At the end of November we headed to the US for AWS re:Invent as well as a long-awaited Christmas visit with my family.

We had a fairly early flight out of Munich, and the first snowfall of the year was just starting as we waited for the train to the airport.

We flew from Munich to Chicago, our first big transcontinental flight in a very long time! That flight wasn’t too full, but the one from Chicago to Vegas certainly was.

We got to Vegas and checked into our hotel. We were both pretty tired, but we knew we had to stay up as long as we could. Some of the European AWS leaders I knew were in town, so we met up with a few of them for dinner at In-N-Out.

That’s us with the lovely Rinon and Gloria from Zürich at The Book in the Linq Hotel. We were really flagging at this point, so that’s when we called it a night!

The next day I wasn’t on duty until later in the day, so I took the Snook to lunch with a colleague of mine at the Momofuku in the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

The pork belly buns are, as always, divine…

The Snook went with the Shoyu Pork Ramen…

…while I had the Ginger Scallion Noodle with Chicken.

We were staying in the Bellagio, which had kind of a “winter wonderland” set up in the lobby. I should note that I was really happily surprised by the level of mask wearing in Vegas. All of the casinos had signs up announcing that masks were required, and pretty much everybody was complying. I even saw people wearing them on the Strip in the spots that were very crowded.

I headed over to the Expo hall to meet up with my colleagues at the AWS DevLounge. Here I am with Isa, who heads up AWS DevRel for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa).

We had a big wall set up for user group leaders to write on, so I couldn’t resist giving a shoutout to my buddies back in Australia!

That night I headed to Mandalay Bay for a special AWS Heroes event. Heroes are external AWS experts who are recognised for leading communities, creating content, and basically being amazing ambassadors for the platform. One of the perks they get each year is an all-expenses paid trip to re:Invent, as well as a special kickoff mixer. This is me with Martin, Markus, and Philipp from the German AWS community.

The view was pretty amazing!

I spent the whole next day in a meeting room with the DevRel leadership team, working on our goals and strategy for the year. (I should mention that Rodd was actually working too, just remotely from our hotel.) We had a special dinner reservation that night though…

Roy Choi’s Best Friend in the Park MGM! We caught the monorail over and were delighted to discover that the Park MGM is smoke-free. WOW. I’m actually tempted to stay there the next time I visit. It was literally a breath of fresh air.

The front of Best Friend looks like a Korean convenience store, but once you get in it opens up into a more traditional dining room. Our table had a view through to the kitchen. (I still look jet lagged.)

It’s a Korean restaurant, so of course we had to get banchan! I also couldn’t resist ordering a Frosé slushie from the “Dranks” menu.

We had Kogi Short Rib Tacos, Street Corn, Garlic Chicken, and glistening dinner rolls. In all honesty, it was too much food!

These are the faces of two people who are definitely not ordering dessert. 😂

One of my main jobs at re:Invent was hosting some of the AWS OnAir sessions. Here’s one that I did the next day talking with our customer Aerospike.

I should also mention that I helped with a project to build a beer recommendation mobile application, which was also presented by some of my colleagues at re:Invent too.

After a long day in the Expo, I headed over to the Wynn casino for a meeting of AWS User Group leaders.

That’s me with my colleague Sebastien taking selfies. It was really cool to hear from some of these folks about best practices for running meetups and creating inclusive communities.

That night, the DevRel team had a dinner at the Eiffel Tower in the Paris Hotel. We had a really great view of the Bellagio Fountain show.

And I had a pretty amazing Creme Brûlée to end the night…

The next day, I broke out my famous AWS dress. Here I am along with Dale Chihuly’s famous “Fiori Di Como” ceiling in the Bellagio.

My last day at re:Invent started in the Expo Hall again as we were getting ready for another day of Community talks.

I also hosted several more OnAir sessions, including this cool one where had some of the new AWS Outposts servers physically there to look at.

