Our April experiences so far

Dear Blog-readers...

if there are still any seeing the blog has become a little less then regular! Dear loyal friend, which you must be if you are reading this new blog:

April is almost finished! We've started the count-down until the 30th of April, my mum's birthday. It is also a day of celebration in the whole of Germany for a very different reason. An ancient heathen tradition is celebrated in the night from April 30th to May 1st, one that has survived centuries of Christian influence. Big bonfires are lit all over the country and people gather round them and celebrate with food, wine, music and dancing. The bonfires are called 'Hexenfeuer', which means 'witch fires'. If you know Johann Goethes 'Faust' at all, a very long scene is dedicated to the description of just that festival. It is not only celebrated in Germany but also all through Scandinavia and some other European countries and traditionally served the protection from evil spirits.

There is so much else to tell you about April. The month started off with a very enjoyable holiday together with my parents...we spent a week in a holiday apartment on the German island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea. Wonderful walks along beaches, chalk cliffs, little fishing villages, sunshine, and Easter...it was a great time.





From there, Michael and I took the ferry to Sweden and stayed with our friends Evelina and Lars and there wonderful children Tilde and William in their house between Malmo and Lund. It was fabulous!!!



Then M&M took a train across from Malmo to Copenhagen and enjoyed three amazing days in Denmark's capital...





And then we took a bus to Hamburg and spent four days with our friend Nicole and her fiance Alexander there...and their two cats!!! For all literature fans: We happened to meet Gunter Grass, the 1999 Nobel Price of Literature Winner and very influencial German author. I got an autograph!!! We also spent a day in Lubeck, a very very beautiful and historic hanseatic city.









Apart from all these adventures, spring is here now and it is MUCH WARMER!!! Michael has been very very busy taking photos. I will display some of his magnificent shots in the next post!!!

The blog has been neglected!

Welcome back after this amazingly long time of silence! We've been neglecting the blog terribly. Well, that is, I have. It's like writing a diary. I have been given about 10 diaries in my life and I always set of with the best ambitions of writing things in each day. A week later the entries got smaller and smaller and two weeks later I tossed the diary in a corner and forgot all about it. But the blog shouldn't end up like that. After having received some emails from faithful readers who were wondering whether we were buried under all the heavy snow in Germany and therefore unable to reach the computer ever again, I decided that it is finally time to get back to the good old discipline of sharing our Germany adventure news with you wonderful people. And now that I've restarted I can already say that it is not as much a discipline as it is joy to be able to let you know what we have been up to.

The truth is, our life has finally gotten into some kind of routine, our German routine. In early March, Michael enrolled in a German course in Leipzig (at the Volkshochschule if that rings a bell for anyone). The course goes through to May and he has classes Monday to Friday until 12 or 1pm. He loves it although it can be hard keeping up with the vocab and grammar. He's making great progress and I am confident that he will be good at German by the end of the year. Papa spends many evenings at the dining table to teach him German with a Saxony accent, I'm not quite sure how that goes down =)

Spring has finally arrived here and we've had some very lovely and pleasant days of sunshine and blue skies. These days are still very rare but at least the days are longer and it doesn't get dark so early anymore. As soon as the snow started to melt, a multitude of flowers fought their way through the snow out of the ground. The trees are budding, birds are giving us concerts every morning outside our window and the first migrant birds can be seen as they return from Africa. Nature is re-awakening which is so suitable as we are in the Easter season which is all about resurrection. The world around us has been resurrected and reminds us each day of the resurrection of our Saviour.

I have started a job at a furniture shop the size of Ikea. It's lovely work in the office helping costumers finance their purchases. Lovely colleagues, nice work, and I'm finally earning some money!

Michael and I have been enjoying the culture in Leipzig. This year is the 325th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach and as THE Bach city in the world, Leipzig is putting on many events in celebration. Past weekend, the new Bach Museum and Bach Archives opened and we attended a very impressive concert at the Thomaskirche (St Thomas Church) with the Thomanerchor (St Thomas Boys Choir). Tonight we have St Matthew's Passion in the Gewandhaus to look forward to.

