Don't you step on my blue suede shoes...

Well, they weren't blue... or suede... but they were shoes!  And I went a-wandering in them last week in the "mountains" of Northern Germany.  The Harz is a forest containing the highest elevation point in our region, and I spent a day there with a couple of my friends.


To start off with, we grabbed a coffee and took off for the quaint little town of Quedlingburg.  I'd love to tell you just how quaint, but a picture is worth a thousand words (and I still haven't found a good translation for Fachwerkhäuser  in English) so I'll show you.

don't you just love how the houses tilt here?!

this was the hotel we wanted to stay in, but it was a holiday weekend and all booked up

After checking out the cute houses and wandering around the market for a little bit, we headed on up towards the castle on a hill.  And along the way we stopped at Gabi's favourite cheesecake café - over 90 different types of cheesecake!

that's the café in the middle

They had all sorts of normal flavours, but some... let's call them 'exotic' flavours as well.  Our choice?  Well, take a look:

cheesecake with melted goat cheese on top, orange pepper, chili stringy thingys, orange, strawberry and basil.  de-lisch!

Afterwards, we were all re-fuelled and ready to check out the view from the castle gardens.

squinting into the sunshine

The best part was checking out the size of the houses below.  Some of those places are tiny!!

third from the right.  check it out.  bah!

And they don't look any bigger from the front!

aaah!  the house is trying to eat me!

And then it went right on back to being cute as a button:

see?

Quedlingburg was only the first stop of the day.  Later on we headed over to Roßtrappe to check out the view.  Roßtrappe is a lookout point at the end of a short trail.  We took the chairlift up to the top and then headed out along the trail.

beautiful, eh?

We also ran into some really lovely people along the trail (please take note of the fact that my voice is absolutely dripping with sarcasm at this point in time).  An elderly couple was quietly enjoying the view: birds, trees, and their grandson chucking garbage into the woods.  When we mentioned something about that crazy thing called a garbage can, they tossed back a bit of brilliant logic (ps. the sarcasm is back).  "We only throw our garbage into the woods." ...er... 

Don't you just love people sometimes?

We continued along the trail and passed by the legendary horse hoof print:

According to legend, a giant named Bodo wanted to marry a princess named Brunhilde.  She wasn't such a fan of this idea, so she ran away on her horse.  When they came up to a huge ravine, they had to jump - and left behind a hoofprint.

The sun was starting to set at this point in time, so we headed on back and grabbed a coffee and warm dinner before the journey home.

windswept, a little frozen but loving life :)

And that about sums up our day - the journey home was fairly uneventful.  We wound our way home across the hills, through little villages and along back roads. 

But before I go, I have one last picture.  Just cause it's cute.  And make's me sing "what's up with that kitty in the window" before I realize that those aren't they lyrics...

But there is a window... does that count?

Toodles,

Sandy

My bonny lies over the ocean...

And unfortunately, my magical flying pony threw a shoe and I had to stay on this side of the ocean.  But I managed to distract myself - in the form of a week at the seaside.  How's that for a class trip?!

boarding the ferry to Amrum

Amrum is a tiny little island belonging to Germany found in the North Sea.  Funny story.  I've never been to PEI, but I know that it's small.  In my head I figured that Amrum was roughly as big as PEI (aka. small).  When I did a little research after I got home, I discovered that PEI is like a million times bigger than this island.  You can drive around PEI in roughly 2 hours - I'm pretty sure you could walk around this island in about 2 hours.  (It must have been the 2 that stuck in my head...)

But ya, back to the trip.  Upon arrival, we did what any normal person would do - drop your bags and run to the seaside to dip your toes in the ocean.  

Too bad the water was about 5 degrees... Not that that stopped us.  I believe the phrase is "strong like bull"... :)


We spent the rest of the week wandering about on this little island.  From Wittdün to Norddorf to Süddorf back to Norddorf... and so on.  

it's kinda like the middle of nowhere...but better!

The kids were absolute troopers - our first day we hikked 16 km!!  There was some serious complaining, but everyone made it home for dinner.  I should also tell you, that Amrum is half beach.  Gorgeous white sand beach.   With dunes.  It's quite incredible.  And we had a heck of a time collecting seashells on the beach.

braving the arctic winds to squish our toes in the sand

There's an artist who lives on Amrum and spends some of his time collecting driftwood and garbage on the beach.  And you know what they say: one man's garbage is another man's treasure.  This rather ingenious artist takes what he finds and makes ships.  Ships that are playgrounds.  When my inner child found this out, there was no denying her...

coolest ship ever.

And can you blame her?  The best part?  The disco balls!  After a short break to play, we wandered back through the surf to our hostel for lunch

like I said: best class trip ever.

