Camping at the Norfolk seaside

It's been a few years since I've been camping properly for anything more than a weekend.  I had a lovely time last week, enjoying the summer weather at Overstrand, in Norfolk.

Here is my tent (and Mr. Polo in the background), all set up:

The tent is a few years old now, but still holding up well, especially when there is no rain or strong winds to worry about.  Here is a closer view of the North Sea, so a few steps behind the tent, to the edge of the cliff:

The beaches in Norfolk were quite lovely, well worth the 2.5 hour drive from Essex.  I spent the days walking, as one beach connected to the next and then the next one after, so you could easily walk for hours.  I stopped in at the supermarket in Cromer and picked up some snacks and fruit to carry along.  However, since it was just me, I did more meals out than normal, especially as most places had fish and chips cheap, or the locally caught crab on offer.  Also, at the campsite came out to £15/night and I already had the tent, etc. so it was a moderately cheap holiday.

And finally, here is the campsite that I stayed at:  http://www.overstrandcampsite.co.uk/the-campsite.html  There was a German family with their bicycles, car, etc. so I imagine they drove over, taking the ferry from Hook to Harwich.  Otherwise, it was Brits, and many from the North as their school holidays start earlier than ours.  Perhaps this week it's filled with Brits from the South as school hols have now started here, as of last week.

The past two nights

I took to the backyard for some fresh air. I think the first night had some frost overnight and was a little chilly. The second reminded me of the Faroes, to wake up to a swift wind in the morning and a grey sky. It was later explained as a North wind here.

In the afternoon it was quite pleasant when I took the tent down and spent an hour or so setting up the remaining garden things I needed to do at this time. The first two outside plants have appeared at the same time, here is one of them, a garlic:

Currently, I'm enjoying a work colleague's comfortable sofa in Guildford (having driven two hours South tonight) feeling very relaxed under a fluffy duvet and with a German pillow (yes, one of the big square ones imported in!).

5 down, 10 to go

Days that is. I'm currently 1/3 of the way through my Intensive German course so thus the posting hiatus. My work colleagues and friends have been asking the same things, so here are the answers in advance. ;-)

How's the campsite?
Absolutely super. These things are often hit or miss, but I've been pleasantly surpised. I'll try to bring along the camera and take some photos of it.

Is there a shower?
Yes. There is a female bathroom/shower area and a separate male one. It's located on the floor below the restaurant. It's heated and immaculately clean at all hours. Showers are .50 cents, for about 3-5 min of hot water. You press a button and the water comes out for about 20-30 seconds, then you can lather up then press the button again, and keep repeating until the water pressure suddenly drops and starts to go cold, signifying about 30 seconds of cold water left.

How's the weather?
It's been chilly, and this area 1hr 20 min from tiny town of B got hit by major storms last week Sunday (my first night there), with many basements in the area flooded. I woke up to a slightly damp tent floor. As the tent has stayed dry through torrential rains in the Faroes and Iceland, to wake up to dampness I thought I was done for if I had 3 weeks of this coming.

How's the course?
For a VHS class, I'm pleasantly surprised. There are 7 people in my class; overall there are 4 different classes of people grouped by ability, which they ascertained on the first day with a written and oral test. The school planned a ton of events into the 3 weeks, including Saturday bus excursions (at no cost) to Cologne and Duisburg (yes Dbunny-really D'burg!), as well as local events during the week such as a local town historical walking tour and visit to a local castle. Since I've been in Germany so long most of the excursions aren't so interesting to me, except for one--meeting the mayor in the town hall, including a tour of the town hall. They needed a headcount the other day, they mayor will be serving drinks and needed to know in advance the number of glasses to have available.
(My work colleague's reaction to the above: hrrmph! my taxes paying for that!)

Who else is taking the course?
There is a wide mixture of students. Overall, I am in the middle of the age range in my class. There are housewives who have just arrived whose husbands have a work assignment here, there are students from Asia and Brazil, there are university students from Eastern Europe, there are people like me who live/work here and want to improve their existing skills, there is an au pair who arrived 2 days before the course started, there is a woman from Uruguay who works in Spain and enjoys studying German on her own and comes each year for this course (she's in her third year of it), and on and on. It's an absolutely delightful mix of people. I think there are overall 3 US folks out of 30 or so people, but the others are in different classes from me so we've only chatted during the breaks.