And that was it for my first ever re:Invent experience! It was finally time to go on vacation…

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Not long after we got to Munich, I saw an ad on Facebook for the West End theatrical production of Neil Gaiman’s book The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I bought the book back in 2014 and we both read it and loved it. I knew that the play had received rave reviews when it opened at the National Theatre a few years back, and it seemed like a great opportunity for a trip back to London to reunite with some of our friends. I decided to play it very safe and buy tickets for a full year in the future, hoping that by then we’d be able to safely travel there and see it. I splurged and got really nice tickets for November 2021 (for our wedding anniversary), and we booked our flights and hoped things would work out. Thankfully, for the most part it did!

The UK had famously dropped most Covid restrictions by the end of 2021, and Omicron hadn’t yet hit. We still had to show our vaccination passes, and there was a requirement that visitors had to take a Covid test within 2 days of arriving. We pre-booked our tests for pickup at the airport and managed to collect them in Heathrow without too much trouble. We caught the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then walked to our hotel, the Park Grand Lancaster Gate.

We deliberately chose the hotel because it was so close to where we had both first lived in London. In fact, it was just up the street from where I had lived as a student (and later RA) for the Notre Dame London Program. The old digs had been done up a bit posher than I remembered.

This was an incredibly special place to visit – The Leinster Arms. This was my local pub as a student, and it’s where I had my first ever pint in London. I spent so many hours (and quid!) there with my friends when I was a student. I used to have dreams where I was back in this pub. We went straight there, and I was shocked to see how upmarket it is these days. (The London in my mind is perpetually 1999.) It was clean and refurbished, and full of nice-looking couples (rather than feral uni students). My beloved dartboard was gone (as was the dodgy jukebox – which had been affixed to the wall right behind where I’m standing here), but on the upside, the taps were full of local craft brews.

The bartender kindly let us know that a table had opened up in the front room, so we finished our beers there. We were about six feet from the spot where we had one of our first dates, nearly 22 years before! Most of the patrons were watching a rugby game on TV – Australia vs. England. “Do you think I’ll get beat up if I cheer for Australia?” the Snook asked. “Best not risk it.”

We walked over to Queensway to check out the neighbourhood, and I was sad to see that the Gooch (another pub) had closed since we last visited in 2016. The Snook was reminiscing about his first address in London, a dodgy backpackers nearby that he had stayed in with his mate Steve. Queensway wasn’t quite as feral as we remembered, and many of the tourist shops seemed to be gone. Whiteleys (the shopping center) is undergoing some massive refurbishment. Queensway Tube Station felt the same as always though, with that weird elevator entrance, but it was nice to be able to swipe in/out with my iPhone. We caught the Central line to Tottenham Court Road as we had a very special person to meet…

Alex! He looks exactly the same, though the salt-and-pepper hair is all white these days. We both met Alex at the same time when was assigned to the “madaboutwine.co.uk” team with us back in 1999, and he eventually ended up rooming with Rodd in Harlesden before the three of us got a share house in Hammersmith. Now he’s married with a wife and kids out in the suburbs, but he kindly came in to town for a bit of a pub crawl with us…

We spent a few hours together getting reacquainted with Soho, Covent Garden, and Seven Dials. It all felt very Christmassy and festive. The number of people out and about was truly shocking through. Not just in a “don’t they know there’s a pandemic happening?” kind of way, but in a “this is way more people than I ever remember seeing here on a random Friday night before” way. And what’s with the “pedi-cabs” in London these days? There were heaps of bicycle taxis decked out with lights blaring doof-doof music at every turn.

We ended the night as one usually does, having a late night feed in Chinatown. The food and the company were excellent.

We parted from Alex at Picadilly Circus at midnight. It was so lovely to see him. ❤️

We walked back up Regent Street, peeking in the shop windows. Hamleys had a lovely Harry Potter themed display set up! We finally caught a taxi back to our hotel before retiring for the night.

