Today was forecast to be around minus six degrees Celsius, and it snowed all day. Naturally, we spent most of it outside. Because we did the Third Reich tour on Tuesday we missed the regular free tour of Berlin so we went back to do it today. Our guide, Lucy, was a very bouncy, over-caffeinated girl from Adelaide. She was also an excellent tour guide, lending the stories a really enjoyable vibe that made the time pass quickly. She did, however, rush the tour along between stops to the chagrin of some of the slower walkers. We saw a lot of the sights of Berlin like the Brandenburg Gate, with its statue on the top. The statue was originally the goddess of peace, but after it was reclaimed from being stolen by the French it was rechristened Victoria, the goddess of victory and her head moved to look down on the French Embassy and Parissenplatz. We also saw the outside of the Reichstag, with its glass dome (more about that later), walked through the holocaust memorial that we only briefly visited on Tuesday (Keeley slipped on the icy hills and hurt her wrist, but it's okay now), past a piece of the wall and the air-force building. The air-force building survived the war (unlike 90% of the city) and was retained by the Soviets during their post-war occupation of East Berlin and turned into their Ministry of Ministries, or head government building. In 1953 there was an uprising of workers because their pay was being cut for not reaching unfeasible production targets, and 250 people were killed by the Red Army for their resistance. We also saw Checkpoint Charlie and heard a story about a man who escaped the East using his wits alone. He went to the checkpoint and claimed his mother was sick in the West, and it was imperative that he crossed the border. Naturally, he had no paperwork but he claimed it had been left at another checkpoint. The guard on duty detained him while he investigated at the other checkpoint. While that was happening, some other guards came and asked the man why he was being detained. He said he was from the West and his mother was sick in the East, and it was imperative that he crossed the border. They released him to the West to "go and fetch his passport", and he was never seen again.
The tour also took us to the site of the book burnings at the university, where there is a cool memorial of a room underground with empty bookshelves. There is also a beautiful memorial nearby to the victims of tyranny and terror, with a sculpture in an otherwise barren room and snow falling down through a hole in the roof. It was stunning to see. Finally, we ended at Museum Island and saw a gallery that was supposed to have "the biggest marble bowl in the world" in its foyer. Alas, the bowl arrived late, the building was already constructed, and the bowl was too big to fit in the door so it has sat out the front of the steps ever since. The last story of the day was how the wall fell – the press secretary of East Berlin had missed a big meeting where it was decided to open the border to the West but with impossible restrictions. He, however, misread the notes he was given and announced to the wall would be opened, effective immediately and the hordes of people that flocked there overwhelmed the guards at the checkpoints. Because he had stuffed up the dates there were no procedures in place to stop it happening and the process of German reunification began.
After the tour we returned to our hostel for a very late lunch, but this left us practically no time to do anything so we went to the Reichstag and climbed inside the dome. It is a very interesting an clever piece of architecture – the glass represents the transparency of democracy, the dome with its ramp open to the public shows how the people are above the parliament, both literally and figuratively, and there is a big mirrored core that allows you to see down into the parliament chamber from anywhere in the dome. It's brilliant.
We made a cottage pie creation for dinner, then headed out on a pub-crawl. It was a really good night, and we met some great people like a surgeon from Singapore who was passionate about theatre. The pubs were all pretty good and we only drank the free drinks, but that was plenty for us to have a suitably good time. The only downside was the very long walk at the end because we missed the last train by minutes. Other than that, it was brilliant.
Today was the day that we (well, Keeley) had been looking forward to for quite some time. We made our way to Tropical Island, the largest indoor water park in the whole world. Located about 60km SW of Berlin, the place is gigantic – inside an old aircraft hangar, you drive past all these old military bunkers to get to it. It is a very professional arrangement, where you get a wristband as you enter and pay for each thing as you use it. There is a rainforest, a big 'beach', a 'lagoon' pool with fountains and spas and a current pool that spins everybody around. Another section of the park is devoted to saunas and relaxing – naturally we ignored this bit. There are a couple of restaurants, cocktail bars, fast food places, a stage, a 4000 sq m kiddie land (only maybe a sixth of the park) and best of all three big waterslides. We spent most of our time on the slides and in the lagoon. The highest slide was an exhilarating seven seconds of pure speed, then there was a very slow twisty slide, and the most fun one was the slide that you rode down on rubber tyres. There seemed to be no rules to the tyre slide – some people were going down in trains of five, others without a tyre at all. We went solo (you often twisted around so you couldn't see where you were going), in a train (our combined weight made us go quite fast) and both on the same tyre (even faster – we flipped off towards the end of the day). It was great fun. The way the park is designed makes it really attractive to families, and although it was Wednesday there were lots of people around. You can even stay at the park overnight in tents – it is open 24hrs. A few people looked like they weren't going to pay for the tents and had set up sleeping bags on the benches at the 'beach'.
By the time we got back to Berlin we were tired from swimming all day (and climbing the steps to the slides – preseason training =)). We made some epic nachos for dinner, had a long chat with some Aussie girls we'd met, and finished with some fantastic celebration crepes to congratulate me for my appointment to U18s Nationals (Keeley felt it was important to include this). Tomorrow we have to go around and see all the sights of Berlin we've missed so far, even though we may freeze to death in the process…
I write again, I don't promise that it will be new and exciting, you have read it all before. For the benefit of the few people who care about my thoughts of Europe, here is the second highlights package.
