of course, has been chomping at the bit to start school since the middle of last year. She was a little put out when informed that she would still be in ‘pre-school’ (known more correctly as ‘kindergarten’ here) until at least August, when her friends in Australia started ‘proper’ school in February. So it wasn’t really an option to wait another school year before sending her. In addition, if we return to Australia in September 2006 she will at least have one year of schooling under her belt. Although German children are at kindergarten until they are 7, very little in the way of structured learning goes on here. It’s very much like pre-school with plenty of finger-painting, recreational play, stories and singing. However, once they hit primary school (the Grundschule) it progresses quite rapidly and they are down to business.

In one of Gaynor’s previous posts she mentioned briefly a trip to Brückenkopf Park in Jülich. Among the attractions there is a small zoo. When we came across a peacock, Gaynor, in a conversational tone, asked the bird to present his tail feathers. When the peacock refused the request, Ariana said to Gaynor, “Mum of course the bird can’t understand you. It’s a German bird!”

Bryna
Bryna has taken the move to Germany in her stride. Though we were concerned about travelling with her from Brisbane to Amsterdam to here (a total transit time of about 32 hours door-to-door), she journeyed exceptionally well, sleeping almost the entire stretch from Singapore to Amsterdam.

She still isn’t saying much — having about equal vocabularies of German and English, a dozen words in each — but who needs to with four siblings at your beck and call, a very accurate pointing finger and an insistent tone. She loves to be outside, taking rides in the baby trailer on Elijah’s bike and walking along the neighbour’s low wall.
The Boys

2005-05-15

Joshua
Joshua is now attending high school. They have a few different kinds of high schools here depending on your academic level and expected job vocation. Those hoping to advance to a university education generally attend a ‘gymnasium’ (pronounced GIM-narz-i-oom, with the ‘oo’ as in an Australian-pronounced ‘book’), with those going on to further education (technical college or similar) attending the ‘realschule’ and others going to the ‘hauptschule’ (main school). So Joshua is attending the local gymnasium located in the nearest town. His classes start early (7:50am) and he gets himself there via train (7:24am from our village) and foot. So far he really seems to be lapping up all the new and interesting subjects, which he probably wouldn’t have started for a few more years in Australia. I’m sure he’ll post about this soon.

He has made a good friend in a German boy who recently returned with his family from a few years in the US. His father is also a physicist and working at the Forschungzentrum. His English is excellent as is his German and so he often translates for Josh. The family lives in a nearby village and have been very friendly and helpful to us. In particular, the mother has helped Gaynor with shopping and socialising. The boy and Josh decided (for their own nefarious reasons) to tell their German classmates that ‘hokey-pokey’ was a rude word in English. Sure enough later that day during class, one of the boys in the class dropped his pencil and let out a ‘Hokey-pokey!’ much to the bemusement of the (English-speaking) teacher and the barely suppressed giggles of Josh and friend.

Elijah
Elijah was probably our most reluctant to come to Germany, having settled into a fairly nice lifestyle in Canberra and generally being a bit resistant to altering the status quo. He is attending the ‘grundschule’ (primary school) along with Mara, though next school year — which begins after the summer in about September — he will be going to one of the next level schools. See the first paragraph in the part about Joshua for a run-down on the options. We will push to have him attend the gymnasium with Josh, since he really is a bright boy, though he has shown a leaning to go where-ever most of his friends will be attending. Friends and relationships are quite important to Elijah.

We’ve been encouraging him to get out and about a bit more, by playing with some of the children in his class (there is a boy just down the street) and he does this somewhat. He also enjoys spending time with Joshua’s German-who-just-returned-from-the-US family. Probably because he can speak English with them. One thing he has missed so far is the rugby season which has just finished here and just started in Australia. There is a reasonably local team (including juniors) at Aachen. I expect next winter the boys will want to be involved. Elijah’s grandmother has kindly offered to record some Australian football games and send them over. Hopefully this will help to keep Elijah (and the rest of the family too!) in the (sport-watching) lifestyle to which he has become accustomed.
Ich habe fünf kinder!

2005-05-11

This is a phrase I learnt early (in English it’s “I have five children.”). It was worth learning quickly to be able to see the whites of the local’s eyes grow as they realise. Usually their numbering system for children stops around three with two being the most common numeral. But they are very generous and affectionate towards children and so there would be many worse places than Germany to have a childhood (See the post Karneval! for instance). Must be hard to be a kid in this place. So the next couple of posts will be brief rundowns on the five that I have some hand in …