Morning all! I know that I've been a bit tardy with the posts, but here goes. We're in England now, at Alli's great-aunt's place. On dialup.. always fun. As a result, I won't be able to post any pics, it'd take years (and would hog the phone line). I'll try and write up the three countries we've been to in articles, though.
Anyway, we took the train from Amsterdam to Frankfurt (every single time I type 'Frankfurt', I actually type 'Frankston' and have to hit backspace). There are two Frankfurts in Germany, and they're both reasonably big, so the official name of the Frankfurt in the middle is Frankfurt-am-Main, or Frankfurt on the Main river. And Main is pronounced 'mine'. Damn Germans. Anyway, the train was about 5 hours from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, and was pretty much without incident.
After arriving in Frankfurt late in the afternoon, we found our cheapo hotel across the road from the Hauptbahnhoff (main train station), dropped our packs off in the room, and did some washing at a local coin laundy. Took us a bit of trying to figure out all the German writing everywhere, we wasted €4 trying to put money into the wrong machine (it said 'defekt'.. somehow missed that!). Got everything washed and dried, so we were good to go for another week. We had a bier at the pub up the street while waiting for our clothes. And herein lies my favourite little tidbit about Germany. Bier (beer) cannot be taxed. Beer is considered to be 'liquid bread', according to some royal decree back in the day, and as such, is considered a staple food and cannot be taxed. And as a result, beer was cheapest in Germany, by a long shot. About the same as water in some places. Brilliant! And the beer in Germany was more than acceptable, so we drank beer every day. Hoorah!
We had a good night's sleep, then trotted downstairs the next morning to begin our bus tour of Bavaria, the Black Forest, and shitloads of Christmas Markets. Shitloads. One a day - 7 markets in total. We had enough of them by about day 4. They're a very German concept, though there are markets in other European countries. We met the tour guide, Arthur, and the bus driver, Franz. I could look it up and tell you what we did and saw each day, but I'll spare you the boredom. It was exciting for us, of course. But I'll give you some highlights (obivously, these are the towns and places that really stuck out in my mind).
The first town we went to was Heidelberg. Really stunning place, looks like it's from the 1400's or so. Probably is, actually. After wandering around town for a few minutes (and briefly looking at the Christmas Markets there), we took a lift up the side of the mountain to the castle overlooking the town. Now, this is the first European castle we'd seen, so we were absolutely in awe. After mentioning how bloody huge the place is, we were told that only 20% of the castle remained - when the French invaded the place, the attempted to raze the castle to the ground. It looked mostly complete to us - though of course, there were big torn-off chunks here and there. One particular bit that I found absolutely fascinating was the powder tower - they kept all of their gunpowder for their cannons there. The wall was 8m of solid stone thick! Amazing. And of course, we could see that it was so thick because some clown inside had set off the powder (again, in the 1400s) and sheared half of the tower off. I took a few pics of it, and will upload them soon. It's really something that you have to see to believe.
We came to Rothenberg on another day of the tour, it was a walled, medieval town which had basically never been modernised. All of the buildings look as original as ever. We visited the torture museum, which did our heads right in. Torture was apparently a valid way of getting a confession out of a potential criminal! Thank god we don't do anything so barbaric in 2006! *cough* Trotted about 100 steps up the tallest tower in the town, only to have the door right up the top closed, and the German lady tell us that they had closed for the day. We were all of 5 steps from the top, ffs! German efficiency, I suppose. After seeing all the tourist wankery on the main street, we decided to walk down some little alleyways, away from the tourists, and find some 'path less taken' shots with the camera. Found some great spots, including some arrow slits in the stone wall from which we could see the countryside (and almost see the barbarian invaders!). Brilliant town, but a bit too touristy.
