From Erlangen, we drove to Heidenheim, where we stayed from Monday until Friday. A few reasons for staying here:

1. The German teacher from Rod’s school – Sonja, former Heidenheim resident, arranged for us to stay with her friends

2. We could visit students from Cathedral College who are currently on exchange in Heidenheim

3. Close to Salzburg, our current place of residence for 2 weeks

 

The lovely Esther and Klaus were our extremely generous and friendly hosts for the week. We arrived on the day of Esther’s birthday and met some of their friends that night at birthday drinks. After diplomatically answering questions such as: “What do you think of Germany – is it what you expected?” and “What is your favourite place in Europe so far” (Important note here, you never tell a German your favourite place is somewhere in France). One lady who had visited Australia pointed out every hidden, real and imagined danger lurking in Australia: “Oh, but the crocodiles…the sharks…the jellyfish…the spiders…the heat…the fires…the floods…” Lucky we didn’t tell her about drop bears.

Exchange Students

After ironing a couple of shirts (the first ironing since leaving Australia), we got a bit dressed up and headed to the Max Planck Gymnasium (high school) where 8 of Rod’s students are on exchange from November till January. Hamish loved having some other kids to talk to and hang around with, even though they are much older. He told us that he now has some friends at school when he starts!

This exchange programme has been going for about 10 years and is open to all students studying German in Years 10/11. When asked about being homesick, the definitive answer was “No Way!”; they were all having a great time. When asked what was the stand out of living in Heidenheim, their responses related to food.  One student asked us: “Have you ever had Turkish food?” Well, yes, but apparently nothing as good as the Doner kebab (pronounced doona in Germany). It was suggested we have lunch at the Ali Babar Turkish takeaway/restaurant in town. We did. It was delicious. Other comments about living overseas ranged from driving (no indicators, very fast) to lack of uniform and early starts at school.

Castle Walk

Klaus showed us around the Schloss House (big castle) in Heidenheim, which was in walking distance from their house. Hamish gave Rod palpitations/nausea as he leaned over the 1m wide cement/block railings to look below.  From here, we walked to the soccer stadium and into a woodland where we saw long horned mountain goats, deer and pigs. Hamish was disappointed we didn’t have a coin to buy a handful of food for the goats. And so were the goats. If only he hadn’t thrown coins into the wishing well at the castle. Hamish requires a piggy back to get home.

Belinda’s Haircut (by Belinda)

Whilst at the Ali Babar, I had ducked in to the hairdresser next door to see if they had any appointments for a cut and foils. The hairdresser had limited English, but showed me the 4pm timeslot in the book and I said OK. It was this same hairdresser who greeted me later that afternoon and gave me some books to look through. We managed to discuss foils and colour, but I think there was some confusion about the colours ‘blonde’ and ‘brown’. His technique is the same as hairdressers in Australia, but he is super speedy and has a dramatic flourish with every fold of the foils. I don’t take much notice. However, when it comes to cutting and drying my hair, his hands seem to move much quicker, so quick in fact, that he knocks over his entire kit onto the floor. He is embarrassed, but moves on. At this stage, I am glad (sort of) that neither of my sister’s, nor Jess is there. I would not have been able to contain myself and I am sure there would have been plenty of giggles.

For the record, he tried to German me up: meaning that I am now much blonder than before.

Christmas Markets

Esther takes us to the Christmas markets in Ulm, which attract visitors from all over, including bus loads from France. Ulm is also famous for having the church with the highest steeple in the world. It is very impressive. You can pay to walk up the 700 odd steps, but we pass on this, having been told there is only a narrow staircase without rails.

The weather is ‘cloudy with a chance of rain’ and the forecast delivers near the end of lunch. Esther runs off to do a few errands whilst we take Hamish to make a candle, which he does with a bit of help from me (fearing he would burn his hand in the wax). The result is fantastic for the paltry cost of 1 euro.

We buy Hamish a pair of fur lined gum boots, as like other children, he likes finding the puddles, but since then, the weather has been fine, of course. We finish the day with a coffee/water/hot chocolate at a beautiful  rooftop café (even the sugar sachets are posh) where we have a great view of the church and the markets.

Munich (Rod)

Klaus is very keen for me to see Munich, his place of birth. We drive there very fast. Klaus is not happy with drivers who don’t indicate, sit in the middle lane or continually hit the brakes. All of these are quite alarming at about 200 km/hour. We park next to the (1972) Olympic stadium, which still looks like a modern architectural highlight. From here we walk/tram into town to explore many of the historical and modern sights Munich has to offer, including Klaus’ childhood home. The 1800 year old skeleton of Saint Munditia at St. Peter’s church is a particular highlight. The hop on/off bus tour completes our visit, before we drive home, again at astronomical speeds, which is even more hair-raising now that darkness is falling.

Home Day

Hamish and I had a day at home, whilst Klaus took Rod to Munich. Hamish had a week of late nights (just unable to settle once in bed) and so a day doing not much was in order. He watched a few DVD’s and then our plan was to walk into town (5 minutes downhill), have lunch, get Rod a Christmas present, play on the kids playground and walk home. All went well until Hamish needed to go to the bathroom and God forbid, I took him into the Ladies. Use the following words in any order: screaming, yelling, kicking, crying, meltdown, out of control. Hamish had a tantrum of epic proportions lasting long after I dragged him back up the hill. One lady wagged her finger at him and told him off (in German, of course), but I appreciated the solidarity. There’s really nothing else I want to say about this day, except as of last night, he had 12 hours sleep and is starting to catch up which of course, helps everything.

 

Salzburg

Our 3 hour trip to Salzburg takes 4 hours due to traffic, but we are blessed with our first view of the Alps, which look like they have been dusted with sugar.

Vegemite

Just a bit of an aside here, I think we have already mentioned that we were able to get some Vegemite (thanks Travis and Dawn) in the UK. It has served us well and we didn’t think we would miss this Australian staple. Klaus and Esther happened to have a jar in the fridge, which has probably been there for years. I had some on a pretzel: Klaus was mortified as his pretzel was loaded with cheese and salami “Never with the Vegemite,” he said. He happily gifted us this little golden pot of goodness and we will be forever grateful.