"Welcome home, Mr Smith" - London

We've now arrived in London, England (pronounced Ing-ga-lahnd). Already the comforts of English newspapers, television, and people who keep to the left has made us the most relaxed we've been for a while. We were met by Katherine Belton, former Vis Mooter, and more importantly, someone with a Kiwi accent who took us to the most amazing accommodation we've had so far (here). We've since been fed potato and leek soup by some incredibly hospitable hosts and are about to settle for the night, with enough time for a quick post.

Finished up our time in Berlin, got to visit the Jewish museum and Checkpoint Charlie. Nice but a depressing number of tourists. Also managed to get a refreshing amount of sleep.

Travelled to London with our first experience with EasyJet. Starting to understand the stories - Alex wasn't allowed to take two small bags through, had to put one into the other despite my bag being about 4 times the size and causing no trouble. I got quite an intimate pat down from security, and it took us a moment to figure our way through the non-allocation of seats on the plane, but we'll know for future.

Alex has well made plans for tomorrow involving shopping. It's very weird to hear from all our German friends getting ready to head to the Hong Kong moot while we stay here in Europe. Almost wish we were going there as well but at least we'll see them in Vienna (except Bucerius, still so sad about that). Good luck to all of you!


Also, photos of us in Berlin are here

Almost through Germany! Until we come back later... - Hannover / Berlin

We stayed in Hanover with the lovely Mirko who had met his beautiful girlfriend in New Zealand which meant that he was always going to like us. His house was full of pictures of New Zealand and rather embarrassingly for me I think he has seen more of our country than I have!

The Rathaus

Hannover has an incredibly good and incredibly tall coach called Sven. He is so tall that when he takes the Hannover team to Hong Kong all the locals run after him to take photos of him. We had a great time with the Hannover team and did three pleadings on the Monday. In the afternoon we did a variation on the general moot and each side would put forward a point and then the other side would respond over and over again. Before we began Sven told us to close the door 'so no one can hear your screams' and it was somewhat torturous.

After that Mirko took us for a tour of Hannover. We saw the opera house, the town centre and the stunning Rathaus which overlooks the March sea. We then walked along this home in the twilight. That night the Hannover team came over and we played drinking games to Sin City and I tried my new favorite drink apfelschorle and vodka, while the other girls preferred a mix of grapefruit juice and beer. I can't really comment about the rest of the night however, as I fell asleep almost as soon as we started watching.

Us with three of five of the Hannover team

The next day we had a morning hearing before catching the 1.30 train to Berlin. Nigel and I are now experts (touch wood) of the German train system and had a very smooth trip to Berlin. The Free University of Berlin (Nigel thought was called that because it was actually free. Actually its because it was in West, as opposed to East Germany) are a seriously cool bunch and we were taken back to Kristina's epically renovated flat. At 6pm we had a pleading against Humboldt, Berlin's other prominent faculty of law, at their university which is right in the centre of Berlin. Afterwards we got to see the Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag and the Jewish memorial and the Oostamerplatz before having dinner. It was one of the teams birthdays so we had strawberry cheesecake and champagne (om nom nom) before retiring to bed.

One last thing: we showed Thilo Schmidt, the Freie coach, our blog. His comment was that the blog just seems to be pictures of me eating. Nigel found this comment highly amusing. I will endeavor to give less of an impression that aim eating my way through Europe.

Alex Sinclair

To see photos of our travels around Hannover click here

Still on the couch - Hannover

Things Nigel likes about Germany:

• The culture of sharing left-overs. It is amazing, no food goes to waste
• The soap in bathrooms is pre-foamed, saving valuable time that would be spent lathering
• Currywurst
• How little Germans know about New Zealand. Questions so far have included "So... I thought the All Blacks were the Australian Rugby team?" and "Do you eat kiwi in New Zealand?"
• The train system; one feels like the lowliest Deutschbahn worker could revolutionise Wellington trains

Things Alex likes about Germany:

• How much better the bread is
• How excited everyone gets when I manage to pronounce one German word correctly
• That there is a franchise of restaurants called 'Alex'
• The old ladies riding bicycles
• How much Germans like their dogs.....so much so that I saw one man take his dog clubbing

Okay, it's getting a bit hard to rank the coolness of German cities - Hamburg / Hannover

After the Bucerius law school party of the last post we had the obligatory 4am stop at McDonalds. However when we arrived four rather drunk men tried to beat up two goths. They were using McDonalds chairs and their fists to try beat them up. When the McDonalds staff closed the door to stop them from coming back inside they smashed the glass of the McDonalds. Very soon there were TV cameras and some rather chubby polizei running after them but were unable to catch them. It was quite a lot of excitement for our first night in Hamburg.

