Christmas

Hello everyone,
It's day one after this year's christmas and I though I might write a blog post again.
This year christmas wasn't white at all as well always want it to be, but at least it didn't rain.
On Christmas eve we were invited to our next door neighbours for a little christmas brunch mainly including having a couple of beers and having a chat. After that we went to church were by brother took part in the nativity play.
Since we always go to the earliest worship on christmas eve this did not take too long because it's the one all families with little kids go to.
As we arrived at home we first exchanged our presents and than had dinner.
On the first christmas day we did about nothing and on the second, known as boxing day in Australia, my uncle and family and my grandma and grandpa visited us. We had goose for lunch and it was just yummy. I didn't eat anything after that for the whole day 'caus I was so full.
And that was this year's christmas. Pretty much like every christmas over here.

To get to a short news flash :D I'm going to the USA on easter for three weeks which will be pretty awesome I hope and we are getting an exchange student from Brazil for 5 months I think. Hope that'll go alright. I'll let you know anyways.

So that's it for the moment. I hope I'll catch up with some of you sometime soon. Have a nice rest holiday if you have one in the first place.
Your Daniel

It's been a while...

Hey folks,
It's been a pretty long while since I last wrote something to you but I thought today would be a good time to do so.
And there has been happening something over the last coupe of days indeed. Starting with last weekend. It was Ann's birthday so I was visiting her on the weekend meeting Jonas as well after some long time which was pretty cool I must say. Kira and Luisa couldn't come which was a shame. On Saturday there was Ann's party which was quite alright allthough Jonas and I didn't know any of those being there. And then on Sunday we had some nice talks about this and that, especially 'bout some memories from Australia, which was very nice.
The next very mentionable event of the week was Tuesday were I finally passed my driving test, which unfortunately was my second, so I'm having a license now which could be compared to the Aussie's learner except I'm directly having an open license when I turn 18 next year.
The next and last thing I want to tell you about is that we had our first snow today what might sound a little crazy to my Aussie readers. But yeah it's the end of November already so that's not too strange for us here in Germany.
Well, I thnk there isn't a lot more to tell you at this point. I'm pretty busy at the moment, because it's exam time again at school and I'm writing about 6 of them over the next 3 weeks.
So that'll be it for today, I think you will read something from me again when it comes to Christmas in a month or so.
Till then have a wonderful life. I'll catch up with you whenever it's possible.
See ya
Yours Daniel

Birthday at the Sea

Hello everyone,
It’s time for blogging again and as you all know it was my birthday recently (Sunday). Because it was the first weekend in holidays, we went up north for a weekend trip to Langeoog which is a quite small island close to the shore in the north sea and it’s as well very close to where my Oma lives.
Well, we started at half past five in the morning on Saturday and first drove to my grandparent’s in Esens which takes about three and a half hours. After we had breakfast there my Oma brought us to the ferry. As we arrived at Langeoog, we first checked in at the hotel and then, after we stored our clothes and stuff in the room, went for a bike ride to the east of the island. On Langeoog there are no cars or other motorized vehicles allowed so you have to go by pushbike or by horse carriage which are all over the island. After we came back to the hotel and relaxed a little, we went out for dinner to a close by restaurant.
The next day was my birthday and before breakfast, my dad and I went running although it was raining a bit. After we had breakfast, we went for a bike ride again. This time we first drove to the most westerly point of the island and then to the most easterly. As you can easily imagine the island is not very big. When we came back to our room, my parents and my brother went to the spa and swimming pool and I had a bit of a sleep, because I had a massive head ache. Two hours later after I woke up, t was about seven o’clock, we went to the little town on the island to have dinner.
On Monday we went on a pretty long walk along the beach, watching kite surfers, and through town, where we had lunch in a little café. At four o’clock we had to be at the island’s tiny train station to get back to the harbor. My grandma the picked us up at harbor in Bensersiel, that’s where the ferry to Langeoog starts. So we went back to my grandparents’ to have dinner and at about seven o’clock my dad and I headed home. My brother and my mum are staying a bit longer at my Oma’s. My dad and I have to work.
Well what is to be mentioned as well is that I had my first driving lessons last week. All in all it went pretty good I think. I didn’t crash into someone or something and I didn’t get hurt. My next lessons are next week. Here in Germany you have to take like I think 16 lessons until you can get your license so that will take me a little still. My practical test is planned to be at the end of October.
I guess that’s all for the moment. The photos from Langeoog will follow soon, but I haven’t got them on my computer yet.
So see you all soon,
Your Daniel

