So I am in Paris, typing on a keyboard where if I touch type and don’t look at the keys it pretty much makes sense!  This current trip is strictly a holiday; no students, no school, just holiday.  The main reason for this trip is to go to my friend Carlas wedding, but I decided to take 3 weeks of the long service leave that has been accumulating for several years, tack it on to the end of the school holidays and travel for 5 weeks altogether.

I left Adelaide on Saturday 6 July after a really busy week - apologies to the staff at Clare HS for my stress-induced meltdowns.  I arrived in London at dawn sunday morning and made my way to St Pancras station where I waited to catch my Eurostar train to Paris.  All my travel arrangements so far have gone smoothly.  Good to know I haven’t stuffed up yet!  The journey from London to Paris was great, especially when we surfaced at Calais and I got to see some of the French countryside.  I arrived in Paris at about 2.30 after having travelled for a total of 33 hours, feeling tired and decidely unwashed.  I checked into the Avenir Hotel- great location near Sacre Coere sp?, quite good breakfast and a tiny room just like a shoebox. Same colour too, incidently. I intended to shower then go out for a walk. What I actually did was shower, lie down for 5 minutes I swear, then promptly fall asleep for the next 12 hours… *sigh* I think I have a combination of sleep deprivation and jet lag to thank for that.  I woke at about 5am and decided to read until it got light, then go for a walk up to Sacre Coere.  It was a fantastic decision; normally obscenely crowded, at 7am I had it nearly to myself.

I returned for breakfast; a roll, croissant and tea, then hopped onto the L’Open Tour bus to do the sights. Having done most of the main attractions before, my main goal was to go to the Louvre to see Verneer’s The Lacemaker, which was on loan last time.  She was there, thankfully, and very beautiful too.  Then I hopped back on the bus to do a whistle stop tour of the rest of the sites.  Lunch was in a small cafe near Notre Dame.  A lovely day.

I am about to run out of internet time, so will edit this later and add more detail.  Am off to Avignon today to begin my walking tour in Provence. 

Well, I never did find the time to finish this off, so a quick summary will have to suffice.  The rest of the year went smoothly.  I developed an appreciation for Christmas lights in the middle of an English winter, enjoyed the Charles Dickens Christmas festival at Rochester, saw fireworks over Leeds Castle, managed a couple more plays and spent a weekend in Paris (where it snowed on the Champs Elysee - sp?) with my friends Carla, Tina and Chris. 

In December I finished up at Woodlands, said farewell to so very many wonderful friends at school and church and made my way to Nepal to visit my friends Lawrie and Alexa who were working in a hospital in Tansen.  I spent a wonderful week with them, including Christmas, then flew back to Kathmandu to meet Dad and begin our trek in the Everest Region.  The trek, which we did with Peregrine, was amazing.  So, so beautiful!

And so I returned home. The exchange had some unpleasant sides to it, but it was by far the best professional experience of my teaching career and was a pretty good personal one too.

My next overseas trip was a school exchange to Ireland.  I will post more about this when I get home from my current trip.

My friend Sue and her teenage son (and former student of mine) Daniel came to visit me in October.  They used my house as a base for a few days and when the half-term came we met in Edinburgh for a week’s holiday in Scotland.  I decided not to drive up but rather to take the train and we planned to hire a car in Edinburgh so both Sue and I could drive.  I really enjoyed the train trip - it was a great chance to appreciate the English countryside and to catch up on my reading - if I remember correctly, I was reading The Constant Gardener by John LeCarre, which I really enjoyed.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon and spent the first two nights in a youth hostel.  It turned out to be a party place, reinforcing my horror of youth hostels; I don’t see the point of a cheap night’s sleep if you don’t actually sleep…

On the Sunday we visited friends of Sue and Daniel who owned a farm a short distance from Edinburgh.  They cooked us a lovely roast dinner and gave us a tour of their property. It was a lovely way to spend the day.  On Monday we did the tourist thing in the city, and I remember being quite impressed with Edinburgh castle.  The crown jewels were lovelier than the English ones in my humble opinion!  That afternoon we took a bus to the airport where we hired our car.  Our stop that night was Dumfernline, where Sue had an appointment to meet with local organisers of the Scout movement.  Sue is something of an expert on Lone Scouts, which is a scouting group for isolated children, and the local Scout groups were investigating its possibilities for isolated Scottish teenagers.  We stayed in a great little pub, with an owner who was as gay as a picnic basket and an absolute delight to talk to.