Didn't particularly like Prague and that is all that will be said on the subject because this is for Highlights.
Vienna wasn't that impressive either, which was a little disappointing since I had such a good time last time. I blame the company. We did find a brilliant music museum 'haus der musik'. It was interactive and very interesting, it was all about future music. Other then that there was snow, eye-seeking snow- I'm serious it would fly up under my hat to get my eyes, very uncool.
The overnight bus was interesting, you don't expect the bus driver to get lost, but he did.
Rome was brilliant, sunny and almost warm, interesting and full of character. The colosseum was very cool to see and I learnt a whole heap of interesting facts that weren't in gladiator. The best thing that we did in Rome was easily the Vespa ride. So much fun, and I hardly drove the thing. Was quite happy looking at the sights instead of remembering to stay on the wrong (or right, as the case may be) side of the road.
Venice, easily my favourite place in Italy and the only place to come close to equalling Poland, in fact I think I would go as far to say that it does. The canals, the glass blowing, the MASKS! I was in heaven. It took me the whole 3 days to pick a mask, but the one I got is perfect. The food was a bit of a highlight in itself. We had the craziest pizza the first night, half Mr. X (so what ever they had left over in the kitchen) and half fried potato (which is French fries). It was different, I'll give it that.
Then we headed to Innsbruck, a ski village sandwiched between huge snow capped mountains. It is amazingly brilliant, every time you turn a corner the view gets better. Innsbruck was the hosts of a winter Olympics, so the place is scattered with Olympic venues. We read in a brochure about bob-sledding and decided that we had to give it a go. I was amazing; it only lasted about 42 and a half seconds but was incredible fun. You go up the side of the walls and are 90 degrees to the bottom of the run. Its brilliant fun! The bobsled is so rattly that you swear you are going to fall out. It was simply the best experience and money much better spent then going on a Gondola ride in Venice, me thinks.
Oh and the food, nearly forgot the food here. We met some 'locals' on the bobsled, they invited us out to dinner at this micro brewery. We were instructed to order off the 'Triolian Specialties' page as this is traditional food to the area. It was great. We both got a meat dish that had pork and beef fried in a pan with potatoes and onions. It was SO yummy. I also got an iced hot chocolate; it was different, but not bad.
We then headed to Lauterbach in Germany. For those of you who don't know that is where I did exchange in 2006. We stayed with my host family, however Johanna, the only English speaker in the family was in Ireland. We have had a good time trying to communicate. It's been hard, but I think that since we are both trying really hard that it is sort of working. While staying here, we have been making the 2 hour trek into Frankfurt to watch the hockey. But it is worth it. The hockey is great fun, we have been missing it a fair bit and it is good just to watch and pick on all umpires and stupid players getting cards. On one of the nights, we went out to dinner with Mr. Stepf and his wife, Mr. Stepf being one of the German teachers from the exchange. It was such an enjoyable night and I am so glad that we made the effort to catch up. They took us out to a very nice restaurant (Italian) in Fulda and then to a micro brewery afterwards. They were such lovely people and we both had a great time. Scott got some good wine and beer while the waitress struggled to give me a vodka and OJ… Oh and he had some crazy shot I am very glad I didn't try because you had to chew on coffee beans.
I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks, the home run. We have set a date for our return, it gets us in the day before Scott graduates. So the next month is going to get a bit busier, but that in itself is exciting. We finish Germany, 4 days in Berlin, and the worlds biggest indoor water park, I'm so excited. And 3 days in Munich. Then we head back into the Alps for a couple of days (Bad Gastein, Austria and Interlaken, Switzerland) Before really kicking things up a notch. The short way to write it is Switzerland, France, Spain, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium Germany, Home. See you all in a month and a bit, and please everyone keep safe.
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Apologies to all our regular subscribers - we have had a terrible run of hostels without internet or at exorbitant prices, so we haven't updated in a while. Hopefully transmission should return to semi-regular intervals again. Hope you have a big mug of coffee to get you through this edition. SO'R
DAY 49 – VENICE05/02/2009
We ended up staying awake talking with Adrian (an Argentinean guy in our hostel) until almost 2am, so getting up to check out was not enjoyable this morning. Nonetheless, we did make it and wandered the streets of Florence for just over an hour trying to kill some time before our train to Venice. Not much to report, just more markets (but we found another amazing two-storey food market). More interesting was the four-hour train ride, which we spent with Cecilia, another Argentinean who we met in our hostel in Rome. I didn't recognise her at all when she ran up to us and gave us both kisses on the cheek, but fortunately Keeley did and we played cards and talked all the way on the train, which helped pass the time. She was a bit of a sore loser at cards though, and kept changing the rules, not to mention her incessant ramblings alternately about being tired and hungry, and being jealous of Keeley for having a boyfriend. Our arrival in Venice was very cool – you walk out of the train station and there were a couple of boats driving past. The place is magic, something about the canals is very special. Our hostel/hotel/B&B is about a two-minute walk from the station, which is convenient. We have our own room with a balcony and everything, and it's pretty close to a few restaurants and shops. There's no kitchen, so we have to eat out for the next couple of days (Italian food, what a shame… haha) so tonight we went in search of a cheap restaurant. The maze of little streets (it's more of a network of alleyways and piazze) is tough to navigate at first, but if you keep your sense of direction and a map you can move around pretty easily. We eventually found a cool little pizza place and treated ourselves to a night of experimentation. Our first effort was my wine and Keeley's apeterif (a martini), which I liked and Keeley didn't. It went from bad to worse for her when we ordered grapefruit juice to help it go down, not realising that grapefruit juice is sour. Fortunately, things picked up with our entrée, a 'traditional Venetian selection' of calamari, prawns, pizza, a funny fried tuna ball, a fried rice ball and boiled egg. The pizza itself was mixed, with the mystery "Mr X" pizza (a selection of vegetables including mushrooms, olives, zucchini, spring onion and who knows what else) and "Satana" (salami, cheese and "aromatic drugs") being excellent and the "Diabolica" and "Patatano" (French fries on pizza…) being only passable. To top it off, we had five flavours of gelato each from a small gelataria. For the second time, Keeley mis-ordered her ice cream, asking for a something-or-other-latte and expecting coffee, not realising that "latte" actually means milk. She is also complaining that she's about to explode, but it was a very enjoyable night.
