Just in case anyone is still reading this and is thinking I have indeed been arrested : I'm safely back in the UK.

My Dresden adventures amused my German friends greatly. Apparently it is called being a Zechpreller in German.
(In checking that spelling, I found this great website - http://www.betterthanenglish.com/. A new word every day from another language which says something English can't.)
Anyway, I have acquired a new reputation in Hartenrod as being a tough cookie. "Cool", someone said.

I had three lovely days in Hartenrod, which passed by in a bit of a social whirl. I spent my last couple of hours having breakfast in Marburg with Moni, who had kindly given me a lift to the station. We had planned to sit on the Terrasse of the Cafe Fiona - honest - which is next to the station. We did, but it's now a 24 Hour pub with all sorts of strange people, and it had turned cold. Germany was telling me it was time to go.

My journey went fairly smoothly yesterday, apart from the bit in Koeln where everyone on the (very long) train had to get off and swap to the other half of the train because DB had messed up on the seat allocations, and the train was dividing into two. That was(n't) fun.
Got to Lynne's last night and I've had a lovely day with the girls today, snotty noses and all. Wonder if I've caught the niece virus, as is traditional on trips to London? We have got Ella to say "Auntie Ona", which is cute.

Home tomorrow, barring disasters. Own bed, own kettle, and no more living out of a suitcase ... bliss!

Flight from Dresden 20.07.10

Just leaving Berlin on the intercity as I write this – just getting to Spandau. They might drag me off the train at this point, if the jail is still there. I should be ok, I still know all the words to “True”. That should get me off.
I left Dresden this morning without paying my bill. If you see my mugshot on Crimewatch, you’ll know why. This is what happened ...
When I arrived at the holiday flat on Thursday, I was let in by Frau Koehler, of the family I was renting the flat from. They lived in the flat opposite. I had paid 100 Euros deposit by Paypal, and I had the cash ready to pay the balance, but she said, “Oh, das machen wir bei Gelegenheit” (We’ll sort that out when we get a chance.) Ok, I thought, how nice.
I spoke to her briefly from my balcony on Friday morning, and I thought she was a bit unfriendly, but otherwise I didn’t see them. Last night, I thought, I better pay up, and I rang their doorbell. Her two wee girls answered, and said she was putting the baby to bed, and Papa wasn’t in, so I said ok, just tell Mama I wanted a word when she’s got a minute. (I also wanted to tell her I couldn’t get the washing machine to work, and was a bit worried I had broken it!)
You’d think they’d come to my door after that, but not a cheep.
This morning, I packed up, and saw Frau K in the garden talking to the man who was mowing the grass. Five mins later, ready to go and with 220 Euros to give her, I rang her doorbell. Twice. No answer. I looked in the garden, and all around, but there was no sign of her.
They didn’t have a letterbox in their door, only outside, and, I wasn’t keen on leaving the money in the flat in case someone else got to it first. So I left a note saying I would send it on by Paypal once I get home, and I headed off for my train.
How weird, eh? You’d think they’d want to check that the flat was ok, and above all to get their money from me! I could just have scarpered without paying or leaving a note.
I know I had been totally reasonable, but I was still feeling I had done something wrong as I was standing in Dresden station. I saw two men, policemen, I thought, come up the stairs at the next platform along, and they seemed to be looking over at me and talking about me. For a moment I was sure I was going to be arrested! There must be some specific German crime of leaving a rented flat owing money, plus subsidiary charges of not having sorted the rubbish correctly and leaving the mugs out of alignment.
My flight seems to be going successfully so far, though. Maybe I can take the wig off now...
(Posted from Angelika’s. Do you think she and Helmut will get arrested for harbouring a criminal?)

