Dubrovnik

Finally I have looked through all my photos from my October holiday. I had two weeks off in October, and the first week I went to Dubrovnik with Regina. We had an amazing holiday, and enjoyed some warm weather. The first two days we even went swimming!! Unfortunately no pictures of that though. The first day we went to the beach and swam from there. The second day we went on a kayak tour and swam from a little cove. We also were able to go snorkeling there, which was an interesting experience for me. I even think I saw some fish! (I had to take off my glasses to wear the snorkel mask ...)

Here are some photos from our week in Dubrovnik:

The way up to our hostel

This is what many of the streets looked like in the old town, and in many places there were stairs like this. There are no cars in the old town, just occasional delivery vehicles. Many things get brought in with these little motorized carts that are driven by standing on the front and using two levers - one to steer and one to start and stop. 

Where we had breakfast most days. They had a set breakfast that we ate on the patio: croissants, fruit, honey, nutella, jam ... it was delicious!

View of the old town from above

Our first day we took the cable car up to the hill overlooking Dubrovnik. From up here we had an amazing view down over the old town. You can see the city walls that go all around it. And the sunshine - in the afternoon we bought sandwiches and went to a nearby beach to go swimming.

View of the main street from the old city walls

Regina and I walked around the old city walls our second morning. The walls go all around the old town, and are still complete. We walked the whole way around in about an hour and a half. In some places the buildings are built right up to the walls, and in other places you walk around looking right into gardens and windows.

Regina and I on the city walls, overlooking the newer parts of Dubrovnik

Me, with the island of Lokrum in the background

Me again ... that is the cathedral behind me

Another view from the walls, of the Franciscan church

Regina in her natural environment

The next day the weather turned a bit stormy. While this did drive us inside for most of the day, it also was fun to go and watch the waves in the old harbour. 

View from Lokrum of the island

The day after the weather improved and we were able to take the ferry over to Lokrum. The island is a nature reserve, and you can only go and visit for the day. According to local legend, it is haunted and if you stay overnight you will be found dead in the morning. Because of this (maybe) it is illegal to stay overnight. The last ferry is at 5 and we made very sure not to miss it! 

Contemplating the views and the sky

We hiked around the island, which took us a few hours. We went up to the French fort from when Napoleon took Dubrovnik. 

A little rain never stopped me!

Back near the centre, and where the Benedictine Monastery was, it is more set up for summer tourists: beach chairs, playground, and my favourite - an exercise playground! 

Regina and I were surprised to see the peacocks flying from a tree to the roof of the monastery

Me and a new friend :)

The Rector's Palace

Now this palace is a museum, but earlier it was the residence of the Rector during the Republic of Ragusa. The rector then was elected for one month, during which he was not allowed to leave the Palace. All government business was conducted here. 

The main street, the Stradun, at night

Watching the clouds from a little bar built into the city walls, overlooking and hanging out over the water. It was the perfect location to watch the sunset from.

And one last picture :) There were cats everywhere in Dubrovnik! We made a few friends during our time. This one seems to be enjoying the sunshine, after having some rainy weather for a few days.

Dresden

October 3rd is Tag der Deutschen Einheit - German Reunification Day. To celebrate this year I visited eastern Germany: Teresa and I went to Dresden for the weekend. Actually this was a back up plan, but Paris was too expensive. However I am so glad we went! It used to be a UNESCO world heritage site, and although it has lost that title it is still beautiful. My favourite place was Frauenkirche:

The church is a baroque design from the 18th Century, but was actually only completed in 2004. It was one of the last things rebuilt after being bombed during the war. Until reunification it sat as a pile of rubble. When it was rebuilt the rubble was catalogued and a computer program was used to decide where each stone could be reused. Because the stones darken over time, the old stones stand out. Over time they will all turn similar colours, so now it is special to be able to tell the difference. 

Another of our favourites was the food! There was a market going on in the Neustadt neighbourhood, and an autumn festival in the Altmarkt. We stopped at both for food and spent a lot of the weekend eating and sampling different things. In Germany there is a special wine, Federweißer, available in the autumn. It is a new wine, very sweet and not very alcoholic - so good! 

Handbrot - the most amazing bread ever! Filled with lots of cheese and bacon, it is more delicious than you can imagine.