So what does your day look like there?
Well, I catch the 0755 bus from the campsite which puts me in town at 0821. Then I have enough time to pick up a good to-go coffee and a brotchen (small bread roll) for later in the morning. On Thursday and Friday I brought goat's cheese and raspberries to spread on the bread, superb. Class goes from 0900-10.30, break from 10.30-11.00, and then class from 11.00-12.30.

At 12.30 I may wonder around town a bit or I head back to the campsite area to eat lunch. Then in the afternoon I do the 20 min homework and then spend an hour or two messing around with my personal German grammar book, based on any of the words/constructions I heard in class but did not already know. I find my German is heavily skewed toward the office environment, as that is where I spend 40+ hrs/week or in practical things from the tiny town of B, such as going to the post office. Therefore my vocab and grammar tends to have holes in some of the more practical areas such as going to a hospital or talking about family things, as I have done neither here.

After I bore of that, I wander around in the area surrounding the campsite. It's absolutely tranquil and splendid in its beauty. I've also planned to go to the outdoor pool because it's literally right next door to the campsite, but the weather has been too chilly to warrent a visit yet.

In the evening I have a small early bite to eat and then catch up on reading for pleasure. So far, as it's been chilly, I've spent a lot of time in the tent reading, because it's too cold to just sit outside if you're not moving. I've read Einstein's Dreams, and then The Young Wan by Brendan O'Carroll, in case you're wondering. Thursday I started to read The Life of Pi. All of the above are from www.bookswapper.de, ones that I received over the past few months but hadn't any time to yet read. If the weather this week is like last, I'll need to take up another one to follow The Life of Pi.

As it gets too dark to read (just before 10), I usually go to bed, although I have candles with in case I want to continue reading.

What do you eat there?
That's been one of the best parts. Usually I find that I eat better while camping--probably because it involves more planning in advance. Since the weather (except one day) has been unseasonably cool (think late Sept in Philly--53 F lows), I've brought along more fresh things than I would have been able to otherwise.

I checked the weather predictions in advance and then brought along enough items that I would have some choice as nothing would go bad due to the cooler temps. In addition, I came by car, so that gave me some leeway to bring heavier things than if I was carrying everything and coming by train/bus. So my meals looked something like this during the past week:

Monday
AM - coffee (purchased)
late AM - boiled egg (boiled 3 of them at home and brought along)
lunch - German strawberries, raw califlower, fresh tomatoes from the balconey garden, an orange, a fresh bread roll
PM - fresh peas (the last from the balcony garden) which I shelled and ate raw. I love fresh peas.
dinner - cereal. Alnatura makes a cruncy granola/musli-like cereal, which is perfect if you're doing a lot of walking. I find it at DM-->Hafer Crunchy.

Tues
(like Monday)

Wed-Fri
lots of goodies from the local farmers' market

Highlight of the week?
The local farmers market on Wed mornings. I actualy woke up an hour early so that I could go before class as I heard early morning is the best time to go. (Knowing my opinion of early mornings, you can imagine this must have been something special to merit the early wake-up.) They open at 7 AM, I arrived by 8AM. The selection was enormous, rows and rows of sellers with everything (granted now is the peak harvest time), from the local area.

I bought: raspberries, eggs, corn, round and regular zucchinni, yellow squash, goat's cheese, green and black zebra tomatoes, peas, a coffee, and a pumpkin seed bread roll, all of which made up my meals for the rest of the week. I'm really looking forward to going again this week.

Any interesting differences H? Or is an hour from home really the same?
1. One glaring difference here...people consistently give you your change in your hand. One of the big differences from me when I first moved from the US to the Cologne area is that people consisently smack your change down on the counter or the tray on their little counter. Up here people consistently want to put it into your hand. I'm oddly reversed as it's the 'US way'. ;-)

2. I'm finding people to be downright pleasant in personality even though it's a large city; I'm finding the feeling closer to the tiny town of B rather than Cologne, even though population-wise it's definitely closer to the latter. I'm wondering if that's because their economy is heavily dependent upon outsiders, they are not a self-contained universe like Cologne. For example, the egg seller asked me where I was from, and I explained I'm here in a course blah blah. He thought this was quite good and he thinks the US is ok but it's good to be here also, blah blah. For such a large city I was not expecting such a small-town warmth.