It's exciting to move on, for as much as I quite liked Florence (it has a nice street feel, very relaxed and pretty) Venice has it's own magic. I'm really pleased that this time around Italy is proving to be so good, because I remember being a little disappointed when I came with my family back in '99. I think it's because it wasn't the big thing I was most looking forward to on this trip, but it was on the last.
DAY 50 – VENICE06/02/2009
As a hotel/B&B, we had high expectations for breakfast and were not disappointed. There was yoghurt, cereal, bread rolls, crappy packet toast, apricot croissant, two different flavours of jam, honey, and best of all, real coffee. It certainly gave a positive start to the day, and this was backed up by our exploration through the streets. As I anticipated, Keeley is absolutely blown away by the Carnivale masks (even more in stock since Carnivale is in a couple of weeks – there are stages being set up in the streets) and we are now forbidden from leaving without one. The range and detail is incredible, and they are surprisingly affordable (around €15). There are even 'techno robot' ones for the 21st Century, and they look surprisingly good. The streets are generally just buzzing with activity, but not too crowded with tourists making it a pleasant experience to just wander around. In addition to the many Carnivale masks, we also found that "melting clocks" are popular here, and just exquisite. It is so tempting to buy one, but their prices are just too much for our measly budgets. They are made of marble and really beautiful, with some hanging on clothes hangers, some just 'melting' over the edge of tables, and others simply deformed. There are also hands coming out of pictures holding lights, etc. There were also a couple of shops selling pasta in all sorts of different colours and flavours like blueberry, curry, pizza, tomato, etc.
After a very long and distracted walk, we reached the Piazza di San Marco. It is very cool, and one part of it has the arcades on a slight angle, presumably to make it look longer than it is (accentuated perspective). The church is very ornately detailed on the outside, and the Doge's Palace is suitably impressive. Best of all, we could walk comfortably through it (not too many tourists) and there weren't even that many pigeons. In a big mistake, we enquired about a gondola ride. The first price was €150 for seventy-five minutes, and when we knocked that back we received an offer of €120 for an hour. Still way too much for us, we walked away but were chased down by at least three other gondoliers offering us lower and lower prices and various combinations of times. It goes to show that saying 'no' the first time really pays off, but the lowest price was still far too much for us. The problem was you have to hire the entire gondola, so it was going to be expensive for just a couple but a family could justify it more. Lunch was bread that we had leftover from Florence, but the desserts were excellent (Keeley had two meringues stuck together with chocolate and I had an apricot-cream-waffle thingy).
After lunch we decided to go to the island of Murano to see the world-famous glass industry. It was one of the most memorable things from the last time I was here with my family, so I was keen to show Keeley. Unfortunately, we missed two ferries by mere seconds, but this meant the whole journey there took an hour and a half, rather than the planned thirty or so minutes. Alas, because we got there so late and it is off-season we didn't find any glass blowing, much to my disappointment, but we did see some amazing glass creations in the showrooms. One place, Fiore-Fiore, had the glass-man making little octopus pendants in the shop. This was very cool to see, and although on a smaller scale than I would have liked, was still good to watch. He explained he had been working in the glass industry for twenty-two years and he could make anything if you could sketch it on a notepad. He was a really nice guy, and it was good to see him work.
Returning to the main island, we had dinner at a strange little restaurant called Brek. It's set up like an all-you-can-eat, but you pay for what you take. It had a pasta "deep fryer" – a sink full of constantly-boiling water that you could put baskets of pasta into. It was a clever way to keep costs down. However, we were not satisfied so went and got a pizza down the street – roast pork and peas, bacon, sausage and mushrooms. Dessert consisted of some more fantastic gelati (stratiaccela (?), cherries and cream, very strong coffee and a mousse-biscuit-bread one) and a really nice pannacotta.
DAY 51 – VENICE/BOLOGNA07/02/2009
Checking out of our B&B was a pretty painless process until we got to the front door – the street was half-flooded. It turns out our street was one of the drier ones as some were completely underwater. A number of things quickly clicked into place in our heads – the funny siren we heard this morning (warning the residents about the water), the many gumboots we had seen in shops yesterday, the "stages" we had thought were for Carnivale were actually to allow people to walk the streets without walking through the water. It all made sense. Trying our luck walking in search of a mask for Keeley, we (eventually) made our way around and through the water to find the shops we were looking for. I even carried Keeley in a couple of places because the water was too deep for her low boots. On the upside, at least we weren't thigh-deep like some people.
