Exploring Hamburg

We arrived in Hamburg on Friday, so Saturday was a perfect day to explore the city and be able to enjoy Jeremy's company too, as well as have his help so the kids didn't out number us quite so much.


Our first stop - a beautifully treed walking district with great shopping.

Sarah, Jeremy and the gang of kids

Hamburg is a beautiful city with lots of waterways and beautiful buildings. Sarah and Jeremy were telling me how the city was never ruled by any of the kings that ruled the rest of Germany and surrounding areas, but it was built and developed by businessmen for their interests so it has more continuity than other cities.

Downtown Hamburg - Beautiful!

The weather was perfect for our day out - we were really enjoying it after the heat of Bahrain.

City Hall

The Nivea headquarters are in Hamburg, so we were able to explore all their coolest products in the company's flagship store.

Lunch at a very German restaurant - everything on the menu was made of potatoes! The kids had some potato pancakes and I had a very delicious turkey, cheese, potato souffle.


Dave loving his train ride and gelato

Part of the metro line includes a river boat with beautiful views of the city so we had to include that on our tour...

The huge dock owned and operated by the company my dad works for - Thyssen Krupp

Beautiful Hamburg shore

A more modern view

On the Baltic Sea, Hamburg is a shipping hub

It was a full and fun day. The kids were amazingly well-behaved for all we put them through that day. We did so much walking that (luckily right at the end) both Davey's and my shoes broke! (guess I shouldn't be cheap about shoe buying)

We unknowingly got the kids to bed past 9 o'clock because it was still so light out!

The following day we went to church with our friends and it was quite warm as no one there has air conditioning. The whole trip was hot and I had packed mostly cool weather clothes thinking that being that far north it must be bound to be cold (how quickly I'd forgotten my northern upbringing).

The cutest thing that day was that in church even though we couldn't understand what was being said (the service was in German of course) Davey decided he wanted to bear his testimony. It was hard to convince him that he couldn't since it wasn't fast and testimony meeting. He had never wanted to do this before so I was sad to have to tell him no. He had everything planned out how he was going to talk about how his Daddy and his Grandpa had been sick and he prays for them.

After church we drove through a little village to get more of a feel for the town.

Such a picturesque little spot

We had a delicious German dinner that night with bratwurst, saurkraut and grilled vegetables.

Charlie and Davey loved playing with the most darling twins, Henry and Isabella. Those little babies are just so adorable! They have such wonderful, calm, sweet personalities and they are just beautiful. Charlie wanted to be on Bella - literally touching - all the time (he didn't need any suggestions as in the video in the post below)...

(I'm having trouble with the video code... if anyone thinks they can help me fix it please let me know!)

Thank you Sarah and Jeremy for such wonderful hospitality. We all had so much fun exploring Hamburg with you and getting to spend some time together. We can't wait until we get to see you again!

Charlie & Bella Video

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Adventure Begins

For weeks before we left for our trip, Davey asked every day if it was July 8th (the day we were to leave). He just couldn't wait to go home and see all his family and friends, just like me. The day finally came and we boarded the plane just before midnight.

Smiling and ready for the adventure to begin.

Charlie loves to clean with wipes. He was happy for a good 20 minutes "cleaning" everything around him.

The kids settled in and fell asleep after a couple hours. I was able to relax but unfortunately wasn't able to fall asleep.

The flight monitor showing we were flying over Iraq! I was surprised to know commercial flights go through Iraqi airspace.

We arrived in Amsterdam after a smooth flight. I was so happy to have not struggled with the boys. Unfortunately we arrived early at 5am and the rental car agencies didn't open until 6:30 so we had to wait around the airport. It was quite a struggle just getting to the right location with a hugely loaded luggage cart that you had to hold a difficult handle down to move and pushing the kids stroller at the same time. I was amazed at the number of people that just watched me creep by (we were truly moving at a snail's pace), without even sympathetic smiles. Finally, a man offered to help us. While we waited for the Avis counter to open, however, Davey really needed to use the bathroom. We had to move at the same snail's pace to get there and my hands were killing me. No offers of help or kind looks. I was put off by the lack of response and I guess I have really gotten used to the friendliness of people in Bahrain. Welcome back to the Western World. I shouldn't have been surprised.

We finally got out onto the road in Amsterdam and it was wonderful! Everything was so green and beautiful. The weather was cool and the air was moist and fragrant. Such a nice change from dry, brown, dusty Bahrain!

I know the following picitures aren't much to look at, but I couldn't help trying to capture the beautiful scenes (holding my phone up blindly in front of my while I drove), even though I wasn't able to. The countryside in Holland and Germany was so beautiful and it was so fun just to be in Europe. There were beautifully cultivated fields and grazing animals with quaint villages each with their very Dutch looking windmill or church.

I had thought the drive would be closer to 4 hours, but it took six solid hours. I was TIRED after not having slept that night but didn't feel in danger of nodding off. The kids were great and slept for about 2 hours of the drive. I expected them to be really restless but maybe they were enjoying the beautiful scenery as well :)

When we got off the autobahn, this is what the rest of the drive to Sarah's house looked like. She has said that she is living out her childhood dream of living in a forest and she truly is. So beautiful and lush! I wish I had taken a picture of her townhome and the homes around it. Everything just looked so German. (Duh! right?)

In making all of our preparations for our two-month-long trip, I hadn't spent really any time thinking about our time in Germany and what we would see or do, other than to be so excited to spend time with my dear friend Sarah, her husband Jeremy, and to meet their darling one-year-old twins Isabella and Henry.