We may transfer

We then retired to bed. We were staying with the lovely Barbara Richter in her room in a Catholic girls hostel. Boys were not allowed and there were no boys bathrooms which made bathroom trips and showers quite awkward for Nigel. The next day we had some really great pleadings against Bucerius in the beautiful law school and apparently displayed the 'Wellington' approach to mooting.

We then had German Indian food (om nom nom) and then it was time to begin Saturday night in Hamburg. First we went to '20 Up' an exclusive bar in Hamburg that has views of the entire city. We then went to some other bars and Max took a reluctant Nigel down the Herbertstrasse - a very famous 50m stretch of road in Hamburg where women are in shop fronts offering their services (wearing clothes for the record). Women are not allowed in the street and the prostitutes throw buckets of water at them if they attempt to enter. Nigel commented after walking down was that the street was surprisingly clean.

We retired to bed quite early so we could see as much of Hamburg the next day before our 2pm train to Hannover. We are slowly picking up some German. Nigel was taught how to say 'I hate your face' but mispronounced the phrase on his first attempt and instead told me that he hated my cat! I got some shopping in this morning finally and Zara was as amazing as I had been told it was. We also got to walk around the lake and see some of Hamburg's sights. Hamburg is truly the most beautiful city, every building there is a landmark in it's own right! We were very sorry to leave Hamburg and the Bucerius people today. They could not have been a nicer group and it was even harder to say goodbye as they are only competing in Hong Kong and not Vienna. We a now chilling out in Hannover and have a host who loves New Zealand! We will update you after our stay in Hannover and then we are off to Berlin.

What a place

See photos of Hamburg here

Alex Sinclair

Sorry for the wait - Mainz / Frankfurt / Hamburg

We have learnt many more insightful things about germany during our time in Mainz.

The first of these is that there is a hamster society in Germany that deals specifically with the maltreatment of hamsters. Until my time in Mainz I didn't realize there was such a serious problem with hamster maltreatment. Nigel and I are now considering forming such a society in New Zealand.

Lucius Malfoy

There are elections coming up in 3 states in Germany at the moment. In the state of Rheinland-pfalz there is one candidate who looks identical to Lucius Malfoy. It is quite disturbing to see their (gender uncertain) face plastered over the city.
The Piracy Party which I initially thought was the a pro-pirate party (as opposed to an anti-intellectual property party) has a particularly interesting poster of Angela merkel with three eyes.

There are state law exams graded out of 18; if you get four you pass but if you don't get nine or higher, no good law firm will ever hire you. Ever.

Being in Germany hasn't really improved our German but it has definitely made our English worse.

The view from the window of our flat in Mainz

The mooting has been incredible. Our understanding of the problem has evolved drastically in a week. All the German teams are very good. They are all very impressed by Nigel's convincing trustworthy manner of presenting not that I would ever trust Nige in real life...

After Mainz we trained to Frankfurt and partook in the Baker McKenzie Pre-Moot. This was very liberating for Nigel and I. While the other law students there were trying to make their best impressions in front of the partners at Baker McKenzie; Nigel and I were comfortable with the knowledge that we would not be asking them for an internship any time soon, being somewhat lacking in our knowledge of German law.

The Pre-Moot at Baker McKenzie went very well but the highlight had to be when they gave Nigel and I the entire dining room of food and the drinks cabinet to ourselves to gorge ourselves before we caught the train to Hamburg, before the evening event actually started. We are definitley Baker McKenzie fans now. The only strange aspect was the soundtrack in the dining room that projected the sound of a woman breathing very heavily at intermittent intervals.

