We rushed home yesterday noon from the weekend getaway to catch the final match between Spain and Germany. I was supporting Germany all the way for the reason that I am here at the moment and it will be great to experience the celebrations of the die hard fans.

Although the original plan was to join the Public Viewing, we went to St Pauli instead and managed to secure a seat at Vic’s which is just downstairs from the office. We were quite lucky as merely 15 minutes later, people were denied entry due to crowd control.

Anxiously Waiting For The Game

We were about 3 hours before the game starts and the place was already jam packed. We ordered a generous amount of food as we can slowly dine till the game starts.

The performance of Germany was poor in the finals and spain was the well deserved winner this time around in the final match in Austria.

That’s all for now!

“Lüdinghausen is a municipality in the district of Coesfeld in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, approx. 25 km south-west of Münster. It is known for its three castles, among them Burg Vischering.” courtesy of wikipedia.com.

After breakfast, we continued our mini trip to the next city. Our first stop after the short drive was Burg Vischering.

With Harry And The Castle in The Background

Burg Vischering is one of the largest castles in northern Germany. It was seriously damaged in World War II, leading to minor alterations in the design of the castle. It consists of a small courtyard enclosed with low stone walls, a long wooden bridge over the moat, and the main building. There was a museum whereby I had some fun with wearing a helmet and trying the saddle on the wooden horse.

Look Like The Bounty Hunter From Star Wars

Giddy Up!

We continued to stroll to the other castle but the pics on my hard disk seem to be corrupted now.

Click here for the official website but it is only available in German.

To see more of Germany, we took the high speed ICE train to the city of Münster. I have to mentioned that we traveled on First Class tickets as it worked out to be cheaper than two regular journey tickets at time of booking. I will never have thought about coming here but it was thanks to my University friend who suggested for me to see him via this route.

City Center of Munster

The weather was a bit cloudy and there was a bit of rain. Munster has a river running through the city called “AA”. A very short name and it will always be the first river listed in the world river directory.

The City Hall Where Our Walking Tour Began
We joined the English walking tour and was given a historical tour of the city before heading to Senden where my host Harry lives. We took an afternoon nap before walking around the neighbourhood.

A War Memorial With St. Micheal

River Through Senden, Don’t Even Ask What Barbara was doing!

We ended the day with a nice barbeque in the garden for dinner.

Garden Barbeque Dinner

Deon, a colleague of ours from South Africa dropped by Germany as well and what a better time to catch up with a dinner. Grogniger was the choice once again because of it being a perfect restaurant to bring guests.

We jump into the opportunity to order a huge platter as there was six of us all together for dinner.

Enough Meat To Feed A Whole Village

We admitted defeat to the meal served as the portions were indeed far beyond sufficient. After dinner, we took a nice stroll to St Pauli where my hotel was. This at least helped with the digestion I believe.

I will seriously need a diet in the upcoming months.

Cheers.

This is just amazing. I was skeptic when I first saw the pics in the press but after a few search on the internet, I am a bit convince.

Here are the sequence of aerial pictures captured.

The elaborate colours are those of painted body. Most of the women and children has gone into hiding when they saw the plane. You can see some of the tribesmen attempting to use their spears to bring the helipcopter/small plane down. (Bless them!)

Who can imagine that you can be away from civilization in such modern times? It was first mentioned as undiscovered tribe but later clarified as being in the records. Their actuals whereabouts are being protected to maintain their anonymitiy. Apparently you can find a forest opening using Google Earth bordering Peru where they are based. The pictures were published with the objective of creating awareness against logging which are invading the homes of the tribes.

It is said that there are about 100 uncontacted tribes in the world and half of those live in Brazil and Peru. Their way of life is under threat with the vast amount of logging. There is a campaign going on to protect them which is run by Survival International.

To Digress a bit, Did you know that the ocean remains the largest undiscovered part of the world? Who knows what lies beneath?

A stone throw away from the office is the Panoptikum Wax Museum. It is of course nothing to the standard of Madame Tussauds.

The Current Pope

All the description are in German and I have no idea what some of the wax figures are for like this fat dude below. I assume that he might be the fatest person or something.

The Random Fat Dude

You can see James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis in the background.

The German Hero, Michael Schumacher

You may want to give this place a skip as the standards are not as good as the ones I have seen and also there are bariers preventing you from getting close to the figures.

The Beatles
The Beatles used to play a lot in Hamburg before they struck big time.

With nothing planned for Sunday, we randomly took a stroll along the harbour and we reached Landungsbrucken whereby there is a regular ferry service that takes you to stops along the bank. The great thing is that the service is included in your daily travel card.

On The Ferry

Beach By The River Bank

We also found a sandy beach front next to the river bank at the Neumuhlen dock.

Docklands
Docklands was another spot that caught my eye. The building shown in the picture was designed like a cruise ship. I manage to make my way all to the top.

You can get more information by going to the official Hamburg transport website along with the ticket prices.

I am a virgin to Hashing at what a place to start than in the beautiful city of Luneburg where according to the friendly bunch I met with was one of the four cities that survived the world war.

The Beautiful City of Luneburg

There was a festival going on in the city center which covered most of the facade of the buildings. Luneburg was a major city which is popular for its salt production.

Running

It was indeed a privillege to do my virgin run where we started from the train station through the city with a beer stop and then ending at a parking lot.

Me In The Circle

The hash session ended with a circle and I was brought in and innitiated as a new member to the community.

My First Down Down!

I was made to do a down down which is a bottoms up for a variety of reasons from being the newcomer to holding Song Yia’s hands. All and all it was a day well spent. I will be looking forward to my next run!

One of the main benefits of being able to be based in a central location is the amount of events that is happening around. This weekend, Hamburg is hosting the annual Harley Days event at the open space next to the office. I could see the whole preparation through the office window.

View From The Top

The event attracted tons of Harley enthusiasts. There were rows and rows of tents set up to sell merchandise, accessories and typical biker clothes (leather boots, jackets and printed t-shirts of skull images)

Center Stage

The weather that day turned out pretty bad towards the evening and I was all drenched when I arrive back at the hotel.

Vroom Vroom Stylish Red

There are scheduled to have a drive around the city on Sunday but every where I turn, I could see the bikers around.

Just next to the Hamburg office is an open space and I believe the largest open viewing in Hamburg for the Euro 2008 football fans. I was a bit reluctant to venture in the last time as I had the fixed image in my mind of drunken people and a football match which did not appeal to me. The last records showed an estimated of 40,000 people in the KIA sponsored open viewing.

Euro 2008 Mascots

However, we finally decided to join the crowd as this could be the last game that Germany is playing this time around. And what an opportunity to miss watching the home team playing.

We had to go through the security barrier whereby we had to give up our water bottles. The guards on duty were very patient and kind when we decided to finish up as much water as we can before giving up the bottle. She spoke good english as well.

Once through the gates, the atmosphere was different and we felt safe as there were many security officers around to ensure that there was peace I guess.

The Screen Was Huge

We stayed on for the first half whereby we got to see 3 goals. 2 from Germany and one from Portugal. This gave us the opportunity to experience the energy of the crowd. It was very civilized and there was no pushing around. This could be a testimony that the Germans enjoy their space as everyone seem to be leaving fairly huge gaps away from each other.

Tents Selling Delicacies From Participating Countries

We also wandered around the compound and discovered various tents and beach bars. If Germany wins, it will happen to be the second country that I happen to be in when they became Euro Cup Champions with the last one being Greece.

and I will most definately be at the open viewing for the next Germany match…

That’s all folks…