Luckily (?) I Am (Or Was) A Wessie

Now this is really weird. I found this article from a former East German photographer.
There were places where both could go on holidays back then, like Bulgaria.

East Germans were not allowed to make contact to West Germans. And had to witness that the staff cared a lot more about the West Germans, too.
Can you believe this? Sure, “we” had money, we could tip with D-Mark. Still.

Same in Budapest – East Germans were allowed to exchange money – 40 DDR-Mark, which is nothing, not even enough for a hotel.
Common question was: Are you German? East or West?

At Lake Balaton in 1983 they did meet, East and West. West Germans offered rides in their Mercedeses, Holdens or whatever, handled West-German newspapers over. At the end of the day, East Germans crawled into their tents, whereas West Germans checked into their hotel rooms.

Some managed to sneak in West German calendars and got “rich”, selling them. Just… there was nothing to buy from the money.

I dunno.
At school in history all we seemed to learn about was that Austrian little man who caused such horror in the world.

Did we learn anything about East Germany and it´s people? No!
These days I work mainly with former East Germans and often find it hard to believe what the older ones tell me about how living was like "over there".
Especially when it comes to plants – I still have to ask where, when and how to plant my Gallipoli-Poppy-seeds, thanks again, Grace, East Germans learned that at school, we did not.
They did because… they needed to grow their own food, can you believe that.
Often I “joke”, hey, I´m West German, how am I supposed to know this? And yes, we joke, without hard feelings. We are colleagues, we like each other. It´s no one´s fault or influence.

I know that one of you just set off in a plane from Frankfurt when the wall finally fell – I wonder, though: What went out into the world, how did others think about Germany being reunited?
Was it a matter at all?
Did you think, hey, they go way too fast, it won´t work that way?
Or, hey, dangerous! Not them again?

We in West Germany sure thought, hey, too fast!
For 40 years they lived in socialism, they just don´t know what hard work was – and many failed, like… leaving work “shortly”, like they did in the East, to see a doc, go get a hair cut or such – and got fired.
Many complained, too.
In the East they didn´t have had much – but apartments were cheap, heated and with water, there was “work”, there was a “plan”.
Now they had to make their own decisions, get active.
You can really say those who wanted to be successful came over into the West – the others stayed in the East.
And even today – though everything is newer in the East… they are still poorer, there is still less work, fewer good jobs in general.

Universities are better over there, though.

I dunno. I guess I really am some lucky gal. I grew up in “the golden West”.
It sure was another world over there, weird, what 40 years can do!

Nice to see that some of their stuff survived, like the Spreewald Gherkin, Hallorenkugeln, Rotkäppchen-sparkling wine and such.
Hmmm, guess I need to ask Ingo to make a Soljanka :-) Just give it a go – super-yummy! I had it three times - due to getting to know it only last year, when we indeed were in East Germany!

Did you witness the wall falling, what did you think?

Perth, 08/02 - Sesame?

Pic: Ingo bought me this in Perth..
Today H, B and L visited us and took us to Hillary´s :-)
I was wearing my Elmo-T-Shirt and guess what L had with him?
Elmo!!!!

Coincidences, huh?

Hillary´s was packed, oh, my!

And obviously has grown, too!
And by golly it sure was hot!
L and I had squishy so cold we both got „brain freeze“ ;-)
Had a look at all the boats, chatted and got a smartphone-lesson – boy we are old to need that, huh?

We then went to our SC and got frozen pies since our pie-shop was closed – surprisingly yummy, I have to say!

Guess L really liked the German-speaking Sulley, sadly we had no German Mike, though!

Ingo solved our TV-problem – it´s just a cable that´s old – Jamie Oliver is on the way now.

Just can someone tell me why „I´m a celebrety – get me out of here“ is on here as well?!
The most stupid show and I thought I can run away from it, but no, you Aussies have it on as well.
As dumb as „Germany´s next top-model“ with squeling Heidi Klum!

A lazy Sunday afternoon (not accompanied by Queen, though) – ahhh, holidays!

Perth, 07/02 - #giantsperth - Hair

Lock in the Love was in town!
We certainly already have our own love lock at H´s place, but actually we should´ve added one here, too, I can say in the aftermath!

Here is one side, the other says Braunschweig/Perth - so excited it will move to the newly build house in Perth!