We were both feeling a bit seedy the next day after such a big night, so there was only one thing for it – a full English breakfast. We found Sheila’s Cafe nearby that more than did the trick. Once fortified, we headed back towards Covent Garden for our next rendezvous…

Steve! This is the Aussie who dragged Rodd to London in the first place, who crashed with him in the dodgy backpackers and then in the bedsit in Harlesden, and who we once memorably visited while he was bartending at a remote hotel on Loch Lomond. Steve and his wife Kate have been living with their kids in England for many years now, so it was a real treat to get to catch up with him. ❤️ And then a few hours later it was time for…

Ben! Aka Wee Ben, aka the Ferret. Ben is actually the reason I have this silly domain name in the first place, as he first dubbed me the “web goddess” (in a thick Glaswegian accent) way back in 2000. He looks exactly the same. We tramped around the city with him and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. He and Rodd reminisced about visiting dodgy computer markets together. It was nice. ❤️

Honestly, I love the Tube. It’s always filthy and you wonder how this Victorian marvel keeps hanging in there, but I love it.

The next morning we headed out for a walk through Hyde Park. I was looking for a very particular bench dedicated to Rudolf Steiner near the Serpentine. It was a spot that I had loved visiting as a student, and Rodd and I once had a picnic on the grass nearby not long after we started dating. (We found the bench. He’s still just as cute.)

“The Arch” by Henry Moore. We both remembered seeing the large version in Columbus, Indiana when we visited in 2019, but neither of us remembered this one in London. (Turns out it’s because it was taken down in 1996 and only put back up in 2012.)

As we neared the Serpentine Bridge, we heard the sound of hooves. It was a long mounted horse guard trooping past! No idea why, but it was fun to watch.

We exited the park near the Royal Albert Hall, stopping to check out the Albert Memorial. After the West End crowds on the weekend, the park felt strangely empty of tourists.

We headed to the nearest Tube Station and headed towards the City of London, where we split up for a few hours.

I had a boozy lunch with my AWS colleagues Iliyana and Isabel…

…and then swung past St. Paul’s on my way towards the river.

I crossed the Thames at the Millennium Bridge. (It’s nice that they repaired it after the Death Eaters destroyed it!)

Looking east, I could see all the way to Tower Bridge, with the massive Shard dominating the skyline.

My destination was just on the other side of the river though – the Tate Modern.

And there, waiting on the Thames foreshore, was a very smartly dressed Mr. Snook…

…who had been off having some manscaping done at a posh Bankside barber. Look at that beard shaping! 😍

Time to go see some art.

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At some point during our first six months in Munich, the Snook casually mentioned that we should go ride on Falkor. I was like, “Wait, what?!” He’d somehow learned about the existence of Bavaria Filmstadt, the local movie studio facility, and that it had a tour where you could literally sit on Falkor the luckdragon from The Neverending Story. I was all in on that idea.

Bavaria Filmstadt has been around under various names for over 100 years. Alfred Hitchcock made his first film there, and the many notable productions filmed in part there include The Great Escape, The Sound of Music, Cabaret, Downfall, and Das Boot. And of course, relevant to my own personal interests – a little 1971 movie called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory…

The film studios are south of the Munich city center along the Isar, and not that far from where we live. We picked a nice autumn day and had a nice slow 45min pootle along the river on our bicycles.

Here’s the entrance to the studios. We had pre-booked tickets for the 90min tour. The website mentioned English tours once a day, but we discovered when we got there that they weren’t happening anymore because demand had dropped during Covid. Thankfully they had an app that provided some English commentary so we wouldn’t be completely lost.

The entranceway has some fun exhibits set up, like this scale model of the U-96 from Das Boot. There were also a couple food trucks, so we grabbed a quick lunch before the tour kicked off. Then we were ushered onto a little train which drove us around past some of the studios and offices. Our first stop was a “4D Motion Ride” called Mogli’s Dschungel Abenteur. It’s one of those things where you’re watching a very disorienting 3D movie while the seating moves up and down and water occasionally sprays in your face. It was… not my favourite part of the day.

Then the actual studio tour began. Our group weaved our way through different film sets and props from the movies over the years. I got the impression that the layout depends greatly on what’s been filming there recently. This was part of the backdrop for the upcoming filmed version of The Magic Flute that had filmed six months earlier.

From there we shuffled straight into the White House! This hallway had apparently featured in the upcoming Kung Fury 2 featuring none other than…

President Schwarzenegger himself. 😂

They had a large exhibit of set pieces from the Jim Button German films, including Emma the Locomotive. I haven’t read these books but they’re by Michael Ende, author of The Neverending Story. 

