Lexi and I in Sevilla

We arrived in Sevilla almost a month ago now, so why haven't I written sooner? No excuses, just haven't been taking pictures and pictures are important, or the spice in a blog. 

Lexi says Hola! from her bird watching post.

I took the inner city bus and, by chance, met a couple from close to Austin, Texas, Jeanne, Victor and their dog Mutti. They are doing the full time, slow travel thing and debating about whether to become expats. We had some lunches together and they showed me how to use the bus system here, I'd only figured out the inner city one. 

Then I had a party! Well why not? There were eight of us, all the usual suspects (Pepe, Angela, Ryan, Ivan) Victor, Jeanne and a lady named Stephanie who was renting one of Pepe's flats. I wonder what she thought of my food, she's a food editor, yikes! 

Pepe, Jeanne, me, Victor

Typical Sevilla bar, crowded, cozy and family owned, Pepe's favourite for breakfast.

You've read about the controversial "lipstick" tower, it's actual name is either Cajasol or Pelli Tower (Pelli was the architect). The area around the tower has a newly opened arcade type mall, you know how I feel about malls, but because this one has outside corridors it felt spacey and bright. Here's the website so you can see for yourself. https://www.torre-sevilla.com/ I wonder if people from downtown will bother to come to it, but there is lots of parking so I think it will draw people from the outlying areas of Sevilla.

Street Christmas lights, installed at 03:00, lit December 1st

Almost the same day Jeanne and Victor left, Paula and Paul arrived! Here's a post with a picture of them http://bevbrucelexi.blogspot.com/2017/01/slow-start-to-our-new-year.html They have also been travelling, you can read about their travels here https://travelingpps.blogspot.com/ They are thrilled to be back in Sevilla! I'm thrilled to see them.

Pepe found me a plumber, taps were leaking, and it was definitely time to get that sorted, we don't need a flood! The same day as his appointment Rocio was coming to clean and the power went out! This side of the block has an ongoing  problem no one seems to be able to fix. Well if you look at the wiring hanging outside most of the buildings in this city you'd wonder why it doesn't happen more often. Reason is the walls of buildings are very thick here and many are heritage so wiring resides outside. Both the plumber and Rocio worked without the power which came on about an hour later.

It isn't a good picture but it is a bride and groom, just never know what you'll see here.

Honestly it had been hard to be here without Bruce. I have been telling acquaintances gradually and finally went to the art market in the plaza yesterday.

This is the wine tower in the Radisson at the Zurich airport, that's a lot of wine!

All for now friends, Bev and Lexi

Elzach in Pictures

We had some time before going on the brewery tour, enough time for lunch and a wander around the town of Elzach. It is a charming town, even more so than some others and I don't know why that is but it seemed so to me. 

Here are some pictures, thank you again Ryan. Plus here is a map he sent, speaks for itself, and very fitting.

Looks like a castle, just a rather grand house.

Lunch!

Quite the roof line, religious fresco on the green wall, also look below for the face, they have painted the trash cans here.

Main Street

Delightful flower shop

This fresco is etched into the wall

The Rathaus or town hall

That was our exploration of Elzach, as usual, there were many more photos than shown.

Cheers, Bev and Lexi Cat, next post will be from Sevilla!

Brewery tour in Elzach

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends!

We drove north to the town of Elzach to take a craft brewery tour with Dave Decker at Lowenbrauerei Elzach, owned by Johannes Dold.

This is a town none of us had been to before so we chose a traditional German restaurant and it was very good called Gasthaus Zur Krone. We wandered a bit, had a coffee before meeting up Dave at the brewery. Dave owns, with two partners, www.deckerbier.de. They network with five local breweries to bring fresh and innovative beers to their “garage” where they sell them, hold courses and tastings. Lowenbrauerei Elzach is one of the micro-breweries they work with.  

On with the tour. Met owner Johannes Dold and he told us some of the 160 years history, he is fifth generation in running it and the location was chosen to make use of tunnels into the mountain adjacent to keep the beer cool. http://loewenbrauerei-elzach.de/index.html

First they showed us a canning operation temporarily set up to test how that was going to work, or not, for the brewery, that was unusual to see, we just happened to be there on the day of trial. 