From Dumfernline we took a beautiful drive to Glencoe.  We stayed in a gorgeous B&B with a woman who cooked absolutely wonderful evening meals.  I distinctly remember breakfast at this place including a bowl or porridge served with a wee dram of whisky!  Glencoe is beautiful, and I would love to return and spend much more time here.

We spent the next night staying on the Isle of Skye, and really enjoyed driving around the isle.  The weather was really warm but alarmingly windy!  Places we visited included Dunvegan Castle where I was particularly taken by the ‘Fairy Flag’ and The Museum or Island Life.   We stayed in Portree overnight, and the next morning we made our way along the Loch Ness where of course we stopped to visit one of the ‘official’ visitor centers dedicated to ‘Nessie’.  We continued via Inverness to Aviemore where we stayed.  The television series ‘Monarch of the Glen’ was filmed near here, and I loved wondering along the trails at Rothiemurchus Estate.

On Friday we drove back down to Edinburgh, but not before we stopped at Dalwhinnie Distillery  where I confess I discovered a taste for fine Scottish whisky.  The time in Scotland was not nearly enough.  I would love to return to do some walking in the highlands, and see much more of this gorgeous part of the country.

So I should be finishing the last essay of my current unit for my MEd (TESOL) but instead I am going to write a little more about that holiday three years ago…  It will only be a brief summary, but will give you a bit of an idea!

We travelled to Geneva next, where we stayed at the YHA.  Clean? Yes. Efficient? Yes. Did I feel like I was a naughty kid on a school camp?  Yes!  Youth hostels are great, but I think I have been a supervising teacher on one too many camps not to get a little freaked out by all the rules!  From memory, we spent two nights in Geneva and spent our time touring the United Nations (impressive) and the museum of the International Red Cross (really interesting - see their website here).  We wandered along the lake, which was very pleasant, and poked around the city’s shops, as you do!  On the morning we were due to leave we had time to visit an exhibition of art by John Howe who was one of the two conceptual artists who worked on the Lord of the Rings films.  His work was lovely, and I bought a limited edition print which sadly is still sitting, unframed, on a shelf behind me as I type.  One day I will find the money to get my favourite framer in Murray Bridge to frame it for me…

That afternoon we took the train to Milan in Italy.  I think this was my favourite train journey of all; the views were spectacular through the alps.  We only intended to stay in Milan for one night because we were on route to the Cinque Terre, which became one of my favourite places in Italy (so much so I am going back there this July!).  We had been advised (correctly in my opinion) that Vernazza was the loveliest of the villages to stay in.  We arrived on a Saturday afternoon with no accommodation booked, hoping that the local internet cafe would come through for us like the one in Croatia and find us a room.  The weather was hot so we figured that if the worst came to the worst we could sleep on the beach.  Fortunately (particularly in the light of the thunderstorm that hit late that night) the internet cafe proved very helpful and we were sorted out with a lovely apartment - only for the first night, but we could sort out the other two nights later!

The bed in our room was a double made up from two singles, so we dug in and helped our hostess to remake the beds back into the singles.  She seemed really chuffed that we were willing to help, taught us how to fold fitted sheets (quite a skill) and said in broke English, “American… very difficult.”  I didn’t think helping to remake your own bed was so unusual, but there you go.  For the record I have booked a room (I hope) with the same woman for my next holiday in July, which I am really looking forward to!

In the morning we found a little cafe not far from our apartment which sold the most divine pastries, fresh peach juice and fresh strawberry juice for breakfast.  It was run by two brothers who wooed us with “Beautiful Australians, you looka justa likea Nicole Kidman.  Come and eat in our restaurant!”  What’s a girl gunna do?  Besides, did I mention how good those pastries were?  They turned out to be enormously helpful people too, who found us accommodation for the next two nights.