I believe this was Nepomuk the Dragon.

We were were shuffling between rooms when I glanced upwards and stopped dead in my tracks. The Southern Oracle!

At one point we shuffled down a hallway with lots of photos from past productions. At the end of it was a small exhibit of items from The Neverending Story, including a mural of the Auryn.

Morla, the Ancient One! Just looking at that face, I could hear that wheezing voice in my mind.

The Rockbiter! I like that they included a joyous representation of him, rather than the sad “They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?” version that makes me want to cry.

I didn’t spot any props from Willy Wonka but I did see it represented in a photo on the wall.

They had a major exhibit from Das Boot, including this scale (I think?) model of the turret from the submarine.

Another scale model of the sub. They had exhibits outside showing how the crew filmed shots from the movie as well as the 2018 TV series. We then joined the queue shuffling into the long building behind…

…which turned out to be the actual set of the submarine!

It was a pretty tight fit!

Would it surprise you to learn that he was actually quoting lines from The Hunt for Red October the whole time? “One ping only, please,” I heard him growl. ❤️

Note: the sub is pretty small, and there are places where you have to climb through low bulkhead doors like behind the Snook here!

Another studio had sets from the recent sci-fi film Stowaway.

The Snook was very excited by this exhibit of sets from Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar. We walked through the mock Gaulish village…

…and found Obelix’s quarry where he works on the menhirs (standing stones)!

They also had the set used for Caesar’s dungeon…

…including a pool filled with (thankfully fake) crocodiles!

Another outdoor set was a Viking village from the Vicky the Viking film.

The tour also had a couple interactive areas where I didn’t take photos. One was the classroom set from the German film trilogy Fack ju Göhe (which translate to, I kid you not, “F**k you Goethe” in English!). There a couple volunteers sat at desks and recited lines which were then edited into a scene from the movie. Another was about special effects and had a few of us (including me and the Snook) in a mock train carriage while a guy scrolled scenery out the window. (Apparently you could download these clips when you left, but we didn’t bother.)

The gift shop also had some fun Neverending Story merch, including a box full of Auryns and some very cute little Falkors!

Our final stop was to visit the luckdragon himself. They had him set up in a small building near the entrance to the studios, and to my shock not many of the tourists there that day seemed very excited to visit him.

A couple stuck their heads in as we were geeking out and taking photos of each other riding Falkor. The guy nicely offered to take one of the two of us, then grudgingly admitted he’d never seen the movie! 😱

Look at that face! Can’t you just hear his voice? I felt like a kid again.

I forgot to mention – we were there a couple days before Halloween and they were prepping for a special event. The whole tour was being made over with a haunted house theme for a “Spookytour,” and we saw lots of creepy props and zombie cast members getting ready. The Snook didn’t want to particularly do that, but I couldn’t resist saying “Spookytour” over and over. And wow, special Halloween Dunkin’ Donuts!

And then we headed home, enjoying a very autumnal ride through the Bavarian forest.

We crossed a high rail bridge and you can see that the trees were really changing colour.

And a final view of the Isar before we got home…

This month we went on a very special trip to Italy.

As always with these travel posts, I have to put them in context. This one goes way back! Five years ago, I went to a special foodie symposium at the Sydney Opera House hosted by acclaimed Danish chef René Redzepi (from Noma). He was joined onstage by many other chefs, including David Chang (from Momofuku) and Massimo Bottura (from Osteria Francescana). The event was all about the future of food, how we eat as a society, how food and culture intersect and impact the environment, and the responsibility of chefs to educate. Not only are these guys all really smart, they’re literally the best in the world at what they do. When you get a chance to eat at one of their restaurants, you take it.