Saturday morning we went on a tour of the city. Then we spent the rest of our time wandering on our own. Here are some of the top sites:

Fürstenzug: Procession of Kings. It is a large mural depicting all the Saxon rulers, on the side of a building in the centre of the old town.

The Semperoper and statue of a Saxon King

I got to ride a Pennyfarthing!!!! 

In German this is a Hochrad. There was an exhibit in this courtyard on old bikes. They had a few Hochräder and the people alternated between demonstrating and letting people try riding them. What you can't really tell in this photo is that I couldn't really reach the pedals properly! 

Teresa and I in the Zwinger courtyard

The Zwinger is the royal palace, an important symbol in Dresden. This was also bombed, but the people of Dresden restored it pretty soon after the war. The courtyard is now open to the public, and a very lovely place to walk in the sunshine.

New School Year - class pictures

It has been a really busy start to the year. At least that's my excuse for not getting pictures posted yet. I took these photos the first week of September, before the students even came. The classroom has evolved a little bit. We have some student work up, the kids all have their books, pencil cases and everything everywhere. Plus I have put up a few more displays.

Here was how my classroom started the year:

It looks really clean and tidy! I can't say that it has stayed this way. A little more interesting I hope though. 

Museumsuferfest

One thing I love about Germany is all of the festivals. Each neighbourhood will have a street fest once a year, plus there are festivals for holidays, communities and other random things. My favourite festival is the Museumsuferfest. Most of the museums in Frankfurt are along the south bank of the Main river. For a weekend in late August they celebrate with the biggest festival of the year. Both sides of the river downtown are lined with stalls selling food, drink, handicrafts and other items. The museums are open late and it is only 7 euros to buy a button which gets you into all the museums all weekend.

I made it to 3 museums this year. I went to the Staedel (fine art), Historical Museum and the Architecture Museum. The latter was the only new one for me. While a lot of it was not of any interest, they had one fascinating exhibit. It was called "Von Urhütte zum Wolkenkratzer," meaning from primitive hut to skyscraper. There were little windows all around the room, each one looking into a small model. The models chose different civilizations and eras to illustrate the chronological progression from Neanderthal huts to modern Frankfurt skyscrapers. I found this really fascinating. It is a bit funny to see the Roman and Egyptian monumental buildings, and then almost go backwards to medieval structures, until the grand cathedrals. 

The Roman scale model

In the basement of the Architecture Museum they had a children's exhibit: LEGO!

The museums are only half of the Museumsuferfest, the other half I think is the food. I had crepes, pastries, sausages, paella, though somehow missed out on the chocolate popcorn. I am not quite sure how that happened, as it was clearly a mistake. 

Teresa and I in between snacks

Now two weeks after, there is another festival. This afternoon I am going to check out the Leipziger Straßenfest. This is one of the little neighbourhood festivals, like the Schweizerplatzfest in the spring. But there will still be food, drinks and all kinds of stalls, and hopefully chocolate popcorn!

Squamish and Port Townsend trips

With my Dad's friends we drove up to Squamish to go to the Railway museum there. This turned out to be a fantastic museum. It had many different trains to see, and many you could climb about in/on. They also had some historical buildings: a house from the 40s and a stations built from the original plans.

My desk

This is the desk I want! It has a typewriter and an adding machine. One of the booklets on the desk is an instruction manual for using the telephone, including the optimal distance to hold the phone from your lips!

Ray, Linda and I

Climbing to look inside one of the locomotives

Then last Thursday we drove down to the States. We stayed in Port Townsend for a night, then drove back on Friday. It was lovely down there, but ended up being a lot of driving (and some time waiting at the border in both directions)

On the ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend

View of Port Townsend from the ferry. It is almost a heritage town - it has many buildings and houses build in the 19th century, the oldest being from 1860. Our hotel was built in 1889.

Hiking Hurricane Ridge

On Friday we drove out to the Olympic National Park and hiked up to Hurricane Ridge. We had a picnic up there, joined by some chipmunks and even a deer. The view was spectacular, the background of this picture shows some of it. 

The last couple of days I have been trying to do the last few things on my list before I leave tomorrow. We walked to the beach, had sushi again, I saw my friends ... Now hopefully ready to fly back to Frankfurt for a new school year! 

