Kempten, Germany – [Full size] This took some finding on the map, as unsurprisingly there are a number of settlements along big rivers between the UK and Austria. The captain didn’t exactly keep a running commentary for me, so I’ve had both fun and “fun” tracking down the locations in my aerial photos. May blessings rain down upon Google Earth and Bing Maps.
The lake that, to me at least, looks like a rabbit (centre right) is the Sulzberger See. The river is the Iller and that long road you can see is the A7, Germany’s longest autobahn and the longest national motorway in Europe. It runs through Germany, all the way from the border with Denmark to the border with Austria.

Schöngau, Germany – [Full size] Another tricky one to find, but a fresh pair of eyes this morning and a 20″ screen instead of a 13″ screen led to success. This is the Lech river, a tributary of the Danube and I admire its character as described by Wikipedia: “it is not navigable, owing to its torrential character and the gravel beds which choke its channel”.

Rosenheim, Germany – [Full size] Rosenheim is on the left and on the other side of the river Inn is Schloßberg. The lakes near the bottom of the photo are Happinger See and Floriansee.

Chiemsee, Germany – [Full size] This was the point where I started thinking that BA must take a slightly different flight path from Ryanair. I usually fly to Salzburg on my own and so spend a fair amount of time with my face stuck somewhat impolitely to the window. Except this time, it wasn’t impolite, because there was no-one else in my row. Anyway, I’m sure I’ve not flown over Chiemsee before (but of course anyone more knowledgeable is welcome to snap my certainty in two), as this was my first moment of “where the hell are we if we’re over a coast? This can’t be a coast. What bloody great lakes are there down here?” Turns out, there’s Chiemsee. Known as the “Bavarian Sea”, which explains the size issue. It’s 9 miles long and 5 miles wide and this is just the top corner where the Alz river flows out of the lake. Before this there was a huge expanse of water, complete with inhabited islands.

Traunreut, Germany – [Full size] The white-ish patch near the patch of forest is a building firm, so they have huge heaps of sand and gravel lying around. They also have a concrete-mixing area, which can be seen in their own aerial photo.

Riedersbach, Germany – [Full size] This is the coal power station at Riedersbach on the river Salzach. To the right of the power station you can see the big coal storage piles. The big square, centre left in the photo, is the Stahlpark, an open air museum exhibiting steel sculptures.

Laufen, Germany – [Full size] This is one of the points I look out for as the plane starts its descent to Salzburg. The bend in the Salzach river always stands out with the church clearly visible in Laufen, Germany and Oberndorf, Austria on the other side of the river bank. The Silent Night chapel is hidden somewhere among the buildings on the far bank of the loop in the river.

Pabing, Austria – [Full size] Just behind the trees flows a stream called the Reitbach, I guess as an effort to further slow the Germans if they make it across the Salzach from their side of the river. The Salzach river, which is a tributary of the Inn and for 43 miles forms the border between Germany and Austria, as seen in Laufen, above.

Mountains – [Full size] All that white in the valley between the mountains is the mist that hadn’t yet been burned away by the sun. It was a beautiful, bright day when I arrived in Salzburg and then the next day the mist came down and didn’t disappear until the Saturday morning, when the Untersberg finally became visible again. I think that’s the Untersberg with the highest peak in this photo. But don’t quote me to an Austrian on that.

Saaldorf-Surheim, Germany – [Full size] Another pretty point I always see on the way down through the sky, as we’re relatively low at this point. That’s St. Martin’s Church, shining in the sunlight.

Freilassing, Germany – [Full size] Right in the southeast corner of Bavaria. I’ve been here on the ground too, when we made a stop at a DIY shop in March 2009

Salzburg, Austria – [Full size] This mountain I know for certain is the Gaisberg. It’s easy – it’s got the antennae on top of it. And I think it’s too much trouble for the Austrians to move the antennae from mountain to mountain just to make tourists look dumb when they try and show off. I went up the Gaisberg for the first time ever on this trip – I’ll blog that soon. The white roof in the bottom left of the photo belong to the Salzburgarena, a venue that Hubert played a few years ago.

Buchach, Austria – [Full size] Once again, the river forms the border of Germany and Austria. All that wood on the Austrian side of the river belongs to Kaindl, a big flooring company. I’m guessing they make wooden floors.

What a long day. It started early in Salzburg, with my boy and a surprise cake, sparkling candle and singing and ended in England with my girls and more surprise cake, celebratory fire and singing. In between came a lot of talking in German, a flight home, my traditional failure to unpack properly, if at all, the opening of lovely presents, birthday phone calls, a much-needed shower, way too much food and a lot of talking into the night. Now I must to bed and maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow with some sort of idea of what day it is, what time it is and where I am – all questions which I have been unable to answer immediately for myself at some point over the last few days.