Ourselves and the very welcoming team of Bucerius

We then took the train that night to Hamburg and arrived at midnight to Bucerius students who had already been imbibing before our arrival. They were the most incredibly lovely people but a very crazy night of Hamburg partying ensued. We timed our arrival with the end of term law school party held in the botanic gardens. Some looked like typical New Zealand law students but Bucerius is the only private law school in Germany and there were definitely quite a lot of Chuck Bass lookalikes. Hamburg to be continued.

Side note: This was supposed to be posted a number of days ago but had internet trouble.

Photos of our time in Mainz and Frankfurt are here

Alex Sinclair

Our last day in the coolest place ever - Freiburg

Things we've learnt since staying in Freiburg:

- No one who lives in Freiburg is actually from Freiburg

- Everyone who lives in Freiburg is lovely

- If you step in the gutters of Frieburg, you have to marry a Freiburger. By gutter we mean random rivers of water running next to streets for a yet to be ascertained reason

- Germans have a word, "ohrwurm", which translates to 'earworm' which is what happens when you get a song stuck in your head

- People in Freiburg have an odd obsession of making a point of finding a seat in the sun when it's out. People go to areas known for sun and all sit facing sun

- They don't make schnitzel in New Zealand like they do in Germany

- Spatzl is weird but delicious

- The reason Alex's bag is oversized is she does things like bring four belts

- One can buy a bottle of Jagermeister from the corner dairy for $20

- Or a bottle of equivalent which tastes the same for $10

- Enough German to ask for a beer, be laughed at, and told "could you please just show me on the menu" in perfect English

- Germany has an impressive education system, here they actually learn languages

- It is confusing that gross, as in; "gross negligence", is pronounced the same way as gross, as in;"ew that's gross"

- They serve a lot of food as a meal here, generally always starting with a massive salad with lettuce, corn and mayo

- Our presence makes the Freiburg team unnecessarily conduct conversations with German store owners in English and not realise they're doing so


See photos of our time in Freiburg here

Enjoying the sun

The Pre Moot - Basel / Freiburg

On Saturday and Sunday we had the Basel Pre Moot which was an intense weekend of pleadings. We did 5 moots over two days against the University of Basel, the University of Freiburg, the University of Mainz, the London School of Economics and the University of Belgrade.

Going 150km/s in a Smartcar on the autobahn

We had incredibly intense judging. Some of the moots would end up with 30 minute speeches per speaker because we were asked so many questions. The problem has certainly developed a lot, especially in relation to the remedies available for breaches of confidentiality. We got some very positive feedback but we also have ALOT to work on, which is why recording all our moots has been really helpful. The language barrier has resulted in some hilarious comments by the speakers including the announcement that 'size does matter' and one mooter who meant to say he was confused by our arguments and instead told the tribunal that he was stoned.

Freiburg. Lovely.

Everyone has been so incredibly welcoming and we have already made so many friends. We had quite a big night out last night and Nigel and I were very proud of the fact we managed to drunkenly get back to our Swiss apartment, changing trams along the way. We also had our tickets checked that night so luckily we had bought them despite being slightly inebriated. Basel was a great city. The university campus is very impressive although it does have some strange artwork like a person riding a fly. The judging in Basel was incredible. Professor Dr Schwenzer chaired our panel against the London School of Economics this morning and asked some incredibly challenging questions. She's basically a German Elias.

There were so many professional arbitrators and CISG research assistants at the pre moot, each of the six judges of the first two rounds had doctorates. We have been told that the judging in Basel was much more difficult then the judging in Vienna will be. We hope this is so because the questions we got asked were incredibly difficult although also a great opportunity to show our knowledge or in some cases lack thereof!

