Stamford, New Years and Beyond...

Right after returning from Germany, I took the train to a cute little town called Stamford, to visit for couple of days with my dear friends Rachelle and Mark, who were visiting from Toronto.

Cruelly pretending to feed the reindeer on a foggy day at Burghley House - a gorgeous castle that was so fog encroached, that I could not even get a photo!  

Rachelle and Mark in a cute little street in Stamford.

This photo was taken for "the team" (nephew and nieces: Max, Quinn, and Naomi, our fearless leader!).

New Year's eve was spent at Edwin and Linda's.  Unfortunately, I have no photos.  Mrs. Lucas was in town for her 91st birthday, and also to visit her friend, Dr. Glasser, to wish him a happy 100th birthday!  So, I spent a couple of days in Pinner, enjoying everyone's company and Linda's cooking! 

The past week has been very "relaxing" (that's code for boring), but I have managed many neighborhood explorations, some museum visits and lots or Harry Potter reading.  

Tomorrow I'm off to ISRAEL!!!!  I can't wait!  

Christmas in Annweiler

Mette and I set out in her Suzuki Swilft early on the 24th of December for Annweiler.  The drive from Berlin to Annweiler should take about 6.5 hours.  However, due to adverse weather conditions (in other words uber snowy!) it took us 11 hours!  Despite the slow going on the autobahn, we enjoyed ourselves on the road.  Once we arrived, we had a quiet dinner with Mette's parents, Uwe and Tove who are such lovely and welcoming people.  After dinner we sang German Christmas carols (I was learning to read German on the autobahn - my favorite word is 'Ausfahrt' which means 'car exit').  Occasionally we sang in German, Danish and English all at once!  (Tove is Danish).  Then they requested some Chanukah songs, so I entertained.

Christmas day was a great day of visiting with the entire family shown below.  The goose was delicious!

 Christmas dinner

 A walk through the city.  This is the Queich river.

Uwe is lighting the candles on the tree.

The following day was super chill.  We read, played games and went for walks.  My final day there, Mette, Tove and I went to Trier, which is where the Gumprich's are originally from, and there are many buried in the Jewish cemetery there, along with Karl Marx's grandparents!

 This is the outer wall of the Jewish cemetery (and it combines my bike chronicles in the same picture!). Unfortunately, we did not manage to enter the cemetery, as the gate-keeper was in Israel, and the alternative contact said that he didn't have the key :(  Well, we tried!

Trier is a very pretty city.  This is the central square.  A few days earlier it had been filled by the Christmas market.

The Cathedral.  I was unable to get a good picture of the organ - too dark inside.

This is the Judische Strasse - the Jewish street.  Not really much to see now, though we did see a Chanukia in a window.

Porta Nigra - Roman ruins.

And that's my Germany trip in a nutshell!  

I went to Stamford a day later - photos to come!

New Year's Eve was spent at Edwin and Linda's, in Pinner.  They had a huge dinner party, which was lovely.  I'm going to scrounge up a photo to include.

Week 7/8 - Germany

I spent the first few days in Berlin, and stayed with my friend Mette (Torsten's cousin).  Germany is a difficult place for me to be, as a very large portion of my family was murdered in the Holocaust.  My Dad was born in Munster before WWII.  Luckily he, his parents and sister fled Germany just in time to take refuge in Scotland, where my Dad grew up.  So, keep in mind that this colours how I relate to the place (though not it's people, as they are the next generation, and very knowledgeable and open to talking about the Holocaust).

Berlin:

Me and Mette!

 The Berlin Wall.  The remaining sections of the wall are covered in art.

The Wall

 The famous mural of East German leader, Erich Honecker, and the Soviet leader of the time, Leonid Brezhnev.

Inside the Jewish museum, looking down a long staircase.  The building's architecture is amazing, and the contents are also excellent.  Naturally, this museum has a section on the Holocaust, but it is a very very small part of the museum.  Most of it is dedicated to chronicling Jewish life in Germany, from the 5th century to the present.  

Checkpoint Charlie.  There is also a museum, but I was museumed-out by the time I got here!

 The Holocaust memorial in Berlin.  It is huge, and very impressive.

 Inside the memorial the ground undulates and the large concrete pillars are all different heights.  Walking through the monument, one has a sense of loneliness and of being lost.

Underneath the memorial is a small, but very effective exhibit.  This photo shows a Jewish family from Berlin, and talks a bit about their lives, and on the right hand side are head shots of each member of this family, and beside each photo is written what happened to them during the Holocaust (if it is known).  

The Brandenburger Tor.

Part of my biking chronology of Europe!  There does not appear to be a bike share in Berlin :( 

The Berliner Dom.  A humongous and gorgeous cathedral.  Unfortunately I didn't go in because I didn't have enough cash to get in!  I bet it has an amazing organ!

Sachsenhausen concentration camp, now museum.  This is just North of Berlin.  I went here because my Dad provided them with a video clip of his family's home movies in Munster.  The video plays continuously in an exhibit about a man named Julius Voos, a friend of my grandparents who is also in the video.

 It is quite a big camp.  It was a foggy afternoon.

The Nazis destroyed the camp at the end of the war.  Two barracks were reconstructed and now house exhibits and also show what the barracks were like.

This tells about Julius Voos. 

I took some photos of the video.  This is my grandmother. 

This is my Dad at about age 5, riding quite a cool little car around their yard!

Still to come:  trip to Annweiler, and my visit with Rachelle and Mark.