My dad has been taking a week of work and together with Michael he has been busy extending our house by a whole room! Michael has been learning a lot of practical skills, I think. He's also busy taking many photos of all the flowers in the garden and has built himself a tripod!

Life is good. We are enjoying each day as it comes and are feeling very happy being here. Stay posted. There WILL be more posts and the blog won't be neglected that much anymore...

Lots of love from the Rudolph's

Michael's arty Switzerland photos

In case you didn't know: Swiss people are generally terribly well off. One of rich people's favourite hobby is collecting art. Thus, Switzerland is full of the most divine art galleries and museums. We had the pleasure of visiting many and Michael fell in love with Modern Art. He got so inspired that his photographic ability was influenced...

Switzerland photos

Finally we are putting up some Switzerland photos! This breath-taking country is just too beautiful to capture on film but Michael has done (once again) an exquisite job!

Michael and Maria on their way up Mount Pilatus 2100m at Lucerne (it was -20 degrees at the top!)



This little church is almost at the top of Mount Pilatus and chiefly used for weddings. How would you even get there?!



We took a boat cruise across the lake and enjoyed the scenic view



This meadow (now covered in snow) is the cradle of Switzerland and therefore a national monument.



Our view at lunch...

Ice and Snow

Dear friends,

the headings have been a bit boring lately...ice...snow...cold weather. As if that is all the news from us. Pretty much! It is a crazy winter over here, I can tell you. They say it hasn't been that severe since 1978 and there is still more to come. Maybe it is the start of a new ice age? How did they even survive the ice ages? We are totally under-equipped I have noticed, our skin must lack about 5 layers because we are used to warmer temperatures. Thanks be to God, German houses all have very thick walls, double glaced windows and central heating. I can sit here in a T-Shirt while the new Ice Age is starting up outside.

Here is a little update on the winter situation here: The Baltic Sea has 30cm of ice on it and some of the islands out in the sea are cut off from the rest of Germany. Not even the ice breakers can get through to them anymore and the government is supplying them with groceries and other important services through helicopters. There has been so much snow that on some days the trains can't get through and the planes can't take off so a lot of flights have been cancelled going out and coming into Germany. People are stuck at railway stations and airports and on the roads. There is now a 3cm thick layer of ice on all the footpaths and some of the roads outside and it is impossible to walk on it. Most people just have to get somewhere, though, so we've got a record in broken bones in the hospitals and they had to convert their corridors into hospital rooms because there are too many patients! Why is there so much ice? Because Germany has long run out of salt, sand and stones to put on the ice to make it less slippery. Other countries have stopped supplying Germany because they are running low, too.
And it is still snowing and -5 degrees outside!

I have decided to hibernate till Spring. No point going outside anymore. I tried two days ago and what happened? Fresh snow covered the ice right in front of the door so I didn't see it. Next thing I saw it up close because my feet gave way. I have two very bruised knees now. Hibernation time.

It's been a weeks since our return from Switzerland and we have had such a wonderful time there. My favourite city was Luzern. Beautiful old buildings, a gorgeous lake surrounded by high mountains covered in lots of icing sugar...eehh...snow. One day we took a cable car up to the top of the highest one, 2100m. The view was spectacular and so was the cold up there. -20 degrees!!! Another day we took a ship across the lake and back which took 5 hours. The cradle of Switzerland is there, a small meadow where some brave people swore each other solidarity. Switzerland's national fable hero, Wilhelm Tell, was among them. Do you know the famous story where the cruel Austrian Duke makes him shoot an apple off the head of his own son with his arrow? He succeeds and in turn kills the duke.
Zurich was wonderful, too, and Michael especially delighted in the huge Art Museum and its modern art collection.

The day after our return to Leipzig, we had the pleasure of seeing 'The Magic Flute' opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Ever since that day we've been inside most days except for church on Sunday. Our congregation meets in the hall now because the church building is much bigger and very expensive to heat in winter.

Photos will follow soon...we have been a bit slow I know.

AND NOW, last but not least, the most exciting news of the week: MICHAEL HAS BEEN GRANTED HIS VISA AND WORK PERMIT FOR GERMANY!!! We are very glad all the visa hassle is over.

