This is Sydney too

I'm so excited about my discovery of a bit of real untouched remaining bushland right in the heart of Sydney.

I won't say where it is because this has to remain a secret! :)

It was so lovely to walk there. Just look at these giant fern.

Ronda

Ronda Roo joined the Australia Day celebrations from her new home!

Australia Day

Today was Australia Day, a public holiday in which Australians show how much they love their country while enjoying the day off. I walked over the Harbour Bridge into the city. Despite the heat (it was sunny, 31°C) the streets were crowded with people, and even the harbour was crowded with boats and ships.

The children did the right thing and jumped into the fountains at Darling Harbour. I just cooled my feet in there! :) There was a lot of live music playing all day. And I must have seen more than 50 different creative ways to wear a flag on one's body or clothing...

At night I expected a big firework, and went down to a nice spot with a view, ready to capture it with my camera and tripod, but the firework was only in Darling Harbour -- too far away -- and hardly to be seen from where I was.

Arrived!

I have safely arrived in Sydney. Everything looks the same as I left it! :)

The weather is overcast, 20-24 degrees and humid. Good for taking a walk to explore the area. I'm staying in a hotel in Milson's Point (just north of the Harbour Bridge) for a week. On Friday will be my start of work. Until then I have a few days to relax, settle and adjust to Australian time.

I remember a year ago: my arrival in Australia, when I first set foot on this continent and didn't know anyone or anything and was so full of curiosity what this country would be like! Now everything is already familiar. The good and the bad, the blessings and curses of civilisation. Looking over Sydney Harbour from one of the points where this is possible, I try to block out the noise from the cars and machines, and imagine how the view looked 200 years ago before the white man came from Europe, took over and started building. There were trees everywhere, and it was quiet and serene.

To think that we spend so much effort and money on building -- and the best places in a city (whether it's Munich or New York or Tokyo) are the gardens and parks. People, buildings and cars are good so long as they have the space they need not to be in each other's way. My belief is that the problem is one of density. And the challenge is to reduce density to a healthy level without adverse side-effects.

Goodbye friends and family

My last posting before the flight! Goodbye everyone in Germany and thank you so much for all your help and support. I will miss you all and can't wait to see you again in half a year.

Parting is sad, but my parents plan to come to visit me in March in Sydney, so I'll see them again soon!


The farewell picture was drawn by my niece Sarah (10 years old). The guy on the winner's rostrum (Siegertreppchen), number 1, is me!

Heidrun

Heidrun is a new friend from my home town. She was born with the same family name as me (nee Maurer) and is maybe a remote relative of me -- we are still trying to connect her ancestry tree to mine, back in the 15th or 16th century.

She has moved to here from the Rheinpfalz and now lives just a few hundred metres from my parent's house. But our connection came just recently through a relative of hers, Hans Maurer from New Zealand, on the other side of the globe. Hans in turn had found me by coincidence through my blog because I had mentioned my great-great-grandfather Konrad Maurer a year ago. And then we found out that Hans's father Heiner had already been in letter correspondence with my father years ago because they were both doing research on their family trees.

Heidrun, now, will come to Australia herself in one month, and meet Hans in Melbourne because he happens to come to Oz for a business trip in March. Such is the small world we have nowadays!

I got my visa!

Good news, I finally got my visa and now I can fly back to Sydney in two days, to arrive Sunday the 24th.

I'm very busy now -- got to organize a couple of things so all will go smoothly, hopefully.

Skiing

Alex and I went alpine skiing today - yay!

We were really lucky with the weather: the sun shone, the sky was blue and the snow was excellent. We were at the ski area of Ehrwald in Tyrol at the southern base of the Zugspitze. Zugspitze is the highest mountain of Germany - 2,962 metres - and is right on the German-Austrian border, less than 2 hours drive from my home town.

After skiing, on the way home, we warmed up in the saunas of Kristall-Therme Schwangau near Füssen. The spa is creatively decorated in the themes of crystals, grottos, swans, and King Ludwig II of Bavaria who had built the nearby world-famous castles that are now tourist magnets.

My mother has come home from hospital and is getting better.

Still no news about my visa.

New snow

No news about my visa or flight, I'm still waiting patiently.

Bad news: yesterday my mother fell sick and by evening I had to take her to hospital. Diagnosis: appendicitis (Blinddarmentzündung). They have operated her today; we will learn more details tomorrow. The picture at the lake was taken a few days ago when she was still well.

Winter has brought snow again to Augsburg. I tried sledding (rodeln) on the newly created 27-metre hill in Königsbrunn but it was a bit rough, we'd need a few more centimetres of the white matter for a smoother ride.

Peter von der Herrenwiese

Meet my good friend Peter, who is a musician from Harburg specializing in the live performance of medieval music on festivals and events.

His website is herrenwiese.com -- have a look and hear an audio sample, but be careful to turn your volume low, the music starts playing automatically!

(Funny, somehow all my musical friends have the same name, Peter :)

Ulm

I went to Ulm, an hour's drive west of Augsburg, to see a friend, Gregor, who came from Mannheim to see me before I'm gone again. His friend André from Gersthofen joined us. On a sunny but freezing cold day we had lunch and then climbed the steeple (Kirchturm) of the famous Ulm Minster (Ulmer Münster). It is the tallest church in the world, with a steeple measuring 161.53 m.

To our regret the tower was only accessible to the height of 70 m. But we still had a nice view from there, down to the pretty town with the partly snow-covered roofs. The river in the background is the Danube. And look how big the old houses are: some of them have three or even four storeys under the roof alone.

Inside the minster I admired the 15th century oak wood carvings in the choir stalls (Chorgestühl). The town in which Albert Einstein was born is definitely worth a visit if you get a chance to come to southern Germany.

Oh, and the U in Ulm is pronounced not like the English u but like the "oo" in book (IPA: ʊlm). And if you can say this, try to say "In Ulm und um Ulm und um Ulm herum"! ;)

Goodbye 2009, welcome 2010

A very exciting year for me is over. In the Chinese calendar, 26 January 2009 - 14 February 2010 is the Year of the Ox, and I'm an Ox person. I completed 3 cycles of 12 years. My granny who was born in 1913 has done 8 such cycles: she's an Ox too, as I just realized.

I was blessed with a fantastic travel to a far away country I've never been before, Australia. I plunged myself into the unknown and put my life skills to the test. I saw a thousand picturesque places, marvels of Nature, fascinating animals. And above all, I met and befriended wonderful people. Thank you, Universe.

The four children here are Sternsinger who visited our house this afternoon (Jan 2nd). This is a custom in Germany in the days before and around Epiphany. The kids are dressed up as the Three Magi and one of them carries a star on a pole. They sing a song, say a rhymed blessing and collect donations for charity. And they write the traditional blessing formula with chalk above your door: 20 * C + M + B * 10.

In English they are called "Star boys", but in this case that would be a misnomer as all four were girls. :)