The three days we spent with them were so much fun! (Details in the next post.) Sarah greeted us with a great dinner of gnocci (German as well as Italian because of it being made of potato and dressed with gravy).

Sarah helpingDavey with his first German meal.
(Yes, I cringe when I see this picture. Davey loves to pretend to be a baby. Thank you, Sarah, for putting up with it! Though now as I write this six weeks later he is thankfully growing out of it/being pushed out of it mostly.)

The darling babies - Henry and Isabella!

Sarah also hid for them in their rooms a chocolate Kinder Egg.

They loved them!

A Big, Daunting Adventure

Part of living life overseas is taking our trips home. I was very excited to plan our first trip home, but every time I sat down to buy our tickets, I just couldn't do it. I was taking the kids home a month before Dave would join us, which meant travelling with them myself. The flight from Bahrain plus a layover plus another flight was more than I could think about trying to handle, especially with the journey beginning with a red-eye. Most of the itineraries involved 30+ hours of travelling.

Once I realized that the common layover points of Frankfurt and Amsterdam brought me close to my best friend from college, Sarah, who is living in Hamburg, I realized the wonderful solution - make a stopover and go see her and her husband and one-year-old twins!

So that we did and it was still tiring, but great!

Camel Farm

Its about time I blogged about the camel farm up the road from us. I was in Macy's with my friend, Amy, the other day and another shopper overheard us talking about Bahrain and mentioned how much she had liked the camel farm there when she stopped on a cruise. I mentioned that we live right down the road from there and Amy was surprised she hadn't yet heard about it, so, here's the post, Amy!

HRH the King of Bahrain owns a camel farm that is about a mile up the main road from our home and is a major landmark for my kids. When we first moved there we took a drive around the island and Davey, our little GPS-in-his-head boy, knew we were almost home when we passed the camel farm again in the dark at the end of the day. For a couple months before we left for the summer, Charlie pointed out the camel farm every time we passed, pointing and yelling what sounded like, "Mammals!" He now says it correctly (boo hoo, I hate when they lose the baby-talk) but still often thinks (or hopes) cows and horses are camels.

We stopped by the camel farm again the day before we left for our trip and took the pictures above. The camel farm is open during the day and you can just stop and pull in and walk around. This time one of the workers gave us a little tour and walked us to the back where the pregnant camels and the new babies live. We got to see a two week old camel right up close (the camel to Dave's left in the bottom right picture)... it was so cute! Charlie LOVES camels. You may notice in both pictures that he would not look away from them for the picture. I have started collecting little camel figurines and Charlie plays with them all the time.

We've been reading a little about camels with the kids and found it interesting to know that it is not water that camels store in their humps, but food. The water is distributed throughout thier bodies. Did you always think it was water in the hump too?

Swimming Lessons

This Spring Davey and Charlie have been taking swimming lessons at Davey's school. Even though it is only once a week for 30 minutes, I have been impressed with how much comfort and confidence they have given both boys. It has been fun to do the "Bubs and Me" lesson with Charlie and Dave and I were invited to watch Davey's lesson last week through the window (so as not to distract him) so it was a good chance to get some of his skills on video.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Charlie: "Charlie"

Charlie's vocabulary is expanding like crazy these days and I'm going to try to capture more of his darling little voice on video since I regret not having more of Davey. Here's a short little clip...

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Muharraq Island

Dave and I decided we needed to get out and do something different with our Saturday than swimming or going to the mall to play with the kids, so we decided to venture to Bahrain's second-largest island, Muharraq, and explore a former home of Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Kalifa, former king of Bahrain from 1869 to 1932. It is supposed to be very beautiful with period architecture and wall carvings.

We brought along a guide book and map and were sure we'd seen signs to it before (the airport is also on Muharraq), but we drove all around the island and couldn't find it. No one we asked seemed to know where it was and one guy said he'd never even heard of it!

The island is much smaller than Bahrain island and we figured we had to run into it somewhere around where our map put it, but alas we did not. We did, however, still enjoy ourselves and saw some interesting things along the way.

A very pretty mosque we came across.

Sorry, I'll fix the picture soon.

Another mosque. I should have taken a close-up of the detail work around the doors. Very pretty.

Muharraq hasn't endured all the modernisation that Bahrain has and seems to have a lot more historic, preserved buildings.

A very beautiful, restored residence.

We drove by the shipyard where dhow boats (traditional wooden fishing boats) apparently go to both die and be born...

Some abandoned, decaying dhow boats.

I must be adjusting a bit because I found the scene a bit beautiful.

Some people were working on the dhow being built and it is very impolite here to take pictures of others without asking permission, so we didn't get a picture of one being built. But Davey thought it was pretty cool. He has had an affinity for dhows since he first saw them in Oman.

Central Market

I have heard for a long time about the Central Market here in Bahrain that is a great place to buy fish and produce. Cherries and berries here are extremely expensive and when I heard they could be had at a good price and I was invited to go with a couple from church, I was in! We went this morning at 6am...

Inside the fish market.

It was a slow day there since the weekend has been very windy and many fishermen didn't go out.

With the "shopkeeper" selling the sharks and my friend Imee

I picked up some prawns for Dave, which he thought were very fresh and delicious but a lot of work for the reward.

A view of the outdoor vegetable market.

I bought lots of cherries, mangos, kiwi, some cucumbers, capsicum (green pepper), garlic and bananas. It wasn't as good of prices as I expected, but surely a better deal than the grocery stores. It was a fun cultural experience!

Spelling

Apparently, Davey has really started to notice the times when we spell words when talking in front of him. Today he told me, "Mommy, we really need to fix my T-H-E-D-A-Y -- my construction truck."