You can say ours doesn´t travel around Australia, but around Perth :-)

„Gigantic“ today: It´ll take 5 minutes, the lady at the Telstra-Store said.
Man, can you say incompetent when it takes way over 30 minutes and requires a visit at another Telstra-shop?
Anyhows, we have a phone-number now :-)

Gigantic sad today was that I could not join Ingo on his first meetup as volunteer for The Giants.
But I was prepared and had at least thongs with me.

With those I wandered slowly around like a real Perthie (@Ingo!) and found heaps of murals in Grand Lane.

Mind you, I could bombard you with pics of murals, but since I see them in your blogs, and often taken way more professional than me... I leave you with only few.
I´m still learning, right? ;-)

I also found the kangaroos at Sterling Gardens, where I then went and read about what happens to a pig when a chef orders meat. Ewww, by golly, Anthony Bourdain really goes into detail!
Worth a read, though, „A Cook´s Tour“, found in a second hand bookstore on the way together with a book on Marie Curie. I like novels as much as sweets ;-)

A rather hot day, but the Gardens sure had a refreshing breeze here and there - that is holiday, too, relaxing in a garden, reading a book at around 28C whilst the peeps at home freeze their butts off in minus-temps ;-)

What I found weird, though, was the hectical bells across the road ringing for a felt 15 minutes! And the drunk lady screaming at everybody in the park :-(

Waiting for Ingo to come back - mind you, I was so darn dang tired! Always third to fourth day the jetlag hits!

Rainee Square....
And here downstairs:

When Ingo came back finally he´d spotted some more murals near the meet-up, we went back to take pics...

... and by chance I spotted Grill'd – again: YUM!

Ha! And I know already: The Giants-story is re-written for Perth!

Now Jim Carrey in Mr. Popper´s Penguins – in the original, just like that – holidays :-)

And I´ve got hair again, yay! In Germany it was rather straw due to the heating. Here the water is soooo soft :-)
Sadly we have huge cockroaches, too – first time here!

Perth, 06/02 - The Wolf

Still no jetlag - we went to the city, hence.
Some new things, but not as much to not recognise the place like the case last time :-)

Accidentially we stumbled right into Wolf Lane and saw the first murals for real – awesome!

Just nice with those two men in their break, no?

The smartphone works in the city already, too – guess I need a lesson, though! FB works rather weird there...

For lunch we went to Carillion City – Jester´s is gone! Or rather, moved, we found out after finding out the burgers are not really better at Hungry Jack´s!

Took heaps of pics, awww, really, Perth is just beautiful with all the new and old architecture mixed perfectly!
I truly am a woman, though, got heaps of silent, „ahhhh, here we are“-moments...
(don´t tell Ingo).

The 14-days new owners of the place here really do their best to work against what the ones before did wrong.
We have an antenna that only gives us two very, very boring TV-programs – and no Jamie Oliver! So, certainly we asked for a ladder, so Ingo can try and make it at least better.

Now who is the ape, huh?

With the ladder certainly came chatting.
As mentioned before the woman is from Germany and they both lived in Berlin for a while.
Russel told us, when he came to Germany he found out Bratwurst is yummy. And there are so many yummy varieties of bread. But.There.Are.No.Pies!!!

No pies!!!!!

As mentioned oh so often, Germany is the land of no pies (visit us, we have a pie-maker now :-)...)
It´s a tough life, huh?

Awww, the new owners water the place well so that even though there is no rain the place smells beautifully of eucalyptus!
Not many residents here, though, maybe just not holiday-time.
And the heat isn´t that bad (atm?) - still my face is red like crazy, I got asked at Wollies if I´m ok, oh, my! ;-)

Ahhh, it really feels a tad like home here. Same cabin – still!!!!

Haha, yay for Perth!

And it´s cleanliness and safety. And politeness.
And, sorry, Ingo, relaxed, slow lifestyle!

I´m on holiday, I don´t wanna run right now!

Perth, 05/02 - Who Are We?

Actually we didn´t want to do anything today.
In fact we bought our very first smartphone! :-)
First we had a look at BigW, asked for helped and the dude did as good as he could and added, you can get better info in the Telstra Store!

Which we did, got a perfect service there, including the info it might be cheaper at BigW, we can buy there and come back for the rest.

Bummer – impossible in Germany!
Never ever would someone suggest you get better (part-)service elsewhere!

We bought the smartphone at Telstra, a „WhoAreWe“, HUAWEI, and get it activated for 30 days on Saturday.

Went back home, had breadrolls with salad, COON (yum!), tomatos and headed off again to the bus-stop.
And said to the driver we wanna go to the Joondalup SC via Warwick.

