Karnevaaallllll Alaaf, Part 1

Posted: 19th February 2012 by Ree in Uncategorized
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Seeing how the cards fall, Troys throws his card on the ground....

Getting ready for mayhem by making human sized cards.

Well, the picture says it all, this was me, at work, on Thursday. Cologne is a crazy place sometimes and this week is just about the peak of this. I must say, I like it. No-one in Cologne gets out of it, everybody goes a little silly and in general, everyone has a party. This week is the week before lent, so in true Cologne style everybody has gone a little silly partying hard so that they can make it through lent. Everyone dresses up, to full measures, and spends the week, starting at 11.11 on Thursday before Shrove Tuesday making parties. Thursday, with the institute and joined by Markus and Alexis we celebrated Wiebernachts fest in true style. We donned our ‘deck of cards’ costume and went to the ZMMK for the party. The party starts with ‘breakfast’. This means meat and bread and beer and champagne. We then play music and party a little before joining the rest of Cologne on Zulpicher street for the craziest costume party ever. The whole of Cologne is dressed up by this time pretty much, and everybody has been partying since 11.11 so it gets a little silly.

Us, getting a little silly, hmmm.

So, this is what we did on Thursday, and though you may tut tut, it doesn’t stop there for Karneval. The entire weekend, starting on Thursday, you can hear yells of ‘Alaaf’ the Kolsch and Cologne way of say yahoo and party all at once in karneval, there are random things you see throughout the streets, and should you dare the party, if you do not wear costume you clearly stand out.  I must say, there is something great about the freedom that goes with a whole city not taking themselves seriously just for bit. Friday night we had a social night at friends, and Saturday we donned the card again for an outing to the city. Wandering through the old city centre was a feast for the eyes. You could see everything, Napoleonic soldiers, and entire grid iron team, naughty nuns and monks, Pocahontas seemed popular. Many bumble bees and strawberries, cowboys, Indians, vikings, ghostbusters, Spartans, Romans, aerobics teams and just about anything you could imagine! You could buy cocktails on the street, and every town gate had at least one drum set making crazy dance parties in the street. Every bar was full to the brim and some so full that precipitation running down the walls inside. It was a rainy night, and yet still Cologne was just seething with ‘things’… So, wandering around, drinking cocktails into the little hours was extremely interesting. I have thought that today was a particularly quiet Sunday though, and we were no exception. Recovery day today, and see what we can get up to tomorrow :)

We are alive!

Posted: 9th February 2012 by Troydo in visitors
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Forgive me bloggets for I have sinned, it has been waaay too bloody long since I have blogged. Now I could placate you with all sorts of excuses, but you are too good for that, you deserve the truth… the truth is …. I am lazy and rehan has been busy with work.. i know not the best reasons, but you can add in Patty, Jodie and Nikki visiting too and my computer dying if it makes you feel better :D

So I spose I better make this a good one! well what to say??? what to do??? I guess a recap of what we have been doing is in order to begin with…

Schloss drachenfels

Well lets see, the last blog post was about Australia day… wow that was a while ago… WHOOPS! well since then all residual heat has left the earth and Cologne has been plunged into nuclear winter… minus the snow… We have seen temperatures down to -22° with the average temperature sitting between -8° and -15°. But on the upside it has been beautiful and sunny, so you look out the window and since there is no snow only warm looking sun you get all excited until you step outside and instantly become a callipo… But we havnt had a single flake of snow, itzs been to cold and dry i think, dry as a…. hmm well suffice to say rather dry… and just to make a liar out of me, I have just looked out of the window and there is a bloody snow flurry, but its already stopped and there is not even enough to cover the ground lets see what happens… We have had a visit form Pat, Jodie and Nikki, more on that later, but apart from that we have just been a bit boring actually, living life, working and doing stuff. I have been bouldering a few times per week, we have been trying to do parkour and i have started fighter practice again.. but nothing particularly noteworthy…