We spent our time in Vernazza walking between the five villages of the Cinque Terre, swimming in the sea, eating wonderful seafood (I discovered fresh anchovies - yum!) and generally relaxing.  It was the last place on our itinerary and we headed back to Milan for our flight home on the Tuesday.

Well that’s it for the summer.  The next break was the October half term when I went to Scotland with some friends from Clare.  I have to mark midyear exams and write school reports this week, so I am sure I will find time to write that blog!

Wow, how out of date is this? It’s time to update and catch you all up on my little trips from the last two and half years, then tell you all about my next little journey: France, Italy and England. I am heading off on the 5th of July but have soooo much to do before the end of the school term, so we’ll see how much updating actually happens!

Well, we know how to time our visit - on the same day as the worst flood in Lucerne in 30 years! It seems to have been raining in Switzerland for several days. It was certainly pouring with rain when we arrived in Zurich on Sunday afternnoon. It continued to pour for most of Monday, so there really wasn’t much we could do in Zurich except wander around the shops in the old part of town which were full of lots of beautiful things we couldn’t afford…

We had to wait for the afternoon before we could get a train to Lucerne as there were apparently problems with flooding along the way. However eventually we were off and arrived in Lucerne at about 5.30pm. Our humble hotel is in the middle of the old town which is nice, and after we checked in and dropped off our things we went for a wander along the riverside to find something to eat, finally settling on a English pub called Mr Pickwicks. We noticed during our walk that people were busily dropping off loads of sandbags, lining them along the river and stacking them in front of shop doors. The pub we ate in had a pile ready to go just beside the door. We returned to our hotel wondering just what today would bring.

Early this morning we could see that the river had indeed burst its banks and flooded some of the lower lying places. We were still able to cross over to the other side to visit the train station to see about trains to Geneva tomorrow and to find out if it is worth taking a day trip to Mt Rigi given the conditions. We were advised that there is no problem getting a train, and that we should wait until midday to see what the conditions are like to go to the mountain. As I write this we are still waiting… From there we decided to venture back onto the side of the river on which our hotel is based to check out the Glacier Gardens which were really interesting. Discovered in 1872, it is a now exposed rock surface on which you can clearly see the impact of a glacier. The area includes a museum with some lovely old furniture, and a hall of mirrors which was brough to Lucerne after the 1896 national fair in Geneva, and which did my head in completely… thought I was never going to get out!!

We were probably there for about two hours, and walked back to the train station to discover that the street we could walk along before was now closed to traffic, and that pedestrians were now having to roll up their pants and wade through. I would like to congratulate the makers of my hiking boots; once again they have proved their waterproofness! Mr Pickwicks has now got half a metre of water banked up against its doors (and hopefully not flooding throughout…). Guess we won’t be eating there tonght!

So, as I type, the waters are still rising. However it is quite clear that the authorities here are well organised and prepared to deal with whatever eventuates! However we might be here for another day yet…

Sorry for the lack of updates. It is really hard to find time to sit in an internet cafe when there is so much to see and do! This is our last day in Germany. In the past week we have visited Berlin, Hamburg, Eisenach and I am writing this in Munich. Today we catch a train to Zurich in Switzerland where we hope to spend much of the next week.

I will write in more detail later, but suffice to say I have really enjoyed it here, and have had loads of opportunities to improve my German! I also wish I had a spare couple of hundred Euros and an empty pack so I can load up on the new season winter clothes. The Germans do have such good taste in shoes!

On Wednesday afternoon we headed for Poznan for two nights. My reason for choosing to stay here (in spite of all the Poles telling us not to go there ‘because there is nothing there’) is because it is the base for the organisation Discovering Roots (http://www.discovering-roots.pl/welcome.htm). I had booked a guide from this organisation to take me to Trzciel, the home of my German ancestors who made the long and perilous journey to Australia in 1840-41. The village was (and still is) a small country town where few (if any) people speak English, so if my visit was going to mean anything, a guide was quite necessary.