The shops were all flood-hit, with pumps and brooms going nuts to try and dry them our, but it's obviously fairly common because lots of places had watertight barriers over the doors. Fortunately, many of the mask shops were still open and we had lots of fun (…) looking at masks. In the end she found one that was just perfect, and she is very pleased with herself.
The train ride to Bologna was pretty uneventful, but we did do a bit of planning to try and set a return date to Australia. Bologna itself is really nice, and there was an extensive (but pretty tacky) Saturday market on until late and the arcaded streets are beautiful. We had traditional Bolognese lasagne for dinner, and basil gnocchi, pumpkin tortellini and a strange bread-pasta-soup concoction that looked like small maggots but was really nice. All this after a brilliant plate of Bolognese sausage and Italian cheese – it was one of the best meals we've had. We also got 'spaghetti' ice-cream (ice cream pushed through a mould) and another cone for dessert. It was a very successful night.
DAY 52 – INNSBRUCK08/02/2009
To title today "Innsbruck" is a bit misleading – we spent most of the day either planning or travelling. The breakfast at the hostel was very disappointing, and added to the already well-defined "school camp" feel of the place. A solitary roll, one randomly selected jam, bad coffee and tea, and 'fruit juice' that was more like watery syrup left us feeling unsatisfied. The tempo of the day picked up significantly when we made it to Bologna train station – due to the relatively remote nature of our hostel and the limited buses that run on Sundays, we arrived about fifteen minutes before a train to Innsbruck was about to depart. Quickly grabbing some lunch (brilliant toasted pita sandwich thing) and running for the train (for the first time in seven weeks) we made it and sat back to try and enjoy the almost-five-hour train ride. The scenery through the Alps was stunning, with freeways soaring over us on giant bridges, long tunnels, amazing valleys and beautiful snow-capped trees and fields.
Innsbruck is a far cry from our other winter town, Zakopane, because it really feels like a city. Boutique shops line the streets, the cobblestone old town has some very cute shops and restaurants, and the train station is a very modern and slick operation. After a short detour, we did finally manage to find our hostel, a serviceable arrangement but nothing special. Starving, we headed out to dinner and found a pub called Elferhaus. The meals were gigantic, and we had wedges with a curry-flavoured sauce, a Weiner schnitzel that filled the plate, a selection of five different sausages, a huge banana split and of course an apple strudel. We were very pleased with our efforts, especially given the keen pricing.
We have three days to pack with stuff to do here, starting with the Alpenzoo tomorrow.
DAY 53 – INNSBRUCK09/02/2009
Innsbruck by day is a million times more satisfying than it was by night. I don't know how many times Keeley and I said to each other how incredible it was to be walking down the street and have huge snow-capped mountains on both sides. Without internet access, we are forced to rely on the tourist information so our first stop was there this morning. From there, we walked uphill all the way to the Alpenzoo (about a 10-15min walk from our hostel) and saw wolves, hawks, bears, moose, bearded vultures, ibexes, a lynx, and a wide variety of other birds. Being an alpine zoo and the middle of winter, many of the animals were actually quite active, and we got within a couple of metres of the ibexes whose habitat is simply incredible – their enclosure is purely rocks, without any vegetation. It wasn't quite as good value for money as Prague Zoo, but seeing animals that are so different to a traditional zoo was cool and seeing them active was even better.
After lunch we went to the Bergisel Tower, the Olympic ski jump that sits over the city. It is an impressive structure when viewed from the streets, but somehow lost a bit of its appeal when we were at the gate (the €8.50 a head entrance fee might have had something to do with it). We decided against the ride to the top, figuring that the view can't have been THAT good. Instead we went in search of curling at the Olympic stadium, but discovered that the pamphlet from the tourist information had led us astray and there was no such activity in the city. Disappointed, we wandered back, doing a bit of window-shopping. We concluded our day with some very nice Thai food, which was just what we needed after our recent pasta- and pizza- heavy diet.
DAY 54 – INNSBRUCK10/02/2009
Our home-brand cornflakes and warm milk were not quite as appealing this morning as yesterday, leaving us dissatisfied yet again. On our walk to the bus stop, we purchased some nice brunch food (mine was a ham and cheese pretzel and Keeley had a bread roll stuffed with bacon). The shuttlebus then took us to the Swarowski Kristallwelten (Crystalworld). The entry fee was a steep €8 each, plus the €8.50 for the bus, but it was definitely worth it. We saw the largest cut crystal in the world next to the smallest cut crystals (something like 0.00015 carats). There was a strange mechanical robot display, and some other artworks incorporating crystals that were nice enough but really just proved that crystals go with everything and anything. The really impressive exhibits were the crystal dome – a big room with triangular crystal faces reflecting everything infinitely, the crystal forest (including a giant jellyfish made entirely of crystals), the crystal pathway – a corridor lined with crystals with a projector at the floor to 'make' a crystal path where you stepped, and the room of the giant – a collection of items crafted as if they belonged to giants (eg a giant crystal ring, huge crystal-encrusted gloves, a big walking stick, etc). Additionally, every year the museum invites a group to perform at the Kristallwelten, and this year there was a Brazilian quintet of very athletic men who danced around, pretended to fight (a pretty spectacular piece of choreography) and did all sorts of flips and jumps. They were pretty good. The museum naturally finished with the giftshop, a massive space of assorted jewelry and trinkets. Yet again, we were struck by the sheer range of things you could do with crystals, from sticking them on t-shirts to traditional rings and necklaces to life-size sculptures of parrots and iguanas (for a cool €17000 each). It was a really amazing experience, and well worth it.