This morning there was a little bit of work to be done, followed by a reasonable amount of cake to be eaten in the city with Katja. After a long lunch at which I met someone else I’d previously known only through the net, we headed up into the persistent mist to the Gaisberg mountain. Lots of narrow mountain roads on which to pass other cars and wonder why the Austrians don’t make their roads just that little bit wider. Surely that would save a lot of hassle and time that foreigners spend thinking that they might fall down a ravine? ABBA’s “Honey, Honey” came on the radio and I serenaded H word-perfectly, despite having not heard the song in years. I may have a different musical passion now, but clearly ABBA aren’t about to leave my head any time soon. We reached the top of the Gaisberg in time for the sunset, which was quite bizarre above a sea of mist that completely concealed the city below.
And so end my twenties.

Not sure where the promised sunshine went today. I guess it was up there somewhere above all the mist. The ORF will be getting a letter from me about their promises of blue skies though. Did some work today and afterwards took advantage of the comfy couch and fell asleep for a while. My host checked in on me a couple of times and the second time I’d turned over, which was the only sign of life I gave her for a couple of hours. Had lunch and talked about salt. I wouldn’t last two minutes as a deer – put a salt lick down for me and I’m a goner. Went to Hellbrunn for a look around the Christmas shop that’s open in advance of the Christmas markets that open next week. I like to get something new for the tree when I can on these visits, so this little reindeer is coming home with me. The cute purple watering can I saw sadly wouldn’t fit in my case. Not that I’d have hung it on the tree, you understand.

Up at 6am, taxi to the airport, up and down many escalators at Gatwick airport, be talked to by a very talkative man called Dave, fly in the sky, land on the ground, look at the mountains, eat artistic “brain food”, try not to fall asleep at Hangar 7, have lift doors shut on head while talking to someone at Hangar 7, come home, unfold the duvet from the crazy continental way, take a picture of the sunset, write a quick blog.

Lookit, I has a new bag! I’m off to Salzburg early tomorrow morning and since I’m flying with BA this time, rather than Ryanair, I’m not being charged for the joy of checked luggage. So instead of stuffing everything into my big rucksack and trotting through the airport with something on my back not much smaller than myself, I’m taking a suitcase. However, I didn’t like the visual of turning up for a three-night stay with a suitcase and a big rucksack on my back – “Surprise! I’m moving in!” – I wanted to find a less assuming shoulder bag that would be big enough to take my laptop, camera, passport and a drink. It wouldn’t surprise me if I break my shoulder carrying those few things, but I’m hoping it’s still better than the weight of all that plus toiletries and clothes and things like the power supply for the laptop in a rucksack on my back.

Anyway, I ordered a bunch of bags from Accessorize to test them out. Word to the wise, they offer free returns and free delivery on orders over £40, so it’s ever so convenient and economical to make them bring you a bunch of bags to peruse and possibly reject.

I ended up choosing this graphite bag. Yes, I’d have liked one of the pretty plum or teal bags, but they didn’t fit me or the laptop. Banging about on my knees is not one of the qualities I was looking for, neither was straps that don’t stay on my shoulder. This bag fits me well, the laptop and camera fit easily inside with room for more of all the gubbins that I feel the need to take – I try to be a light packer, but am ultimately a Just In Case packer and come close to trying to take one of everything I own wherever I go.

Mum and I made a small addition inside the main pocket of the bag. I had the idea that a strap could be made inside, in which you could fasten a bottle of drink, keeping it upright and tucked out of the way, rather than it rolling about being a nuisance. One length of velcro and one D ring later that was done and will be put to the test tomorrow once I’m through security and have bought my traditional bottle of Ribena.

Well, my hair is currently 3 miles wide, because I haven’t straightened it yet, so I should crack on with that and not be too late to bed – up at 6am tomorrow. At least it’s not the more usual 4am!

It’s been nearly two years since I was there last and so the other day I felt I should brush up on my mountain names. Untersberg, Gaisberg, Hoher Stauffen – they’re the important ones to know in case of being tested. I’ve also been watching the weather reports and the Föhn wind (incidentally spelled “Fön” if you’re artistic and decide that you don’t like the h any more) seems to die off at the end of this week and cooler, wetter weather might greet me. Or, of course I could run up one of those mountains whose names I know and simply find myself covered in snow.

There’s some work to be done out there, some hanging out to be done and I think glasses need to be raised to a brilliant single by a very clever client that’s been top of the charts for the past four weeks:

This is of course all dependent on my ever choosing what clothes to take with me on my trip and the way things are going, I might just be staying here, alternating my gormless stare between my wardrobe and the ORF weather report.

