Radler, sauerkraut and bratwurst

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Trip Start Jun 11, 2009 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 17, 2009 Next
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  Arnberg, Bavaria, Germany
Monday, July 6, 2009

Hi guys,

Before I start the palaver.... I was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for 2009/10 to work on a project with youth and glass.  A'Mhara got my mail and tried to ring, email etc but we had no phone or IT where we were.  How exciting is that?????

We are back from the Bavarian Forest.  I have left the name of where we were on the map and above even though I am writing this at my sister's place in Gruendau.  That way you can see where we went for the week. The closest I can get is Arnberg. To the east is the border with the Czech Republic.

We meandered along the Glas Strasse which is the most amazing place.  It is an area which has been working with glass for more than 600 years in a whole variety of ways.  Reidl glass, Zwiesel Glass and many other famous glass houses operate there.  We saw some wonderful glass.  One place especially was so awesome.  A whole park full of glass and metal and wood sculptures - huge Alice In Wonderland type chairs with glass inserts, metal trees with glass birds and owls, metal animals of every description, totem poles of glass, flowers, butterflies it was endless and wonderful.  Inside the glass works it was overwhelming, so many beautiful colours and shapes.  The ceilings hung with glass icicles and coloured balls, everything was stunning and so inexpensive. Murano was worthwhile seeing but this was so much better, but no beads to be seen anywhere.  Justin bought himself a beautiful glass stein and had it engaved right there free of charge, the engaver was amazing.  Vera bouth me a huge red wine glass with a long stem (loooove those glasses) and had it engraved with my name and gve it to m as a birthday present.  Only thing is that you can't have 1 glass of wine and drive.  It holds about 1/2 a bottle at a time. I bought some beautiful pieces for the garden and actualy got to blow a glass piece myself.

We also drove into the Czech Republic to a place called Marien Bad which is full of old restored houses, little shops and holiday makers.  Mind you most of the villages are rather sad and neglected and the most beautiful old elegant houses just slowing disappearing back into the earth.  Great place for Renovation Rescue and lots of money.  We also drove to Pilsen and had a brewery tour and tasted brewed un filtered beer in the original tunnels underground.

The alcohol and chocolates at the Czech border shop (run by Vietnamese would you believe) is so cheap.  You can buy a litre bottle of vodka for 11 Euros which is about $20.  A bottle of Jim Bean is about the same.  Petrol is cheaper than in Germany but would you blieve they pay here in Euros what we pay in $.  One litre costs roughly $1.25, but there are still plently of expensive cars and gas guzzlers.  Justin was is awe - every second car is a BMW, Merc or Audi and then more beautiful cars- Lamborghini, Maserati, Ferrari etc.

On the way back to here we visited a cousin who I have never met and stayed for 2 days, took a day trip to visit an uncle of Hannah's and had wonderful cakes and coffee and then drove to near Munich to visit my beautiful cousin Maria (the one who always reminds me of you Gail).  We left her place about 8pm and only drove a few kms onto the autobahn and got caught up in a STAU. Luckily it was evening because we might have expired in the car.  They had not bothered to advise that the autobahn would be completely closed further on because they were tearing down an old bridge.  There was no way off and we were stuck for 3 hours and only did a handful of kms.  We amaused ourselves by checking out the numberplates of the trucks and cars and also their drivers.  It's so different to see every country represented including the Balkans, Scandinavia and Italy.  We finaly manged to get off and completed the whole 80kms from Maria's house in 4hours.  That was a task!!!  We didn't want to eat anything mind you really only had chocolates in the car) beacuse we did not want to drink (only had a bit of water and warm beer anyway) because there was no place to stop for a pee unless you were game enough to go into a ditch we all the truckies looking on. 

Tomorrow we will go into Frankfurt for the day and on Thursday we are off (with dad and Vera) to the Lorelei on the Rhine.  It's a castle ruin where Lorelei supposedly sat, combed her hair and sang the sailors to their death as they crashed into the rocks below.  It's a great wine growing region and very beautiful.

We have had a bit of rain and lots of humidity and are hoping for a hot day to go swimming at a local lake.  Anyway time for a bit of dinner and a bit of wine.

Oh forgot Radler (as per title) is a shandy, as much as I can handle beer and not go to sleep.  Justin will add a few photos and send this off this evening.

Lots of love
A and J and H

Please excuse the bloopers, I am not used to the laptop keyboard and keep missing letters.

PS: justin in the house!!!!!! how you all doing???? hope your good and hello to everyone, coz in case you dont know, i dont normaly get to write in this so now iv hacked in and im making my own little blog. :):) haha anyways love you all bye bye bye..

Justin and Hannah
 

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Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

alice in wonderland chair	Vera and I	How gorgeous (the one in the pot too)	Yeah aussie bbq in germany
Czech republic	nice old buildings	relaxing	Mum blowing glass
Cool pyramid thats made up of 10000 glasses	the famous Pilsner Arches in Pilsen, Czechia	WOh watch out	Yeh haha BBQ

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