A sad day for London

Last night at about 7 pm the famous Camden Town market area in London went up in flames

Every time I was in London I spent a considerable time at Camden Town, as this is my favourite place in London. It is good to hang out with friends, to go window shopping and to have a decent dinner.



I draged all of my friends and family to the market when they were around to visit me. I absolutely love this place. So this is also a very sad day for me, because Camden Market will never be the same again.


BBC titled "Blaze shuts famous market area" and when I saw the pictures and videos, I could start crying. The fire brigade described the blaze at the Canal Market in Camden as "very severe" and flames were reported leaping up to 30ft in the air. They are not sure what caused the fire, but fortunately no one was hurt, even though on a Saturday night this area is packed with people.

When I look around my room here in Bamberg, I see quite a few things that I bought at Camden Market or things that remind me of Camden. I don't know what to say actually, but I am really sad. Here are a few pictures that I took during my last visit to London last Summer.
This how I will always remember Camden:

Windsor Castle

Just by pure luck I got the chance to accompany Yr 5s on their trip to Windsor Castle. I had never been there so I was looking forward to go. It is actually not that far away (about 30 min by coach) and I don't know why I never got round to go there.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous - sunny and quite hot. The Queen was unfortunately not there. First we had a talk about the Tudor time by one of the guides of Windsor. They also showed us one of the flags that used to be lifted when the Queen is actually around. It was a bit "tattered" because when the current flag gets damaged in any way they just cut out pieces from the old one to repair it. Do you know which "parts" of the country are represented in the flag and why one is not represented at all?

Then we had a tour around the castle and St. Georges Chapel which I found both most impressive. Windsor Castle is an official residence of The Queen and the largest occupied castle in the world. A Royal home and fortress for over 900 years, the Castle remains a working palace today.

Visitors can walk around the State Apartments, extensive suites of rooms at the heart of the working palace. For part of the year visitors can also see the Semi State rooms, which are some of the most splendid interiors in the castle. They are furnished with treasures from the Royal Collection including paintings by Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck and Lawrence, fine tapestries and porcelain, sculpture and armour.

Within the Castle complex there are many additional attractions, including the Drawings Gallery, Queen Mary's dolls' house (which the girls of course liked best!), and the fourteenth-century St. George's Chapel, the burial place of ten sovereigns and setting for many Royal weddings.

I loved it and the kids seemed to love it as well. We were also able to watch the change of the guards in the castle grounds. It was definitely one of the best trips I had! And aren't they cute in their nice little uniforms? There were some French and German pupils obviously on a school trip and they were really staring after them and the girls just could not understand why they were taking pictures of them. They were most surprised to hear that in other countries pupils do not wear school uniforms!

Bath, FLOODING THE SECOND and London

We spent the last day of our trip in Bath, at a most gorgeous B&B, as you can see on the picture. We even had our own "waitress" to attend to us at breakfast. Unfortunately the weather turned again and so it started to rain quite soon. Anyway, we had a good look around the town and spent actually most of the day with shopping. Well, we had seen so much nature over the last few days that it was nice to look at things in a shop window again. I also bought a metal door stop with a snail sitting on it. It is cute, but it caused some serious problems at the airport when I wanted to take it back. As it got wetter in wetter, we decided to head back to London and prepare for some more days of sightseeing (Christoph has never been to London). But here is another picture I took the evening before: Bath Cathedral

We were both looking forward to have a nice shower after 3 hours in the car - we got a bit lost on the way back to Ricky when we tried to avoid the traffic jam on the M25! But we finally made it and headed straight for Tesco to fill up the fridge for the next few days. Unfortunately when we got back, the flat was still without hot water, as they "forgot" to repair my external heater!!! Great, but there was more to come.

After unpacking our shopping bags, I suddenly realized that all the things that had been on the desk in the living room were wet. Right, I thought that was because one of the bottles we had bought were leaking. Unfortunately I was more than wrong! There was water dripping from the ceiling, from the lamp to be precise and there were definite signs that there was more water coming somehow through the cable canel which leads to my bedroom. So I cautiously opened the door to my bedroom and was speechless. My whole bedroom was soaked in water: my bed, my mattress, my carpet, my wardrobe and it was constantly dripping from the ceiling, even more than in the living room. GREAT!