Skipping stones on a frozen lake at dusk

As I mentioned, the most exciting thing in the last few weeks has been Pat, Jodie and Nikki visiting. It was great to see them, and I hope they had a good time while they were here. We conquered the Dom, we found their lock on the bridge, we wandered around the altstadt, we skipped stones on a frozen lake, we visited castle ruins and a medieval town, we even managed to squeeze in a museum as well! And all in -15 degree weather!!!!! Our biggest day out was the saturday, we took the train down to Konigswinter where we caught the cogtrain up to the top of the mountain and wandered around the castle ruins of Drachenfels, after which we wandered down to the 19th century fancy manor house and wandered around looking at the ridiculously lavish place. A funny piece of info about it is apparently it was a christian boys school in the 20th century and at the time they decided all of the naked lady renaissance art was too vulgar and painted over it, it was only fixed up and broght back to the original paint scheme a few years ago!

So what is coming up? well only the craziest time of the year!!  Karneval is coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Markus and Alexis will be coming down from Berlin to celebrate with us and it should be a rollicking good time! Now all we have to do is get our costumes made in time … !!  … so stay tuned!

Happy Australia Day

Posted: 30th January 2012 by Ree in Germany
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mmm, bikkies

Last week we celebrated Australia Day. Unfortunately we did not get a day off here in Germany, so instead we both took Australia day to work. We baked up a huge pile of ANZAC biccies and cornflake biccies and took them to work for smoko time. Not much to say really, everybody here was very nice though. Despite the Germans not quite knowing what to do, we got a few congratulatory handshakes! To summarise though, we left work, picked up our batch of Rumballs and went to Sarah and Daves for a fantastic Australia Day party. We ate burgers with beetroot and egg (which was exciting when you havn’t had one for a year) and watched the Castle. What a ripper of a day!

smoko time for my mates!

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Brug-ger me what a lovely place

Posted: 19th January 2012 by Ree in Belgium, Travel
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Cambrinus bar, Brugge in Belgium

Alice and the mad hatter in ice, brrrrrr

Sorry for the absence, it has been a tiring few weeks and we have only really had our first night at home in two weeks tonight. Mostly the reason we were away is because we visited Belgium (for the second time now) on the weekend. We caught the fast train from Cologne and were in Brugge (or Brug – ges) as the Germans say, in 3 hours tops. The very first thing we did, as we left the train station we visited the exuberant ice sculpture display, i had found it on the net when we were searching for things to do, and when we left the station we noticed it was there. Long story short, ouch, cool sculptures (beding ching) but the price was a bit of a punch in the face. We paid 26 euro, 13 euro each (thats nearly 20 aussie bucks each mates) and it was three tents with Disney figures carved out of ice. Admittedly we did get a free run down an ice slippery slide that went around the end of the tents but still, what a lame world from lame land! Oh well, better luck next time.

belgian croquettes and fritten

im on a boat!

We then wandered around the city for a few hours, loosely followed a walking tour. Stopping off to enjoy some local Belgian fair, potato croquettes and chips, or fritten. They were dirty as any road stop croquette and chips, so nothing to exciting to report there. Brugge itself however is a lovely, pretty city. It is a medieval city, full of windy canals that were originally built for the trades in the Medieval times. It was taken over by religion, and many churches and monasteries were built in the later stages and so today it is all old, old buildings and churches around little waterways. Very very pretty. We were also luck and had two of the nicest winter days you could ask for!

Windmills on the edge of brugge

We also lucked out on our hotel. Would definitely recommend the Burgisher hof for its location alone. It is sitting smack bam on the most photographed corner in Brugge. It is sitting on a channel with a little alley way, right next to a fantastic Belgian bar (yes, thats right, how could this weekend have been bad…). Anyway, after checking in and laughing a little at the crazy TV, we made two attempts at finding dinner. The first ended badly, but that is really part of Troy’s brewery review. Quick summary from me, the Halver Maan Brewery is not the place for a meal in Belgium. We then managed to find what seemed to be the most popular and heaviest stocked bar in Brugge. It was a little bar called the Cambrinus, named after the so-called king of beer. It had a rediciously large beer menu and we easily sat and drank new, weird and seasonal beers until a table cleared (This somehow went a little pear shaped, perhaps we were distracted, or not at peak condition but somehow despite arriving at just before 7 it took us till 9.30 to get a table for two!). Once we finally ate though, it was definitely a pleasant surprise. We both had Belgian traditional dishes, I had a rabbit and plum stew type thing with potato croquettes and Troy had a thing called Carbonades, which turns out to be beef stew with frittes. Amazingly, served just like in the Brisbane Beer Cafe, so for anyone who was wondering, yes it is pretty like the real thing.