Fast forward to September 2020, not long after we arrived in Germany. I started thinking about which bucket list restaurants we could visit in Europe, and I discovered that Osteria Francescana takes bookings six months in advance. It’s been rated the best restaurant in the world twice and currently has three Michelin stars. (Also, if you watched Master of None on Netflix, it was featured – along with Massimo himself – in Season 2.) Covid was still making everything uncertain, but we figured it was worth taking a gamble. The restaurant is very small (it only has 12 tables!!), but we managed to get a reservation for the following April. Unfortunately, we went into lockdown over winter and things were still very uncertain in March. The restaurant was open but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to get in/out of Italy without having to quarantine. Reluctantly, we cancelled the reservation and decided to try again. Thankfully we were able to get another booking for the following September, a full year after the initial idea. And happily, this time we were vaccinated and able to go.

As usual, we decided to train it. We caught the EuroCity train from Munich to Bologna, travelling south across Austria through the Tyrolean Alps to Italy. The trip takes about 7 hours and features truly stunning scenery. We were lucky that that weather was perfect and we had great views of soaring bridges, charming villages, and hilltop fortresses. (Note: we wore masks the whole time and I only had him take it off briefly for the photo!)

As we passed through Verona, a cheeky Capulet bit his thumb at me! 😂

At Bologna we had to change trains for the short ride to Modena, our destination for the weekend. Modena is known for UNESCO World Heritage sites, balsamic vinegar, Enzo Ferrari, Luciano Pavarotti, and of course, a very special restaurant. We hauled our bags over to our hotel and the headed out into the city to explore.

We got to Piazza Roma just as the sun was setting. The Ducal Palace runs down one side and has fountains out in front.

I’d found a promising place for dinner so we went for a wander through the cobbled streets of the historic center.

We headed to Sosta Emiliana, where we grabbed a small table outside. The restaurant specialised in local delicacies from Emilia-Romagna like tigella (Modenese flatbreads), meats and cheeses, and sparkling Lambrusco. We went with platters that meant we got to taste a bit of everything!

On our way back to the hotel we passed the Duomo di Modena (Modena Cathedral), a UNESCO World Heritage site. It looked very dramatic lit up against the night sky.

“Have we had too much Lambrusco or… is it leaning a bit?” we wondered. Definitely some funky angles going on there.

The next day the morning dawned hot and sunny. We had time to fill before our reservation, so we headed into the Parco Giardino Ducale Estense, the park that was formerly the gardens of the Ducal Palace. (As you can see, we dressed up a bit for our fancy lunch.)

The old part of Modena is shaped almost like a pentagon so we went for a long stroll around it. This beautiful building on the Viale delle Rimembranze is actually a bank!

The Snook scoped out the local real estate prices.

We also went back to the Cathedral and ventured inside. (It’s where Pavarotti’s funeral was held!) It’s over 800 years old and features lots of different styles of carvings and embellishments. The stone lions next to the entrance date to the Roman times and were thought to have been found while digging the foundations. The Cathedral also features the burial site of St. Geminianus, the patron saint of Modena.

We’d worked up quite an appetite by this point, so it was time to go to lunch! The restaurant entrance is quite unassuming with only a tiny sign, and we probably would’ve walked right past if not for the small group of people waiting nearby. We spent the time taking photographs with some of the other guests and gawking at the Maseratis and Ferraris parked down the street.

And then we were ushered inside!

Rather than a single big space, the restaurant had a few different rooms and we were in one with only four tables.  The walls were decorated with fine art and I felt a little daunted to be sitting there in a dress I’d sewn myself!

Buckle up, because you’re about to get a LOT of food photos…

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After only glimpsing the Chiemsee from a distance on our trip to Salzburg, we knew we needed to head back on a nice day. It’s a large freshwater lake with several islands you can visit, including one with a palace! So when a suitable weather forecast presented itself, we caught the train southeast from Munich towards Prien am Chiemsee…

But not this train, of course. We took a modern train from Munich. This little green steam train is actually the Chiemsee-Bahn, which runs about a mile from the main station in Prien down to the edge of the lake. You could easily walk that distance, but we couldn’t resist getting to ride on heritage-listed choo-choo!

The train lets you out right at the water and then the engine detaches, spins around on a turntable, and hooks up to head back the other direction.