Bored

Hello people,
As you could probably figure out this blog is caused by a pretty crual stage of boredom. As I dunno what to do at the moment I thought I'd just give a short update of what's goin on at the moment.
Well boredom does not sound like life would be extremely interesting does it? It isn't! At the moment I'm just hanging around doing pretty much nothing. But that'll change in the next couple of weeks, because it going to be exam period and that means writing six exams to me. Apart from that there's not much news at the moment. Yeah...driving lessons are starting tuesday in a weeks time and shortly after that it's going to be holidays as well as my birthday, so there's probably coming up some stuff to talk about.
Well I'd hope to hear from you all agin soon. Actually missing Australia at the moment more than I used to...dunno why (might be the shitty weather and that)
See you
Daniel

Vent '08

Hey everyone,
At last I'm putting the photos from Vent, Austria online.
I guess I don't have to say to much to it. Just have a look they are pretty cool.
Have a good one. See you.

Daniel

That's the pics:

Vent '08

Drivers License

Hey guys,
that's just a short update. I did quite recently (today's morning) pass my theorie test for my drivers license. So in a couple of minutes I'm heading to my driving school planning my practical lessons. Well I guess I'll have that license in like a couple of weeks. Hopefully less than two months anyway.
Yeah I just wanted to put that online. The photos from Austria are coming pretty soon by the way. I've got my new Laptop last week and I'm planning to load the photos on my computer this weekend so they'll be online on Sunday at the very latest.
That's it for the moment. Hope your lifes are all going well. Mine is actually. But that might change when exam session is starting in two weeks. Senior school especially the last two years are pretty hard over here you know.
Well see youse later.

Daniel

At Europe's top

Hello everybody,
Yet it’s time for another blog post of mine.
It’ll be a bit different then the others because it’s about our holiday trip to Austria, where we stayed for two weeks. There’ll be a paragraph for every day. But I guess I’ll just start.
We start at Friday the 27th June.
At about 3 o’clock I had to get up so that we could start at 3:30 am. To Austria it takes about eight to nine ours excluding breaks. At about 3pm we arrived at our destination Vent. It’s a very tiny village in the Oetz Valley and its 1900m over sea level. On that day we just had a look round the hotel, which was very nice actually and had a walk around the village. The actual hiking holiday should start at the second day.
At our second day, the 28th it was time for our first hiking trip. The first about 500 metres altitude we took by a chair lift. Then we made our way to the Breslauer Hütte (Hütte means Hut) on an altitude of 2844m over sea level. There we had lunch and then walked without a lot of changes in altitude to the Vernagt Hütte on 2755m over sea level. From there we made our way home to Vent. On the way home I had a terrible headache which did not go away until the next morning. I most probably was because of the extreme height.
The second trip at the next day was supposed to be a rather easy one. We planed to just go to the Hochjoch Hospitz (Another Hut), have lunch there and come home again. Just 5 hours of walking. That shouldn’t be too much. But then the day happened to turn out not quite as we planned it. Just as we left the Hut for half an hour on our trip back to the hotel my mum wasn’t focused to the path for a second as she took a photo. She fell and had terrible pain in her left ankle. But because there aren’t roads to drive on by car in this area she had to walk, well tried to (it was rather hobbling) home. Matthias and my dad went home quicker to get the car because they could pick mum up at Rofen which is the very last village in the valley. But anyway it took hours to get there in the first place but in the end we got my mum home.
The next day we drove her to the doctors in Sölden which is the next lager village in the valley. There her ankle was x-rayed and it turned out that it was broken. That was the end of my mum hiking in the Alps for these holidays. As we came back to the hotel with my mums ankle in a cast. My dad my brother and I went to the sauna before dinner.
The following day the three of us who were still able to walk wanted to climb a mountain called “Wildes Mannle” (Means something like wild man). At first it was very steep but as we walked past the Stablein Alm it was quite alright. An hour and a half later we were just under the top but then had to turn around, because it rained heaps and it was just to dangerous especially for Matthias. So we climbed down again, had a drink and a soup at Rofen and then walked back to my mum waiting at the hotel.
This day wasn’t a very exciting one. We had to go to the doctors again and the doctor told my mum that she could have her surgery on the next Monday. My mum did agree, because she wanted it to be as soon as possible and they are very specialized with ankles and legs in Austria, because of all the skiers in winter who come to break their bones. For afternoon tea we went to another place called Obergurgel.