No WiFi on Monday, so catching up later.
On Monday, I took the train from Dresden to Meissen – the home of porcelain. And you can’t miss that fact.
It’s a lovely wee town, all nooks and crannies and winding alleys. The big draw in town is the factory, but I ran short of time and I decided I had seen enough porcelain. It was a bit far out to walk, and I was worried I would blow my rent money on a milk jug or saucer or something! As it turns out, I could have – but that’s a story for the next entry ...
I walked up to the castle, which turned out to be an excellent choice. It overlooks the town, and, strangely, it used to be the porcelain factory! The ruler of the time – Albrecht, maybe, but I’ve forgotten – saw that there was money to be made in porcelain, as it was the cool thing for the dinner tables of the rich, and was being imported at huge expense from East Asia. He got his people to work out how to make it, and the castle became a 18thC factory manufacturing dinner services and decorative objects. I know all this because there was an exhibition explaining it all, though I have forgotten most of the facts, and don’t have WiFi access to check Wikipedia
The other good thing about the castle was the preserved (or restored?) medieval banqueting halls, with lots of excellent frescoes and statues, and handy examples of Minnesang painted in the alcoves. I would provide a translation, of course, but that would deprive Clare, Carol, Eilean and Jane of hours of fun. Oder?
Came back for one last bit of Kuchen in Dresden before heading back to try to fit all my junk into my case.

Scottish weather

It is cool today, only about 18C and cloudy. A lot more pleasant to walk about in, really.

I went to the German Hygiene Museum today. Honest. It was founded by the manufacturer of Odol mouthwash about a century ago, and is really a museum of the body. It's really well done, with far more than you can take in (or want to know, to be honest. Diseased livers aren't quite the thing for a Sunday lunchtime!) Had a stoat round the Botanic Garden after that. And I have been discovering the tram system with a day pass - thought I might need it, given the threat of mega-rain, and it means I can get further afield.

I have planned a trip to Meissen for tomorrow, as a lot of the museums shut here on a Monday. Might take out a second mortgage and buy a couple of mugs from the factory shop.

I am nearly touristed-out, though. I was shattered when I got in last night, and I sat and watched "In Bruges" on the netbook. I loved it - great black humour. I loved the bit at the start. Ken and Ray (Colin Farrel), two hitmen, are hiding out in Bruges and Ken tries to get Ray to do the tourist stuff. He suggests they go up the church tower, "to see the view". Ray is unimpressed. "What, of down here?", he says. "I can see it fine where I am!" I know how he feels at times.

Off to eat now. Bis spaeter!

After the storm...

There was a big storm last night, and it has cooled down a lot. It's still muggy and warm, but thankfully not as oppressively hot as it was.

I took advantage of the cooler air today and had a good walk along the river, then went for Kaffee und Kuchen in the Grand Cafe by the Frauenkirche. There is a local cake, called Dresdner Eierschenke, so of course I had to try that. It's a bit like cheesecake.

Fuelled by cake, I've just had a cultural afternoon in the Residenzschloss. I went round the "Neues Gruenes Gewoelbe" - one half of the cultural treasury of Dresden, or, what very very rich folk give each other for Christmas. The other half is only accessible by timed access tickets, and must be something spectacular, as the one I saw was amazing enough. I also saw an exhibition called "The Future Since 1560", which was about the history of the collections and how thay have been influenced by the interests and politics of the day. I should have taken the free audio guide, as it didn't make much sense without it, but it looked as if it must have been interesting if you had an idea why the bits were there!

I also discovered what the very very rich folk of today give each other for Christmas by visiting the Meissen porcelain shops. They had a dinner service for £14,000. But it won't fit in my case.

Doing the Starbucks WiFi now, then I'll have some dinner and head back to discover what's on telly on a Saturday night in Germany. I had thought of going to the open air ballet, but the rain last night kind of put me off ...

Hope someone is still reading this! Bis spaeter.

Thank goodness for Starbucks ...

The WiFi in my flat isn't working, so I was glad to find somewhere with free WiFi here (even if it is Starbucks!)

Dresden is lovely and will easily keep me amused for four days, I reckon. Especially if I stop hanging about in cafes and start doing something constructive. Today I have been getting my bearings, which means lots of wandering about. I was in the Frauenkirche, the one they left in ruins during DDR times and recently reconstructed. It's beautiful.

