Urlaub 1 (holiday) - Weimar and Erfurt

It's summer now, which means holiday time all over Europe. Many countries have standard 5 or 6 weeks holidays per year, and now is the time to take it.

We've had a few trips over the past few months - a few day trips here and there, plus a few longer ones. We've meant to write some entries about them but never got around to finishing them.

To try and catch up a bit, we've got a few shortish posts.

Over the Easter weekend (we told you we are catching up!) we went with some friends, Paul and Nancy, to explore the cities of Weimar and Erfurt. They are two of the major cities in the state of Thuringer, which is one of the neighbouring states to ours (we live in Sachsen or Saxony). We travelled by train with a special weekend ticket that allows 5 adults to travel together for only 30 Euros for a whole day's travel. Bargain!

Weimar is a beautiful city with neat cobblestone streets and is full of buildings with character. After world war I, the new democratic German constitution was formed in Weimar, hence the name "Weimar Republic". Unfortunately, there were some insurmountable problems resulting from the depression and reparations payments that caused this system of government to be taken over and replaced by the Nazis. Here's one of the castles that has been added to over the years. Sometimes it seems as if almost every historical building in Europe was burnt down and rebuilt several times.

Lots of famous people lived in Weimar, including Goethe (German writer), Schiller (German writer), Liszt (musician), Nietzsche (philosopher), Cranach the elder (artist). You can visit houses they lived in and there are museums everywhere. See the narrow purple house? Cute huh?

Erfurt is a really old city. Not all of it is like this, but here's a spot which has maintained its narrow cobblestoned street. We think the groove down the middle was where the sewage flowed.


Erfurt has LOTS of churches. It's one of the cities where Luther lived and preached. Here is a photo of the church he was at.

This is the inside of a bombed out church that is now used as a museum. We're not sure if this might have been used as a set for a scene in the recent movie "Luther".

Acht Monate und in Bewegung (eight months and on the move)

As they say, time flies when you're having fun, and having Owen around is certainly that! 8 months already, and there's lots of interesting things to catch you up on.

Physically

Owen is supporting himself alot better now. He can sit up by himself unaided for around 10 minutes at a time, and can even hold himself up on Dad's shoulders. This means it's really hard to hold him, as he's always wriggling around and trying to get a better view of the world. BTW, that's Jon - an Australian friend visiting us on his way through Europe.

He's also becoming more mobile, even though he isn't crawling yet. He can roll from front to back and back to front, and can cover impressive distances in an unexpectedly short time. This means we have to be even more on the lookout to make sure he doesn't do anything dangerous. In this photo, he started on the playmat in the foreground.

Owen uses his feet alot - almost as much as his hands. Sometimes when he could reach for something with either his hands or his feet, he'll opt for the feet. He's even taken to sucking his toes.

Moving around is hard work, and since we've come into summer and there's no air conditioning here, Owen's been sweating like a pig! He doesn't seem to mind it, though he's getting some heat rash on his back. In the sun he has to wear some cute sunnies and a hat - see the last post for a good photo of that.

Verbally and Socially

Owen's range of sounds has expanded a great deal over the past 2 months. He often babbles "mamamamamama" or "dadadadadada", mixed in with squeals, exclamations, raspberries, and funniest of all - growls. He started around about the time of our church camp (hopefully we'll get around to a post about that one some day), and amused everyone when he growled at rather inappropriate times - like in the middle of a bible talk, or prayer.

His growling has earned him a new nickname - Löwen Owen (Lion Owen). It's not gramatically correct, since it is 1 Löwe, 2 Löwen, but it rhymes. By the way, Löwenbräu (one of the German resturants in Sydney) means "Lions brew". In this photo, Owen's wearing his lion suit. He's also standing up with support. He really loves this, and sometimes won't let you sit him down because he gets his legs in the way!

Owen reacts much more to other people now. He's really excited when Dad comes home from work, and smiles and babbles to everyone he can. He actually hates to be away from people. When we want to put him in bed for the night, he starts screaming as soon as we THINK about leaving the room (he's good at mind reading).

While on the sleeping topic, he sometimes sleeps on his side now, and never ends up where you put him.

Fun

Owen now has a bath every day - and he really likes it. Here he is practising pouring.

Owen loves to hear us singing to him - it's one of the ways to stop him crying.

Toys - being a boy, toys that appeal to his primal instincts are good. ie anything that could be seen as a weapon. Here he is with a club and his sword.

Food

Owen has now eaten several vegetables and fruit, rice and muesli cereal, and even some meat (chicken). His favourite is pear (sweet and wet) and water (wet) - probably because of all his sweating. When he drinks he sometimes holds the cup, but he hasn't worked out that you need to tip it to get the water out.

He tries to feed himself, but it isn't very successful, unless you define success as food everywhere else except his mouth!

When he doesn't like a new food, he makes a bit of a face, but this doesn't last very long. Hunger usually wins the day. In this photo he just tried potato for the first time.

Game over

Yes, it's all over for Australia, and Germany is playing for a consolation 3rd place. Owen gave his best cheers during the last Australian match against Italy. He even dressed up for the occasion.















After Australia's run ended he quickly changed into his German gear and caught the electric atmosphere in Leipzig. We were watching the game with friends at their house and Owen wanted to be really German and had a go at drinking his daddy's beer.

It was all too much for Owen, who fell asleep during the game and could not be woken by the celebrations when Germany won.

After Germany won against Argentina, Leipzig went absolutely crazy. Every driver was honking horns, flags were waving proudly everywhere and people were blowing whistles and standing through sunrooves. The atmosphere was very exciting. We're glad we could be a part of it.