On Thursday the 3rd we went of pretty early (well not too early) to climb our first really high mountain. Today’s destination was the Kreuzspitze on 3454m above sea level. The first one and a half hours were just plain walking on an easy track. After a drink at the Martin Busch Haus we started walking to the actual mountain. Again the path was very steep and, and this was worse, the weather changed…to the bad. Well we kept walking and made it to the top after we mastered a way over two mad snow fields. We didn’t rest at the top for too long though, because a look at the sky told us not to. Long story short as we climbed down the first snow field it started raining and the rain quickly turned into hail. And I tell you. Being on an extremely high mountain at a very low temperature in a hail storm looking where to step with a seven-year-old crying, because he’s cold. That’s not quite the situation you really want to be in.
Well finally we made it. And it was worth the soup and the drink I had at the hut afterwards. Of course an awesome experience as well. We then walked the rather easy path back to the hotel. There we saw two rainbows at a time. Yeah what I forgot to mention. My dad got his shoe broken. He sort of fixed it with the laces but that was just a temporary solution.
Another day, another unfortunate accident. It all began with us wanting to spend the day at Meran in Italy. But then my dad broke the backside window of our car. A couple of calls and plastic bags later the back of the car looked nice and blue and the new window was ordered. We then just made it to St. Leonard in Italy, because my mum had to go to the doctors again later.
In St.Leonard I had the maddest bread ever. It was a normal break with like half a pig in salami and stuff on it. Well that was the day pretty much. To Italy we drove across the Timmelsjoch, which is a pretty awesome road with heaps of bends.
Another day, another peak. Well, at least for the male part of our family. Today we first walked our well known way to the Hochjoch Hospitz and from there, after a drink, we climbed a pretty steep path up to the Guslarspitzen. The host at the Hochjoch Hospitz told us that it would be quite hard to climb down to the Vernagt Hütte, because there was no way marked. But as we saw what the path was like we decided to try it. Across heaps of rocks and even more fields of snow and a bit of glaciers, not to forget the two little creeks, we ended up at the Vernagt Hütte very exhausted. After having lunch there it wasn’t too hard to walk the last two hours back to the hotel. This was another day of plain walking over about eight and a half hours.
The following Sunday was very rainy so we stayed home and went to the spa in the afternoon.
Monday was our day of fixing up. Whatever problem there was. Mum got her surgery in the afternoon and was picked up at about two o’clock and the other three of us went to Imst to get the car fixed. At night dad and I wanted to wait for mum, who should be brought back to the hotel around midnight. But at about half past eleven she rang us to tell us that it would take until three o’clock for her to be home. So we went to bed. It wasn’t a very exciting day. At least not for me.
Just a little better was ne next one. Mum was still a bit in pain and Matthias, dad and I just went to the Höhrnle, which is a peak near by. It only takes about an hour to get up so that wasn’t too much. At least better than staying home all day.
Our last whole day in Vent should be our last big day of walking. The Similaun Hütte just over the border to Italy was today’s destination. To get there, we first had to go to the Martin Busch Hütte. From there we walked the path to the Similaun Hütte. Half an hour before we reached it, we went on an unmarked way to the spot where they found the iceman, who is called Ötzi in the German speaking countries. From there it took about an hour and a half to get to the Similaun Hütte. After a cup of soup we had to start our way back to be home before sundown. As we were close to the hotel we told Matthias that he shouldn’t run the last kilometre as he was used to. It’s just unbelievable what that little guy is able to do, acknowledging that he’s just about 1,30 metres tall. At about quarter to seven we finally reached the hotel. Again heaps of walking today and I got a couple of blisters. At least I wouldn’t have to walk on the following day.
This was because Thursday was our last day and we only had breakfast before we drove off. The reason for us leaving on Thursday was that my dad had to be at work earlier than he expected. I guess that’s one of the bad things about leading a company. The journey home wasn’t very exciting. But quite warm, which isn’t too nice while driving in a car for hours.
That was it for this holiday. It was a pretty awesome one I have to say. As I already told you, the photos to this will be online in a few weeks, when I got my new laptop. It’s already ordered.
At the moment I’m working at my parents company from Monday to Friday. To earn money as well as killing time. Since Sven went to Canada last Wednesday, I’d just stay home alone which wouldn’t be very exciting.
Well that’s it for now. I guess one of my longest posts ever is finished and I’m pretty glad.
Well the next post probably won’t take too long. We’ll see.
Have a good time till then.
Yours Daniel