Alex was the only one who though it was different
from an NZ cheeseburger. "The bread tastes better"

We are now in Freiburg until Wednesday and David Tebel (pronounced Daa-vid), the Freiburg coach, wants to put us through our paces against the incredibly good Freiburg team. We were kindly driven to Freiburg this afternoon by one of the Freiburg team members and got our first experience of the autobahn. Reaching 160 kilometers and overtaking a policeman when going at 120km were two real highlights. Freiburg is a beautiful city. We got to have a walk around the city in the twilight and did a cheeseburger comparison at the local McDonalds. We are staying with the lovely Ilka (here) until Wednesday. We are looking forward to some very tough pleadings starting at 10 am tomorrow and seeing more of the city, we need to be careful not to fall into the gutter in Freiburg as the story goes that if you fall into the gutter in Freiburg you must marry a Freiburger. Although Freiburg is so lovely it would not be a bad thing to marry a Freiburger methinks.

See photos of our time in Basel here

Alex Sinclair

A Recap - Hong Kong / Zurich / Basel

The Chinese University team. A few more of them than us.

We're now, after some travel, sitting in our flat (fifth floor) in Basel. I imagine in the next day or so we can tell you all about the city and the two day pre-moot competition (against teams like LSE and with judges like Schwenzer). But for now we're just going to recap our time briefly since the last post.

Overlooking the central city

Our time in Hong Kong was fantastic. We were truly lucky to have the most amazing and generous hosts. Peter and Connie looked after us completely. On our first day (this is seriously a struggle, I've lost any conception of time), after arriving and settling in, Connie took us out on a walk through some old abandoned villages and to see some of the more rural elements of Hong Kong. The place is pretty crazy; in a couple of decades, rice fields become 'communities' of massive populations where, instead of houses, they just build apartment blocks around 50 stories.

Alex pondering the difference
between shrimp and squid

In the afternoon we met the Chinese University of Hong Kong moot team. We were very impressed by their ability and enjoyed the challenge of our first moots against actual teams. The next day we toured around the city and went up to the Peak to get a nice view down on Hong Kong island. We had a dinner of roast goose (amazing) and took an evening flight.

The flight wasn't the greatest - there was a baby with a solid determination to be noticed. Landed in Zurich, unexpectedly took a train rather than plane to Basel, and here we after a quick nap. Which was supposed to be two hours and ended up more like six. The Swiss (and also the Serbians and Germans - and an American) we've met so far seem very lovely. Looking forward to the next few days!


There are photos from Hong Kong here

The First Leg - Hong Kong

Have now arrived in the lovely town city of Hong Kong. We're on the edge of a "community" with a population of over 1,000,000 people. We're staying in the residence of Mr Peter Rhodes, who you can see meeting us in the photo, which is located in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (roughly hereish).

The flight was fine, we all got to see The King's Speech on the choice of 60 movies, which inspired me to use my British passport on entry into the city. We also managed to get varying amounts of sleep which is somewhat essential for what will, at least to our body clocks, be a very long day. Kat ended up comforting a woman prone to panic attacks on the plane, and the flight staff thanked her with a bottle of wine.

Only a 50k drive from the airport through a very efficient roading system that Auckland at least could learn a lot from and with an excellent tour guide in Pete who explained the layout of the city and how everything worked. Arrived for a fantastic breakfast with out hosts of pink grapefruit, blueberry muffins and some much needed coffee.

Off for a bit of a wander around before our moots this afternoon - these will be at the campus in the city so will get a chance to look around more!

You can see photos of our travel through Hong Kong here

First! - Nowhere interesting yet

Just a quick post to get this blog started.

We’re now in Auckland waiting for the flight to take us on to Hong Kong – and are already excited about the 2am dinner which Kat has assured us will exist (thought that didn’t stop us have a quick snack at Burger King). It’s been a busy day but I think for the first time we’ve felt like we’re not diving head first into a pool of sharks. There has been a consensus that leaving in the evening is much more preferable to leaving in the morning.

We’ll be arriving tomorrow in Hong Kong to be hosted by the lovely Peter Rhodes and his wife Connie; and we’ll be getting straight into the mooting with one at 3pm and at 6pm (Hong Kong time). Will have some time the next day to get to have a look round Hong Kong. I’m personally quite excited; absolutely loved my last time here, so looking forward to the travelator and worryingly inexpensive drinks.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped us get this far. This is just the first of what we hope to be many posts chronicling our travels and moots.