The afternoon passed slowly, and we had a bit of a nanna-nap. It was around this time that my back started to get quite itchy and we discovered I had been the midnight snack of choice for some bed bugs. For some reason I hadn't noticed yesterday so the second consecutive night of exposure really must have brought them out. Keeley seems unaffected so we think it's just the one bed, so I've moved for tonight in the hope of limiting the damage.
Tonight we went bobsledding. Like in Cool Runnings and the winter Olympics. It was a bit of an adventure. As we have no internet access, we had relied on the lady at the tourist information centre. She sent us there for a 5pm start, but it didn't actually kick off until seven. As it was a 30-minute bus ride each way, we stayed and watched the professional people luge around the course. When it finally got to our turn, we were packed into a truck like cattle, driven up the hill, and jumped in. The experience was incredible. I was at the very back of our five-person bobsled so I couldn't see a thing, but that made it even better riding the course as every turn took you by surprise. It was incredibly fast and there were a few places where we must have got pretty sideways. By the uphill bit at the end we were going so fast we didn't even realise it was a hill. It was pretty expensive and it was over pretty quickly (as one guy said, €30 for thirty seconds) but it was definitely worth the experience. However, due to the tourist info lady's misinformation, we were stranded as the buses had stopped running. Fortunately, our bobsled-mates were also stranded and we shared a cab with them back to the town. It turned out they were all computer scientists and they invited us to dinner with them at a pub/brewery called Theresian Brau, where we had great beer and great food (a frypan filled with potato, pork, beef, egg, tomato and herbs) and a really enjoyable night to top off a good day.
DAY 55 – INNSBRUCK11/02/2009
Our hostel had an extremely uncomfortable checkout time of 9am, so we were up early and not pleased about it. Added to this was the fact that we didn't really have much to do today, as we had been able to pack the last few days pretty full. After wandering the streets for a couple of hours in the snow, we decided that we should find somewhere in the warm. The tourist information suggested a very cool place called Triolhaus (?), where we had some very good coffee and spent three or four hours on the internet catching up on the terrible news about the bushfires at home, and planning our next couple of weeks in detail. When we felt we'd used up our stay (and then some) we went shopping for some gifts for Johanna's parents. Dinner at Elferhaus again rounded out a pretty uneventful day, before getting on the train to Munich then Nuremberg. The train from Munich to Nuremberg was an ICE (one of the really fast trains) and it was the highlight of my day. The seats were super comfortable, and everything was shiny and modern. Glass automatic doors, wood trim, the works. We were only in second-class as well. Certainly beats travelling by plane. We are preparing for a pretty uncomfortable night in Nuremberg train station for our early train to Fulda then Lauterbach, where we stay with Keeley's host family.
DAY 56 – LAUTERBACH12/02/2009
Our experience of sleeping at Nuremberg train station was not particularly pleasant, but we did the best we could and arrived in Lauterbach around 8am. We trudged around the estate where Johanna's parents live, and it was quite an adventure piecing together Keeley's fragmented memory of the place. Eventually a very friendly local man rescued us. It was a pretty funny situation actually, because this man had spoken to his wife, who had spoken to me while Keeley was exploring/trying to get her bearings. When Keeley decided she wasn't really sure where we were, I went to find a map. Just as I worked out where we needed to be (only a block away – if only Keeley had turned left instead of right in her exploration!) the man offered us a lift. It wasn't true hitchhiking, but it was close enough to tick off the "backpacker must-do" list.
Johanna's parents are really nice people, but true to Johanna's warning, they don't speak any English. We managed to get through a rather awkward initial period (the time when you would normally make inane small talk, which we couldn't do) but have settled in now. We had lunch (their main meal) of schnitzel, veggies (thank god) and potatoes, called Johanna on speakerphone to get her to translate between the parents and us, explored Lauterbach where Keeley took a stroll down memory lane, and slept most of the afternoon trying to catch up on our restless night. By dinner, both parties had become more comfortable with each other, and with the help of our phrasebook and many hand signals, we struck up an exchange (it doesn't deserve to be called a conversation). We showed them some pictures of our trip so far, punctuated with some German to try and describe what we saw, and that seemed to break the ice a bit. In fact, Johanna's father got out all their photo albums and we were worried that we would have to sit through a couple of hours of photos, but fortunately the mother rescued us. As odd as it is, it's nice to just be in a domestic situation again, being able to sit on the couch and watch TV, even if we couldn't understand it, and just feel like we don't have to live like backpackers for a couple of days. We spoke to our families again tonight, which was good, and we'll have another relaxing day tomorrow.
Speaking to our families and hearing all the bad news from home was tough, because it makes me feel a little guilty that we're over here having a great holiday while people at home are losing their houses and lives. The scale of the fires really hit home today, from the number of dead to hearing about whole towns being wiped out, to the huge amount of aid that has been donated. There are people in Queensland receiving flood relief and donating it to the bushfire victims. It is sad to hear, but I suppose we should just try and enjoy ourselves while we can.
DAY 57 – LAUTERBACH AND FULDA13/02/2009
Another slow start to the day was greeted with another very large meal of bread, cheese, meat and cereal. One thing is for sure – we won't go hungry here. We decided to spend a relaxing day in Fulda, a town about half an hour train ride from Lauterbach, where Keeley remembered lots of good shopping (and bargains). We weren't disappointed – Keeley bought some purple tights and a very nice long jacket that is apparently very warm, and I scored a couple of shirts on sale. We decided these would be our gifts to each other for Valentine's Day tomorrow. Fulda has a nice, pedestrian shopping precinct just near the train station so it was easy to wander around.