Holidaypost coming soon

Hello folks,
My next post about my holiday trip to Austria is still in the making so you have to be a little patient. It'll probably be finished at the end of the week.
Life here is pretty boring at the moment. Well boring isn't the right word. But it isn't too exciting. My best friend Sven is going to Canada for six Months tomorrow and when he's gone I'll focus on my drivers license test and earning some money at my dad's company.
Well that's it for now. Yeah the photos of Austria will take a little longer than the post, because I'll wait until I've got my new laptop to upload them.
That's it. Hope you all have a good life at the moment and I hope to catch up with some of you in the next couple of weeks or so.
Till then.
Cya

Your Daniel

A year ago…

Hello folks,
One year ago. On June 20, 2007 it was my day of saying goodbye to good old Germany. Having a look on the six months that followed that day I have to say that they were probably the best I ever had.
Starting at Fraser Island, an enormous start I have to admit, followed by plenty of school weeks, great weekends at Christmas Creek, Mudjimba, Girraween, Yamba, Double Island and Mon Repos (Bundaberg) not to be forgotten the trip to Lady Musgrave. A couple of day trips for example to Ballina and of course some incredible fishing trips. Yeah those were awesome six months I had and I can’t really get that it’s already another six months gone since I left “god’s own country”.
Remembering this day I do remember how sad I was to leave home and how quick this sadness turned into heaps of excitement.
I think I can promise that I’ll be back in a couple of years.

Talking about life in Germany at the moment I have to tell you that it’s heaps of fun right now. UEFA Euro 2008 the European soccer championship is major part of every European’s life in these weeks. Germany just won the quarter-final against Portugal and the Germans are pretty much out of control.
Right now everyone is a soccer fan. You could compare the importance of soccer to Germans as if Rugby, Cricket and Aussie Rules would be one sport for Aussies. Not to forget that an international tournament is heaps more exiting here, because it isn’t too far to the other countries and there are plenty of rivalries between the countries.
I hope for a semi-final between Turkey and Germany. That would be like Australia against China. There are about 6 Million Turkish people living in Germany. And a final between Germany and Holland would be heaps cool, because of the very long rivalry between us and the Dutch. And since I’m living just too close to the boarder it would be pretty funny here although I won’t be here, because when the final is taking place, we’re already in Austria for our summer holidays.
That’s the blog for today. I hope Karin will have a wonderful birthday tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll somehow manage to contact you.
Well talk to you all later. I’m on six weeks summer holiday from next Wednesday.
So cya,
Your Daniel

