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Time to celebrate!!
Today is a special day. First and foremost, it’s Mario’s 30th birthday. We treated ourselves to a long weekend in a nice hotel in the historic city of Malacca in Malaysia, and we used his birthday as an excuse to buy some new photographic equipment, namely a Canon ultra-wide angle lens. And in a timely … Weiterlesen
Thank you and all the best for 2012!
We have been traveling for more than seven months in 2011 and have met so many great people. You are what really makes traveling so much fun! At the beginning of a new year, we also want to say thanks to everyone who is keeping in touch and following us here on our blog. To … Weiterlesen
Goodbye Australia
Wow. Incredible six weeks lay behind us. From the tropical rainforests of Queensland, to the dry and red earth of the outback, we have crossed climate and time zones in Australia. We’ve seen crazy animals, camped in the most beautiful remote places, and identified the Southern Cross on the nightly sky. Two rental cars and … Weiterlesen
Heiligabend mit den Kängurus
Weihnachten war dieses Jahr unkonventionell. Weiße Strände statt Schnee, Eukalyptusbäume statt Nordmanntanne, Kängurusteaks statt Weihnachtsgans. Nur wir beide statt großem Familientreffen. Die Weihnachtsschnulzen waren jedoch die gleichen.
Merry Christmas
Christmas Australian style – though even in 30 degrees Santa still wears an arctic winter outfit.
Startups we met on Australia’s East Coast
I had a gread time at the Startup Christmas Party, which was organized by a few very interesting startup organizations from Sydney. First of all there is the Sydney branch of Open Coffee, that organization organizing relaxed and informal meetings for investors, entrepreneurs and developers. By the way, Open Coffee was set up in London … Weiterlesen
Melbourne
When Katherine and Andreas had their leaving party in Cambridge two years ago, they invited their guests to come visit in Melbourne. I remember thinking to myself how nice that would be, but at the time I didn’t foresee that there would be the chance to fly to Australia anytime soon. Well, here we are… … Weiterlesen
K-aussie-uszko
In China we exchanged books in a hostel and randomly ended up with the „Seven Summits“. It’s a book about Dick and Frank, two businessmen who wanted to climb the highest mountain on each continent. If you’re a hiker be careful, the authors‘ desire to climb peaks is contagious. Well, we kind of skipped Everest … Weiterlesen
Sydney
Zweifelsohne das urbane Highlight der Ostküste, hatten wir auch noch andere Gründe uns auf Sydney zu freuen. Neben den geplanten Treffen mit zwei früheren Kollegen von MyHeritage.com, Linde und Kim, und unserem Reisefreund Martin, hatte mein Vater rausgefunden, dass Stephanie, die Tochter seiner Cousine Gabi, inzwischen mit ihrem Freund Ramon im Süden von Sydney lebt.
Nikolaus down under
Schwäbische Nikolausfreude von ALDI in Ballina (nahe Byron Bay) für 99 cent!
