Auf Wiedersehen, Göttingen

It's been crickets here for a while, I know. I worked long hours in January and February for various reasons: it was planning and budgeting season, the coronavirus (COVID-19) was ramping up in Asia, I was getting ready for eight weeks long service leave, and of course there were a few of those those random requests that send you chasing your tail for no outcome at all. Gotta love those.

On 28 February I started my long service leave, and on the same day, got on a flight to Germany to do a language course. Studying at the Goethe Institut in Germany and doing the level C2 exam (a proficiency standard for European languages) has been top of my bucket list for years. David wanted to come with me and do a beginners German course. We were supposed to be gone for just over a month, but the Coronavirus situation escalated very quickly. Die Welt has published a fantastic animated graphic showing just how quickly things moved in countries outside China from late February. Every morning we got up something else had changed.

On Sunday night 15 March we learned that our German courses were cancelled along with the exam I was studying for. It was unavoidable but annoying, as both of us were really enjoying the course. Within two weeks, I had gone from being quite terrified and certain I would be unable to pass the exam to confident that I could. We cancelled our planned trip to Berlin at the end of the month. Then, the Australian government advised that citizens should return home as soon as possible, and there were rumours about the financial viability of airlines including one we were flying with.

The beautiful city of Göttingen where we were based started to close down. Shops and restaurants shut, public transport stopped taking cash and then started cutting services. Unable to contact the airlines as contact centres failed, we hot tailed it to Frankfurt airport to try and bring our flights forward in person, to no avail. Then the Tasmanian government announced new entry restrictions. We ended up forking out $3,800 on new flights to get home before even tougher travel restrictions came into force. Which we won't get back as travel insurance does not cover you in a pandemic.

I won't deny that having to say goodbye to my dream and the prospect of having nothing to look forward to again sent me into a bit of a downward spiral. But compared to the impact of this crisis on other people's lives and livelihoods, it's nothing. We're now into day two of 14 days self-isolation. I definitely won't be bored, as there is a long list of things I was planning to do in April, many of which can be done at home. Posting here is one of them.

To the end of the world and back

Tasmania certainly felt like the end of the world to me this week, after spending more than 23 hours in the air and around 7 hours in airports to travel home from a business trip to New York. It's longer on the way back. It takes only (!) 19 hours in the air to get there, and it also feels shorter as you arrive the same day you left, thanks to the international date line. Then on the way back a whole day is erased from your calendar somehow (what happened to my Sunday??) and every time I feel somehow ripped off. The flight wasn't the only shock to the system, as the temperature at home the day before I left was 36 degrees Celsius (97F) and -6C (21F) when I arrived in New York! I feel very lucky to be able to travel to meet my peers and leadership team and experience different parts of the world. This time, I stayed in the lower east side for a couple of nights and managed to hit the New Museum, a couple of distilleries, the northern end of Central Park and some Jewish food spots. I love NYC to bits.

Electric vehicles welcome here

A couple of years ago, the beautiful Palais Theatre in Franklin went digital, replacing its classic reel to reel movie projector with a fantastic new digital one. Now, in its latest nod to modern technology, the Palais has added an electric vehicle charging point to the side of the historic building! What a nice idea. There's been a Tesla charging point at Willie Smiths Apple Shed in Grove for some time. I'm looking forward to seeing more electric vehicles on the road in Tassie, especially in the summer peak tourist period.

The opposite of Tasmania

This week I was lucky enough to travel to Dubai for a work event. I've been through the airport several times but never been outside before. Most of the time I was in the huge 5-star Jumeirah Madinat resort and conference centre complex, modern but built to look like something ancient. Kind of like an Arabian Disneyland, a little too perfect. I got up before dawn so I could walk along the water and get some photos to post on social media (for work of course... also below!) Many of my photos feature the striking sail shaped Burj Al Arab, which changes colour constantly during the day and lights up at night. You can't help it when it grabs your attention every time you see it. From the natural beauty of Tasmania to artificial beauty. Both beautiful, just different.

The end of the fest

Today is the last day of Oktoberfest in Munich. The world's biggest fair and folk festival is almost over for another year.