A weekend up North

Hello,
My second blog for tonight and the second one with a heap of delay (about two weeks I think).
This one is about the weekend two weeks ago which I spent in Hamburg visiting my uncle Bernd and his family consisting of his wife Sabine and their two kids Melanie and Nils. It was a Saturday when I went up there by train which takes about 5 hours. I had a thirty minutes stop at Cologne so I met one of the German girls, who also went to Rochedale High with me Kira at the train station.
When I arrived in Hamburg, Bernd and Nils picked me up at the station and we went to their place which is about 30 minutes by car outside Hamburg. We spent the evening having a barbecue and watching some movie on TV.
On Sunday, we went to watch a soccer game in Hamburg between the FC St. Pauli which is a suburb of Hamburg and Alemannia Aachen which is my hometowns club. Before we went to the game, we went on a little walk to the “Landungsbrücken” which is part of the Hamburg harbour. It’s I think the second largest harbour all over Europe and it was It’s birthday this weekend, so there was sort of a festival with ship parades and so on. After we watched that for a little while, we went to watch the game. Bernd got VIP tickets from his work so this was pretty cool. We had lunch provided before the game with heaps of food and a chocolate fountain you could stick fruit into. The actual game wasn’t to mind-blowing, because it was one of the last in the season and it didn’t count any for both teams. Fortunately Aachen had the better end for them and they won with 2:0.
After the game we drove home. Just after dinner I went running with Bernd and as we is heaps more trained in running than I am it was sort of a torture for me. We were quite fast at least compared to my normal pace. But as you know me I’m a sports guy(and a boy) and I don’t easily admit that someone’s heaps better than me so I ran. As a consequence I had a massive muscle ache two days later.
On Monday morning we went out for breakfast and after that to a park. Then after a barbecue for lunch and a lot of playing soccer in the backyard with Nils it already was time for me to go home. About six hours later (I had a bad route but it was cheaper) my mum picked my up from the train in Aachen. It was about 11 o’clock then.
Yeah that was my weekend up North in Hamburg. It was pretty awesome and I want to thank Bernd and Sabine for that weekend from this place again.
I guess there will be a next time next year. At least I hope so.
And I suppose that was it for tonight. I hope you are all alright down there. Hope to talk to you soon on MSN or whatsoever.
See ya soon.

Your Daniel

Of course there are some awesome photos you can have a look at:

Hamburg '08

Climbing

Hey guys,
It’s me again!
I have to admit that it took me quite a while to get myself writing this blog. I’m just too lazy, but now, about three weeks late, I am going to write it.
Well. As you can figure acknowledging the title of this blog, I’m going to tell you about my little climbing adventure with my sports class.
As I said that happened about three to four weeks ago. We had three climbing lessons and finally we made a climbing license, which shows that you know everything about the knots you need and about belaying and so on.
Climbing isn’t that hard at all, even if you are a bit scared of heights (e.g. Sonja). It’s actually quite simple.
There are a couple of things you should know to make it easier climbing the 20 metre high walls. Belaying someone is also pretty easy, but you have to weigh nearly the same as the one you’re belaying.
I guess there isn’t much I can tell you about climbing. Everyone who’s got the choice should try it. It’s heaps of fun. The only problem I had is my weight, because its harder to climb if you weigh much.
That’s it for now (well for the next couple of minutes, because I’m writing a blog about my Hamburg weekend now)
See you then…
Your Daniel

Have a look at the climbing photos. I guess they are quite good.

Klettern

C'est la France

Hello people,
I just came home from my trip to France where I have been from Thursday to Sunday together with my Big Band and the one above us.
First of all I have to say that it was pretty awesome although France especially the French are quite weird.
But I’ll start at the beginning. On Thursday at 7:30(remember that’s madly early for Germans on public holidays) we had to meet at our band room and at about 8 o’clock we drove off. The journey to Montebourg, the city we stayed at, which is in the north of France, took about 10 hours.
So that took the whole Thursday. Except at night we had a practise which was pretty crappy and our band leader was heaps pissed off.
On Friday we went to a place called Mont St. Michel which is sort of a big church and fort on a mountain which originally isn’t connected to the main land so you can only get there at low tide. But now they’ve built a bridge thing to get there. After visiting that (it was another 2 hours from our stay) we drove back and stopped at a super market to get some stuff. Actually mainly beer. Well, we had a concert in the evening which was as well pretty crap because we messed it up a little. Nevertheless we had an awesome party afterwards. This took until 3 o’clock in the morning. Well I went to bed at 3. Then I had a beautiful sleep until 7 o’clock. Not too beautiful actually.
But anyway we went to Cherbourg on Saturday morning and visited a marine museum, including some great fish (quite little parrotfish, sharks, and so on) and a French nuclear submarine. That was quite interesting as well. Afterwards we had lunch and then had to prepare for another concert near an airship hangar. Surprisingly this concert turned out to be quite good and after that the serious part of the trip was finally over. Following there was another mad party on Saturday night. I, again, went to bed at three and had to get up at 7.
In the morning we just had breakfast and cleaned up everything. Then at 9:30 we took off for another 10 hour trip back to Aachen.
Concluding there is just one thing to say about that trip: “La France – C’est génial”.
That’s it for now. I hope I’ll talk to some of u soon on msn or else.
C’ya soon.
Yours Daniel