At 10am Thursday morning we met Magda, our guide. She turned out to be an enormously helpful and interesting woman in her early thirties. She dr0ve us to the village (my first time in a car driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road!) chatting all the time about the history of the town and what we might (or might not) find there. The town has a population of only a couple of thousand people, and is quite sleepy and off the beaten track. I don’t think they see too many Australians there! The town is divided by a river, and the German settlers (who had come to the area from other areas of Prussia) lived on one half while the Polish lived on the other. The German section had an Evangelical Church, and the Polish a Catholic. The two communities always existed harmoniously together, until the Germans were forced to leave and return to what was now Germany. Since WWII and the communist takeover, no German was welcome in this area. Anyone visiting claiming German ancestry (even if they were Australian) was regarded suspiciously, even with fear as the communists had successfully persuaded the local population that it was only a matter of time before the German sought to return to take their land from them. Thankfully this is no longer the case, and since 1989 and the end of Communist rule, many Germans have returned freely to visit the home of their ancestors.

I had hoped to visit the Evangelical church as it was the church my ancestors had attended and possibly married in. Unfortunately it was bombed during WWII and not rebuilt. A park stands there now. I already knew the nearby cemetry was virtually non-existent as there was no longer any German families to care for it, but was still pleasantly pleased by what we found. Yes, the gravestones had fallen and the whole area was covered in ivy. However it was a pleasant, quiet place, and a memorial had been recently placed there to commemorate the Germans who had been buried there. We will always wonder if any earlier generations of our family are buried there, but will never know for sure because of the lack of records.

We spent some time in the Catholic church, thanks to Magda who approached the priest to unlock the building for us. It is a beautiful building, and existed in the time of my ancestors. It is likely to have been a significant place for them.

After lunch Magda drove us to a nearby village to show us a church that had been built in the same style as the Evangelical church so we could see how it might have looked. She again sought out the local priest, and found a radical retired priest who apparently had written a book about his belief that original sin began with Cain rather than Adam and Eve. Interestingly the Catholic church was reluctant to publish it!

Magda returned us to Poznan where we shared a drink, and then dinner, and ended up chatting until 10pm. We really enjoyed talking with her, not only because of her genealogical knowledge, but to find out what life was like in a communist country (Magda was 17 in 1989, and well able to remember the things that happened). After 12 hours with Magda, I felt I had well and truely got my money’s worth, and then some. If you have ancestors who came from this region, I can highly recommend this organisation!

Will update as soon as possible!

One can’t really come to this part of the world without visiting Auschwitz Birkenau, the location of one of the most infamous of the Nazi death camps. On Sunday we caught the 9am bus - its a journey of about 60km, an hour and a half. Entry to the museum is free, but we decided to pay to join a guided tour. We were glad we did because there was so much to see we could have been overloaded! We began at Birkenau, which is about 3 km from Auschwitz, and is the site where most of the gas chamber murders took place. I had no idea the place was so large. The extent of the camp was chilling, the rows upon rows of barracks. The wooden barracks had all been destroyed by fire, their chimneys the only things remaining. They had rebuilt a row of barracks for visitors to see what conditions would have been like. The barbed wire fences, watch towers and train line still remain, making it easy to picture what it might have been like. At the far end of the camp were the gas chambers and furnaces. They had been blown up in the final days before the camp was liberated, but the ruins were still disturbing. A dramatic memorial stands there now, and is a special place for people to come and remember and mourn.

We returned to Auschwitz, which was primarily a work camp, although plenty of people were murdered here too. We passed through the gates with the words “Arbeit macht Frei” (Work brings freedom) and began a tour of the exhibitions. Several rooms contained items taken from those murdered at Birkenau, including reading glasses, shoes, suitcases, and the most sickening, an enourmous pile of human hair taken from the heads of some 40000 women.

We spent the whole day at the museum; there was more than enough to see (too much?). Like the Peace Museum in Hiroshima, this is a place all people should come if they possibly can. It is not a pleasant day, but it is an important one.

Tomorrow we take the train to Warsaw, where we will stay for two nights. After that we head west to Poznan, where I will visit Trzciel (formerly Tirschtiegel) which is the village from which my Hampel ancestors came.