Hello lovelies,

the story is actually takes part right after Area53. After the festival on Saturday, we slept early. We got up early on Sunday, ate breakfast in the hotel, checked out and then drove 14 hours to reach Brunsbüttel in Northern Germany. On our way we made several stops and only ate mcdonalds food. The avocado burger they had in Germany was really good but afterwards, I didn't want to eat anymore fast food.

Brunsbüttel is a sleepy little town, quite famous for its watergate. Alas, it was not a happy visit - we came to organize a funeral and fight with German burocracy. As the notary, banks, funeral homes etc only have a very short "Parteienverkehr" - German word for, they only see their clients for a few hours a day, we had the afternoon to ourselves. 

On Monday we went to Haithabu/Hedeby, a reconstructed viking settlement from the 9th century. For 9€ you could go to the museum and to the settlement, which was a 10 mins walk from the museum. The former had nice exhibits and lots of information, including a reconstructed viking boat. I was fascinated by all the beads they had found. They had a lot of differnt colours, shapes and sizes and materials - the lady standing in front of me couldn't believe that Vikings could already fashion beads out of glass.

Between the museum and the settlement were sheep and cows, "Urschafe" and "Urrinder" in German. They are both small in size, much smaller than sheep and cattle today, and said to be about the size of sheep and cows from the Viking age. 

At the settlement, they had reconstructed a 7 houses; house of the combmaker, cloth dealer, merchant,  artisan, shoe maker, meeting house and an inn. They also reconstructed a small wooden pier. During our stay, there were some artists selling their handmade viking goods like bags, wool and scarf. I almost bought myself a ring but remembered that I had no money and put it back :(. In the museum shop I found a small fork like tool - the lucet - which was used for knitting narrow cords. I haven't tried it yet but the youtube tutorial I watched for it, made it look pretty easy.

We ate lunch/dinner at Odin's Haithabu restaurant and got a viking sourdough pizza. It was delicious! I had a pulled beef bbq and cheese pizza. The cheese was a specialty from the region called Deichkäse and it had a strong aroma.

My partner had an appointment with the notary on Tuesday and I had to work in the morning. For lunch we went to an Asian restaurant and then and walked at Koogstreet, where all of the food and shops are located. We visited the cemetary and layed down some flowers.

On Wednesday my partner went to the bank. The bank teller wanted a certificate of interhitance (Erbschein) from him, which we had never heard of before. The notary, the day before told him, that his power of attorney would survice for the bank, but apparently not. It was a huge dispute an in the end, my partner had to leave and the account he wanted access to, was blocked. I hate German burocracy so much - heartless bastards. After my home office, we took a nap and then met an old family friend. I had never met him before but he and his wife were very kind and even they were shocked about how the bank treated him. At least it's not the norm. 

We went to the Jakobus kirche, an old church in the oldest part of town and it was pretty! It looked like a normal stone church from the outside but like a capsized ship from the inside! It also had a few beautiful angels painted on it, a remarkable church. I had never seen something liked that before. The church also had other pretty details like the organ, baptismal font and a large altar.

 

For dinner, we drove to three different restaurants, but they were all full or only had outside seatings which are a no-go for me, as I get cold so easily. I snapped some pictures on the way there as the clouds looked magnificent.

 

We decided to try out the pizza factory on the Koogstreet of Brunsbüttel, even though I was a bit sceptic because it looked so crusty. But to my surprise, the pizza was really good. My so had this vegan pinsa without cheese. It looks a bit dry but it was super tasty.

Back in the hotelroom we had a wonderful sunset from our room and the pictures don't really do it justice.

 

The next day we went to the restaurant again for lunch as their lunch menu was really affordable with 8,5€. I went back to work and my partner napped a bit and then we headed to the beach at st peter ording, which was a 90 min drive from the hotel. I fell asleep halfway through but only napped for about 10-15 mins. At the beach the parking and entry was actually quite price-y. We made our way to the beach and before we could see it, it started pouring. We didn't bring our rain coats and were soon wet to the bones. I was able to open my umbrella and catch up some of the wind and rain. 

 Luckily, the really harsh rain only fell for 5-10 mins until it drizzled out again and stopped. But the wind was so strong, I had to wear ear plugs because they started to hurt. The weather didn't stop us from going to the sea though and we went through the wet and slick tideland. Our shoes got muddy and there was water in them but we went on. 

 My partner, at one point, decided to go barefoot and it was probably the better alternative. There were a lot of people going around without shoes. And after about 20mins, we stood infront of the sea. Windsurfers were all surfing around the coast and it was a magnificent view of the ocean and the clouds and the sky.

 

The way back was shorter, in my opinion, but we almost slipped a few times on the dark and slimy sludge. But we came back in one piece and drove back to the hotel. 

On Friday we drove to Hamburg in the morning. I was working via my phone and constantly had an eye on new messages. It took us about 60-70mins to go to the city and we parked at the Europa garage. We had to be back in Brunsbüttel at half past 4 for a bank appointment and didn't want to waste a lot of time. As we came out of the parking garage, we saw an idee - a crafts shop and had to browse their wares at bit. Then we took the U1 to and went to the J-Store/Harajuku closet Hamburg. They had a really fine lolita fashion collection and I bought myself the new cherry dress from Angelic pretty "Charming cherry JSK" for 340€. 

The salesman was really kind and chatty and told us a bit about the history of the shop. 

Afterwards we went to Speicherstadt and roamed around there a bit, went to have some sushi for lunch and then decided to go to Uniqlo, get an ice-cream and that was it for the day. Too bad we couldn't stay longer but we decided to just come back and maybe watch a musical or something. 

 

 

 

In the evening we met my partner's friends again and went to dinner with them. Too bad I forgot to take a picture but I did enjoy the evening even though a small headache started at the back of my head which slowly travelled to the forehead. And 

The following day we drove back to Vienna with a sleepover in Prague. And that ends the journey of German bureaucracy and pain. 

All the best,

Auris Lothol