Anything else to say H?
Yeah, I'll put up some advance posts which will appear in my absence for those few who check in regularly to read my drivel as I'm chock full of things to say apparently. ;-)

Easter 2008

It's getting around that time again, and this year Easter is early. In case you're keeping score, here are my previous Easter holiday destinations. This year's pick-->lovely Innsbruck. Why?

- I enjoyed visiting Linz, Austria last year, so I'd like to see more of Austria.
- I've heard only good things about the skiing there from my work colleagues
- Availability of open campsites. Yes, I will camp outside in March. Crisp, fresh air promises me a good night of sleep every time.
- Cheap flights on TUIfly.
- I feel like we didn't really get a winter here, so somewhere cold is in order.
- As any expat in Europe will tell you, it's a four day weekend and Europe is shut down. So one may as well take the opportunity to take a 'nature focused' holiday rather than something involving museums or shopping.

Shades of blue and gray - the Faroe Islands

I never knew the full range of the world's color palette of blue to gray until I went to the Faroes. Due to the dearth of tourist info, I may put my notes together at some point and put them out there for other travellers to use, but in the meantime, some photos.

Unfortunately, it's often more gray than blue there. None of my photos are touched up, as I have neither the talent nor the interest. While Germany can be gray, this was a truly intense, strong gray.

This one was taken one night at 23.30. The weather was 7 C inside the tent, and I took a quick run to the bathroom and quickly pulled out the camera on my return for such a nice sky. I was surrounded on both sides by Danish tourists who were courteous and quiet.

It's so far to the north that the sun goes down by 23.00 but it doesn't really get dark. Then by 04.00 it's as light as 23.00 again. One night I woke up to vicious winds around 4, and opened the tent to peek out and review both sides to make sure that all stakes were securely held down. Other campers were not so fortunate, so by 07.00 some people had to pack up as the winds were too much.

Observations on my European vacation style

Since I transferred last year from being an expat to being a local, I picked up the German vacation allowance at our firm of 30 days, although last year was prorated down to 25.5 since I transferred in April. This year I came to the table with the full 30.

As as American who is used to between 13 and max 21 (and only because I vacation bought a week--the full given allowance was 14), to go away for anything more than 4 or 5 days was a serious adjustment. Last year, going to Iceland for almost 2 weeks cause me to get a bit stressed at the little details of the mail piling up and being out of the office for so long. Then I went to Lithuania for 10 days later and I still broke into a cold sweat, but not as bad.

This year I'm better into the proper mentality of things. I leave on Monday for Bergen, after enjoying CSD this weekend in Koeln. While I was on the American vacation mentality, to leave on a Monday would be wasteful--it was leaving the two weekend days on the table, when they could be spent somewhere.

I've also shifted gears a bit, and started the whole camping thing, something I didn't do in the US. When you're only going away for four nights, you can take a hotel, hostel, or Holiday Inn and it really won't dent your budget. Going away for 14 seriously tests that theory. My balance has been to spend my travel money on the transport so that I can go away to where I truly want to go, in this upcoming case it will be Bergen and the Faroe Islands. I bought a functional tent and sleeping bag that paid for itself during Iceland, and then upgraded for this trip as the conditions will be worse, although this one also pays for itself after two days of skipping a hotel.

For eating, I try to make a mix of things. Being vegetarian, I am perfectly happy to go to a local supermarket while on holiday and pick up a salad for lunch. In Holland recently, I found a bio/alternative outdoor market and bought bread, goat's cheese and a spicy salsa to balance things out and was delighted to eat it on a bench watching the Saturday shoppers on their way. So for lunch I tend to do something price wise equivalent to what I would do here in my daily Germany life.