Diving right in – The Great Barrier Reef welcomed us to Australia
After having squeezed all the camping gear through the check-in at Auckland airport we had a great flight with Air New Zealand across the Tasman Sea. And while going down towards Cairns we could finally get a first glimpse of it: the biggest coral reef in the world. The Great Barrier Reef is a system … Weiterlesen
Spa zum Selberbasteln
Man nehme: zwei heiße geothermische Quellen, einen Strand, eine Schaufel, optional hundert Touristen. Der ‚Hot Water Beach‘ auf der wunderschönen Coromandel-Halbinsel bietet all das, auch wenn wir zwei Anläufe brauchten, um ihm sein Mysterium zu entlocken. Wir waren morgens am Strand, keine Menschenseele da und der Wasserpegel stieg mit jeder Welle – die Flut war … Weiterlesen
Cambridge reunion in Wellington
Naomi and Mark, good friends of mine from Cambridge, got married just one week before us, and have since moved to Wellington. So from the day we planned to travel in New Zealand, we were excited to visit them for a few days in the city they (at least for now) call home – New … Weiterlesen
Blog updates
Hier klicken für die deutsche Version. As you might have noticed we did improve some things on our blog over time. I just want to mention a few of those upgrades. Most importantly the email subscription is working now. In the right hand column you can just fill in your email address and you’ll get … Weiterlesen
Die größten Radwege, die gemütlichsten Busse, die schnellsten Züge
In China leben rund 1,4 Milliarden Menschen, also ungefähr 17 mal so viele wie in Deutschland oder 180 mal so viele wie in der Schweiz. Die Radwege in Peking sind allein in eine Richtung so breit wie eine durchschnittliche deutsche Fußgängerzone. Neben Horden anderer Zweiräder (tagsüber) oder in Einsamkeit (im richtigen Stadtteil abends) mit dem … Weiterlesen
Mehr England als China
Hongkong stand ohnehin auf unserem Reiseplan, aber es passte jetzt noch besser als gedacht in unsere Reiseroute, da unser China-Visum fast abgelaufen war. Obwohl die ehemalige britische Kronkolonie seit 1997 wieder offiziell zu China gehört, bleibt Hongkong weiterhin eine ‘Sonderverwaltungszone’, und man muss eine Grenze passieren um hierher zu gelangen. Also planten wir hier neben … Weiterlesen
Zuhause in Peking
Als wir in Deutschland losfuhren, war Peking immer unser erstes großes Ziel gewesen. Mein Studienfreund Olivier arbeitet dort seit mehreren Jahren und hatte uns immer eingeladen. Je ungewaschener unsere Sachen (und wir) wurden, je leerer die Akkus von Kamera und Telefon und je länger wir keine Emails lesen konnten, desto mehr freuten wir uns darauf, … Weiterlesen
The missing picture
When we started our travels, we each took one book. „Russia“ by Jonathan Dimbleby, a BBC journalist who writes about his travels through Russia, from Murmansk to Vladivostok (highly recommendable, not only on tour through Russia). The other one was a German book called „Fliegen ohne Flügel“ by Tiziano Terzani, a journalist who worked for … Weiterlesen
Horchog, horses and hot springs or 2 weeks in the Mongolian countryside
Do you want to pay for an overpriced package tour or hire a cheap driver that doesn’t understand a single word of English? Well, together with the two Nicos from France, that we had met on the train, we formed our own group and finally opted for the latter. Bogie (how the friendly lady from … Weiterlesen
Back to civilisation…
We have been touring the Mongolian countryside for the last two weeks by jeep, horse and foot. It’s been amazing and felt like a holiday inside a holiday (a bit like the Russian matrushka dolls). We returned to Ulanbaatar last night, and finally have sporadic internet access here again, so there will be some pictures … Weiterlesen
Neulich im Hostel
Viel gabs in unserem Hostel in Nizhny Novgorod nicht, aber überall Rauchmelder. Das sind übrigens weder Pfannkuchen noch Crepes, sondern блины…
441km from Moscow
McDonalds has generously supported our travels so far, by providing free wifi internet, comfortable seating and clean toilets in every city – and you don’t even have to buy anything :-) Upon arrival in Nizhny Novgorod though, our first stop on the transsiberian journey 441km east of Moscow, we have to realize that this might … Weiterlesen
Moscow
We booked 3rd class for our first railway journey in Russia (though not part of the actual TransSib) to see if the so called ‚platzkartny‘ are bearable. They were pretty nice indeed and Julia only woke up in the suburbs of Moscow. Standing outside Leningradsky station you cannot miss one of the seven sisters, the … Weiterlesen
St. Petersburg
Nach fünf Tagen St. Petersburg wissen wir kaum noch wo wir anfangen sollen euch zu berichten – was für eine Stadt! Angefangen bei der Metro, deren Stationen wie kleine Paläste scheinen, und den beeindruckenden endlosen Rolltreppen die einen in die Tiefe bringen, bis hin zu den echten Palästen, Gärten und Kirchen – irgendwie ist hier … Weiterlesen
Reaching Russia
The lights in the bus were switched on at about 2 am and the stewardess Tatjana made an announcement in Russian and Latvian. The only thing we did understand (with the help of a sign out the window) was that we had reached the Latvian-Russian border. We had an interesting break of about 70 minutes … Weiterlesen