Of course I took some awesome photos:

Montebourg '08

A weather to (dis)like

Hello everybody,
The weekend is over and so is the beautiful weather we had. Today we had a quite rainy day which made me realise that it is heaps easier to live with water restrictions than with rain.
But at least the weekend was fine. I was running on Saturday and then went to the movies in the evening. On Sunday my family and I went on a little bike trip and we had a barbecue at night. I have to say that German BBQ is at least as good as the Aussie one.
Last Tuesday I had my first theory lesson for my drivers license. In Germany you have to pass a theory test first until you take practical lessons. When you passed the practical test you are allowed to drive. With the age of seventeen you have to drive with your parents as in the Aussie learners. If you make your license in the age of 18 you automatically get your open license. I’ll get my license in September.
Today we were climbing with my sport class. It’s the climbing like you can do it at kangaroo point just in a hall. The walls are about 15-20 metres high though. It’s pretty mad but its heaps of fun.
A yeah I’m going to France next weekend with my big band and the weekend after I’m visiting my uncle in Hamburg. Of course I’m going to write in detail about those weekends.
That’s it for now.
Hope you enjoyed my blog although I guess it’s not as good as the German one has been.
Have a good one.
Your Daniel

Easter at Esens

Hello everyone,
It’s time for another post of mine I guess.
Easter time in Germany is normally associated with spring. Green everywhere and not as cold anymore.
Well Easter was there and spring wasn’t this year. We hadn’t had a white Christmas but a white Easter this year. Quite weird but that’s life I suppose.
But anyway – As every Easter my family and I went to my grandma’s for the long weekend (Friday and Monday are public holidays here). My grandma and grandpa, well Oma and Opa, are living at the North Sea in the same city where Karin is from. It’s about 400 kilometres from where I live and it takes about three to three and a half hours to get there. Moreover it’s quite nice there and it’s always great to visit them.
As I said this year isn’t a normal one, at least the weather isn’t, so instead of sun and green we had snow and white. That probably sounds great for Aussies but if your sick of winter as I am you just don’t want to see snow and rain anymore. Nevertheless Easter was quite nice. I spent most of the time eating - you have to know that my grandma is sort of the best cooking grandma there is and we always gain at least two kilos of weight while visiting them - ,sleeping and walking around the town and the nearby nature with my parents and my brother.
All in all it was a perfect weekend to recover and although the weather wasn’t as good except Sunday and now I’m living at Sven’s until Friday, because my brother is still in Esens and my parents are going to work all day. Next weekend my mum and I are going to Esens again to get Matthias.
That’s it for the moment.
I’ll talk to you later. Hope you had a great Easter, too.
Your Daniel

Well I took some pictures as well.

Esens

Back on the matt!

