Spanien - ein Wiedersehen nach fünf Jahren... hello again after five years...

...the summer house, the nature, life on the streets, excellent mediterranean cuisine, festivals and culture, the gym centre, the pool, warm stones, the mountains, the impressive monastery.

We are in El Escorial. 

If you really want to know Spain you have to get to know it from the inside, not from the coasts as so many only do....

The Summer House in El Escorial

Streetlife in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the monastery in the background.

Spanish lunch in Avila

Rest at the mountain climbing - on the way to Abantos peak

The monastery from halfway up

Top of Abantos

 

Navatejares

The odd visit to Madrid

The author

Church in Avila

Devotive candle for the risen Christ

Spain: next stage of the big journey

The next stage of our big journey is Spain, home of Elena. Here I am sitting in the winter garden area of this beautiful batch (holiday home), constructed about 70 years ago of granite ashlars (square stones) for eternity. On the journey to here we have stopped off and stayed at several very good friend's in Switzerland and been able to see Zürich and Bern. The last night we stayed at a hotel in Brive-La-Gaillarde in the middle of France, where we watched the semifinal Germany - Brazil in a local pub. Brive is a really cute little town which is good for a romantic trip with all it's old stone buildings full of character.
Our Mitsubishi L300 luxury bus has not forsaken us during all this trip.
On the 9th July we have safely reached this batch in El Escorial in the Sierra of Madrid and been heartily welcomed by Elena's parents and her sister. Fabulous aromatic food and spotless blue skies almost all the time over tones of light brown and olive green. Memories mix with new impressions. The huge monastery again, this impressive building radiating majesty and peace, unchanged for many hundreds of years, has become part of our own history as a family. Our kids have sat on the sun-warmed stones of the big patio from when they were little.  
And Spanish night life with many folks outside in the streets and the many bars and street cafés, voices, laughter, lights, scents of delicious food.
Two days ago we were joined by the family of my brother after Elena's relatives had rescued themselves to their flat in Madrid.
We watched Germany become Football World Champion in a typical bar in the centre with free tapas alongside fizzy drinks and beer!

 

Good Old Germany

Typical street in Schwäbisch Hall

Good Old Germany! For a summer holiday, this time. We have been welcomed and spoiled with excellent weather. For one month now we have been traveling through our, especially my, old home country. We were curious what impressions and feeling this would evoke in us. I was not sure at all when I left the Coromandel how pleasant this journey was going to be.
Now, more than four weeks later, I know that we have reconnected to our roots the nicest way I could imagine. We have been welcomed most warmly and nothing seems to have changed. Our friends are still our friends, no reproaches that we have left them behind. Our old local friends from Mainhardt organised a party for us, and we visited more of them at their homes. We visited friends from our former church in Frankfurt and others joined to our surprise. We saw the Oberursel and Hohe Mark, the place of most of my upbringing, and stayed at very good friends there. And we were able to attend the biannual John family meeting at Thomashof in Karlsruhe. We visited the family of my sister in their home, which we never did while we were still in Germany. We saw our tenants in Schwäbisch Hall and found the flat in an excellent condition. We saw the semi-attached where we had been living only from outside but it was OK that way.
Felix (12) has been seeing and enjoying friends whenever possible, while Daniel (10) was too young when we left to really reconnect with people, he had to make new acquaintances. Luis lives his own life here, more than he already did in Thames - we hardly ever see him. Lucas arrived in Germany only 5 days ago and stays at and with friends, like Luis. He had continued working at a sawmill in Thames to join us later. We will pick up Clara the day after tomorrow - exams forced her to stay in NZ even longer.   
When trying to get rid of our belongings that remained in Germany in a barn we were only able to part with about 3/4 of the stuff which we sold or paid for the disposal (the latter for the much bigger part).
We are getting around with our old Mitsubishi L300 van which had waited for us in an indoor car park.This car has become so rare on German roads in the meantime (we haven't seen a second "specimen" yet), that we are getting immediately recognised by everyone who knew us in Mainhardt.
So, this has become a very pleasant experience for us, far more so than anticipated. Yet, we know that our home is now in Thames and we are very happy that it will probably be so for many years.
Interestingly, our kids are happy here on the one side but none of our boys has complained about wanting to move back here so far.
How green Germany is! It seems a different green though, although I know that this is not true; it is just the different kind of vegetation - the forests here are so different to NZ bush. And the air here seems heavier, moist - although this cannot be true either....  perhaps it is the heaviness of the atmosphere, the culture, the mood of the people... .
When we came to NZ we were amazed by the friendliness of the people, so much that we expected to find people rude and inconsiderate back here. However, we have experienced this only very occasionally, when we observed behaviour that you would hardly see in NZ. 
I am so thankful that we can live in this flat of friends here. However, it is about 30 km away from our former home, which means we have to drive a lot.
Schwäbisch Hall is a treasure! Our hearts want us to enjoy this town for much more than we were able to now and in the past. We will come back, if God permits.    