First thing I did was getting some buckets to stop at least some of the water soaking my two rooms even further. Then I phoned the duty engineer - it took him half an hour to get to my flat and I just assume he came from the pub because there was definitely some "alcoholic perfume" about him. He had a look at my ceiling and informed me that it must be the shower pump from the flat (my old one) upstairs. But Katrin was not there, she was in Cornwall - so why did this stupid pump break? He assumed that it must have broken in the morning and so at least 3 full shower loads had been coming downs. And it got worse by the minute! The dripping rate increased, especially in the living room. So he got the keys for Katrin's flat and isolated the boiler, unfortunately that was all he could do. Every single bit of water that was still in the boiler would come down, there was no way to stop it, he could only stop the water from filling the boiler up again.

With all the water and the dripping and the soaked mattresses there was no way of sleeping in my flat. So finally we were moved to the flat across the corridor. Unfortunately in this flat there had been an even worse water accident the week before, so our "beds" there were also only provisional. By the time we finally had everything settled, it was way after 10pm and we were starving. Christoph therefore volunteered to get us something to eat, which turned out to be a most delicious sweet and sour chicken stir fry!

The next few days were "quiet" compared to the day we came back. We still had to sleep next door, it started to smell in my flat because of the wet carpet, but at least there was no more water coming down. I went with Christoph around the City (the usual sightseeing tour), I went with him to all of my favourite places (Covent Garden, Camden, Portobello Road, Greenwich) and we spent a whole day shopping in Oxford Street - which was more exhausting than all the rest of it!

We spent a whole early evening in Regent Park, as all the roses were in full flower and it just looked so great. There were so many different kinds of roses and they all smelled so lovely. We also did the traditional tour "London at night", but to be honest I was freezing by the time we made it to Embankment Station! I should mention that it had been boiling hot during the day (it never rained when Christoph was in London), but it got quite chilly at night.

The last "excitement" of Christoph's stay was his encounter with the Deputy Headmistress of the Prep. Dept. To be honest, I was only allowed to have male visitors till Sunday, so he was supposed to leave before the girls get back to school. But I thought that staying another night gave us the whole of Sunday and so Christoph's flight was on Monday. We had breakfast together and were about to leave when someone knocked on the door. I thought it would be someone from the works department and sent Christoph to answer the door. But unfortunately it was Mrs Brown who was of course quite surprised to have a man standing in front of her. She never really said anything, but I was quite embarrased, as you can imagine.

I really enjoyed this week with Christoph and the trip to Wales with Vanessa. It was good to have him here and I especially miss to have a decent breakfast with someone - now I am back to eating a piece of bread in the kitchen! It even stopped smelling in my bedroom on Monday so I could at least move back into my flat, even though I prefered to sleep on the sofa in the living room as this room was not damaged that much. All in all it was the best half-term I ever had!

Unsettling events

The last two days in the UK gave me a strange feeling in the stomach, even though I know that London and the UK in general has always been one of the main terrorist targets since 9/11.

First the two car bombs in Haymarket and Park Lane on Thursday/Friday and then the incident of the blazing jeep at Glasgow Airport.

When I watch the news on TV and see the pictures, it was just pure luck that no one was harmed and I know all the places in London so well that it nearly made me cry. Why do people do that? Of course, there is no real answer to that question and I will never understand the motifs of terrorists. The security level has been set on "critical" which is the highest you can get and therefore security at airports, tube stations, public buildings and so on has tightened.

I am not really scared and I believe that life has to go on as if nothing has happened to make sure that you do not give the attackers the satisfaction of disrupting your daily affairs, but on the other hand I decided to go to Watford instead of Central London yesterday. There were also long delays on the Tube because of tightened security and therefore it was much less hussle to take a bus to Watford and do my shopping there.

There are also some very big events ahead which will take place in London on the next 2 or 3 weekends and thousands of extra policemen will be on duty around the city. Today there is the "Concert of Lady Diana" at Wembley Stadium (which I have to pass in order to get into the city), next week there is the prologue of the "Tour de France" to be held and of course there is the Wimbledon Grand Slam at the moment. The holidays are also about to start and I was already informed by British Airways to expect long queues at Heathrow on my flight back (even though this is going to be in a fortnight!). There are also further restrictions on handluggage which will also affect me quite a bit.

I was here on 9/11 and I remember this day quite vividly. One of the girls collapsed when she saw the pictures because her parents were working in the towers. Fortunately her mother was sick and therefore at home and her father attended a business meeting elsewhere. Still, I will never forget that day as none of us ever will. I have been to talking to the current Gappers about how they experienced that day and for the first time I really felt that I was a lot older than them, as I see things a bit different to them. This might sound funny, but they were only 11 to 14, we were 19 or older and this makes a difference. We were troubled of course, but somehow it did not stop Dana and me going into the city centre the day after 9/11, because it was our first day off. I love to be in London and I know that it can happen everywhere else in the world, but this time it was so close! Nothing happened of course, but it makes a difference somehow. It is hard to put it into words. One thing that has some effect on me is that all school trips into central London have been cancelled so I will not go to the theatre on Tuesday which is really a pity!