For tea Mr Stepf, the teacher that accompanied Johanna when she came to Australia, and his wife treated us to a very nice Italian restaurant in Fulda. I had a salmon-based pasta dish that was brilliant and Keeley had some beef and tomato pasta concoction that looked pretty impressive. The waiter who served us managed to stuff up the mains and the desserts, but the food was consistently good and amazingly well priced. Afterward we went to a micro-brewery in Fulda and had a pretty good beer, and took in the atmosphere. Apparently there's some kind of carnival in Germany in February so there were people dressed up in purple and green costumes. The Stepfs were really nice people, and they made conversation easy. It didn't feel like any one person was doing all the talking and they were keen to hear about our experiences as well as tell us their own. It was a really enjoyable night. The only awkward part was getting back into the house afterward – although the Stepfs gave them every opportunity, the Kopiecs (Johanna's parents) seemed to think giving us a key to get in was much harder than being woken at 11pm to let us in, so that's what we did. It was another very good day, hopefully tomorrow's hockey experience will be as enjoyable.
DAY 58 – RUSSELSHEIM AND LAUTERBACH14/02/2009
We dragged ourselves out of bed VERY early this morning to catch the train to Russelsheim, near Frankfurt, for the first of our two days of hockey. Fortunately everything worked out nicely for us and we arrived just before the start of the first match (even though we did walk the long way around the stadium to find the entrance). It is an excellent setup, with big stadium seating along both sidelines. The atmosphere was exactly what we expected from a hockey championship, with the token hockey shop near the entrance, and a crowd that slowly built during the day. We were one of the first people to claim seats, so we got an excellent position right on the centre line. We were quickly joined by a dozen or so vocal Dutch, with their green balloons (the Rotterdam club colour) quickly escaping everywhere. The teams in the first match were very professional, and the later matches were quite fiery. The umpiring was a bit hit-and-miss, but it was good to be able to watch and critique it nonetheless. It seems we haven't lost our touch – at least from the grandstand! The German supporters of the local, home club had a chant going where the announcer on the microphone would ask them questions, and they would respond, and at the end he would say "danke!" (thankyou) and they would all scream "bitte!" (you're welcome). It was pretty funny.
When we got back we had another massive meal (ham steaks, which were an interesting addition to my culinary vocabulary, with rice, soup and a cucumber-and-mayonnaise salad) and watched the crazy version of German Idol. The contestants have to do silly things like sing while suspended upside-down from a scissor lift, and with a huge python around their necks.
More hockey tomorrow. It is really good to take a break from travelling and being a 'tourist'.
DAY 59 – RUSSELSHEIM AND LAUTERBACH15/02/2009
Another early start was followed by a walk through the very cold morning to the train station. Keeley's hair was even frozen (she must have wet it a little, and ice crystals were forming). Unfortunately, we discovered that the train timetable was poorly written, and the train we were aiming for didn't run on Sundays. This setback meant we missed the classification matches at the hockey, but we didn't mind after seeing the bronze and gold medal matches. The bronze was a close, hard-fought, disciplined (mostly) match that was a pleasure to watch. The gold was something else – a tough, physical game helped immensely by the large home crowd gathered to cheer Russelsheim on. The noise was deafening. The umpires had to blow their whistles very loud just to be heard over the din after every goal or contentious decision. The Madrid team was very vocal about every single decision that went against them, which wore thin quickly, and when one of them called the umpire a cheat (pointing to the crowd), he tasted cheese. At that point the score was 2-2 with only seconds to play and a Russelsheim penalty corner. They missed it by centimetres, which meant golden goal extra time. This was especially anxious for us because we had to make sure we caught a bus that was due to depart at the end of the second period of ET. With a minute to go, Russelsheim roofed a drag-flick to win the match, and the crowd erupted. It was an incredible atmosphere, and we could still hear the cheering as we sprinted for the bus. We made it, ran for another train at Russelsheim station and by this point Keeley was particularly feeling the lack of pre-season training.
When we got back to Lauterbach, we were greeted with the biggest meal yet, and it was great. The chicken was possibly the best I've ever tasted. We had whole salad bowls of mashed potato and cabbage salad for just the two of us.
We head to Berlin tomorrow, fortunately a little lighter as we can leave some clothes and souvenirs here and we will pick them up when we fly out from Frankfurt.
DAY 60 – BERLIN16/02/2009
We enjoyed a small sleep-in before attempting to pack our bags to leave Lauterbach. We think we've left about 8kg of stuff behind, which made the packing much more pleasant. We are now travelling with only one daypack, which is more comfortable and makes us feel a lot better. The Kopiecs went all out for our final meal, with rissoles, more mash than you could poke a stick at, and more of the awesome cabbage salad thing. They even drove us to the train station and waved to us as we left. For people we barely know, they were incredibly accommodating and so friendly, especially considering the language barrier we faced. We are both really glad we made the effort to go to Lauterbach, because it was very fulfilling and oh so worth it.
