The big news at the moment is that we are having to move from Bubenreuth to Buchenbach. Basically, the guy we live with, Harald, has the ex-wife from hell. She lives near Dresden with their 3 children and phoned Harald a few days ago to tell him that she wants to be more "free" and travel around Europe. So she is sending the kids to live with him for at least 6 months, maybe more if they want to stay! So he has to collect them this weekend, and we have to move out! Harald loves his kids very much and doesn't get to see much of them, so we understood his excitement. We think he's worried that if he doesn't pick them up now, he'll never get them. But it's still a bit of a pain in the behind for us though.So after the inital shock and anger had subsided, Ross went to his school to sort out where we could move to. One option was to come home early and then head straight to France. But luckily another teacher Ross works with offered us a room in her house for similar rent. She lives in a suburb of Erlangen called Buchenbach and it's close to the town centre. She has a lovely house which she shares with her husband and 6 year old son. They also have a cat, which I thought was the most exciting part!!! So the packing begins tonight...
Unfortunately, the move means that we won't have our own landline anymore, but I'm sure we will be able to accept incoming calls at our new place. We will try to keep in touch more by email, this page and Skype from now on. We will also let you know our new address which will be valid until we leave at the end of May. We're really glad this has been sorted so quickly as neither of us were ready to leave Deutschland just yet!
In February we went to Munich for the weekend to celebrate Laura's (the other Erlangen language assistant) 20th birthday. This picture was taken in the Hofbrauhaus which is a very German bar/restaurant, like a Bierkeller. It has loads of long wooden tables and benches and the beer is served in massive tankards. After this picture was taken we all went to a nightclub.The next day we welcomed Laura's friend Anna who travelled from Vienna. We took a long walk around the sites, took lots of photos and spent that evening drinking even more!
A few weeks later, in early March, we visited the above-mentioned Anna in Vienna. Unfortuantely it rained most of the time as you can see from this picture of (l-r) Ross, Anna, Lorna and Laura. We stayed in an amazing hostel and because there were no double rooms left, we got a free upgrade. So Ross and I had our own room with private bathroom and kitchen!Anna's friend Lorna had been taken on a tour of the city when she arrived last year and so was able to tell us what everything was, give a little history of the city, and point out some interesting sites.
If you look at our pictures on webshots you will see a statue of a man on a horse. This is the only statue in the world to have only two points touching the base (the hind legs of the horse), as normally there must be at least three (e.g. hind legs and tail). Apparently it drove the creator mad as he could never recreate his design.
Vienna certainly had a lot to offer, and some parts seemed to be stuck in the 1940's. We went to a lovely, all be it run down, cafe on our last day. The waiters wore tuxedos and the chairs & tables were very old, probably never replaced since the place opened, I'm guessing sometime shortly after the war! We ordered croissants and ate 3 out of the 4 they gave us. We watched the waiter curiously as he proceeded to take our remaining croissant, put it in a basket with 3 others left-over from another table, and then serve them to someone else!
We also had coffee & cake at a cafe Lorna had recommended called Demel. Vienna is famous for it's cakes, and apparantly this place serves the best selection in the city, so is fairly well known and a big tourist attraction. They had a wonderful selection of indulgent cakes & pastries but unfortunately were let down by their service. The waitress took ages to serve us, and after dumping the bill on our table she never came back for the money. We left the exact amount on the table (no tip!) and went to the front desk to speak to a manger. After praising the extremely good food we informed her of our disappointment with the service. As you can imagine, if you pay nearly €20 for coffee and cake, you expect service to match! As an apology we were given two slices of cake worth almost €10, so we were happy!
Our journey home from Vienna was 5 hours long, but luckily the train we caught was like Hogwarts Express (Harry Potter fans will appreciate this)! Ross, Laura and I had our own compartment with door, and the seats reclined. But we were told off by the ticket inspector as we had pulled all 6 seats out to make 3 beds and this was apparantly "not allowed" - bloody Austrians!
Late March was also family visiting time with my mum, brother & sister-in-law coming one weekend and Ross' mum and her partner, Russell, the next.
My famliy arrived on Thursday evening and my sister-in-law Maddy had booked an apartment in Nuremberg for us all to stay in. We took them to our house in Bubenreuth & Erlangen on Friday, Bamberg on Saturday and Nuremberg on Sunday & Monday. We visited the Doku-Zentrum where Hitler's unfinished congress hall is located, and the Palace of Justice, courtroom 600, which is where the Nuremberg trials took place.It was so nice to be with them again, and I really enjoyed their visit.
A few days later Ross' mum Julie arrived with Russell. They drove over and took in some of the sights on the way, stopping in Brugges, Cologne, and Heidelberg. They stayed in a nice hotel in Bubenreuth. As with my family the weekend before, we showed them where we live and took them to Bamberg and Nuremberg. As they drove over it meant they could bring all the things we've missed from back home like Robinson's squash, Ross's hair stuff, and Easter Eggs! Russell also showed Ross how to make lovely pancakes, which I like to put Nutella in! Just like the crepes we had last year in St Malo, France!!That's about all of our news at the moment, so keep watching this space and we will post our new contact details here, along with some pictures of our new residence!
Check out more photos from our recent trips at http://community.webshots.com/user/joanna2079
Jo xx
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