Break from Hospital time...

The "control centre" or just team room of the rehabilitation ward, Thames Hospital

Another very intense month has come to an end. Many thanks to all the staff and colleagues who accommodated me, helped me and made me feel good.

After 15 years as a GP, working in a hospital again, in a foreign language in a foreign health system is not easy for me.
Tomorrow we will fly to Europe and spend three months visiting family and friends in Germany, Switzerland and Spain. So Thames, good bye for now and see you back in September!
Fortunately, while we're away, we can leave our house in the capable hands of Mickaél and Amandine, a lovely couple of new French immigrants.   
I plan to continue this blog on our exciting journey - what will we feel and with which eyes will we look at our old homes?

Explorer

I am an explorer.

I reach out for distant horizons.

I may never reach them, but I reach out for them.

Has anyone ever arrived at where the sky touches the earth?

On my way, I need to rest from time to time. My body is getting older.

The rests are what makes the journey worth it. I rest where I feel warmth from people.

You can be one of them. Then I lift my eyes, and the horizon seems a bit closer.

I feel a warm breeze and I know that it has been worth arriving here.

Sometimes people go with me for a while, and I go with them.

Then we can help each other through the weather.

There will be a day when I will rest forever.

Will you then be there and be with me?

Together we can jump over walls.

We are explorers.

A(d)Venture (in Central Otago)

Every journey is a venture - Central Otago from a plane

Every journey is a venture. Two months ago I started at Thames Hospital, as a Rural Hospital Medicine registrar. A registrar is something between a SHO (Assistenzarzt) and a consultant (Oberarzt, Facharzt). Coming from my still rather German GP background, slotting into this position which is usually filled by younger doctors bred in a New Zealand hospital environment proved to be even more of a challenge than I thought it would be. 
My role consists in work on the rehabilitation ward in a responsible position, above me the consultant and under me the SHO (in reality and practice the SHO is more experienced than me in many regards), and seeing patients in the Emergency Department (together with very experienced colleagues). Apart from that I am encouraged to sit in at outpatients department with specialists, for learning purposes (this as time allows).
A hospital, basicly the whole health system is like a big machine with all the policies, pathways, flowcharts and standard procedures and one is just a cogwheel within it, and if you don't fit well the whole system gets slowed down.
I have never been a big fan of medical guidelines and more of an "eyeballer" (über-den-Daumen-Peiler) cooking my own recipes with and for every individual. This is not always well-seen here, particulary in the hospital. Thus, there is so much to catch up with. And I am not used to obeying these narrow standard rules. Not only in what I do I have to blend in, but also my documentation has to be in a certain format which I am learning. And, in a hospital, as a cogwheel, you can't just work at your own speed, because others continually depend on you.
I think it was a surprise to most people here how alien this system was to me. Still, most of them have been very accommodating, and understanding at the end. There is a price to pay for my upskilling, and at present I am not the only one paying it.

Sometimes old vessels do a very good job - a more than 100 year old steamboat on Lake Wakatipu

Every ship has its history - waterfront of Queenstown; the ship in the foreground was build in England and served most of the time on lake Rotorua, North Island

Jump into the cold water and swim! The water of lake Wakatipu is allegedly so cold that the survival time would be 20 minutes. 

Good to have a life belt if you go far out

Achievement - great views from here

A simple pole can turn into a home for many: these islands are home to a kind of waterbirds - they have their origin in orientation poles that have sprouted. Can you find the bird on the water?

Would you like to spend the autumn of your life at quiet waters? A dream hotel at Lake Wakatipu

Friends are the salt of life - (guess who is on the other end of the phone connection).

Sometimes it is good to climb up from the depth of everyday life to get an overview

On the way.

Looking back.

Getting spoiled (Dunstan House, Clyde).

Modesty.

My room (at Dunstan House, Clyde, Central Otago)

Envy is always a silly feeling: Someone else's room (Dunstan House, Clyde)

Sometimes it is good to do something really different: General Store now turned into a bicycle rental, in Clyde

Good friends are the world - drinking at a Pub in Clyde, with colleagues and teachers of an ultrasound course

A good teacher makes a huge difference - at the ultrasound course at Dunstan Hospital in Clyde

It is important to rest and think from time to time - near Cromwell.

Das Leben ist ein langer ruhiger Fluss (manchmal).

I have dared enough - an did not jump here - Bungy jump site in Central Otago (note the ropes on the right).

Sometimes life seems dry as a desert - but this is often transient - Shotover River.

Would you enjoy being a celebrity? Not me. Prince Williams and Kate sit in the silver BMW, the third silver car in the row.

Waiting to fly home - which is Thames now.

Above the clouds - for a short while.

The Firth of Thames in the very background.

Coming home to Our Waikato - Estuary of the Waikato river. 

Every journey is a venture. But if I don't explore, I don't feel alive. And Kiwis make it easy (and take it easy, too).