Hello everyone,
This post comes with two weeks delay but now I finally found the time to write it.
I think it was on the second of March I had a Judo tournament in Gummersbach (Karin knows where that is). Judo tournament that means getting up quite early and driving for hours.
Well it wasn’t that bad this time. We had to be in Gummersbach at 9 o’clock what meant that we (Sven and I) had to get up at around 6 and had to be ready until quarter past 7, what is very early for Sundays over here.
But anyway, our coach Frank drove us and we arrived in Gummersbach at around 9am.
Then the under seventeen boys had to be weight and soon they had their first fights. Sven just had two fights, won them both and won the first place. I had to be weight with the under 20 men at eleven. My weight was fine and pretty soon I had my fights as well. Two fights, two losses. That sounds pretty bad. Well it is quite bad but the how is what counts. I think I made two good fights and it’s quite normal to loose in your first tournament at the under twenties, in a higher weight class and after six months without any training at all.
Nevertheless Sven and I had a funny day. After our fights we had lunch and watched other fights.
A good Sunday after all and at about five o’clock we were home already.
That was it for now.
See you later,
Your Daniel

I made some photos as well. Just some of Sven’s fights. He didn’t take some of mine so you just see him.

Judo

Big Band pictures

Hello,
and with some delay obviously the pictures of my Big Band concert.

Here they are:

Big Band

Filled Capsicum

Hello,
This is a post probably only of some interest for members of the roots family.
I think it was last week or so when we last had a dish associated with my grandma.
Yeah you know what I’m talking about. Filled Capsicum. Just quite yummy.
And my made some pictures of it just to show you what your missing since Else is obviously not willing to make it.
That's it already.
See you later,
Your Daniel

And here’s the pictures:

Filled Capsicum

A movin’ Sunday

Hello everyone,
As I told you yesterday, Winter is gone in Germany. According to this most of us are going to go outside. Today I planed to go on a road bike (pushbike) trip with my friend Sven, while my brother was on a Soccer tournament and my dad was out riding his motorbike.
Well we started at 20 past eleven and the most beautiful weather. Still a bit cold though, but not to cold for me to wear my cycling shorts and short sleave jersey.
We went on a trip through Belgium, past a dam and through some very nice forests. There were heaps of other road bikers and other people on day trips.
After we rode about 40ks with a maximum speed of 60ks (remember it’s all on a pushbike) we had lunch at a Belgian fries shop. Belgian fries are the better French fries everyone has to admit. They are just too good. We had “Currywurst with fries” which is actually pretty delicious. It is what it sounds like. A sausage with curry sauce, roasted onions and French fries with mayonnaise. Just too good, but after that enormous lunch it was quite hard to master the last 10ks.
After I came home, I firstly showered myself, by the way for the second time today ;), and then had to do some homework. That was pretty much my day and it was I suppose a quite good Sunday.
That’s it for now. I’ll talk to you later,
Your Daniel

Some pictures of the day:

Biking

Winter?

Hello everyone,
Winter? That’s actually a good question. Where there was snow last weekend, there is an empty sky and temperatures I’d consider warm for this time of the year (about 14°C). At least you can go outside without necessarily having to wear a thick as winter jacket. Today a proper jumper would easily do the job.
But anyway nobody thinks about Winter anymore, although it has just been a week ago when we were all happy about having snow nearly for the first time this Winter (It was the first time for me anyway).
Everyone is looking forward to Spring and Summer now and I hope we will be lucky and this weather will stay at least for a couple of days. It otherwise can be possibly happen that we have heaps of rain again in a couple of days as we had for the last week and nearly the whole Winter.
Well I think that was it for the moment.
See you later and have a good time,
Your Daniel

Winter’s finally there!

Hello everyone,
Winter is finally there here. A bit late though since it is already February but at least this Winter came.
What does Winter mean for us? It means snow! Not too much were I live but still. You can’t ski but you can have fun with it anyway.
Well I’m living at my friend Sven’s for the weekend and this morning we woke up, looked outside and saw it. Everything in white! Nice as…
The bad side about snow is that you have to remove it at least from the footpaths in front of your house.
On the photos coming with this post you can see me clearing the footpath in front of my house.
Well that was about it I guess.
One thing to add is that there are “first ones” for me here as well. I know whether Australians eat snails. Well French do and obviously we do as well. I didn’t before today. But anyway I did tonight. And I got to say as soon as you get ok with the idea of eating snails it’s actually quite good. Yeah that’s it…
See you later.
Daniel

And here are the Winter photos I promised:

Winter

Well...