Most years, we host an Oktoberfest bash at our place, complete with proper German-style sausages, pretzels, sauerkraut, salads, cakes and of course, beer brewed according to Germany's purity law of 1516. But not this year. This year, we went to the real thing in Munich.

On the first Sunday, we went to the traditional parade through the streets of music, watching more than two hours of floats, brass bands and community groups as they headed up Maximillianstrasse towards the Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest is held. There were so many beautiful traditional costumes and floats crammed with happy, waving people despite the rain.

A week later, we returned to go the festival itself and had a brilliant time, going on the giant wheel and the skyfall ride, enjoying the food and beer and soaking up the atmosphere.

If you're in Hobart and all of this beer-talk is making you thirsty, next Saturday 8 October, the Hobart Brewing Company is hosting it's own local Oktoberfest event. There's another, larger Oktoberfest event at Princes Wharf on 25 and 26 November ... although it will be well past October by then. Prost!

Independence Day in NYC

At 3am on the fourth of July for the past 19 years, lawyer and historian James S. Kaplan has led a walking tour of lower Manhattan, explaining New York's role in the American revolutionary war. He calls it his 'personal fight against historical ignorance'. When I realised I was going to be landing in New York late on the third of July, I stumbled across an event listing for this tour in the Time Out guide and thought "why not"? It's unlikely I will be in the US on this important day again. My knowledge of American history is pretty poor and I was keen to know more. So I booked my $20 ticket online, and after only three hours sleep, hopped in a cab from my hotel down to City Hall to join around 40-50 other people strolling behind James with his megaphone along the empty city streets in the early hours.

Promoted by the Fraunces Tavern Museum, the walking tour passes historical sites of significance in and around what is now the financial district. Many people know about the role that Boston and Philadelphia played in the war for American independence, but relatively few have heard the fascinating tales of what happened in New York. The tour concluded at 7am by laying wreaths on the graves of revolutionary war heroes Alexander Hamilton, Marinus Willett and Horatio Gates, in the Trinity Church Graveyard. Then back to my hotel to sleep for a few hours, so I could enjoy the Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks later on.

Craft distilling in NYC

When I travel, I like to ask people what they know about Tasmania. Five years ago, Taz the Tasmanian devil from the Looney Tunes cartoon was the best most people in the US could come up with. On my most recent visit this month, it was a different story. Yes, Taz came up, but so did Richard Flanagan and his Man Booker prize winning novel, convict history, the film The Hunter, world-class hiking and pinot noir. I even met a couple of people who between them could name three of Tasmania's award wining whisky distillers... OK, I met those people at Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, so that might be expected.

Kings County is one of a new breed of urban distillers. They make bourbon, moonshine and a few other small batch spirits from a historic building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and bill themselves as New York's oldest distiller... since prohibition that is. They've been operating since 2010. On Saturdays, you can tour the distillery and learn about the history and process of distilling from corn and malted barley and sample some of the end product, aged in American oak. There's a sunny 'whiskey garden' with pop up food providers in summer. I tried a brandy distilled from a 'dud' batch of wine from a local producer. It was delicious. They even have a super friendly distillery cat.

What happened to January?

Of the 31 days in January, I only spent six here at home in Tasmania. Unfortunately this meant I missed the summer festivals that Tassie does so well, like MOFO and the Cygnet Folk Festival. It also meant my summer gardening efforts were, well, pretty much zero or wasted. I came back to many kilos of broad beans that had to be picked, blanched and frozen immediately. Loads of snow peas. Tonnes of rhubarb. And after that, pretty much just weeds.

So where were we? I had work meetings in California in mid-January, so we managed to fit in 10 days holiday in San Francisco beforehand. It was my first visit to that lovely city and we stayed in an Airbnb right on the Powell-Hyde cable car line and two blocks from the famous Lombard Street. It was enough time to see almost all we wanted to: the Golden Gate Bridge of course, Sausalito, Alcatraz, a hike on Mt Tamalpais, Walt Disney Family Museum, wine tasting in the Napa Valley, hopping on and off historic cable cars and street cars. Then back home for five days and off to Singapore, again for work, but still managed to squeeze in a few sights. It has been great to be home for a few weeks, even though we were both knocked out by some horrible lurgy picked up on the flight back. So now the end of February is rushing up on us, and we are savouring the beautiful summer days and long evenings.