Lots of love from the Rudolphs!

Switzerland is amazing

Here we are - in beautiful Switzerland. What a beautiful country. Even though we've only spent one day here I already love this country a lot. The people talk funny and they call it German. As a German I can tell you: Whatever it is they speak here, it's definitely NOT German. It is very clean here and the houses look very pretty. It's a bit hilly here in Basel, too, and the Rhine (Rhein) flows through Basel and gives this part of Switzerland a very mild climate...after all, it was only -2 today, the warmest we've had it in a week. When we left Leipzig last night, it was -13 degrees!

So we're staying in Basel until Monday morning, which is right on the northern tip of Switzerland. The amazing thing about Basel apart from all the above things is that it is situated directly at the German and the French border! So when our friend Conny, the twins' mother, drove us around today, we visited both Germany and France and returned to Switzerland after all that! And what's even more amazing is that as soon as you get over the border, every single sign is only written in the national language and the people can only speak their language. When we took a walk in France, everything was in French, a lady was walking her dog and was talking to it in French, little kids were playing in the street and were yelling French things at each other...and 20 minutes walk down the road, the exact same thing took place, but in German!!! And then, back in Switzerland, people talked this inidentifiable language called Swyzer Dytsch (Swiss German). It sounds like Chinese to me.

Switzerland is so amazing. Michael had his very first ice-skating experience today and loved it! He only fell once and wants to spend his time here ice-skating now. There are beautiful castles, big churches and an endless number of museums here, all surrounded by very pretty houses and streets. It will be a very busy 9 days. STAY POSTED!!!

How travelling opens our eyes

It is public knowledge that our eyes get opened when we travel to another country. Not only do we learn about another culture, another language and another way to live, but it also puts into perspective how we live, what our culture has to say, how we do things. We suddenly realise that the way we do things might not be the only way, we might not always be right, we understand that there are many different ways to get to Rome (that's a German saying lamely translated into English and probably doesn't make any sense). It's public knowledge.

What I've realised recently, however, is that the impressions we get in a different country also depend on our age and situation in life. Naturally, 15-year olds are interested in different things than 30-year olds or 55-year olds. They see the world through a different lense and therefore different aspects of the world stand out to them. For our experiences in travelling that means to me that no matter how old we are when we travel somewhere, we will always make new discoveries because each time we see the world through a different lense. What good news, because that means that we have never travelled enough, we have never learned all there is to learn about our country or another. There is always more, the richness is infinite.

I've realised (once again) that the Australian way of life and the German way of life are very, very different. I think Australia offers a lot more opportunities for people to start an amazing career and to establish themselves financially. Germany doesn't give people these possibilities to the extend Australia does, however in Germany the social network is designed to support those who struggle much more than I have experienced in Australia. If you're unemployed in Germany you can still dress nicely and have a nice apartment. Please don't take my amateur thoughts too seriously, who am I to reflect on this topic, and yet I'm very interested in it and like to share my thoughts with you. I think the gap between rich and poor is much wider in Australia, Germany doesn't seem to have stark differences in lifestyles of people as I have experienced in Australia. I think that's very interesting.

I can't wait to see how people live in Switzerland. Tomorrow we'll be there. Michael says the scenery is breath-taking. We'll be spending Tuesday to Sunday in Basel and then take a train to Luzern, stay there for a night and train on to Zurich. I'm especially looking forward to Luzern. It was in the towns around the lake there (Vierwaldstaetter See) that Switzerland gained its independence through the leadership of Wilhelm Tell, their national hero. Here is a map of Switzerland so you can see where we're going.



Switzerland is made up of French-speaking, Italian-speaking and German-speaking people. The German they speak sounds very different to what we speak in Germany and it can be hard to understand them. Michael might get so confusedthere, now that he's just starting to understand what people are saying here! Switzerland doesn't have the Euro so we need to exchange money today. It's the only country in Central Europe apart from the UK that still has their own currency and I have to say, it is quite exciting to change money and get the foreign looking notes.

Our next post might already be about our experiences in Switzerland. Stay posted...