There is a difference between the North Sea and the East Sea in Germany - namely, the tides are ridiculously huge in the North Sea.  So, when the tide goes out, you're left with these ridiculously muddy, squishy-squelchy, wet mudflats.  And they offer tours through them.  

learning all about the smallest, fiercest, fastest snail in the world

I had a really great time in the mudflats, although, if you weren't careful, you might end up stuck!

see?!

And while we did have a few people fall over, no one got stuck.  As reward, we stopped to pet some sheep on the way home.

Wednesday wasn't a great day weather-wise - it was cold and rainy the whole day.  So we went to the swimming pool and played in the waves.  They were super nice and turned the waves on every 15 minutes for us, instead of every 30 minutes.  I had so much fun playing in the water, but I was absolutely pooched at the end of it.  Luckily we went back for a nice relaxing game evening - where I introduced some of the kids to the wonderful world of Go Fish.  Oh yeah.

On Thursday we headed back up to Norddorf to do a little souvenir shopping.  And something amazing happened.  

No, it wasn't singing old sea shanties with my new sailor friend...

It was even better.  It was cloudy and cold that morning - the wind felt like icicles stabbing you.  So, we weren't quite sure what to do when it came to lunch (we'd packed a lunch, but there was no way we could sit outside to eat).  We ended up stopping in at the Tourist Information Centre to ask if we could eat in the reading room.  Where library silence was enforced.  We were allowed to go in and eat, if we were absolutely silent, so the readers wouldn't be disturbed.  I thought to myself: "26 ten year olds... there is no way they can be that quiet."  But they proved me wrong.  30 minutes without a whisper.  I was flabbergasted. And incredibly proud.

And the day only got better.  The sun came out in time to set over our campfire.  Where we sang super fun English songs and ate Stockbrot (I'm not exactly sure what the translation is, but it's honey-sweetened bread you roast over a campfire - like this)

mmm roasty bread...

The next day, we packed up and hiked on over to the harbour to catch our ferry home.  And it was beautiful.

told ya :)

I also ran across this sticker on one of the garbage cans:

I am an awesome deer

I had no words... just laughter.

And that is how my week at the seaside ended.  Well almost.  I also really liked the part where our bus driver told us that we had to switch busses in the middle of this little town halfway home.  We got off the bus in a McDonald's parking lot, grabbed our luggage... and tried to find the next bus.  For a little bit I actually thought the first bus drive was just going to leave us standing in the parking lot.

But he didn't.  Wasn't that nice of him?

And so I made it home, safe and sound and mostly sane.

The voices in my head are sending love your way,

Sandy

:)

Je t'aime... un peu... beacoup... à la folie!

I've loved that ditty since I ran across it in a book years ago. It's the French version of the "he loves me, he loves me not" daisy rhyme. And it certainly applies to my weekend in Paris. I loved it... a little, a lot, madly.

I met up with 2 of my favourite people for a weekend in the city of lights and it was fabulous. Our hotel was only a 5 minute walk away from the Eiffel Tower - which of course was our first stop of the day.

Andrea and I frolicking in the Paris spring

In front of the Eiffel Tower is a peace monument. As you can see, the columns have the word 'peace' written on them in multiple languages. Although, to be honest, I only realized they said peace a little later - I walked over in the first place cause I thought I saw the word 'Candadian' written on a pole and I was seriously intrigued... And wrong...

aah... it's the one-legged, arm-wiggling, falling-over peace monster!

The walk up to the Eiffel Tower was hilarious. There are all sorts of people trying to sell you souvenirs. The best part? (Aside from being practically physically assaulted by these tenacious hawkers of course) They run when the police cruise by. How's that for sketchy?!

We didn't bother going up the Eiffel Tower - and can you blame us? Check out that line!

Chris and Andrea under the Eiffel Tower

And that was only for one of the four legs. I had better things to do in Paris than stand in line. Like take a million and a half pictures of the L'Arc de Triomphe.

Here's one.

What you can't really see in this picture is the crazy mad roundabout of death that circles the gate. First of all, it's HUGE - there are 12 roads leading into and out of this roundabout. Then you add the fact that it's roughly six lanes wide. But wait. That's not the ridiculous part. There are no lanes painted on the road.

Ya.

So basically it's a giant free for all. Chris made a great video of the traffic there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv8ngvvSuPk

It was mesmerizing to watch. Because even though it looked like a giant death trap to me, the Parisian folk appeared to know what they were doing. Organized chaos.

To calm our nerves, we wandered down the Champs-Élysées.

you may not see it, but there was more frolicking here. kinda...