Sorry for this kind of gloomy entry but I felt that I had to put it into words somehow as I know people at home are anxious of me beeing here (mainly my family) and I can understand them. It might be better to avoid such events that gather thousands of people in one place - as I might have anyhow :-) and enjoy the last two weeks in London as much as possible!

Beach, Cardiff and back

So this was our last day of our Wales trip. After this fabulous day on the coast we were quite reluctant to leave and therefore decided to make a short stop on the beach before getting into the bussling capital of Wales: Cardiff.

Roads can get quite narrow and I expected a narrow road down to the castle at the coast, but to be honest, I never expected it to be THAT narrow! Well, the main problem, however, was not the road itself, but the oncoming traffic which turned out to be huge tractors with enormous hay wagons! I had only 10cm next to both outside mirrors and these tractors half shaved the bushes on the roads off. So there was no way off getting past them and therefore I had to go backwards for half a mile before we found some space to let it pass. My nerves were really strained after this encounter with the tractor and I just hoped that it was the last one. But it seemed that every single farmer in that area was going out to get the hay back that morning and we encountered 5 more of these monsters!!!! I do not even want to know what the underside of my car looked like after driving off in the woods to let another one pass!

Anyway, we finally made it to the beach and the gorgeous castle on the little hill. The beach was covered with shells and we enjoyed quite a long walk. Even though it was low tide and the water was quite far out (apart from the one in the river mouth) it was a beautiful spot and I really did not want to leave from there. However, Vanessa needed to be back in Cardiff by 5 to catch her coach back to London and so we had to leave! By the way, I look really tiny on this picture, I think I have shrunken....I guess that comes with turning 26!

I really enjoyed this 3-day-trip around the countryside, but I was also looking forward to see Cardiff of which I have heard so much. I was told that it is a lively young city and this turned out to be true.

I managed to find my way into Cardiff harbour which has been completely remodelled in the last 10 years. The architecture is just fantastic, old and new buildings (all unique outlines) mingle perfectly in this bussling part of the city. Many artists were invited to contribute to the great harbour and it has become one of Cardiffs most popular areas with lots of shops and fancy restaurants. There is also the old Welsh Assembly (red brick building) and the new Assembly (the snall "sail building" on the right hand side) to be found there. We had a look inside both of them and it looks quite nice, even though it is of course tiny in comparison to the German Bundestag. Nevertheless it has a great architecture inside and I absolutely loved it. The old Welsh assembly looks tiny and as it made out of Lego cubes - it is just so different to the buildings surrounding it.

Just as impressive as the Welsh Assembly is the Opera House next to it, which reads "In these stones horizons sing" on its big front. It has a huge golden dome which you can also see on the picture above.

From the harbour we headed into the city centre which took us some time and we even found the car park right next to the train station. When we got out, however, we found out that you could only get a day ticket which cost us £7. We thought that was way too much and decided to move to another car park in the city. But that was a big mistake, because for 2.59 hours we had to pay £9.70!!!!! This is unbelievable, I do not even want to know how much we would have had to pay if we stayed 3 hours!!!!

We took a stroll around the city and as we were all really hungry we treated ourselves with some delicious fish and chips - but it was way tooooo much. Unfortunately time had run out and Vanessa had to leave us after an hour in the city to catch her coach. Christoph and I walked through the great market hall and the various nice arcades. We also went to the Castle and the great park surrounding it. From there we had a look at the Court of Justice and the University which are also quite close to the city centre. The buildings in that part of the city are quite impressive and so is the National Museum.

We did not want to go back to London that night and therefore had booked a B&B in Bath. I had been to Bath before and I quite liked it back then so I agreed to the destination. When we finally arrived there we seemed to have booked us a very comfy and luxurous accomodation and as the sun was still shining we took a tour around the city and later on admired it by night. To round up that day we spent a most enjoyable evening in a traditional pub on the way back to the B&B. It got quite cold that night and our breath showed when we stepped out of the pub. Somehow this day must have been more demanding than the others (probably because of the traffic in the city) and even though I had only one pint of the most delicious Cider I ever had (from a small local brewery), I got really tipsy and Christoph had to steady me once in a while! But we got home savely!

