It's the little things... :)

Tuesday 10th

A day of not much, where we just chilled out for the morning, then biked to Ingo's grandparents house for Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake :D) with his Aunty and Uncle and Johanna and Christopher (cousins) and as I was showing Johanna how to make an origami bird out of her serviette, and while I was trying to tell her how to do it I said, "mien Deutsch ist niche so gut" (my German is not so good) and she said, "Doch! Es ist sehr gut!" (It is very good!) Which was really really sweet :)

After the ridiculously up hill bike ride (don't listen to Ingo ever if he tells you there's only one small hill, he lies.) past the local cemetery where we went to visit Ingo's Oma and Opa Schommer who's candle is looked after and was still burning brightly :) back to home base the crowd from the afternoon coffee and cakes came over for a grill (BBQ) for dinner :) where Johanna and Christopher (and mum and dad) gave us each a stack of Milka chocolate blocks wrapped in cellophane which was sooo sweet :)

Cooking on the Grill

The Inch plus some steaks that Ingo had been promising me

After dinner we went for a beer with 2 of Ingo's friends Camilla and Haiko where they told me that the bar we were in had a back area where the smokers used to go but then it wasn't used as much so they swapped it and now the main bar is for smoking and the back room is for those who don't want to sit in the smoke :s haha but the whole place stunk of cigarettes so I'm guessing not many non-smokers go there anymore ;) It was quite late when we got home but excluding the bike ride in the middle it was an easy day :)

And while we were having this lovely relaxing day I got to thinking about the things that are different over here. Just a few things that I want to mention more for my memory then anything else ;) Like how the traffic signs are all similar but a little bit different - the arrows are longer and skinnier and their signs are yellow and black instead of green and white. How some of the traffic lights go backwards (red-orange-green) weird! hehe! All the houses as in homes are 2 stories at least, and probably have a basement as well, and the trees are Massive! Everywhere! Hugely tall trees, that are all over the citys as well as in the Villages.

The steaks we had on the grill were 5cm thick - no jokes! and the cakes and biscuits aren't half as sweet :/ which I'm still getting used to haha I've had a few that were delicious! But some of them I think, hmmm… with like an extra half a cup of sugar in the mix this could really be yummy! 

I'm now having a bit of trouble with the right hand side driving, at first I thought it was fine, but when I look into cars that are driving past I have that moment of confusion where I'm like "where's the driver?" or if a car's coming towards us from the right around a bend I'm like "oh crap! We're in the wrong lane!!!" bizarre feeling!

One thing that is continually upsetting me is the scratches and vivid and pen marks, you know the stupid kind that's usually all over old wooden primary school desks and public toilets, well here it's all over the walls on the insides of beautiful historical churches and castles. It makes me so cross! that people come and deface all these amazing things that should be treasured! and then you have to pay so friggen much to see some of these places yet they can't stand a couple of staff members around the place to keep an eye on things :( I mean seriously. Get a life people, no one cares if you "love rodent" in 1998 (fictional name) or if you "was here 2010" so sad.

It's also crazy to see scaffolding on heaps of these places, as Ingo said "in constant state of repair" which I suppose is where the money goes so a good thing :) But totally ruins a photo opportunity! ;) 

I love the cobblestones! absolutely love them! even in jandals! and the cities here could really do with those awesome people that we have in Wellington that walk up and down with their pushable workstations in yellow fluro vests, scooping up the rubbish, emptying the bins, etc. Because one thing I notice is all the bits of rubbish just lying in the streets - and it's strange when they're so much further along then NZ with the recycling! It's awesome, just about every rubbish bin has 3 or 4 compartments, plastic, glass, sometimes paper and then everything else - genius! 

Anyway a bit of a bitsy post ;) still more to come!