All of the Chiemsee ferries and cruises depart from this landing, and there are restaurants, a Ferris wheel, boat rental, a promenade, a swimming center, and lots of folks just hanging out, enjoying the weather. The view of the lake was really spectacular.

We hopped on a ferry and headed to the Herreninsel (“Men’s island”), the largest one and the one with the palace.

When you get to the island, you end up at a visitor center next to an old Augustinian Monastery. There’s about a 20 minute walk to the Herrenchiemsee Palace, or you can take a horse carriage ride. We went for the walk, strolling through a beautiful shady wood…

We eventually reached a break in the woods and stepped out into a formal garden, straight out of Versailles! 😳

It’s not accidental. It was built by King Ludwig II as the third and last of his famous castles (after Neuschwanstein and Linderhof), and he deliberately modelled it after Versailles. Dude had a fixation with Louis XIV! Several of the fountains are copies of ones at the French palace. (They weren’t running constantly; it seems like they were going every half an hour on the day we were there.)

The only way to see inside the palace is to book a tour, and I was lucky enough to get us on one of the few English versions. It was us and two other couples, and the tour guide took us inside and through all of the completed rooms. Unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed, but you can see some pictures on the Wikipedia page. One thing I found fascinating was that Ludwig had his architects copy Versailles pretty closely, but he also built in secret “modern” technology, like central heating from furnaces under the palace. He also had a trap door under his dining table, which cranked up and down like an elevator so it could magically appear with food on it! The Hall of Mirrors was spectacular, as was the world’s largest Meissen porcelain chandelier. Sadly, Ludwig ran out of money before the palace was finished, and he only spent like ten days there before he mysteriously died at 40. (Nowadays they use the unfinished part to host art exhibitions.)

Leaving the palace, you look across the sunken formal garden all the way to the Chiemsee in the distance!

After a wander back to ferry landing, we caught another boat over to the Fraueninsel (“ladies’ island”).

While the Herreninsel is mainly a tourist destination, the Fraueninsel has a Benedictine convent and a little village of about 300. It’s car-free, so we had a lovely time walking around and checking out all the little houses and shops. I noticed that several of the places had rental details on them, and I can’t imagine a more beautiful place to spend a week just chilling out. We were also delighted to spot some familiar flags. There are Antipodeans living on Fraueninsel! 🇦🇺🇳🇿

We took another small cruise to end the day, but we were getting a bit sunburnt and tired at this point!

To get home, we disembarked at Prien Stock and took the Chiemsee-Bahn back to Prien train station, before catching the regional train back to Munich. Lovely day out on the water!

It’s summer in Deutschland, and now that we’ve had our first vaccine shot, we feel a bit more comfortable travelling again. It was finally time to head out of Munich for the first time since the Zugspitze last year. And where did we go? Salzburg, Austria.

We actually started the day with a Covid Schnelltest at our local shopping center. Austria has lifted a lot of its restrictions, but we knew that it was important to have a negative test result. By the time we got to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) 20min later, the results were in our email inboxes. Protip: Bavaria offers a special discount ticket called the Bayern Ticket, which lets you ride regional trains and most public transport through Bavaria. It also gets you to Salzburg, which is about two hours from Munich. The weather forecast was for clouds, but it was a beautiful sunny day as we headed southeast towards the mountains, whizzing through idyllic German villages and rolling green fields…

We crossed the Salzach River and got our first glimpse of the Festung Hohensalzburg (“High Salzburg Fortress”) atop the Festungsberg as we pulled into our destination. I had planned some activities based on this blog post, including booking tickets up to the castle. We had a few hours to kill though, so we started by walking to the Altstadt along the river. We crossed over at the Marko-Feingold-Steg, a pedestrian bridge decorated by visitors with thousands of padlocks.

