Hamburg, September 2018

It was great to be in Germany again. I think it's been about seven years since I was there learning protein chemistry for my PhD. It actually feels like longer - I don't remember much detail of living there really. Our week in Hamburg reminded me of a few things though, like the great pastries, cakes, gelato and hot chocolate. And the shops that I used to love - I managed to get some nice stuff off the sale racks. We had a great Airbnb, a really big apartment, it was pretty much a house, all to ourselves. No WiFi and not well lit but it had a great shower.

We did not have a full itinerary in Hamburg, as we packed so much into our week in Copenhagen that we needed to take it easier. We both got lots of sleep, I think it took a whole week to really get used to the time zone and then in Germany we caught up on missed sleep. My brother came to Germany for the weekend so we did some tourist stuff together. We climbed a church tower, we went to the huge miniature railway, and we went to a flea market and the famous fish market. The weather turned bad so the church tower view was just average. The miniature railway was cool but we got tired before the end of it. And flea market was really good, I got an old brooch and an antique Christmas decoration and Nathan got a great deal on an almost new watch, of a make that he specifically was looking for. The fish market didn't have as much fish as we expected. It had a lot of everything else, including live bands (at 7am). Hamburg has the most markets of any German city. There was even a fabric market, right beside our apartment in Sunday! So many more options than NZ stores, all right next to each other!

We also went to the maritime museum so that's one in each city so far. It was really good though  lots of stuff about the ocean and science as well as ships and navy stuff. The only thing was that there wasn't enough translation - the main story was translated but all the labels and small things were only in German.

So Daniel's visit was good, and then the he left and we went on a day trip to Bremen (where I was during my PhD) and the weather got worse. I was not wrapped up warm, the forecast indicated a decent with day. It did not say anything about thunderstorms. We arrived to a cold but sunny day and took a nice photo of the windmill, and looked in some shops. Then the showers started, which was OK because we were looking in cute little shops and buying souvenirs and stopping for coffee. Then we went to explore the old town, which is a small area of tiny alleys that are the oldest streets in the city, full of little shops and cafes. The rain really started and then it began to thunder. We hid in an antique store and browsed until the thunder and lightning stopped. It cleared up after that and we went for a walk along the river to find the pancake ship, which is an old tall ship that is now a restaurant dedicated to pancakes. We had a rather late lunch and then tried to get back to the train station but got a bit lost, which was unfortunate because the rain started again and if we hadn't got turned around we might have avoided it.

On our last day in Germany we went to a free concert in one of their beautiful concert halls. It was a big old building with really lavish decor, high ceilings, red carpets, gilded everything. It was a half hour concert from a string quartet in the restaurant area. After that we had some last shops to visit and last ice creams to eat. Then in the evening the hard job of packing. We have probably almost doubled our luggage in the last 2 weeks, just from buying a little bit here and there must days. Luckily we could have 12kg carry on each from Germany to Netherlands otherwise we'd have been screwed. We have 2 changed pieces of luggage each on the way home so no worries there.

Finally we decided to go out and see just a little more of Hamburg. We went for a walk around Speicherstadt, the warehouse district, and saw all the lights on the boats. Then we went to the Elbphilharmonie, which is a big architectural masterpiece of a concert hall. We went up to the plaza to walk around and see the view.

Anyway, travel was fine after finally getting through Hamburg airport, and we arrived to warm weather in Amsterdam. It's pretty here. Now I have to make plans for the next few days. Here are a couple of my favourite photos from our wedding photographer and some pics from Hamburg.

Eloping in Denmark, September 2018

I am sitting in a first class carriage on a train that will take us from Copenhagen to Hamburg. We have been in Denmark for 6 days, they have been very busy

To begin with, we were supposed to arrive early Thursday morning but we missed a connecting flight, because we had the bare minimum transfer time. Between getting off the plane, through a large airport and security and passport control, it just wasn't enough. We rushed as much as we could and missed it by 2 minutes. So we got to Copenhagen later that morning but next thing to go wrong was my bag didn't arrive. The plane had been too heavy so some bags were left in Amsterdam. At least it wasn't in China! After all that, we didn't get to the city till after lunch and after our huge journey you know what we did first? We found a local pool and went for a swim and a steam. It was a great way to shake off the long-distance travel feeling.

Our first full day in Copenhagen was Friday and it was spent shopping. We had a suit and rings to buy, and I needed snap fasteners to finish my dress. Sewing projects always end up being last minute! I also was in general shopping mode and found a couple of great items. Copenhagen is expensive but I had looked up some good vintage secondhand shops in advance. One of my friends from Ireland met us in Copenhagen, so we had socialising to do too. That night we took it easy, and tried to catch up sleep, to be ready for our big day.

