Hamelin/Hameln

When I told people I was moving to Bremen, quite a few said, "Is that a real place? I thought it was from a fairytale!" And you know where else is a real place? Hamelin, from the Pied Piper story! So guess where I day tripped this past weekend?!

Hamelin is approximately 2/2.5 hours away from Bremen depending on transport links, and it looks like a classic Middle Ages fairytale town.

No joke, this is the main street of the old town

The story of the rat catcher/child stealer is naturally all over the town. This is the Rattenfaenger (Pied Piper) haus. On the side of the building, is an old sign commemorating the event...which might be based on a true story?! 

This woman thought it was appropriate to take lots of duckface selfies outside of it.

The tourist trail in Hamelin is marked by these rat cobblestones

The museum outlining the history of Hamelin and the story of the rat catcher

THIS CREEPY BASTARD


Also, check out the rats on this fountain!

But it wasn't all rats, all the time. 

There was this awesome building whose significance I've forgotten

There's this...plaque that seems to commemorate...bretzeln?

And this awesomely decorative building!

Yeah, I was really only paying attention to the rats. 

Copenhagen Day 3 & 4

*Sniff* Our vacation was slowly coming to an end.

We had another beautiful morning!


So time to walk out to Langlinie to see the Little Mermaid. Pooey said not seeing this would be like going to Paris and not seeing the Arc de Triomphe or going to London and not seeing Big Ben

But the weather slowly changed as the day continued so we decided to buy some groceries, head back to our apartment and eat a homemade dinner (chicken and rice) and drink our wine!

Just a word - our apartment was clearly made for tall people - the toilet paper was on the highest shelf in the toilet!!!

The weather turned nice again but it was our last day in Copenhagen :( 

After a very quick lunch and dropping dancinghula and Rao off at the metro as they made their way to the airport, I made my slow way to the central station

I resister sitting on Hans Christian Anderson's lap

I didn't have to resist going to Tivoli Gardens because it was still closed for the winter :(

And then I slowly made my way back to Germany.

But some good news - the bus was much faster than expected on the way back so I managed to arrive home an hour earlier than expected. A good end to a great holiday <3 p="">

Copenhagen Day 2

After an exhausted sleep, we woke up to a BEE-YOO-TEE-FUL day!

Which we greatly appreciated during our walk to our brunch place.

The brunch place had been recommended by the owner of our apartment and it was packed with locals. So packed that we had to wait at a rear table and play UNO.

This brunch was awesome! Did we order too much? I don't tihnk so and I kinda regret not ordering more bread to go with the homemade nutella :/

*Sigh* so purdy

We made our way over to Paper city because we were told it was a happening place.

It had this public art for us to climb!!!

Christiania. Pooey's advice: " Go here if you wanna feel uncomfortable"

Church where the staircase to climb the tower is on the outside

gfdsfg

All the walking was pretty tiring so we headed back to the apartment to rest. We bought wine on the way.

But we didn't drink it because we were too busy prettying ourselves up for dinner at Aamans!

*Sigh* more pretty walking along the canals.

Look at how happy we look!

My entree - raw marinaded codfish. Can't go to Denmark and not eat fish!

My main - chicken tartelet.

Despite the lightness of the meal, we were pretty stuffed. 

But it didn't stop us from chugging down our wine!!!

Copenhagen Day 1

Dancinghula and Rao moved to London at the tail end of last year. Since they're newbies that can only mean one thing - European city meet ups! For Easter we decided to head to Copenhagen, which is great because I hadn't managed to get there yet and from Bremen it's only a 6 hour train ride. Except it actually turned into a 10 hour train/bus/train ride due to trackworks that were taking place in Denmark over the Easter weekend. Oh well.

Except it actually wasn't so bad actually. The worst part was the confusion as to where I was supposed to get the bus from Hamburg to Denmark. There was basically no signage which was a little disconcerting given that the bus was supposed to take 6 hours and I don't know what would happen if I missed it.

But once I figured out which bus I was supposed to take, THAT BUS WAS AWESOME!!! Look at all that leg space! It was clearly made for Viking-sized people and had free wifi (when we were in Denmark).

The seaside!

Like the train was supposed so, the bus took us right onto the ferry. The weather was shit as. 

Electrical sockets in Denmark look like smiley faces :)

Dancinghula and Rao also had a tiring journey to Copenhagen so we decided to just eat at a restaurant in our street.

My entree of cod roe with a poached egg. YUM!!!


I was a bit disappointed with my pork cheek main. Cheek is meant to be soft and fall apart. It was a bit chewy >.<

Next up, being a tourist!

Cologne work visit

Work sent me to Cologne for a day trip to meet some more collaborators to discuss our plan for the next few months. While it was a long day (I took a train leaving here at 7:44 boooo), it was fairly productive and even gave me a couple of hours to walk around the city before heading home. 

I finally got to see this sculpture in situ!

And I also saw this game! It's mostly for Shascha who would cry out "El Chupacabra!" whenever she was scared.

Love you long time, London

Because I am the new girl, work sent me to a meeting in London to meet other people I would be working with. Not gonna complain about that! Okay, I will complain a little bit - it was a two day meeting with an 8AM START on the second day. But the flipside of the early start was an early end, allowing me to catch up with some London peeps :D.

I caught up with Amandine, Mr J, Liz and Livvy at Lobster & Burger.

And like any self-respecting Asian, we all got lobster

I got mine grilled. yay. 

Afterwards we met with Angry Chris and headed to Bread St. Kitchen for cocktails. 

We also took this epic photobooth pic while at Bread St. because the pauses between shots were so long we weren't sure if it was done or not :D

And I strolled home from there and felt a great swelling in my heart for all my friends and how even though time may pass, we still had a great time together in this amazing city <3 .="" p="">

Also, a shoutout to Smee letting me crash and also making me squid ink pasta. Delizioso!

Epic Journey Home - the way back

Alas, all things must come to an end, and the end to my time in Melbs came all too quickly :(

For my last full day, I decided to be a tourist and wandered around the city taking beautiful photos of the place.

The NGV international inner courtyard *sigh*

I took a walk through the gardens, along the Tan, then took this classic view of the CBD and Southbank *wipes tear* 

Then I went to NGV Australia and saw this sweet sculpture by Patricia Piccinini *sob*

And swung by 8-bit where I had this pretty cute burger *yum*

Oh, I doooooo

But yeah, this time around I really started to feel the pull of family and friends at home and just how far away I've been and how long I've been away. But the state of research in Australia is pretty dismal right now so I'm still not holding my breath on being able to get back. 

On to happier topics, I boarded the plane much more in a much more relaxed state than when I arrived. I also had a 7 hours stopover in Singapore meaning I'd be catching up with Pooky again!

There weren't many things open but we did manage to make it to a hawker stall where I got chicken rice again :D

Singapore Airport was having a promotion whereby you could get a Star Wars plush toy if you spent over a certain amount of money in the airport. Since I was getting Smee some vacuum-dried meats, he also got a bonus Darth Vader!

I had a 24 hours layover in London. So naturally I went shopping. These were the last of the Regent St. Xmas decorations. 

And another chicken pot pie at Heathrow to eat!

From there I flew back to Berlin to spend NYE with Dana and Marie (who was coming up from Munich to meet us :D)

Had to do this - eating a Berliner in Berlin!

Dana made fondue for NYE dinner - using Mama Dana's recipe

Mmmmmm, lecker!

Hehehehe

And so 2015 came to an end. Here's a wonderful 2016!