Today was a
sunny and beautiful Hamburg day. Roni awoke early for a skype with her Mum –
awesome to catch up as she and Grandma have just had time in Australia plus all
the usual home news to hear about. Bray eventually rose and breakfast was
consumed before getting Simon & Maren’s bikes out and pumping up the tires
(this part took a lot longer than expected as Simon’s bike and pump are just a
wee bit flasher than we are used to!). During the process a few red squirrels
were very inquisitive and came up to within less than half a metre of us quite
a few times– so cute!!
Eventually
we hit the road and rode the perimeter of the Alster lake...with many stops
along the way to admire (photograph!) some MASSIVE houses, striking autumn
colours, sculptures, lake views and general prettiness. It was a lovely ride
and quite warm in the sun – though chilly
out of it!
On our
return home we found our appetites and consumed the leftover burger buns with
tasty fillings for lunch before heading back into the fleuro lit-bad
air-disorientation of the ‘Hamburg Mile’ to grab cheap winter shoes for Roni
and gloves for Bray. This was meant to be a definite quick dash in and out as
we had scoped out some likely shoes at the German version of No1 Shoes while in
the south of Germany that were a good fit to what we were after.
Of course
this store no longer had them. Argh! Roni hates shopping. We persevered and got
some warm shoes for Roni along with funky winter gloves for Bray and some socks
and other essentials. Home again after this to continue the photo DVD mission,
catch up on some journals and tidy our gear before going to play volleyball
with Simi.
We were both
uber stoked to have the chance to play sport! Something we have been sorely
missing on the world trip so far. Unfortunately
Maren had to work late until around 9pm so it was only us three. The people
Simon plays with are a combo of ex-pro’s, casual players and students who got
into it through a friend. It was a lot of fun!
Afterwards
it was around 10pm and all three of us were ravenous so stopped for a donor box
on the way home – these are a fantastic invention and Bray is going to try and
convince all the Turkish kebab shops back in NZ to join the donor box family!
