Photo Album

29 June 03 bis 19 Juli 03

Below is a few things I have been up to over recent weeks. I have managed to get a bit more in to German culture this month:) Here is a summary

German Bureaucracy: My shiny new visa

One challenge out the way. I now have permission to stay in Deutschland until April next year. After working with the local authorities (Ex Gestapo employees I am sure) for several months, I have my VISA:) Just in time, as I received it within a day of my 90 day permit expiring!

German Royalty: Schloss Linderhoff.

This is again one of the King Ludwig II castles. It was quite a bit smaller than Neuschwanstein, but the gardens were very impressive.

The photos above show the main gardens and fountains. The photo on the right shows how they maintain the atmosphere, even when the building is under renovations:)

German Religion

The German's are very Catholic, and I happen to live in the area with the highest concentration of churches in the country. I decided to see what all the fuss was about. This is one of the churches (Kirche) just outside of our town called Obermangau. Very impressive inside and out, even for a non believer:) They all are very light and airy with amazingly intricate designs.

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German Nature

Here are a few shots from Germany, it is always full of beautiful places to see.

Below (left) Waterfalls near Schloss Neuschwanstein.

Above (centre) Konigsee, (right) Konigsee from marien platz (poets place).

Above (left) the local mill, still operating powered by the local waterfalls, (centre) Neuschwanstein and Moon, (right) Schloss Hohenschwangau at night taken at around 2am. Great time to get out, no bloody tourists:)

Above: Yep I live in the sticks!

German Summer Festivals

Summer is big here. There have been a lot of parades, and my god are lederhosen (Leather shorts) popular in this part of the world!

Above (left) Parade in Steingaten, (right) Strassefest (street festival) in Marktoberdorf. One thing is always the same, there is a good deal of beer and sausage on tap.

The following photos are from the "Tanzel Fest". It celebrates the medieval history of the town which goes back 700 odd years. They close of all the streets, have a heap of parades going through town and all shops etc are in medieval clothes serving medieval food and good old fashioned beer:) As you can see, the fashion sense of the Bavarians was also pretty bad in the good old days as well!

I popped into Munich for the first time in months recently. Summer is big there as well, the town was packed (below right). They had what looked like the Gay Martigras (Below left). Supposedly there are 100,000 gays in Munich, 10% of the population. I would believe it, because they were certainly having one hell of a party.

Germany under war

On one of my weekends I popped down to the south eastern corner of Germany and popped in to the "Obersalzburg Dokumentation museum". This is the location of Hitler's second headquarters. Above shows one of his tunnels he had built in the side of a mountain to protect him from attack. It had many story boards detailing the life of Hitler and the atrocities he committed. Very very interesting, but like Dachau, it was very hard to believe what happened and that it was only 50 years ago. I guess Mr Hussein has gotten away with similar atrocities in modern times, so anything is possible.

Germany - The eastern part

I made my way over to the former East Germany to do some work on the local farms. There are some huge farms in the area. The Eastern part is still quite poor in comparison to the West especially compared to Bavaria, which proved to be a very interesting contrast in their attitudes, culture and just general way of life. Unfortunately I was only there for a day, but do hope to get up that way again to better understand the differences and the history. Here are a few snaps.

Below (left) I spent about 30 minutes in Berlin, this is the most interesting sight I could find in that time. (right) Big fields in the east.

Due to the recent cost cutting at BEELINE, it was a good opportunity to shop for economical transport. Below (Left) The Traubi was the peoples car up until the wall fell down in 1990. Can't say I like the idea of a wooden chassis, but the fuel economy is meant to be great at 20 turnips per 100km. No wonder people used to wait 10 years to get one of these beauties!

Another choice for economical travel is this beast. Not quite as comfortable as the Traubi, but I think the subwoofers sold me!

Germany Parties

Every year the R&D department at Fendt has a big party in one of the local barns. Here are a couple of shots from the local festivities. I had a few to many beers and schnapps, which meant I had to sleep in the car when festivities finished well after 3am.

Below (left): Big band playing many songs to promote the intake of beer. (centre) Apple schnapps. Very smooth, and very strong. (right) Thomas - The guy I work with the most. Great fun bloke and Martinez who is a bit of a nut.

Below (left): Bambi actually did a belly dance for a shed full of engineers which is a pretty risky business in any country. (centre) Fredrick Allinger, very nice man who organised the event. He doesn't speak much English, and his German is very Authentic for the area so we don't really understand what each other is saying:) He also brews the schnapps. (right) Herr Preggar and Christian. Herr Preggar has done most of the mechanical work on the tractor I am using and Christian plays one hell of a piano accordion. Imagine "Alice, who the f*!# is Alice" played not only on a piano accordion but also in German. It rocked:)

What's next?

The plan at the moment is to head over to see Deb finally, and have 1 week in Portugal, as we both have severe beach cravings!