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Well first a little snack

Then comes the snow

Off to dinner now.

Happy New Year!

In Zürich now, 2 nights so far.

I ran in the quarter marathon at Schlieren,  my time was 1:10 or the like. Post due to fairly complete lack of regular running, but maybe aging too.

Hanspeter  and Kathrin were faster than me, but I still managed to be the fastest (and only) runner from NZ.

Was trying to manage the cool that Sorin achieved in his Hawkes Bay Marathon pic, but failed I am afraid.

A bit of visiting to do yet, before heading to Milan.

Will look into photos to upload soon.

This below is a photo of snow cannon created snow Hanspeter took while flying his parapont.

More snow or lots more snow cannon is required here. According to the forecasters it should snow here in Zurich today.

We came here in an ICE from Amsterdam, pic below looking through the driver compartment when that was the back of the train.

Then later when it was the front. From Mannheim to Karlsruhe we were really slow, some vandals had burnt a signaling station down.

Sometimes up to 3 crew in there.

Then in Zurich tram to the place we are staying

We are in the pink place in the middle

New years eve went and had a look around town.

Found the Caberet Voltaire, which is for sale as a complete art work for CHF 13 Million. You get the whole 4 floor building in the Zurich Altstadt for that.

http://www.caberetvoltaire.ch/en/

http://www.caberetvoltaire.ch

We went to Christine parents for a very nice dinner last night, not particularly bright weather, but some great shades of mist for Oliver.

We are leaving Holland tomorrow,  off to Switzerland so wandered around more today.

It was a foggy day, as I am sure many of them must be here, but good looking for all that too, boats and canals…

Rembrandts mates

More canal, I took a sunny pic of here when I was first in Amsterdam

This is a head shop,  not sure about what it is that they are trying to look like, but they sell Marihuana products

Below is one of the main thoroughfares of the red light district, Amsterdam really is busy at this time of year

There is a festival of light coming up too, the below belongs to it, it changes color smoothly

And heading home

Home is at the moment one of the lit windows on the left, third floor

Up early tomorrow and herding too much luggage to 8 hours of train.

Am really pleased to have been here in Holland.

They sure do crowds here well, we went to the Van Gogh Museum early, luckily, missed out on being able to go to the Anne Frank Museum,  and I chose not to join quite a few queues around Amsterdam today.

I avoided the masses and found more things that interested me.

It was a great day, and not too cold either.

Don’t know what this is about

Was looking scenic as usual

And lots of tulip selling going on

And on the door

Found a pretty cool shop filled with local stuff including the below

Then came home to try out the running business again, I am certainly not benefiting from all the walking around that I seem to do, took my phone to find my way back too

 

 

Still

#1 finish

#2 finish uninjured

#3 the rest

#4 be the fastest official time for a kiwi in an official 1/4 marathon for a short amount of the year.

Back in Amsterdam with the whole family now, behave!

We are staying in one of these.

And I do quite like the neighborhood

Infrastructure and all

Not quite like Berlin but “street” art at the University of Amsterdam.

And of course water, water, everywhere

We had a great day though wandering in the winter sun, buying stuff and not, with crowds…

 

 

 

I like these bits of wall

And these on a shop called God Bless You

And the street over in Kreuzberg

A shelf scene in our flat

Wrangling our luggage onto the tram and S-Bahn to get to the airport tomorrow and get to experience how well sort we are for a budget airline flight.

Then family reunification with Finley.

Still here, Berlin is a visually great city, bits of it some may see as tagging and grafitti but the place really is interesting

We headed down to where the big get parts of the wall remain, had camera issues though. Still, yesterday we were at checkpoint Charlie. ..

 

And just plain contemporary Berlin

We went to the DDR Museum too, where it felt to me that the people were being gently mocked. I think the Muldoon years leave us open to that easily.

So much to see here, might have to come back!

Seems like a great place! Someone has set the tone rather low for our arrival though.

We are all fine.

Ok to start with a couple more pix from Basel, by the old paper mill

And along the riverside

And just a nicely blinged building.

Hanspeter and I went up to Weissenstein above Solothurn in a gondola

step 2

Fairly bleak up there, would usually have been covered in snow

And down below the fog we came up out of

See,I was there

They have signs for folk like Hanspeter and Katrin that fly around these places

Anyway I headed back to Mainz and went to Frankfurt with Birgit and checked out the Christmas markets etc, I have never really had a look around Frankfurt before.

The shopping mall that should be called Vortex

Stayed another night in Mainz with Guido, now I really wonder how this looks after snow.

Have gone to Munich now, this looked great but visually challenged me

And not sure why this has become a Michael Jackson memorial

Tempted by this golden rose

And the Bavarian beer business …

Even managed to go for a run today, having trouble believing that I ran that fast though

And early morning tomorrow morning to get to the airport and meet the Frauen

 

Solothurn today.

 

There was an art super market on in one of the halls, but it was good to see the art surviving on the street too.

Probably back to Germany tomorrow.