Yesterday I had a very civilised rail journey, changing at the very swanky station in Leipzig. The flat is great. It's out of town a bit, but not much, and I can walk into town via the Elbe Cycle path. It has lots of room, and a cute wee balcony on which I had breakfast this morning, after an indulgent lie-in.

After arriving last night I had to pop out to the big Lidl at the station for some groceries. Fun, trying to work out what everything was again. Have got some strange teabags and could only get UHT milk (yuk.) Got to find the German equivalent of M&S for ready meals. Or eat out!

Meanwhile, I have a great book on the go. I have a strange fascination for crazy rich people from the past, and I'm enjoying "The Bolter" by Frances Osborne. (When I can put aside my literary and political pretensions, as it was on the R+J list and is by the wife of George "Gideon - yah" Osborne.) It's about her scandalous great granny, and I spent half an hour online in here trying to find out about a house which features in the book called Kildonan House in Barrhill, Ayrshire. Got to go a trip there when I'm home - might be good for a walk!

Eilean's Air Con Guide to Dresden

As a service to any overheated tourists who might stumble across my otherwise personal blog, I present Eilean's Hitzewelle Guide to Dresden, which she was good enough to send to me before I left.

The Semperoper is worth a visit anyway but really good air con

The Zwinger has a nice wee park with a pond round the back of the building on the Ost allée which was nice and shady

Grünes Gewölbe - go admire the jewels - 10E worth of fab air con

Jeff Wall photography exhibition - Kunsthalle in Lipsiusbau - wasn't that impressed by the photography but fab air con

Grosser Garten - good for shade - was a bit further out than I expected - did a lot of walking in the heat to get there.

I'm sure you'll like Dresden - I really enjoyed it and 2 days were not enough.

If you fancy a bit of contemporary ballet the Tänzerische Seranade "Die vier Jahreszeiten" was great and in a lovely setting - outside in the Zwinger and not too expensive

Also liked l'Art de Vie Resto near the Societätstheater in Neustadt - had dinner there but they looked like a good option for breakfast as is X-fresh in the Altmark Galerie.

Die Raeder im Bus ...

On the way back from our trip to Bremen today, we got stuck in traffic, and I kept the kids amused by singing songs with them. Got through a few verses of "The Wheels on the Bus" in German! Then I decided to teach them a Scottish song, and I went for "Stop the bus, I want a wee wee". That went down well. They kept half singing it to themselves - I kept hearing "Hmmm hmm hmm hmmhmmm wee wee..."

We did the big city trip today with a guided tour. Lots of Hanseatic history.
We saw Boettcherstrasse, which reminded me of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. It was built in an Expressionist style by the founder of Kaffee Hag in the 1920s, and denounced as degenerate art by the Nazis.
Of course, we also saw the Bremer Stadtmusikanten, which everyone knows from the Grimms fairy tale and are a symbol for Bremen (even though they never even made it to the town.) You should grab both legs of the donkey for luck. If you only grab one, they say "ein Esel gibt dem anderen die Hand" (one donkey shaking the hand of another!)

Yesterday we had a quiet day, as it was a bit miserable and looked like rain, as well as being outrageously hot. After it cheered up, we went to a "Melkhus", which is a local attraction. Dairy farms set up a wee cafe with milkshakes and stuff, and you can talk to the cows and all sorts. It was very quiet and fun - we had the wee ones and their two friends with us, and they loved talking to the calves and generally messing about.
Then last night, Marianne and Wolfgang had to go to a birthday do, and I went with the kids to watch a breakdancing show which was on in the town centre. It was surprisingly good, with lots of impossible manouevres, and even Miriam, who is only 4, loved it and sat rapt throughout. And of course, there was Eis. There has been lots of Eis so far ...

Ganderkesee

Got to the Etrich family at half five tonight, after a very civilised rail trip.
Having a lovely time so far. The kids (15, 13, 10 & 4) are all very sweet and friendly, especially Miriam (4). I have promised to read her favourite fairy tale to her, The Ugly Duckling. Meanwhile, Leon (15) let me into their WiFi in about 10 seconds, navigating Windows 7 in his second language, and that was him sorting out a problem.
Now watching the football final with Wolfgang and the weans. Deutschland! Deutsch... oh no, they're not in it any more. Who am I supporting now??