It was sometime after this that we found ourselves in the Black Forest. Our first stop in the Black Forest itself was at a cuckoo clock shop. Apparently, it was the best one in the Black Forest, all hand made by a father and son who ran the shop. We were liquored up with a shot of cherry wine by the owner, took some shots of the world's largest working cuckoo clock (about two stories tall, fully functional!) and proceeded inside. We had agreed to purchase a real cuckoo clock in Germany, and had, as such, set aside the funds to do so. Got a really great 7-day one (slighty more expensive - they only need to be wound once a week, as opposed to the once a day ones), duty free, 10% off because we were with this particular tour group, and packed, shipped to Australia and insured, for a grand total of about $400AUD. Sounds like a lot, but it's something we'll have forever and it looks the shit. Our cat is going to go mental. Moreso, anyway. We also ate a piece of Black Forest cake (as you do) which was great. The coffee that I had with it was awful, but.. well, they make beer, don't they? It's no Melbourne.
After dropping a fair whack of our funds on a clock, we got right into Bavaria. Started seeing patchy ice and stuff and thought that we'd never see snow. Boy, were we wrong. For about 3 of the 7 days of the tour, we were in proper, ridgy didge snow. The weather was overcast but it never actually snowed while we were there - no matter, we had snow fights at every opportunity. That is, Alli screamed at me to stop throwing snow at her because she was sick. Probably should have mentioned that - Alli caught a nasty cold on the tour. I caught it a week later in Paris. Both still fighting it off now in England, but it's almost finished off.
Before I proceed, I must mention our tour group. There were about 25 of us, I think. I can remember the following (and forget most of the names).
An Aussie from the Gold Coast - about 60 years old, really funny, really well travelled sort of person. Really liked her. Addendum: Alli reckons this woman didn't like us. I disagree. We're adorable.
A pair of Scottish ladies.. mother and daughter. Mother was in her mid 80's, daughter must have been well into her 50's, maybe early 60's. Both excellent value, we talked about kilts and haggis with them (they loved haggis!).
An Aussie couple from Tasmania - they had won a trip to Europe at some travel show, sod them! We had dinner with them a couple of times, they were really cool too.
About 5 New Yorkers - whom I more or less detested at the start of the trip, but liked them by the end.
A few other Yanks, some from Colorado, some from.. Wisconsin? All nice.
Couple from South Africa. Weird. Didn't speak, not even to each other. We were stuck on a table with them for breakfast one morning, and they said all of three words. Bugger them.
And.. drumroll please.. the single most annoying human being I have ever met in my entire life. I am not making this up. The shameful part is - she's from Melbourne (well, Olinda technically). She is 29. She lives with her parents. She saved up $20,000 to go on this trip to Europe (good on her!) I could go on forever about this girl, but let me make a few dot points.
1. She kept referring to € as 'dollars'.
2. As a result of #1, she kept telling us how cheap everything in Europe was. She had absolutely no idea about currency conversion. I explained it to her (double the number, and knock about 10% off) about 20 times. Literally, about 20 times, not a rounded number. And she'd then come back with a set of 'antique' cutlery (tarnished crap from someone's mum's drawer) for €14 and tell us how it seemed like 'very good value for only fourteen dollars'. Or the Christmas decoration that she bought for just €10 (about $18AUD). Idiot.
3. As a result of #2, she was burning through money at a rapid rate of knots. She was down to $6000... less that one week into her tour. She bought anything and everything she could buy at the Christmas markets - with no idea about luggage, extra charges on any planes she takes (she would have been tremendously over the 20kg limit within days of starting). I mean it, everyone would ask how much she bought after any given day.
4. Constantly asking me to help her with her digital camera. Daily. Hourly almost, it seemed. She'd bought a new one in Singapore from a 'nice man' on the way over to London. It had an English-language manual. She refused to read it, simply expecting that everyone else on the bus would know how to operate a Canon XYZ80. Once I had helped her out a couple of times, she kept coming back to me. I had to explain that she couldn't move her bloody hands around when taking a shot. I had to explain autofocus. I had to explain the flash. And so on.
5. For some strange reason (I do have a theory), when describing something, she'd use the most obtuse, bizarre method of describing it. For instance, when returning to the bus one day, she said 'It's cold out there! I'm as cold as a snowman with no mittens on!' Who speaks like that? This chick does. My theory is that she speaks like this because she works in child care - and thus she speaks like that to children all day, and has somehow never made the distinction between children and adults.