We needed Zone 1-tickets for that.
It was his last ride for the shift, so he had little change and suggested we simply buy the ticket in Warwick!

Again: Impossible in Gemrany! There you can drive for free, though, if the driver is in a good mood and the system´d crashed :-)

We bought clothes at K-Mart – I think it´s the same as in Germany. For some I am a 12, others a 10, some again 14 or an 8 – I just do not get it. But the prices are really good.

Food is another matter, though!
You can very clearly see that the Euro isn´t worth much anymore :-(

Anyhows – much achieved for a day we didn´t want to do anything, huh?
Really wonder when jetlag´ll hit!
Minus 4 C in Braunschweig at daytime, btw!

Perth, 04/02 - A Beginning

Still no internet-access in the cabin hence offline-blogging again....
Braunschweig, 03/02, 05:28 am taxi is there to take us to said windiest trainstation. 3C, windy, even in front our house.
Train is on time, we´re on time at the right gate at Hannover airport.

And nothing happens.
We take off too late, are greeted at Frankfurt airport with, „reckon you won´t make it in time, but try, run!“, having in tow a Greece-not-German-speaking woman with an Australien boy, heading for Melbourne.

. We arrive totally exhausted.
The flight is late 30 minutes.

Bingo – in Singapore we have but 60 minutes to find the right gate, you know how huge it is there?

So we ask if we can make it and find out...

We have no valid visa for Australia!

Luckily the flight is late, in the end an hour, the mate who gets us the visa enters a wrong birth-date for Ingo and calls „Can-berr-a“, which we hey-dude-we-know-better-been-there-and-got-laughed-at-ourselves-for-pronouncing-wrong, we corrected it to „Canbra“.

And lost our flight, got booked on a later one, at least the same day and dear friend B, who works at the airport, waited for us, picked us up and brought us home – huge thanks again!

Sadly our luggage was opened and a glas wished as pressie broke due to that :-(

 B stayed with us for in case something goes wrong with booking from Germany – and, surprise, when I said something in German to Ingo the lady said, „btw I speak German, ich warne lieber vor“ and the rest went on in both languages – it´s a small world, huh???
She studied where I went on further training SQL, weird.

From 3 to 35C wasn´t that bad after all (also thanks to B leaving the aircon on in the car!) - and here we are again.
Cabin No 79, with own toilet, shower and aircon!

Getting old, wanting luxury! ;-)

Holiday: Start!

P.S. Singapore Airline I can recommend (apart from near-to-dead monitor from Singapore-Perth) – you get offered water and orange-juice all night-flight long.
Never ever again with Emirates!

And... is that an Aussie-thing?
We have small starter amounts of tea, sugar, milk, coffee, detergent... but our tomatos went without salt!

Friday 13th - Oh Such A Luck

My Mum used to say this date brings her luck.
I am sure a very lucky person and I wanna say thank you (and I miss my Mum like crazy).

Ingo might step on my foot and say "I know", when I tell him, instead of "I´m sorry".

But... he always takes care I get a seat in public transport with no one beside me but him - he knows how I feel about being close to strangers.
That´s not only a ride on Transperth, that goes for a 14-hour flight on a plane as well (ok, the farting dude in front of me... Ingo had not a chance to do anything about that! Urgs, I tell ya...).

I had the better seat in our cabin to watch TV.
Whenever one felt sick - I got the bed, Ingo took the kid´s bed, and yes, I am the smaller one.
He also takes the sofa here, I always get to have the bed.

On Transperth Ingo always went first and let me in first then to take the seat at the window cause I tend to fall out (well, not really, but that way I can lean on him, right?).

I am one spoiled kid here, no?

And I notice, I do not take it for granted.

If - or when! - some day you visit us here in Braunschweig I certainly will happily be there for you and show you the gems we have here :-)

Yet I felt so "treasured" by all of you, driving us around, taking care of us in uncomphy times like airport-rides, in emergency, in not-yet emergency like cooking for Ingo or in general having a meal with Ingo, just accepting he has an issue, health-wise, you all proofed so understandable, thank you!
You showed us things we never would found by ourselves, just let me give clues like Atlantis or what Teens do in Perth these days!

You made our trip so special and sadly, no, I did not get a chance to invite Ingo for Portuguese lunch :-(
You know... 5 weeks - that´s nothing!

I will resume to Perth blogging now, just wanted to say.... ya know...

A BIG THANK YOU!

I kinda might find another symbol for happiness but a salad, no? Working on that, haha... :-)