In Fulda we killed about half an hour heading to the Aldi to buy Keeley some "Schoko Dragees" (M&M ripoffs), the too-sweet confectionary that she has fallen in love with. We ended up getting on the 'wrong' Berlin train (our cheap tickets were specifically for one train only) because it was actually the train from the hour before but massively delayed. It didn't matter in the end, and the time passed relatively quickly playing cards, chatting and reading. Berlin Hauptbahnhof (central station) is amazing, built over at least four levels with trains going in all directions. There is a massive vault roof in each direction, making it feel like an oversized aircraft hangar. Nonetheless, in typical German style, it was pretty easy to navigate and we were quickly at our accommodation for the night, the Generator hostel. The setup is very slick, with a bar, cafeteria-style restaurant and at least four levels of dorms. The funky blue lighting everywhere gives it lots of character. Alas, they did lose our booking, but we got bumped up from a 14-bed to an 8-bed dorm because of it. It's really nice, and we even get breakfast.
One particularly tragic event happened in transit today – Keeley's hairspray unleashed itself onto one of our towels. This means that the hairspray is now empty and we had to try and wash the towel. It also meant we felt a bit giddy when we opened the bag from all the fumes. Keeley was pretty upset at the lost hairspray, but I was thankful that the towel caught almost all of the spray and we didn't end up ruining all of our clothes.
We have an action-packed three days in Berlin, especially after our relatively cruisey week last week, and we want to see so much here. We've tried to timetable our days a bit, but we'll see how that pans out. It's good to be 'travelling' again – the stay in Lauterbach broke up the trip really well but I'm excited to see the sights and do all the things in all the places we still have to go.
DAY 61 – BERLIN17/02/2009
After being woken during the night by our drunken Swedish roommates, we found it difficult to get out of bed this morning. We managed it though, and went down for our buffet breakfast. The cereal was far too sweet, even for Keeley, so we just had bread rolls and some funny pudding with strawberry sauce. We also excelled ourselves with our theft of The Generator's jams, butters, ham, cheese and bread.
First on the day's agenda was Checkpoint Charlie. We took a photo at the actual checkpoint (just as well, because a guy with flags and a uniform was charging people €1 a photo when we came out of the museum). The museum itself was a little pricey but very interesting. In addition to some German history about the Communist-Capitalist divide, it also showed a number of the ingenious ways that people would escape the East. There were hot air balloons, people tucking themselves inside cars and speaker boxes, one boy hid in a shopping trolley, a personal scuba/submarine set (like on James Bond). One of our personal favourites was the people who flying-foxed their way over the wall using either power lines or a wire shot by a bow to a sympathiser on the Western side. There was also a lot on the methods the Communists used to keep people from escaping, like a metal grate with spikes just below the surface of the water, the phases of the Berlin wall, the "self-firing" machine gun (triggered by a trip wire it would spray bullets in every direction hoping to hit something), etc. There was also a couple of sickening stories about escapees and revolutionaries, like one guy that was shot trying to escape and left to bleed for 50 minutes because the guards weren't allowed to leave their posts to help him.
After the museum we went to Potsdamer Platz, where we saw lots of ultramodern buildings. Later we discovered this was, in part, due to the fact that Potsdamer Platz was designated by the Nazis to be a neo-Classical end of an axis running through Berlin, the symbol of a superpowerful Germania. The modern buildings are a direct dismissal of the Nazis' love of neo-Classicism. In Potsdamer Platz we found the Berlin arm of Legoland. Given that we can't actually make it to Billund in Denmark to see the 'real' Legoland, we decided to go in and at least get a taste of it. It was geared fairly solidly towards young kids, but things like Miniland were cool, where they had replicated all the major Berlin landmarks at 1:45 scale. There was a cute pretend Lego factory where we got a souvenir piece of Lego, a jungle adventure with Indiana Jones (with a giant spider made of 70,000 blocks), a 'ride' through the dragon's castle, and best of all, our own little building class where we made a 1:2800 model of the Reichstag, a famous Berlin parliament building. It was fun, and really cool to see some of the things they can do with Lego. We even got certificates saying we are certified Lego modelmakers and we have the Reichstag model to prove it.
From Legoland, we joined a walking tour focussing on the rise and fall of the Third Reich, Hitler's empire. Our guide held university-level degrees in it and was very good, giving a lot of information in a very accessible way. We saw the Soviet Monument to the Unknown Soldier, cunningly placed on the British sector of Berlin before the division was formalised to annoy the Brits and focus attention on the fact that the Russians believed the USSR had provided the majority of the blood for the war. We actually saw quite a few monuments, many of which are very modern and clever. In Germany, they have three types of monuments – those to honour the dead, those to provoke thought on a subject, and mourn those lost. The best were the more abstract and clever 'provoke thought' ones, like Peter Eisenmann's holocaust memorial and the "stumbling stones" – small stones embedded in the footpath with the names of holocaust victims, so when people tripped over them they would read the inscription and remember. Another interesting aside was the plans Hitler had for the north-south Berlin axis, particularly the dome he planned to be 15 times the size of the dome at St Peter's. It was unfeasible to build, and scientists believe that even if it was built it would have been so voluminous (291m at its highest point, and a hemispherical dome) that it would have developed its own water cycle of rain and evaporation inside.
Our final stop for the day was the Berlin aquarium. The setup is very slick, with lots of tanks and a wide variety of sea creatures, although the aquarium has an admirable policy of not keeping large animals like sharks in captivity. Some tanks even had simulated currents and waves to better recreate the natural environment of the animals. For me the octopus and rays were the coolest exhibits in the aquarium proper. The highlight, though, was the 16m-high fishtank with a lift running through the middle of it. It was stunning.