The wares in brugge are crazier than most

Troll Cuvee beer, served with style

Sunday morning we had a (very) late hotel breakfast, which was mostly awesome because we could sit in the warm on the side of the channels watching the swans while we ate! We then wandered around the city a litte, visited a medieval gate, a large windmill and finally took a boat tour. This is apparently what you do, and no I havn’t seen the movie… goodness knows what you all are going on about when you say that. We then went down to the brewery for a second go, which did not prove to be any better. Despite interesting cheese soup, it was nothing to blow your socks off. However we then went back to the bar on the corner near our hotel. Finally we got it right. Not only did it have 1130something beers on the wall (it said it was the longest beer wall in Europe) but it had many amazingly good Belgian beers (well duh), the beer wall to look at, a lovely warm heater and a great seat in the corner for the two of us to settle into. The only bad thing was that eventually we had to drink the rest of the beers and totter off to catch our train. All in all, a great trip. Brugge is a lovely pretty place, and not where you would go for excitement, but if you like beer and want a relaxing weekend I would highly recommend it.

Cheers!

Brugge at night, right near the hotel.

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We went to the movies!!!!

Posted: 13th January 2012 by Troydo in Germany, Ramblings
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Now that might not souund so exciting to you….. But in our defence this is the first time we have been to the movies since we moved to Germany!

We went and saw Sherlock Holmes with some friends, and even had some dinner beforehand. The place we went to for dinner was an old fire station, weird but nice, and they had a delicious lamb shank :D

If you liked the first Sherlock Holmes then you will like this one too, in my opinion (which is always right as we all know!) it was pretty funny and a brilliant popcorn flick. On the subject of popcorn we had that too! and the coolest thing about German cinemas? you can buy a beer and take it in with you! and nachos! and the tickets were only 4euro!

Well tomorrow we are off to Bruge, but tonight its off to bouldering then a birthday party.. so updates next week!

P.S we slacked  out and watched the original English version of Sherlock Holmes, not the German dubbed version.. i hate dubbing anyway!

I know where they are!!!!!!

Posted: 6th January 2012 by Troydo in Germany, food
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All the late 80s and early 90s pop stars that is (but more on that later)…..

The bird

Sorry for the rather late NYE wrap up post, but we have been suffering the first week back at work tiredness. So anyway NYE we went to Berlin to hang out with Markus and  to go to the biggest open air street party in the world, with 1,000,000 people! it was crazy! The Germans call New years eve Sylvester, i dont know why, but i might look it up on wiki later… But before that we had an action packed day of bouldering followed by eating some bigass dirty New York style burgers at “The Bird”. They were some big dirty delicious burgers, with the biggest pile of chips you could imagine on the plate.  then it was on to The Brandenburg gate for the party to end all partys!

Happy new years from Berlin!

As i said we found some old classics in berlin, playing live on stage!! i am pretty sure that everyone reading this will know 90% of these (at least after watching the youtube link)… at such clasics as:

DJ bobo of ” Love Is All Around” fame
Kim Wilde with “Kids in America”
Jimi Jamison, the lead singer of survivor with none other than “EYE OF THE TIGER” !!!!
Hot Chocolate playing the Classics “you sexy thing”
The scorpions rocking out the classics “Rock you like a hurricane” and “Wind of change”
Culture Beat purveyors of  ” Mr Vain”

Hilarity ensued!!!! It was a great night!! although in hindsight parking ourselves next to a gluhwein tent serving delicious hot gluhwein with shots of rum in it may have not been the best idea.. although it did keep us warm in the freezing temperatures!! We had a ball, we even joined a conga line that snaked its way through 1,000,000 people almost all the way to the stage!! crazy and so much fun!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!

Happy new years everyone! I hope you all have a great new years! And as the Germans say “Guten Rutsch” Aka have a good slip into the next year!