Hello everyone,
I don’t think there is a particular reason for this post, but I thought I might write again.
Firstly I can tell that life in Germany became more and more normal again. Most of it is how I knew it and some of it is different how I told you in my post about school.
Something that goes on as it did is my drumming. About two weeks ago I had my first practise, which was on Friday. Already at the following Sunday I had my first concert again. It was pretty cool and showed me that I can still play. I’m not good, well I never was, but the basics are still there.
So now I’m trying to get my drum lessons again and I possibly will try to play in my school’s big band as well.
Another thing happening again is my judo training, what at the moment, because of my lack of training over the last six months, is pretty much just beating me up. After my first training (a Wednesday), it took me to Sunday before I was able to move without being in pain of some kind. But it’s fun and that is why I do it apart from it giving me sort of a trained body. 
I don’t know whether there is much more to say at the moment. All in all it’s quite cool here at the moment. I like it and school is not too bad as well.
I heard the weather over there isn’t too good these days. I hope you can handle it. If it helps in some way, the weather here is shit as well. Its between 0 and 10 degrees and it rains sometimes. That’s what we don’t want but why moan about the weather you can’t change it anyway.
Well that’s it for now I reckon.
Have fun at whatever you do. I don’t know yet when I’ll write my next post but it shouldn’t be as long as it took me to write this one.
See you later.
Daniel

P.S.: I might as well have some pictures of my big band concert but I don’t have them yet. They’ll be uploaded when I get them.

Back to School

School started again today in Germany and so I had to go for my first official school day.
Nearly everything changed here. School isn’t what it used to be anymore.
Because I’m a senior now. And being a Senior Student means more of a change than it does for Australian students.
When you are Senior in Germany it can possibly happen that your school day totally splits up. For example tomorrow I go to school at about nine. Then I have three lessons (each 45mins) then I have a spare or 45 mins and then I have one other lesson. After that I have two spares and a lunch break what equals a total of two and a half hours and then I have a double lesson again. Isn’t that weird? But that’s what senior school is like over here. Because in primary and junior school you can barely choose your subjects. You have about 12 subjects and you can only choose 2 of them. The other vary from year to year and the basics (German, English, Maths, Sport and just at our school religious education) are always the same. But now in Senior you can choose all of your subjects. Well except the basics, but you have to choose some of each category. Categories like languages, science, and other stuff. On my timetable there is German, English, Maths, Sport, RE, Music, Geography, History, Biology, Physics and Latin. So you see being a student over here can be quite busy. But it isn’t that bad.
Well I think that’s it for now.
Enjoy your holiday and don’t be too sorry for me, because I have to go to school again.
See you later.
Daniel

Sylvester Photos

Hello everyone,
Here are some photos and videos from Sylvester (New Years Eve).
I have two more videos which I couldn't upload for some reason. One which shows me launching a rocket and another firework thing. Everyone who wants those videos can just contact me on my email or (daniel.scholz@onlinehome.de) or write a comment with his or her e-mail address.
That's it for now.
Your Daniel

Here are the photos:

Sylvester '07

New Years eve

Or Sylvester like it is called here in Germany.
Hello everyone to another post of my Germany blog.
2007 has ended like it is usual here. On new Years eve, we normally eat heaps at night and when the new years has actually begun, at around 12 o’clock, we go outside and light plenty of fireworks.
We have heaps of little rockets, dynamite sticks and other stuff which looks really nice and makes a hell of a noise.
Yesterday, the 31st of December ’07 I went to my friend Sven’s place, to celebrate new years eve there. At about eight o’clock we started eating and finished close to eleven o’clock. After some time killing the new years was there and for about an hour and a half we went outside to light fireworks. From what I heard this is illegal in Australia, well it isn’t in Germany. And I can tell you - It’s heaps of fun.
Well after we finished that we went inside and watched movies until about four o’clock when we finally went to bed. At half past twelve I woke up today and was still tired. It is about quarter to five now and we’ll have dinner soon already so this day wasn’t much of one.
A German new years eve in a few words is drinking sparkling wine or Sekt, as it is called here, and lighting fireworks. It is awesome.
That’s it for now.
I wish you all a very happy new year. See you later.
Daniel