Eventually we headed out into the heat and off to the shops – the famous store Macy’s being very close to our hotel. What wasn’t close to our hotel? The Hotel Metro was in such a perfect location, right next to the good ol’ Empire State Building, close to a bunch of other midtown sights and a gorgeous hotel to boot. We’d booked it in the sales on a hotel + flights deal and with my plans to come back to New York one day, I’ve a feeling I’ve been ruined for life by this hotel. I really need to hurry up and marry a dot com millionaire.

Wait, let’s get the search optimisation going on this, as the guy’s probably Googling for his soulmate right now. So he needs to know that there’s a future wife out who has a GSOH, green eyes, brown hair, an appreciation of the finer things in life (the internet, food and the shape of a good mug) and all the episodes of The West Wing on DVD.

I digress.

Suzy and I planned to look around a few shops, including our first stop Macy’s, to see if there were any clothes or shoes for me in particular. Sadly after queuing for ever for our tourist discount, we discovered that Macy’s was pretty much just full of posh clothes and flouncy suits for women – very much for Ladies Who Lunch and not so much for our own class of Ladies Who Lunch And Talk And Laugh Raucously While Doing So, Possibly Also Making Ear Trumpets Out Of The Placemats.

Some of the escalators in Macy’s are the original wooden ones, which are interesting, but somehow quite perturbing to step onto. They seem to take your feet from under you. Emily told me that when in New York she and Dan went up the escalator, down the escalator and out of the shop. An approach we should have tried, really.

For lunch we ticked off one of the “cultural” aims on our to-do list and had a slice of pizza. It might be possible to buy a slice over here nowadays, but I’ve not come across it. We rested our weary feet and sat eating our slices in the window of Pronto Pizza on West 36th Street, facing the Haier Building. And do you know how I was able to find out the name of the pizza place, despite having no receipt for our lunch in my souvenir folder? The internet. I went to Google Maps, found the Haier Building in Streetview, turned around and there was Pronto Pizza , complete with people sitting in the window eating their slices, just as we had done. Seeing the restaurant exactly as we had approached it down the street, combined with the good cup of coffee I’ve just had made me feel quite snivvly.

Neither Suzy nor I are able to walk past an H&M store without going in and – in my case – ransacking the basics collection, or – in Suzy’s case – buying everything that’s for sale, so we made sure to head to the shop we saw on 5th Avenue. As we approached the store, I was stopped by a girl sitting on some stone steps (I love Google Streetview), who wanted to know if she knew from TV. Though I assured she that she didn’t, she insisted “you look famous!”.

Not all that much later in H&M, having finally reached the head of the Slowest Queue in the World with my bright pink top, the Slowest Worker in the World also wanted to know if I was famous. He was ever so nice, but my God, I could have cleared that queue in a quarter of the time that he did. Including teaching myself how to work the till.

Eventually we gave up on the idea of standing on our feet for any moment longer and headed to our hotel for a bit of R&R up at the rooftop bar, the first time we’d really made use of the terrace during our stay. It had a lovely view of our good friend the Empire State Building, the Manhattan rooftops and water towers and a side of Macy’s was visible from our vantage point too.

Apart from the $45 we’d put aside for our taxi to the airport, we had spent almost all our money, but between us we managed to scrape together enough pennies, nickels and dimes to buy a tiny Sprite to share. We stacked up the coins and carried them carefully to the bar, but either the bartender took pity on us, or simply balked at the idea of counting it all, as he took only a couple of the piles of coins from us before just giving us our drink, which we enjoyed in the afternoon sun. It was a fine way to end our holiday.

A little email back and forth with Richard led to us having lunch (unfortunately not with him) at a place of his recommendation: Spring Street Natural. It was a busy restaurant, but we were soon seated and I ordered some lovely scrambled eggs mixed up with salmon, broccoli and peppers with a side of fries. Suzy had a caesar salad with chicken and while we enjoyed a good natter, we were also both doing our best to eavesdrop on the two women next to us, the seating being close enough to make not eavesdropping more of a challenge than eavesdropping.

We planned this day for following a walking tour from my guidebook. We would explore Chinatown and look at Things and Stuff. Except we were utterly shattered by now. If we’d had more than a day left, this day would have been put aside as a lounging about day. Instead, we dragged ourselves around the streets looking at things, not really knowing quite what they were.

By the time we got to Katz’s delicatessen the fact that this was the diner where Harry met Sally filmed its famous scene had completely escaped my mind and I was wondering why we were standing outside it and my feet were wondering why I was still standing on them. Nonetheless, we went on our way admiring various Jewish delis and buildings.