We headed to Getreidegasse (“Grain Lane”), a busy shopping street in the heart of the old town. It’s narrow and historic and super charming, even despite the fact that many of the shops were the same as you’d see in any major city. It was also surprisingly busy, and I found myself feeling a little wary of all the unmasked folks! (It’s been a long lockdown. 🙁)

It was lunchtime and we were hungry, so we headed to the Zipfer Bierhaus. We got a table out the back in University Square and enjoyed a couple plates of sausages along with some local Austrian brew…

Our next stop was back on Getreidegasse – Mozarts Geburtshaus (Mozart’s birthplace). It was fairly empty at the time, and we enjoyed wandering the rooms and  learning a bit more about his life and his family. Did you know that Mozart’s sister Maria Anna (nicknamed “Nannerl” by the family) was also a musical child prodigy, but because she was a girl, she eventually had to stop touring and performing? (I found myself feeling so angry on her behalf.) I was also surprised to see that pianos in Mozart’s day had the black and white keys reversed!

We ended the tour in the gift shop, of course, where I bought a cool lenticular magnet to add to our collection. They had a TV set up showing scenes from Amadeus, and I confessed to the Snook that I’d never seen it. That was going to have to be rectified, I decided…

And then it was time to head up to the fortress! We caught the Festungsbahn (funicular) up to the top and were greeted with stunning views across the city to the mountains beyond.

The day was turning out pretty hot, so we headed into the Zeughaus (Armory) Museum to cool off and learn about medieval weaponry. They had a lot of interactive exhibits, including a kiosk where you could picture yourself as a knight. The Snook also enjoyed creating virtual gunpowder and seeing how far he could fire a cannon.

The real highlight of the Festung is the view over the city. How stunning is this? This is why we came to Europe. ❤️

It really was quite hot though. 😅 We were also getting tired from all the walking so we caught a quick rest in the shade.

Our tickets also included access to the Prince’s Chambers, the richly appointed staterooms installed by Prince-Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach. My favourite part was the Golden Hall, with its 17m-long beam, carved columns, and decorated ceiling.

And from every window, an amazing view…

We were really flagging by this point, so we caught the funicular back down to the Altstadt. In need of refreshment, we headed to the nearby Stiegl-Keller where I was delighted to sample their Grapefruit Radler in the rooftop biergarten. What a way to end the day!

We walked back to the Hauptbahnhof and caught the return train to Munich, exhausted and happy. What a perfect day! Can’t wait to do more exploring over the next few months…

OH! And the first thing we did back in Munich? Watch Amadeus, of course. I loved it. ❤️

The AWS Summit EMEA is coming up next week, and a few of my colleagues created funny videos to drum up excitement. Seb documented his preparations, as did Darko, but a bit more retro. Isa did a super cute one with her pupper Jago, a “Solutions Barkitecht”. 😂

My first impulse was to do something similar for mine, but of course include myself surrounded by knitting projects. But the more I thought about it, the more boring that felt. I knew I really needed to raise the level of creativity.

And then I had a flash of inspiration – GPS art! This is where you run/walk/cycle a particular path and the GPS path in your tracking app draws a picture. What if I could cycle my way across the AWS logo?? I immediately started searching for an app, hoping there was a way to automatically plan out a route. But guess what? Tech has not cracked this particular problem yet. My only option was to do it the hard way.

I opened up Google Maps and realised immediately I was going to have a problem. Munich is an old city, and it doesn’t have a nice rectangular grid for its streets. It’s also got the Altstadt (the medieval city center) and a river running right through it, all of which really limited my options. I decided to focus on looking for something suitable for the smile part. It probably took me half an hour to find a nice big curving bit to the south-east. I used the drawing tools in Google’s “My Maps” to draw on the map and plot out the rest of the logo. Not too bad! All I needed then was to join it up into an actual cycling map that I could follow.

For that I used Strava, which I’ve been using to track my cycling for a few years. It has a feature where you can create your own Routes and it will help plot out the path. I ended up creating it as a “walking” route because that gave me finer-grained control over which streets I could take. (When you select “cycling,” it will push you towards cycleways – which is normally great, but for this I was willing to forego that.) It turns out this caused me one slight issue, which I’ll get to shortly. But pretty quickly I had my route, as well as an estimated distance – 21.8km. Yikes! And that didn’t even include getting from the start/finish to my house. I knew this was going to take me a couple hours to complete.