Mensch, aergere dich nicht!

Playing Ludo this morning, or Mensch, Aergere Dich Nicht as it is known here. At least that's one thing which isn't Denglisch. I did (get annoyed) though, because I kept losing. Being beat by a 7yo (Mica) and a 10 yo (Luca) is no fun.
That's Luca in the picture. Mica was sulking.
We had been going to go for a walk in the Kellerwald National Park today, but it was way too hot - 38C was forecast, and it certainly felt like the inside of an oven when you went outside. Then we were going to go to a nearby cave complex, but that meant dressing for 9C and then going out into the oven. We gave up and stayed at home, with a brief foray to the Eisdiele in Endbach. I got to see the new "wellness" swimming pool complex - what we would call a spa. It looks very swanky, with saunas and ice water showers and all sorts of thermal water thingies, and a bit less old lady than it used to be.
Vocab of the day: swanky = nobel or edel.

I was quite happy to slow down, especially as I didn't get home to 1am last night. The open air concert last night, by the Junge Marburger Philharmonie, was really good, and was complete with fireworks at the end of Tschaikovsky's something symphony in some key or another. We ate Wuerstchen and drank beer and afterwards had a wander round the shows and stalls which were at the castle. We all decided we were getting too old for all that open air drinking and stuff, though - we found ourselves looking at the inebriated students and thinking, how old are you?

I am now sitting out on the patio with a glass of wine. Germany is playing Urugay (or is it Paraguy?) for 3rd place, and again, I can tell the score by the audio track provided by the village in general. Mica has stayed at home to watch the match, but Helmut has taken Luca down to watch it in Jeegels Hoob.
(The village hall is called that because it's dialect for Jegel's Hof, or Jegel's "bit". The village bought up a redundant farm yard which needed to be preserved, because it was a listed building - the villages here have small farmyards, with Fachwerk buildings, on the main road. Unfortunately, the listed building fell to bits when they tried to restore it, and building regs meant it had to be rebuilt new and not restored as was. Seems strange, but that was the rules - they wanted to rebuild it as was. Anyway, a new build was easier. The other thing is that Jeegel was the "Hausname" of the family, a sort of local nickname for the family with that farm and not necessarily their real name.)

It's just about nice to sit out now. And Germany seem to have won 3rd place, going by the vuvuzela grapevine.

35C today - hothothot. I heard that it's raining at home -?

We had breakfast on the patio today, then went to look at kitchens in a showroom nearby. Have decided not to import a German one like they do on Grand Designs - they seem to start at 10,000E. Got some good ideas, though, which was the point.

Afterwards we went to Bracht to collect Luca and Mica, A&H's grandsons. We now have a houseful of boys - I feel right at home with my netbook on my lap. Technology rules.
However, I'm going to escape tonight and go to listen to classical music in the Marburger Schloss with Moni and Martina - it's some sort of festival. Bis spaeter!

Lazy Day

Good to see a few comments - it's quite strange to write this and to wonder who might be reading.

We had our lazy day today. Angelika baked Spiegeleikuchen this morning. Not as yuk as it sounds - sponge base, creamy topping, peach halves and Tortenguss (can't think what that's called in English.) Yummy with eine Tasse Kaffee. She has promised me a good recipe for the tea party I will have to have with my new tea set.

In fact, a lot of my english vocabulary is deserting me. What would we put on a poster to say that a football match was to be broadcast for the public? Not "public viewing" as they say here - that sounds more like what goes on in a funeral parlour - but what do we say?

We bummed about in the sun for much of the rest of the day, and Elke came round in the evening, an old friend of A&H who I also know.
My vocab is coming back to me, but I'm not taking many photos because I'm too busy chatting. And I'm the guest, which makes it hard to unobtrusively snap. However, here is a wee picture of Lilly, A&H's new cat.