6. She had bought a new ski-style jacket for the tour of Bavaria. Good idea. We had too (back in Australia). Problem is, she had the tag still hanging off the main zipper. The BIG tag. The one about the size of a piece of bread, with all the wank about 'water resistance' and 'wicking moisture' and 'cockspank technology'. She had the tag there.. for 3 days. I know she knew about it - she had to grab the bloody zipper to do the coat up. After three whole days of formulating clever, witty, polite ways of broaching the subject, I just got sick of it. 'So Nicole, when are you cutting that tag off?' Alli belted me. I didn't care. I hated that bloody tag, dangling away. 'Oh, eventually'. 'No, you're doing it right now'. Another belting from Alli. 'I've just never gotten around to it'. She rips off the paper part, leaving the plastic loop. This is not enough for me. 'I have my Leatherman here, I'll cut off the rest for you'. 'No, it's ok, I'll do it later'. 'Come here. We're doing it now'. And I cut it off. I swear, I slept so well that night.
7. On one of the last days on the trip, she opened up a bit and told us about her love life. Along the lines of a guy she sort of liked.. who once said to her 'would you be up for a threesome, because I'm desperate'. This was a mate of her brother. This did not offend her.. she knocked him back, but wasn't remotely offended. She had no idea that it WAS offensive. Alli and I thought she was joking. She was not.
And I've left the best till last. On our tour were the best couple I've ever met. Ever. They are from Brazil, Maurizio (Maurice) and Katia. Farking awesome people. Both spoke English pretty darn well (certainly better than my Portugeuse). Maurice was a history professor, Katia is a lawyer. Maurice was somewhere in his late 30s or so, Katia in her late 20's to early 30s. Hard to tell. Maurice was telling the funniest jokes all the time, talking to me about Brazil, eating with us, etc. I really cannot say enough about the two of them. They even bought Nicole The Idiot a card at the end of the tour, as she was getting teary about having the tour end (suck it up, princess!). Just amazing, wonderful people. We exchanged email addresses, etc. Can't wait to see them again.
Best night ever on the tour - the Hoffbrahaus (German beer hall) in Munich. All you can eat pork knuckles, sauerkraut, schnitzel, bratwurst, etc. And one litre steins of German beer. Yay! There's a full German show up on stage with singing, dancing, leiderhosen, bell ringing, wood chopping, the whole shebang. Farking awesome (litre of beer helps lighten the mood!). Anyway, about an hour into the show, which lasts around 3 hours, one of the performing troupe tapped me on the shoulder and said 'where are you from?'. 'Straylya'. 'Come with me'. Shit. Germans. Being marched off, away from my friends. Bright light in my eyes. 'Ve have vays of making you talk'. Instead, I was taken behind stage, given leiderhosen, and told that I had 2 minutes to be ready for stage. I was then taught the very basics of slapping my knees and my feet. Which I did, badly. A Japanese bloke was behind stage with me, he looked entirely nonplussed. I was petrified. 'But I can't dance! I'm white!' 'It doesn't matter.. just freestyle'. Well, alright then. So up on stage, bit of bowing and smiling and all that. Crowd of circa 300 people (more? 500?) roaring with laughter. Me in green leiderhosen and felt hat. And dance, I did. So utterly, utterly badly. Australia, I let us down on the world stage. I apologise. Looked over to our tour table, and could see flashes going off every few seconds. Gawd. Got back to the table after a bow and round of applause, to big smiles and laughter from all. The Hoffbrahaus even gave me a picture of my performance about 30 minutes later (with eyes closed for the shot, of course). Gold. Great night indeed.
After the tour, we ended up back in Frankfurt. Washed our clothes, hopped onto the night train headed for Munich, then to Venice. The airconditioning in our car was on full and stuck there, so whilst we managed to get a 6 seat compartment to ourselves, we froze our tits off all night. Absolutely terrible journey, couldn't sleep. It was about 12 hours of misery. Italians kept opening the door to the compartment, standing there, and then walking off.. often leaving the door open. One stood there standing, staring at Alli for about 3 minutes, in the dark. Freak. Thankfully, we got through unscathed, and arrived in Venice. We had no idea just how sucky the trip across Europe could be.. Belgium, Holland and Germany were so farking awesome.. and everyone loves Italy! What could go wrong?
Strap yourself in.
Adios,
A+P.