Along the Coast or Wales the third

Believe it or not, over night the weather had changed dramatically and when we opened our curtains we just saw blue sky and the most gorgeous Welsh landscape.

So we hurried to get ourselves sorted out and headed for breakfast, which was as great as the day before. The good thing about the traditional English breakfast (I prefer the Irish by the way) is that after you had it, you won't need any food till 5 in the afternoon, because you feel like a stuffed turkey! A selection of Cereals with fresh milk from the farm, followed by rashers, homemade saussages, tomatoes, fried egs and mushrooms - all with toast and coffee, tea and orange juice - just delicious!

We really enjoyed our two nights at the farm, because everybody was soo friendly and we felt at home there. By the way, our room was the right one on the first floor!

This day was dedicated to explore the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and as the weather remained dry and quite warm, it was the best day of our trip by far. We drove south towards Cardigan, where we had a look around the bussling town. I got really stressed there because of the traffic and nearly got into a heated argument with Vanessa (she was the one reading the road map that day). But we finally made our way to the ruins of an abbey in St. Dogeneal's. Walking around there gave me enough time to cool down and I had also time to play with my camera!

After a short stop at Fishguard harbour, we went straight into the Pembrokeshire National Park. It is unique in Britain as the only National Park that is predominantly coastal. The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is one of Britain's smaller National Parks, covering approximately 240 square miles / 620 square km around the West Coast of Wales.

First we went inland to see the standing stones called Pentre Ifan. The weather was still great, but it was freezing!!!! The wind was soo strong and cold. So we did not spent too much time there and as it was in the middle of nowhere, the roads were not too good either and it took us quite some time to get back on the main road. We also encountered a huge herd of cows which delayed us even further!

We decided to take a short walk along the famous coastal path whiches stretches along the whole of southern Wales. The view and the landscape was breathtaking and the cliffs even though not as high as the cliffs of Moher quite spectacular. It was definitely one of the best things we did on our whole trip.

I really love Wales and it reminded me so much of Ireland which I really miss - just the colour of the grass is different, the Irish has a richer green, well more emerald as they say. After that we hardly wanted to leave the coast again, but our last stop for the day was supposed to be St. David's, one of the most lovely towns I have seen in the UK. It is quite small, but it is dominated by the archbishop's palace and the huge Cathedrale.

Unfortunately there was a concert that night and we were not able to have a look inside. We wandered along the streets and tried to find a fish and chips shop, but we could not really find one and decided to make our way to our B&B in Haverford West.

This B&B turned out to be more like hotel and it lacked all the charm of the farm. I did not really like it there (the landlord was really grumpy) and I missed the noise of our toilet (as they were not connected to some kind of sewage on the farm, they had a small "disposal unit" in each toilet!). But the shower was warm and that was all that counted that night. It was a pitty that Vanessa was too tired to have a walk around the town and so we stayed in that night and left straight after breakfast next morning to get to Cardiff as soon as possible.

North Wales

The next morning dawned a bit cloudy, but after a hearty English Breakfast we were ready for our tour through the North of Wales. As we had such problems to find accomodation the night before, we decided to stay at the farm another night and that was definitely a wise decission. But before we went into Snowdonia National Park (Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri), we went back to Machynlleth to book a B&B for the following night further south. It did not too long and we knew we had somewhere to stay the next day: College Guest House in Haverfort West.

Unfortunately it started to rain quite soon and it was really ghastly outside. We therefore decided to stop in Corris at King Arthur's Labyrinth where you can take an underground boat ride through the great waterfall and the spectacular caverns and a labyrinth of tunnels. There was also the Corris Craft Centre to visit. Sad enough it seemed that many other people had the same idea on this rainy Sunday morning and the next tour we could have taken would have been in 3 hours time and therefore we decided to skip the boat ride and to visit only the Craft centre. That was really a pitty but it couldn't be helped! We made our way to central Snowdownia and stopped every now and then at the little mountain villages with its gorgeous scenery (even in the rain it looked gorgeous!).

Along the Afon (river) Conwy we headed north to have our first real stop at the town Conwy itself. Conwy Castle, conceived and created in just four years by Edward I, is one of the most outstanding achievements of medieval military architecture. Soaring on a rock above the walled town, its battlements offered a breathtaking view of the Snowdonian mountains and the sea. The city is still surrounded by a complete city wall with 12 towers. It had stopped raining and we enjoyed to take a walk on the city wall and have a close look at the castle, even though we did not really go in. The view was just great and it was finally the first time we had a good look at the Irish Sea.