Oh well - they lost.
The match was on in the new village hall, of which Helmut is the jannie. Angelika and I went for a walk - we were just about the only people to be seen on the streets. German flags were everywhere, and we could guess the progress of the match from the shouts we could hear!

This afternoon I was in Marburg with Moni. We did some shopping - books, mostly - and we had lunch and, of course, Eis. It was pretty hot today.
I've had a busy few days, so tomorrow is more of a lazy day. I might get to post some photos.

Off to Marburg for the afternoon today.

I was talking to Angelika last night about "Denglisch" - the overuse of unnecessary English phrases in German.
Tonight, the World Cup semi between Germany and Spain is being shown in the village hall. This is advertised as "Public Viewing". Seriously.
Better than that, Angelika's wee medical practice in the village runs a "Disease Management Programme" for people with chronic conditions. That is what it is called in German. Unreal!
I saw this article in the newspaper at the station: must make time to read it -

Ist Deutsch noch zu retten? http://www.zeit.de/2010/27/Deutsch-Muttersprache

Will collect more Denglisch. Meanwhile, the Wildpark was excellent. Learned lots of new vocab.
Word of the Day: Waschbaer = racoon!

Hartenrod - mein Dorf!

Helmut has given me his WiFi code, so i am back in cyberspace.

Got to the village at about 5 yesterday. It was quite a monster day. I started out rediscovering the limited attractions of Cochem and the Moselle - I had a couple of hours and that was more than enough.
Got the train at lunchtime. I had a Bummelzug from Koblenz to Giessen, and it was very pleasant chuntering along beside the Lahn river for a couple of hours. Moni and I managed to miss each other at Marburg station at first, but it all worked out.
I had a lovely few hours catching up with the Graff clan at Thomas' birthday party. We ate strawberry flan in the garden, listened to Joshua (8) reading out jokes, and I was introduced to Moni and Thomas' chickens.
It's pretty hot here, but yesterday it clouded over and even got quite cool outside. I think everyone was quite happy about that. Apparently it's going to be 35C on Saturday.

I'm staying with Angelika and Helmut, so Moni dropped me off in the evening, and after a few glasses of red at the kitchen table and a catch up with A&H, I was glad to get to bed.

Moni and Thomas are taking me out with them today, to the Edersee to see an exhibition about Greifvoegel. I think that's birds of prey. My new German word. I was trying to ask them at the party if they'd ever seen Kes, but I couldn't figure out how to describe a kestrel, as opposed to a falcon or whatever. My vocabulary challenge for today: learn the names of as many birds of prey as possible.

Sunday 4th July - Cochem
Oh dear – need to work on my German pronunciation. Went for something to eat tonight and ordered Spaetzele mit Pfiffirlingen. (Pfifferlingen are big here.) Got Schnitzel mit Pfifferlingen. Complaining seemed like too much work, though. (I was just scared they would think I was saying my chair was in the sun or my water was too cold or something!)
At least they served me in that place. At first I walked over to the other side of the Mosel and sat down in a restaurant with a photogenic view of the river and castle. The waitress studiously ignored me, even when I was trying to catch her eye. I had been sitting for ten minutes when a couple came in, sat down and were given a menu. I walked out at that. I wish I had known I was invisible before now. Could come in handy.
Cochem is lovely, and the hotel has been really good to me. When I booked, I mentioned that I had worked here back in 1897 ... no, 1987, and I would love a room in the old building. I have got the “Napoleon Suite”! It’s on the corner of the building, with a separate living room. And, apparently, Napoleon slept in the very 4 poster bed I will be in. Yes, I believe them too. The place has barely changed – suits of armour don’t seem to have gone out of fashion in the last 23 years.
(23???!)

On 4th July, I'm off to Deutschland for 3 weeks, and I'm having a go at a blog for 3 main reasons: it should be easier to use than my webmail; it lets me mess about on my netbook on the many trains I'll be on; and I want to join the 21st century and learn about blogging!

I hope that, if you're reading, you'll also comment on what you've read. Apologies to anyone who doesn't understand the odd bits of German I'll inevitably drop in...

Tschuess!