Then walked through the entire plant so see the various tanks, bottling apparatus, basically from start to finish of making beer.

Dave translated Johannes the entire time. Then, of course, there was the tasting, of a couple of the brews from the brewery and then one that was created by Decker but brewed by Löwenbrauerei Elzach. 

What is notable is that all the beer sold is done so by both parties in an approximate radius of 50 square kilometres. It is generally not available at the grocery stores. The brewery used to make home deliveries, I’ve never heard of that except for dairy products (showing my age here). 

Dave Decker Left, Johannes Dold Right

It was an eye opener for me and, you probably know, I do enjoy seeing and learning about production facilities or factories. Ryan and Angela said it was one of the best tours they’d been on, which is saying a lot with their hopsmash project.  http://hopsmash.co/

Hops hanging from the ceiling in the shop.

That was our brewery tour. Cheers, Bev and Lexi who didn't come along...

Visit to Mausa Vauban

Mausa Vauban, Musee D’Art Urbain et de Street Art or in English: Museum of urban street art in Vauban http://mausa.fr/mausavauban/ on the site scroll down below the prices to get the best description of the museum which is housed in a UNESCO site. Note: if you follow jetsliketaxis.com on facebook you will see all the photos Ryan posted.

First of all the venue is in part of the ramparts and tunnels of the Vauban citadel that  surrounds Neuf-Brisach which is a tourist attraction in itself. There were two long hallways with rooms off each of different sizes, holding different artists works on the walls and floors. There is room for the planned expansion with a number of empty rooms. Artists were not in residence while we were there but there had been one from Brazil there a day prior painting on a deadline which is why the venue was closed. It was opened only in July of this year and an amazing amount of work has been completed! 

Without further ado here are only a few of the pictures we all were taking.

Entry way with one of the proprietors

Vauban himself, he was the planner of the fortifications.

Gives you a glimpse of how large the museum is.

We all liked the colours

Cool dude chicken

Cool dude monkey

Black lighting used. This was a series of rooms all painted portraits.

This was a series of people completely blending into their environment. 

Reminded me of flamenco dancing

Image used on their brochure.

These were cutouts, looked like painted cardboard but stiffer, note the fellow in the middle causing the fleeing...

This gives you some perspective on the average size of the rooms

The exhibition was truly fascinating and in all honesty I likely would not have visited it myself, sure glad we did!

All for now, next up, a brewery tour. Cheers, Bev

Wonderful visit with Ryan and Angela!

Three Amigos

Ryan and Angela, www.jetsliketaxis.com visited me in Freiburg! This post tells you what we did in the week. I will do separate posts on the art exhibition and the brewery tour. Ryan air dropped all his pictures to me and the excellence of both the exhibit and the brewery need their own posts for the pictures alone. 

Sorry it's that underline problem again...

They arrived Monday and stayed in an apartment, floor below mine, very handy. We spent the day catching up, that night their elderly dog Louis had a stroke, and passed away. Angela had been saying, even that day, she didn’t know how much longer he would be with them. R.I.P. Louis. 

Next day we went downtown to hang around the river at the Extrablat, then to Schlappen before they had a dinner engagement. Wednesday we went to Colmar, France for lunch on the canal at le Comptoir de Georges. We saw an otter swimming between the punt boats loaded with tourists. Here are a few pictures of the town.

Beautiful building now home to a Euro store, disappointment...

Then to Neuf-Brisach, France, to a street art exhibition that was closed. So we went back on Thursday after going to Zum Lamm in the Kaiserstuhl for lunch, always good there and they've updated the bathrooms where you will see one of these depending on which room you need to use.

Photo in the women's bathroom

Photo in the men's bathroom

I have seen this artist's work in other places, as post cards and in a hotel. Here is his website https://sebastian-wehrle.de/en/ scroll down to Facing Tradition for the entire series. I think they are beautiful!