I don't do breakfast, but I pick up a coffee somewhere. For dinner, I allow myself the freedom to go out if I see something that interests me. Alternately, if I find something local that the locals are doing, such as a Chinese place that they all go to for the lunch plate special, then I swap my dinner and lunch plans and do that.

Where I will not scrimp is my daily coffee and a drink at a bar if the mood so strikes me. I like to find a place to have my coffee, to ease into my day, and to do the map/tour planning so that I am set to go. I find I take a general decision in the previous night of what I want to do, but for the places I go where the weather is so unpredictable, I cannot make the final decision until morning, as well as I may wake up early or late and can then plan the final bus/train logistics and such.

As a solo traveller, I have had many interesting conversations when visiting a local bar; where I have learned much about the culture. Or while camping that often means going to the local supermarket and picking up a few beers and parking oneself at a communal picnic table where others of a like-minded nature will also meet to look at maps, write postcards, read, eat, and drink for a few hours after having been on foot for most of the day.

So the bag is now packed and ready to go, I'm off to Koeln to enjoy the parade and then perhaps a relaxing rest at the river since this is the first day in a long time that I have woken up and it's sunny. Today is supposed to be the only rain-free one for the next 10 days, so I plan to be outside to enjoy it to its fullest.

After today I hope to be enjoying the travels and not inside in front of a computer, unless the rain dumps down and chases me inside. Have a nice two weeks, I fly back late on Sunday Jul 22, and if all goes well, I won't be online before then, so try not to miss me too much. ;-)

Linz - Austria's best kept secret

As of 20.40 tonight, I am back at home from Linz. All told, I must say that Linz was a pretty good choice, or maybe it's just that the options for Easter in Europe as I have previously mentioned, are limited. However, I took 133 photos of Linz and nearby as I was pretty impressed. I may treat you with a week full of Linz photos/commentary, so hopefully you too will be impressed by the end of the week to come, by the time I tire of Linz talk.

Here is Lake Pichlingsee, which is a 50 min bus ride or a 10 min regional train ride away from Linz's main train station. I stayed at a campsite about a 2 min walk from it:

There seemed to be one swan for the entire lake, but he was always near the coast hanging out for the photo op. The lake area was open all day. To walk around the entire lake, along the paved path, is 3.45 kilometers. It is open during the day but closes at dusk. April is still a little early, so only perhaps one third of the stands selling food and such were open, but still people were out. These men were there with model ships, controlling them via remotes from the shore.

Very close to the water were many of these brown pods, like half-tents. They were daily shelters for the people who fish. They put them up early in the day and sit there with their fishing rods and coffee. At the end of the day they take them down.



Here is my sad little tent. The ground was as hard as a rock, but fortunately the camping area is sheltered from the wind, so I was not worried that the lines were loose. One night there were two tents with older folks from Austria (early 60's) who were stopping over for a night with bicycles, but otherwise, I was solo, tent-wise. I was in a campsite with plenty of RV's however, with a locked gate after 20.00, as well as the campsite was next to the main building, so it was very secure. If you look closely at the fence behind, you'll see that it has barbed wire lining the top, so I was pretty pleased at the safety factor.

Tent people can be chatty, perhaps because we're the only fools sometimes in a place. The Austrians invited me to sit at the picnic table and also take my breakfast, but I don't really do breakfast, but still I talked a little with them as they were preparing theirs. They were nice enough to slow down their musical German for me.

They were asking if I was also on bicycle, the man in particular noted with pleasure that he's seen many of that tent it's a 'classic bicycler's tent.' In my world that would be a 'cheap, lightweight tent that doesn't look so great (which is part of the inherent security system--no one would bother trying to steal anything from such a sad little tent, obviously the owner has little.)

The campsite owner also commented on it, and how little it is and how does it hold up in the rain? Actually, it holds up quite well. In Iceland it poured rain and it went around it. Less floor space means less floor space to worry about getting wet. I know the trend these days is to go one size larger, so if you are a one person to get a two person tent, but with the amount of walking I do, I don't need the extra carrying weight, and really, I only sleep in it. However, if you are claustrophobic I imagine this small pod would be painful, so not recommended if that is the case.