Painting

Our big project for the summer (well at least the big project for my summer) was to paint my room. I think the last time it was painted, decorated or changed in any way was at least 10 years ago. Definitely time for a bit of an update. I did some organizing and got rid of some things, but mostly it was just new paint. I had to keep the purple though, and even went way more purple :)

The process, and the slave labour :)

Home in Vancouver!

I have been home for three weeks now, with another week to go. We have been busy and done a lot this summer holiday already. We took a trip to Gibsons, I went over to Vancouver Island, and tomorrow we are going to Washington to stay in Port Townsend for a night.

Robert came home the second weekend I was home. While he was here we managed to get our annual family photo. This time we managed to get a decent one on the first try:

Sadly no cats made it into this photo

While Robert was home, we took the ferry to Gibsons. Robert and Christie went kayaking, but I wasn't too keen on joining them this time. So instead Dad and I went for a swim in the ocean. Overall I think I enjoyed it, but I was not so sure at the time. I do not like how you can't see what is under the water...

Last Thursday Dad and I went on one of our bike rides across Vancouver. This time we cycled through South Vancouver and ended up on Kent Street, just past the Knight Street Bridge. We had read  in the National Post about this little eatery in one of the lumber yards. It was an interesting place. You had to know you were looking for it to find it, and then inside it was like an old diner ... but with a bit of a slant in the floor. The food was pretty good though!

You can sort of see angle of the floor in the photo :)

Last weekend I took the bus and ferry over to Vancouver Island. The first stop was a night with Pat in Nanaimo. We had a very nice meal out on Friday night, and then woke up Saturday to a bright sunny day. We took a morning walk along the harbour by her house.

Checking out the biggest yachts in the harbour, with a view of Pat's apartment block behind

Saturday afternoon I took the bus to Victoria, where Robert met me downtown. We wandered around, and then he took me to a nearby store that had a whole bunch of old cash registers. I have to admit that I did stand there trying to decide if anyone would notice if I walked out with one. 

We ate dinner downtown and then headed back on the bus to his house. I spent Sunday with him too. We hiked up Mount Doug in the morning, getting a great view of the city, water and mountains. Then Sunday afternoon all of his housemates arrived back from weekends away and I got to meet them. A few more of his friends came over for dinner. I believe that I had a very normal dinner at his house. Everyone pitched in and helped, and the end result was some delicious salmon. And that is saying a lot, given I normally don't even eat salmon! 

I came home on Monday, and we have spent the first half of this week showing my Dad's friends from England around. Pictures of those adventures and more to come soon hopefully!

The Rock

My summer holiday started early in a way. The last weekend before school was out, I took off to the south of Spain for a long weekend. I had got permission to miss school on Friday so I could join my parents and aunt in Gibraltar. I flew, via Zurich, to Malaga. My parents had a rental car, so they picked me up at the airport and we drove back to La Linea, where we were staying just on the border of Gibraltar.

I have heard lots of stories about Gibraltar, seen pictures of when my Dad and Christie went there in 2008, yet somehow I still had completely the wrong image in my head. I knew it is called "The Rock" but I did not expect it to be to only rock. La Linea, on the Spanish side of the border, is basically flat, and then out in the water towards Africa is Gibraltar, a sudden mountain. I found it quite impressive. I think I enjoyed it so much partly because of this surprise and the wow factor involved.

On Friday we made it back to La Linea late afternoon. This gave us time to walk over the border in time for an early dinner on Casemates Square and then walk around Gib. We walked around to Sandy Bay. Here we managed to find the remains of one of the bunkers that my Grandpa Waltham had built during the war.

On Saturday, my only full day in Gibraltar, my Dad and I went caving. We took a tour of the Lower St. Michael's caves. This section of the caves was first discovered in 1943, and very shortly after my grandpa went down them, and even went swimming in the lake. It was tough going, even with many ropes and nets installed along the way. 

I loved it! Climbing up wet rock face with holes below leading to some underground abyss :)

The lake where grandpa swam. No swimming allowed any more, though I don't think I'd want to!

We made it!

After the climb we met back up with Mum and Auntie Pat. After some much needed food, we walked back down the Rock. Auntie Pat and I went into the tunnels. They go right through the rock, and have many 17th and 18th century cannons in them. I can't imagine trying to get a cannon up there! We also saw a bunch of the Barbary apes, including one with a very cute baby:

Last morning in Gibraltar before heading back to the airport. We took the bus to Europa Point, where we could look out over the water to Africa.