Chris is a big car fan, and we made a stop in the Peugeot store to check out all things car. Although it took me a little while to figure out which end of this car was the front...

anyone else reminded of Toothless from "How to train your Dragon"?

At the end of the road was the Concorde - one of the major public squares in Paris. Complete with Egyptian Obelisk. See?

shucks... it's taller than I am

Now a trip to Paris just wasn't complete without a stop in the Louvre. (ps. It's huge.)

Chris and Andrea looking brilliant in front of the entrance to the Louvre

Once we figured out which wing of 4 we wanted to go in - seriously, just getting to the paintings is a challenge! - we made our way to... Can you guess?

the Grande Galerie

You guessed it. The Mona Lisa.

tadaa! Oh wait... can you find here among the hoard?

I had a really hard time keeping my head shaking/laughter under control - I think half the people were here just to say they'd seen the Mona Lisa. So you walk into this room and there are roughly 100 people standing practically on top of each other trying desperately to get a good shot of the Mona Lisa. Who has her own wall. And security guard.

And a lovely set of barricades to keep the public at least 10 feet away. Then comes the security guard. Then another barrier. Then a ledge. Then a sheet of bullet-proof glass. Behind which probably lives a community of invisible mini-ninjas armed and ready to cut off your feet if you even think about stealing this painting.

But she was lovely.

I turned my visit in the Louvre into a bit of a Dan Brown tour - I checked out the Mona Lisa, found the Madonna on the Rocks and then stopped by the inverted pyramid.

cheese!

Later on that night we went out for a view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up and looking beautiful at night. And it was stunning.

*sigh*

Day 2 was a holy day. Well not really, it was Saturday, but we visited churches all day long. First up was Notre Dame.

When we got there I thought to myself: "hmm, this church looks really familiar. Where have I seen it before? Is there a church in Germany modelled after it? Oh wait. Nope. I watched 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' as a child..." I'm brilliant, eh?

the nave

a view from the back

The second church of the day was the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur.

there were all these cute little streets leading up to it... packed with people

the front of the basilica

All in all it was a brilliant weekend. And I got to scratch another thing off my bucket list. I don't know if you know it, but I have been waiting for years to take a picture in front of the Eiffel Tower with a baguette in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other. The touristy of all touristy shots.

oh yeah.

And the best part? After we took the picture we sat ourselves down on the grass and had the baguette and wine as a picnic dinner. And liked it so much that we repeated it again the next day.

To sum it up, Paris rocked my socks off.

Au revoir mes amis

Sandy

Squak! Hoot! Coo!

These were the sounds that accompanied my trip through the largest bird park in the world!!

Highlight? Petting a penguin.

boo. yeah.

It was a really interesting day - they had thousands of birds there, from all over the world. We spent a solid afternoon walking around checking them all out. We even managed to catch a glimpse of the very rare, very shy, white peacock.

isn't she purdy?!

The flamingos were awesome too - I love watching them wind their necks in the craziest of positions. One guy's all stretched out looking for food, while his neighbour is curled up for a nap.

flamingo, flamingo, flamingo, flamingo...

Mid-afternoon we stopped for the outdoor flying show. The pelicans were great; they knew that they'd be getting those oh-so-delicious dead fish treats and they knew they were in the trainer's bag. So they spent the majority of their time trying to worm their way in to gobble up those tasty little tidbits. In their frenzied attempt to indulge in fishy ambrosia, they also managed to nibble away on the trainers hand. It was hilarious when you could see fingers through the skin of the pelican pouch.

We were treated to a display of several different species of birds, including birds of prey. At one point in time, they sent the falcon flying out over the audience. Now. These birds don't like to waste energy, so they sure didn't try to gain all that much height as they swooped over our heads. As you can see below, at times they cut it pretty close:

notice the flinching :)

One time, I was directly in the line of flight. Which meant I was treated to a falcon head flying directly at my face, getting bigger and bigger and bigger... I told myself I wasn't going to duck - I failed.

We took a gander through the owl house, where we ran across this cute little pair.

cosy

That's the bottom half of a Condor you see above my head.

Unfortunately, my wingspan is not as big.

About halfway through the day my camera battery died. My first though was: "This is totally going to be the day that I finally see a peacock with his tail fanned". I was right

Luckily, I tricked my camera into working for a photo or two!

A trip to the Walsrode Vogelpark just wouldn't be complete without a shot of their mascot: Mr. Toucan

Anyone have a sudden urge to eat Froot Loops?

Then, at the very end of the day I was treated to this:

Quite possibly the sweetest playground EVER! My inner child was not to be denied and I totally climbed to the top and slid down. Wheee!

Come back soon for more stories - I've had a crazy couple weeks!

Love y'all

Sandy