Now we've been planning this elopement since we decided to go to Europe last February, Denmark is one of the few places that foreigners can legally marry in Europe. Going to the USA would have been way easier but we really wanted to visit Europe. It's been pretty hard keeping the secret, hardly anyone knew. I made my dress, it is not perfect but only I see the faults. My something old is the clasp on the back, a gift from a friend, it had belonged to her grandmother. I borrowed a pretty hair clip from my sister, and my something blue was hidden under my dress ... And of course the shiny gold rings were brand new.

So on Saturday morning we got dressed up and took the subway to the city centre. We made our way to City Hall where we met our photographer, who Nathan found on Facebook. So there are real photos coming! I will hopefully have them in a few days. We were scheduled to get married at 10 and we were in tune but my friend was late - by about half an hour! Luckily, the celebrant didn't mind and let some other couples go before us instead. A lot of people were getting married at City Hall that day!

The ceremony was very simple, it was a civil marriage so no religious stuff, there was a celebrant and two official witnesses, all wearing robes and sashes. The room was sort of dim and the walls were covered in paintings - they gave us a book to tell us all about them. I hardly remember the words but my friend's partner recorded the whole thing, right up to the rings, so I'm looking forward to seeing that when I get it. The whole thing can't have taken more than 10 minutes, and then we were shaking hands with the celebrant and leaving. We went off and took photos around City Hall, and then it w time to go find some champagne.

It was so early and we had no reception to get to if course so we spent the rest of our wedding day at Tivoli, which is a garden and amusement Park right in the city centre, next to City Hall. We did all the rides in our wedding clothes and when we stopped for a drink we each stole our vessel as a memento of our special day. We tried a few of the games but didn't win me a giant teddy bear. I got a small dinosaur though. After that just Nathan and I went for a nice dinner, then it was finally time to get out of our wedding clothes, and until something a bit less dressy to hit the town in. There are no alcohol bans in European cities so we drank gin and tonics by a fountain in a city square, then went for cocktails. Then the grand finale - a fireworks display. We went back to Tivoli, where there are fireworks every Saturday this summer to celebrate their 175th year. What a lucky coincidence for us.

So that's it, the story of our secret elopement. Now we're married, which is a bit weird to say but I'm sure I'll get used to it. The next few days have flown by. We had bought these tourist cards that covered our transport and entry into attractions. So we had to get our money's worth of course. We have climbed towers, visited castles, gone to the zoo and tired carlsberg breweries. Press there was a canal tour of the city, which was really nice. We did a bit more shopping, souvenirs from Denmark include jewelry, books, china and art. I was reminded how badly a big city can smell  especially after a Saturday night, and the water in Copenhagen is bad. It has so much calcium that it tastes soapy and made my hair gross. Plus I've had a crook stomach, I'm hoping it was because the water was so different to what I'm used to and that I'll get better now.

Now it's time to enjoy some scenery and find out how this first class thing works, because the Internet says we get drinks and snacks but the train lady thinks not. We'll see.

August 2018

Nine days till we head away to Europe! I'm posting a few dates late days I've been busy. We have been trying to clear out our spare room, which is full of random stuff and junk  so that we can fit a bed in there as we have two sets of house and pet sitters. And I've been trying to finish a sewing project. Plus we're still really busy in the garden.

Our garden work has been building a raised garden bed that runs the entire length of the fence at the top of our property. It's Felsted now and filled with dirt, and a few pages. The plan is to fill it with very bushes that over time will create a bramble over the fence, to both act as a hedge and provide us with fruit. It will take a while to fill it with berry bushes though. We also have lots of seedlings to plant into the vegetable beds before we go. They've been in my mini greenhouse and I just hope that it's warm enough now for them to go outside  Then when we get back after 3 weeks hopefully stuff will be growing nicely.

Most of our non-work time in August was spent in the garden but we did also go to Christchurch last weekend. We went for a regular family gathering with Nathan's family  a very late mid winter Christmas. But it was also Rochelle's first weekend of her new life in Christchurch so that gave me a great excuse to have some time away from the in-laws. I bought her a kettle and took her plant shopping and set up her pretty china on display, with lots of blutack in case of earthquakes. Then on the Sunday night I took all Nathan's siblings and their partners to her place and we made pizza and had a big family dinner. It was very successful - the pizza that is, we used pizza stones and they made such a difference! I am buying a good one first chance I get.

Unfortunately the story of our weekend away doesn't end well. We came back to Wellington carrying disease, Nathan's whole family came down with a bad tummy bug and everyone was very sick. I thought I had got lucky because I felt fine on Tuesday but it got me too. Luckily Rochelle didn't get sick - I just gave her my cold instead. So we pretty much had the whole week off work last week, even when we felt better because we didn't want to spread our virus around work. Which was actually really good because when we felt better we got loads of work done in the house and garden, which would have been stressing me out otherwise because Nathan works must evenings and we would have run out of time.

Well that was our August and now the countdown is really on. Can't wait to get to Europe and spend lots of money on pretty new things.