Essen

Today we went to the "big wheel", the "Bellevue Riesenrad" at Essen centre. It was really expensive, 4,50 per person, but I would say it was worth it. The day was clear, the sun was slowly going down, and the wheel was really big! That means we could really see far away!

It's amazing how here, in the middle of Ruhrpott, you see city landscape everywhere: industry, buildings, and little strips of forest. You can clearly see that millions of people live in this area. But it's still beautiful.

In the first photo you can see the Essen Rathaus (City hall) and the wheel, the second picture is an impression of the city.

I'm so late in posting this. We actually went there some weeks ago, but I just haven't gotten around to show you the lovely pictures.

Margaretenhöhe is a district in Essen, built around 1910-1920 and very very beautiful! There's a lovely park, where we went for a walk. These are photos from there. There was so many different kinds of leaves on the ground! I can't wait to see this park in the summer.

A few weeks back Nick planned a surprise for me and booked us places for the tour around the RWE tower, the highest buliding in the region. Take a look at the views from these panorama pics Nick made (tip: click on the title).

It's been so hot I haven't been knitting much. I am doing other stuff, however - worrying about the new job a bit (the employer's expectations are quite much higher than in Ireland), and visiting the local sights on weekends. Last weekend (sorry for not posting earlier - the job...) we went to Zeche Zollverein, the "most beautiful coal mine in the world" and an Unesco world heritage sight is just 20 minutes tram ride from Essen city centre. What a lovely, interesting, historical place it is! There's more photos after you press Read more

 * Kävimme vanhassa hiilikaivoksessa Zeche Zollvereinissa, joka on nykyään Unescon maailmanperintökohde. Se on lähellä Essenin keskustaa, n. 20 min, ja upea kohde! Kuulostaa kliseeltä mutta siellä menneisyys ja nykyisyys kohtaavat. Katso kuvat alta. *

It's happened, I left Ireland and have pretty much settled into Essen , a beautiful city in Nordrhein-Westfalen (often shortened as NRW), Germany.

The move was quite easy looking back, me and Nick were able to share the workload and everything worked out fine. I even got most of the needed documentation already, and most of the tasks done (register as resident, open bank account...) . The weather was gorgeous for the first few days,but lately it's been rainy again. I hoped to escape bad weather when leaving Ireland, but that hasn't happened yet unfortunately. Luckily I was in Finland for a week, where the weather was a bit nicer (I'll post separately on that).

As you may have noticed, I haven't been blogging or knitting too much lately because of the move. Well tomorrow morning it will happen - and I will have officially left Ireland.

This is just to say it might take another week or two before I get back on my usual blogging schedule. So please do check back, I have ordered some new gorgeous yarns and have some socks on the go - I'll show them to you as soon as I can.