We finally gave in halfway through the afternoon and found respite from the heat in Remedy. As soon as we sat down we were welcomed with glasses of ice water and Suzy ordered an Oreo shake. I ordered a leaded coffee, which was met with a befuddled look from the waiter. A what? Leaded coffee – like it says on your menu! Oh, okay regular coffee! The guy was pretty amused that he didn’t know that’s what his own menu offered. It was a very friendly place and when we were given the check we were told to take our time, there was no rush at all.

When we ventured back out into the heat, I’d wandered ahead of Suzy as she was studying the guidebook. I turned back and something caught my eye, causing me to tell Suzy to stop right where she was. And that’s how I got my favourite shot of the holiday.

The picture below is about all I took in Chinatown I realise now. It was fun to see to what extent Chinatown really is just *Chinese* – all the signs were in Chinese and there were Chinese people all over the place! Meanwhile we were the British women wandering around and around trying in vain to find the damn Wall of Democracy that I’d read about – I’m sure in more than one place – but which seemed to have been dismantled and/or hidden. Possibly just to spite us. There was meant to be a temple too and we couldn’t find that either.

In the end we had to give up and hightail it as fast as we could back to Orchard Street to join a Tenement Museum tour. The “Piecing it Together” tour had just begun and we were handed ever so useful fans with the name of the tour writ large upon them. Great advertising sure, but more importantly useful for recovering. We had a fabulous, enthusiastic guide who told us all about the history of the tenements and the people who lived there. We were taken inside a building that had been preserved/restored as a museum of what life was like for immigrants working in the garment district in unbelievably hot and cramped quarters. Fascinating stuff and a definite recommendation.

Back at the hotel we got a bit dressed up and I put a bit more makeup on over the day’s grime – just to class things up a little for the theatre. Outside the hotel a limousine taxi pulled up offering us a ride – promising that he was offering the same fares as a yellow cab. Hmm. Sod it, we thought, it’s got air conditioning and there are no cabs in sight, so we went for it. Along the way the driver tried desperately to persuade us to allow him to take us to the airport the next day, but of course couldn’t beat the $45 we knew a taxi would be.

We were dropped near the theatre and bought our dinner – in the form of hot dogs – from a cart on the corner of the street and then ate it on the pavement in full glamour mode. Making our way to the theatre we made sure not to get hooked into the big Scientology building as we went past.

Our seats for the musical were great – eighth row in the stalls. I was holding my breath, waiting to see whether there’d be an announcement, or a slip of paper in the Playbill announcing that “tonight’s performance would see Some Random Person in the role of either Morticia or Gomez”, but fortunately there was no such thing and we were treated to performances from the stars Bebe Neuwirth and Roger Rees.

The Addams Family was a great show – not perfect, but with many very funny moments and I loved all the audience clapping along to the theme song. The puppetry was amazing too. We had never imagined that Cousin Itt and Thing would be making appearances, but there they were! I just found a video about the puppetry, which has blown my mind a bit. I had no idea there were ninja puppeteers on stage, hidden in the shadows, I thought things were being done by remote control!

After the show we spent a good hour in a tourist shop going round and round choosing hoodies as presents for ourselves. So this winter I shall have a lovely cosy bright red NYC hoodies to keep me warm. Hell of a thing to try on and attempt to judge in the humid heat of springtime New York. When we got back to the hotel close to midnight, I headed up to the roof terrace to take a quick shot of the Empire State Building reaching into the sky. I passed the gym on the way out, content in the thought that all the walking I had been doing over the past few days was more than equal to a good few workouts.

We’d been seeing adverts for The Addams Family over and over in the taxis we’d been taking, as they have little TV screens in the back, so we decided to go for tickets for that or The Lion King. The latter turned out not to be available, so we’ll do that in London sometime. I was quite intrigued to see The Addams Family as the two leads were actors I knew from the television: Bebe Neuwirth, the inimitable Lilith from Cheers and Frasier, and Roger Rees, the beautifully eccentric Lord John Marbury from The West Wing.

Having bought our tickets we walked along by the river to see the Brooklyn Bridge. A nice passerby took a photo of us both. Looking at the picture now I sort of remember the heat of the day. The humidity was quite high, but the weather we had really was wonderful. We sat in the sun for a little while admiring the bridges across the river, before heading back to the street to try and find a taxi.

Our next stop was the Puck Building – just to look at the figure’s big golden belly really. I knew the building from exterior shots in “Will & Grace”, but that’s about it. Just like a lot of things in New York, both Puck and the building were bigger than expected.

We were on our way to Chinatown to do a little wandering there and on the same street we saw a New York fire engine, with the names of firefighters from that crew who died on 9/11 painted on the cabin. That really gave a poignant sense of how crews lost great percentages of their team that day.