On the day of the ride, I had the Snook film me getting ready. I filled up my hydration backpack and wore my new padded cycling pants. Then I was off! I have a mount for my iPhone on the handlebars, which allows me to easily see the map as well as film footage of both the road and my face as I’m riding. Everything went pretty well, until…

Yeah. My route had me turning left… onto that bridge way above my head. There were stairs, but at that point I was in no state to drag my bike up there. This is the downside to using a walking route! So I had to improvise a bit, going down a side-street and walking my bike along a path to get back onto the route.

The only other mishap was a wrong turn at the base of the second point on the “w”, which I thankfully caught quickly. Unfortunately Strava doesn’t allow you to remove points afterwards, but it was small enough that it doesn’t really detract. On the upside, I also discovered that when you “pause” tracking on Strava and then “un-pause,” it will draw a straight line between those points. I realised I could use this strategically to create diagonals and smooth out some of the rougher bits along the “s”.

As I got back to the house, I messaged the Snook to come out and meet me so he could film one final bit of me arriving and saying “I’m getting ready for the AWS Summit. Are you?” I was pretty puffed at that point, and the hydration pack was completely empty. 😅

So here’s the final cycling workout!

Then I used iMovie to cut together all the footage I’d created, along with a final screenshot of the map. I was really pleased with it and sent it to a few folks. One of them loved it and was really enthusiastic, but the other reactions were muted. It was only when I probed them further that I realised they didn’t get it! They weren’t seeing the logo at all. Once I pointed it out they could see it, but without that context it just looked like I was riding around Munich aimlessly for no reason. 😂 So I had to do a lot of explaining, including for the lovely marketing folks who cut together the final version with music and graphics.

Anyway, here it is! My first ever attempt at GPS art. And if you’d like to attend the AWS Summit next week (it’s free!), you can register here: https://amzn.to/3fbS1wA.

The Corona situation has been improving in Germany, mainly because the vaccination rate has been steadily increasing. Supply seems to have increased and we even hit 1M vaccinations in a single day! Here in Bavaria the situation is even better. While the big Immunisation Centers are still adhering to strict prioritisation, the local government recently announced that GPs could administer the vaccine regardless of priority groups. We’re at about 40% of the population with one shot, and 13% fully immunised. And thankfully, the Snook and I can now count ourselves among that 40%!

We were able to get appointments at MVZ Laim through the Doctolib app. The Snook had seen on Reddit that some folks were managing to get appointments there, and he started checking the app periodically. When appointments appeared for Saturday, he jumped on it. Then we debated whether to go through with it or cancel. MVZ were only offering AstraZeneca with a 12-week wait for the second shot (putting us into August for full immunisation). If we cancelled and got an mRNA vaccine, we’d be able to get the second shot sooner. Ultimately we decided it was better to have some protection now rather than risk waiting any longer.

At MVZ there was a steady stream of people in for their vaccinations. We checked in and were happy to find that the staff swiftly switched to English once they heard our accents. We were asked if we’d brought our safety waivers (acknowledging the risk of the AZ shot), which we had. Then we were directed into a waiting room. After a few minutes, the doctor called Rodd but realised we were together and brought me in as well. We had forgotten to bring our “Impfung Ausweis” (vaccination card), which is a little yellow book where your doctor records all your vaccinations. He instead gave us a form that recorded our first shots and made us promise to bring the Ausweis next time. Then he swiftly gave us the shots in our left arms and directed us to another waiting room for 15 minutes in case we had any adverse reactions. Then we were allowed to head home.

I honestly teared up a bit when he gave me the shot. I haven’t been particularly worried about myself through the pandemic; it was more the thought of how much human ingenuity and hard work and sacrifice had gone into this massive effort around the world. SCIENCE, YEAH! Humanity is amazing. ❤️

For that first day, I didn’t really have any side effects other than perhaps a mild headache. By the evening though, the Snook was responding as he does to any viral infection: fever and chills to the point of teeth chattering. During the night my usual response kicked in, with a fever, muscle aches, and my arm getting very sore. We both spent the next day resting and hydrating. Now on Day 2 we’re feeling better, but both of us still have slightly elevated temperatures. Our arms are still sore.

Still worth it.