Christmas done properly

Posted: 29th December 2011 by Ree in Uncategorized
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Rabbit a la Troy and Markus.... mmmmmm

So, we gave a quick message on Christmas but for the enthusiastic, we have more info and more pics. Our three days of Christmas included many delicious meals, many friends and a nice relaxing day inside. Things could definitely be worse. Markus arrived just in time for Christmas eve, and we woke late on Christmas eve to discover the weather was amazing. It was only 6 degrees but was lovely and sunny, unusual for this time of year in Cologne. It wasn’t raining or anything, so we all rugged up and went out for Saturday parkour. We had a long but satisfying session and followed it up with a delicious meal. Troy and Markus combined forces (with a little help from google and youtube) and managed to very skilfully joint a rabbit and cook it. It was absolutely delicious. For the food savvy, Braised rabbit in red wine, Rosemary and garlic… good way to bring in the festivities. The food coma from the rabbit enabled us to sleep in even though Santa came and we woke up late the next day too! The weather was significantly less impressive on Christmas day, but in way that made it perfect for the fiesta of consumption and lazing. We had stout and ham for breakfast, true Hetho way.

Even wonky like a real QLD house!

From the backyard

We then tried our best at a Germany style activity with an Aussie twist. We spent all morning eating preserved meats and cheese while creating a crazy gingerbread house.If you look closely to the pics you’ll notice that we made a gingerbread Queenslander. It was complete with front steps and a full veranda. The house was complete with corrugated iron roof. Troy and Markus made many finishing touches. We had a newspaper, a wheelie bin complete with wickets, a hose and sprinkler. True to real life, the house had both a snake and a cricket bat underneath, just like every real queenslander house. It has fruitbats on the roof and a koala hanging of the front post, a bbq. The best bit is hard to tell, but its a toss up between the outdoor dunny complete with dunny or the true to life hills hoist clothesline. Supreme effort, the only problem was that we didn’t want to smash it after that. After a couple of hours relaxing with one of Markus’s Christmas present, a DVD called “red dog”, we then tried another new and exciting meal. This time roast duck, made by Troy. Absolutely delicious also.

Finally, we entered day 3 of christmas with a mean food hangover but despite this we soldiered on. Some friends came over and introduced us to the marvelous invention, as Swiss dish called raclette. We had all sorts of fancy ingredients but the basic principle is, you have a hot oven on the table and little pans. You fill the pans with cheese (or things covered in cheese) then you melt them and eat it. Absolutely delicious! It was social and delicious. The night ended in dancing and we all had a fantastic time. The only disappointing this was that with the party ending, Christmas was done. Oh well, after this year I will certainly look forward to next year!

Christmas weather in Cologne

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Posted: 26th December 2011 by Troydo in Germany, visitors
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Merry Christmas from the German Contingent!

And a happy new year!

We will give you some more details when we shake off the food coma!

Getting all christmassy

Posted: 24th December 2011 by Ree in Uncategorized
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Oh tannenbaum, oh tannenbaum, how lovely are your chocolates.

This week we have been both recovering from Christmas parties and preparing for our own little Christmas. Monday we went to Blumen Paradise and bought a little Christmas tree. It is a very cute little thing and we decorated it up german style. With little baubles and chocolates. Not only a pretty tree but delicious too! Not only that but I have been baking a mall but furious storm. I made a Christmas cake, caramel fudge, fruit mince pies (I tried to buy some but they were 9 euro for 6, that is crazy!) and finally, my favourite, rumballs! Here’s looking forward to the next three days!

Christmas cooking, not that we need the sugar

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Later than last year…

Posted: 20th December 2011 by Troydo in Germany
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Snow in the street light

… But it has finally snowed! just before bed last night we noticed that the rain was falling rather slowly, and in fact under the light it was actually swirling in the breeze, hang on a tick.. thats not rain.. ITS SNOW!

Winter wonderland...

And this morning when we woke up there was a nice carpet of snow on the roofs of the garages and houses. its started melting now, and i assume it wont be there by this time tomorrow. So i think that’s almost a month later than last year, and the first snowfall is about 1/5 as thick as last year, but this could still be a good sign for a white christmas…. I hope so anyway!

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