We toured the amazing exhibition in the ramparts of the old walls and tunnels at Neuf-Brisach, covered in separate post.

Friday we drove to the pretty town of Elzach for a craft brewery tour at Löwenbrauerei Elzach, also covered in separate post.

Saturday was sort of catch up day so we lunched here. 

Sunday was lunch at Chada Thai = yummy! We were very lucky to sit under a large umbrella there, it was windy and the horse chestnut trees were pelting us with nuts, here's what they look like https://www.google.de/search?q=horse+chestnut+tree&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw1_DTq-LdAhVGC-wKHTyOBh4Q_AUIDigB&biw=1050&bih=584#imgrc=wk8rGzwAT1mbDM: As you can imagine, they hurt when they hit!

Monday they left to go back to Sevilla. Great times! Thanks so much for coming to visit Ryan and Angela!!!

Cheers, Bev and Lexi Cat

Herdern Neighbourhood and Lessons Learned

My apologies about the formatting of the last post, missing my editor, efforts to clean it up failed, as it has again... I just viewed older posts which did not have underlining on them and now do. An issue to be resolved obviously but I'd rather get this post out, imperfect as it is. I ask for your patience with Thanks.

Lessons or bureaucracy learned about death of a common-law spouse in Germany. First of all I am not considered a spouse in Germany, the country does not recognize any relationship other than marriage (same sex is okay if married) or an actual birth relation. That has made me a non-entity in filing the paperwork needed for the death certificate. To explain, when we first bought in Germany we had to register with the City and on that form we had to say what marital status we were. There was no box for common-law so Bruce said he was divorced (can’t remember but I likely did too so this will be a problem if I die, lawyer to be engaged here). The City needs his marriage license and divorce decree (not certificate which is only valid for 31 days after the divorce) before issuing the international death certificate. Erwin contacted Bruce’s ex-wife and she has come through for us/me in getting these documents. Here’s the rub, I don’t know how I could have done this alone, I didn’t even know the ex-wife’s surname, she went back to her maiden name. Erwin found her on Facebook. So to shorten this tale of reality, listen up! If you are an ex-pat in a common-law relationship you’d better get your affairs in order! Questions I have, is it the same in Spain? Joint bank accounts and a will naming me as his sole inheritor don’t count. That one check box on the City document caused much hassle, who knew the repercussions of it? 

Living in a different neighbourhood has helped me heal. Who says you can't travel in the same city, especially living in a different area of it. The deal with the shared apartment we have in Rieselfeld is that D & E get the summers, we’ve always left for wonderful experiences in Paris and Vienna and others. This year I need to stay in Freiburg to finish up Bruce’s affairs so Erwin found me a place in Herdern. The apartment is crazy expensive but the neighbourhood is a lovely mix of old buildings and new, all well kept up. 

A bit like the "painted ladies" in San Francisco

Love the door detail.

Lots of mature trees for shade on the sidewalks, needed this summer. A bonus is that I’ve found better services here for pedicures and hair cuts. The flat has a lovely patio on both sides. 

Other end of the patio, Lu, landlord joked that I wouldn't be charged more if the plants died, but I have enjoyed looking after them really.

Tall ceilings so when it was so hot, the building didn’t get too much so, as I controlled the blinds. Right now, a plant is taking over the back balcony at an alarming rate and I have no tools to control it, ach! Attack of the plants! 

Speaking of plants, there is a Botanical Garden a few blocks from this flat, http://www.botanischer-garten.uni-freiburg.de/ I visited this week. It was very pleasing in layout, all plants were labeled and there were small ponds scattered throughout. 

Many glass buildings as greenhouses but I didn’t go in, too nice a day! 

A lady was photographing something in the pond so I went up too, to find this little greenie. 

Massive trees lined the many pathways. In short it was a delight! 

Unique sculpture

I exited a different way from entering and walked through more of the neighbourhood, almost getting lost, but my internal compass helped me get back. I will miss living in this neighbourhood, I have enjoyed wandering it and seeing the diverse architecture. 

All for now, Cheers Bev and Lexi Cat