The weather improved by the minute and finally the sun came out - and as soon as the sun came out it got quite warm. We took the road along the coast and headed to Caernafon which hosts one of the most famous castles in Wales. It was also build by Edward I, not only as a military stronghold but also as a seat of government and a royal palace. It had become quite late by then and so we did not stay long, but took a walk down to the harbour where the castle is.

We would have loved to take the Snowdonian Railway up to Mount Snowdon, but as the day had already gone so quickly, we decided to skip that and make our way further south. Unfortunately it started to rain heavily again when we were close to mount Snowdon and in the end we never really saw it because the clouds were so low.

Our last stop for the day was Harlech Castle which keeps a watchful eye over Snowdonia with truly panoramic views from its lofty battlements of sea and mountains. We did not dare to go up as a new rain storm was threatening and it also started to get dark. So we had to satisfy ourselves with a look at the castle from the coast road.

This second day was packed with cultur through and through and we were looking forward to go south to the Pembroke Shire Coast National Park the next day, because we all love the seaside.

Getting on the Road or 1st day in Wales

Well, it took us some time to get ourselves sorted out on that cold, cloudy and even rainy Saturday morning. I have already told you that we got a Focus instead of a Fiesta and that was a good thing in the end, as you can see for yourself on the picture. We finally managed to sqeeze all stuff and ourselves in and off we went.

It took quite some time to decide which way we wanted to go and how to start our tour. The only fix destination we had was Cardiff on Tuesday as Vanessa had to get a bus from there back to London. We had argued about a route for quite some time the evening before and I finally managed to convince them that we should head north as far as we could on our first day and then decide from there where to go next. To get a better impression on where we went, have a look at the map of Wales with its gorgeous countryside and sheep of course ;-)

There was no accomodation booked, even though it was a long bank holiday weekend, but we were certain to find something somewhere. We took the motorway towards Newport and finally crossed into Wales over the Severn Bridge (which was ridiculously high priced!). It was still quite cloudy but at least it was not raining. That is us by the way: Christoph, Vanessa and Nadja!

Our first cultural stop brought us to the gorgeous Wye Valley with the most fascinating ruins of Tintern Abbey. We were quite impressed and the £3.00 entrance fee were well spent. It must have been an enourmous complex in former times, as you can see from the hight of the main church. As it was already early afternoon, we had a good long walk around the ruins (to get the stiffness out of our limbs after the long car ride) and then had an improvised picnic in the car park.

We moved on through the Wye valley, had a good look at some castles at the wayside (but did not go in) and passed through the gorgeous Brecon Beacon Nationalpark with its beautiful landscape. We stopped just everywhere we found a nice spot or village on the way up to Brecon itself, which is the main town in the heart of the National Park. Unfortunately we had not enough time to visit the Waterfalls (they were too far off the road we were intending to travel).

When we finally got to Brecon (it was about 5 pm) we were told that there was nothing available around the town, everything fully booked because of the bank holiday. But we had intended to head further north anyway and after some waiting and having a good look around the town, we got a family room on a farm in Pennal near Machyntleth. This meant at least another 2 hour drive further north and I can tell you I was quite tired by that time. We intended to be there by 7, but in the end it was nearly 9 until we got there, because the sun came out and we just stopped at this gorgeous lake near Llangurig.

It also took us some time to find Gogarth Hall Farm because it was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a small farm and we were lucky to find a place to stay that night as our landlady told us later on. She had a cancellation and therefore the room we got was free. There were a herd of cows, two dogs, some chicken and I guess several other animals around this place and Vanessa especially made friends with the dogs. She adored them even though they were not quite "clean"!

The B&B room itself was just as you imagine it to be: many cushions, MANY flowers and everything in these pastel colours. In my opinion it was just great. As Vanessa and Christoph had only met for the first time last night, we decided that Vanessa and I should sleep in the double bed and Christoph took the single. Of course the double bed had only one duvet, but I thought we could manage. That was, however, before I knew that Vanessa is such a light sleeper and turns quite a lot ;-)

We had a hearty improvised meal (Tikka Masala Wraps) in our room which was definitely not made for something like that. As the weather was threatening to get worse again, we had only a short walk around the farm even though we had longed to get to the river mouth to get the first glimpse of the coast. But we had to content with what we got and I cannot tell you how glad I finally was to get to bed, I was truly "smashed out". But that was only our first day and four more to go...