We changed hostels tonight as well, and this place thankfully has a kitchen. We ate a huge meal of pasta and bolognaise/chilli sauce for a combined total of around €4 tonight. It was really good to eat in again, and have some good cheap food. The satisfaction of cooking is hard to beat too. Tomorrow we head to the Tropical Island indoor water park, one of Keeley's biggest highlights. Should be fun.
Today we saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The severity of the lean is quite shocking in real life. Actually, the whole area is very cool, with a huge cathedral, a domed chapel, and the campanile (tower) itself. The lawn area is really large and it is genuinely pleasant there. We elected not to climb the tower for €15 each, as it seemed like a waste of precious cash. It was better than I remember, perhaps because there were less people there this time around. We had a really nice pita wrap for lunch with some tomato, cheese and mince we made up. The souvenir stalls were pretty interesting and we saw some pretty cool (and kitsch) things, like leaning shot glasses and wine glasses, a selection of cute t-shirts etc. There was a really nice little bottle of grappa in the shape of the tower and on a lean, which was cool. The rest of Pisa is pretty small and we didn't spend much time there, but it is a really nice town. It has a medieval feel about it, but an Italian gothic as opposed to the 'regular' French gothic that is interesting for its difference.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, just doing a bit of wandering around. The only other point of note was the "efficient" Skype call that we made to Keeley's grandparents this morning, which was over in the time it took me to prep cereal and a cup of tea. We also tried some interesting coffee-flavoured yoghurt, which was surprisingly nice.
Today was a pretty relaxed day, just exploring Florence. We walked over the old bridge, Ponte Vecchio, with people actually living and running businesses on the bridge, which is kind of cool. It gave us a feeling of what London Bridge might have been like back in the medieval days. From there we went to the science museum, which on the plus side was free to get in, but on the down side was under renovation so heavily truncated. There was an interesting selection of telescopes showing the evolution of astronomical devices in Italy, but it was pretty forgettable really. We then wandered through the streets, taking in the sights and a few photos of places I recognised from studying at uni. We walked right past the Da Vinci museum, which had a very curt lady on reception but was partly interactive and I found it very enjoyable. Some of the things that Da Vinci pioneered are truly revolutionary – simple things like prototype chains, gears to transfer rotary motion in one plane to another (ie perpendicularly), the first flywheel, ball bearings, a few of the flying machines, a big 'tank' based on the image of a tortoise (a big wooden roof with cannons pointing out of it), and lots of interesting experiments on reflections (like a room of mirrors to allow you to see all sides of an object without moving), pulleys, etc. It was a little overpriced at €5, but I liked it.
One of the more impressive things we saw was the original Michaelangelo's David. We paid the entry basically to see this one thing, but weren't disappointed. The statue is huge, and there's something magical about it. Perhaps the detail of it, perhaps the size, perhaps the expression on his face, perhaps the big well-lit space it's in with nothing else around… whatever it is, it was cool. The rest of the museum was paintings and other, smaller, sculptures, but generally forgettable. From there we went to the flea market in the city centre, which was pretty cheap and very interesting, and I paid an excessive €3 to see the very unimpressive Medici Chapel (and that was a discount pretending to be a French student – they give EU students a discount but not other international students).
The remainder of the day was mainly taking photos of buildings, and making an incredible veggie bake and crepes. We are seriously excelling ourselves with the food we are creating, and loving it!
"When in Rome…" has been our catchcry for the last couple of days, and today we made full use of it by hiring a Vespa for an hour. We got a zippy 100cc machine and drove in search of the Via Appia Antica (Ancient Appian Way), the old Roman road into the city. We didn't find it, but the ride was a lot of fun. It's easy to see why the scooters are so popular – it's dead easy to dodge and weave through traffic, no gears to worry about, you can skip the queue at the lights, you have better acceleration than the cars and in the city the fastest we got was 35km/h so the small engines don't really matter. The learning curve was very small and we were up and having a great time quickly. I drove most of the way, but Keeley seemed to have a lot of fun just hanging on the back.
From our quickfire hour on the scooter, we sampled Rome's limited (and very creaky and graffiti-ed) metro system, which took us to St Peter's and the Vatican. Again we were awed by the sheer size of first the piazza then the cathedral itself. Everything in there is so ornate, and the size is (again) one of those things you need to see to fully appreciate. What we thought was really cool is that there are sections of it that are screened away from the tourists where anyone can go and pray, and there are confessionals in every language so you can confess your sins in the greatest church of them all. When we left we discovered that, in the half hour we were inside, the line to get in had grown at least five times longer so we were quietly pleased with ourselves. Faced with the €8-14 entrance fee and the prospect of missing our train, we decided to skip the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel. I'm not as disappointed as I thought I would be to not see it, I think because I don't really have the religious connection to it and it wasn't something I was dying to do.
Our train ride to Florence was unremarkable; we passed through a lot of industrial-looking towns and some hills, but nothing particularly special. When we arrived, we were impressed with the city because it seemed less dilapidated than Rome. We did manage to (almost) get lost finding our hostel because we took a slightly different route to the one we had planned, but we got here in the end. The manager is a very nice man who is eager to tell us everything he knows about the city, but is very professional and friendly. We attempted quiche for dinner, which turned out well, and Keeley made us some scrumptious pancakes. We then wiled away several hours with the rest of the guests at the hostel, swapping stories and generally talking nonsense. It was good.
