Where i start following up on my last blog mike had a severe case of food poisoning and we were heading to germany the next day, i have never seen anyone that sick it was horrible he couldn't even get out of bed and was completely delirious, we didn't think he was going to be able to fly, it was very scary.. luckily the next day he wasn't as bad so we managed to get on the plane.
What a mission of a flight 2 1/2 hour wait at bali airport, then 2 hour flight to singapore then, an 8 hour stop over ( this wasn't so bad mike pretty much slept on a couch the whole time) then a 12 hour flight to munich. when we arrived in Munich we had to make our way to Koblenz which is were we had to pick up our camper "Hans" which mid you is a good 5 hours from munich so we made our way to the train station, as soon as we walking in we amazed …FOOD.. (that wasn't rice or noodles haha) there was a massive bakery with every baked good you could amagine, but at this point mike still wasn't able to eat much so we got a croissant each and made our way to the train for our 5 hour trip to Koblenz. Europe trains are kind of annoying as they have a class system and if you are sitting in the wrong class you are abruptly asked to move, as i was by a kind of odd looking german man. when we purchased our tickets they did not assign us a seat so we had to walk around the train and try and find a seat that was not assigned which is really annoying considering the cost of the tickets. in all the the train ride was pleasant we travelled up the rhine river which has amazing view of quaint little villages and hill top castles. we finally made it to Koblenz station where we had to wait 2 hours to pick up Hans, as soon as he drove around the corner we knew this was going to be an awesome trip.
Hans what can i say he is brown, old and quirky but we wouldn't have him any other way. before we left i did a little research and found a campsite which look really nice and it wasnt too far from koblenz so we decided to stay there for the night ,well websites can be deceiving we arrived and this place was german redneck city, i think 90% of the people there were permanent residences there was even a man with a trailer that had horns on it… as it was late in the arvo and mike was almost passing out we thought we mose well stay the night, at this point all i wanted was a shower when i walked up to it there was a sign saying "you must pay 1 euro to shower go to reception for key" so i had to walk into this kind of bar area in the reception which there were like 5 older guys sitting there and ask for the shower key, one of them jumped up and gave it to me straight away and they all started laughing and talking in german which was super creepy, i went back to the camper and mike was dead to the world, and all i wanted was a shower i was a little creeped out at this point so i decided to put my bikini on under my cloths and shower in my bikini in case one of the ceepo's were around.
We left pretty early the next day to head to Koln it took approx 3 1/2 hours which seemed to go pretty quick, we didn't have anywhere to stay at this point so we decided to check out the city, koln was nice they have a massive church which is impressive, we found a tourist information centre and the lady there gave use a list of different campsite so we picked one and decided to go and chill out for the afternoon the only issue we had was our GPS, i think she has it in for us, we some how ended up in theses narrow little cobblestone ally ways which has cafes and people walking down them, and hans isn't the smallest little thing… it was an experience. the second campsite we stayed at which was in koln was nice there were other campers around which was a relief, except it must have been a more upmarket campsite as the other campers has these brand new caravans and buses, this one couple has white leather lounges under an annex at there bus and this other caravan was remote controlled. we only stayed there for the one night then it was off to Hannover.
On the way to Hannover we stopped into Ikea as we didn't have any pillows, i think that was mikes first and last time to ikea i don't think he appreciates the awesomeness that it Ikea, we got our pillows and some camping chairs and were off to Hannover once again we found a campsite on the internet big mistake again, i could amagine this place could have had potential in the summer but we were stuck with the permeant residences again and there was absolutely nothing to do it was then we decided we need to find some playing cards. that was our mission for the next day. we went into Hannover in the morning now this isn't the most exciting place its was just like any bug city, buildings/ shops and thats about it we had some lunch and mission complete we found some playing cards, we then stopped off at the big city hall where we got to see how the war devastated Hannover, we picked up a pamphlet on the way out with some campsites in the area and off we went again, when we arrived the people spoke english and were really nice we drove into the park and it completely restored our faith it was really nice right on the lake with little wooden cabins everywhere, we went down to the bistro there and had a few beers, (these were our first german beers as mike was finally feeling better) we ended up taking to the chef and he gave us some tips on placed to see, he told us about this place called Celle which was only 20min away so we thought the next morning we will go and check it out, this places was amazing it was a typical old german town with wooden and brick buildings it was just really pretty this is what i expected i was going to see in germany. when we arrived the markets were on so we walked around for a while and got some bread rolls, salami and some fruit and veg and headed back to the campsite. we were lucky enough that at our campsite they were having a public viewing of the Eurovision song contest, which the germans seem to really get into we watched it for a little while but as it was 4 degrees outside we went back to the camper and played some cards.
The next day we were off to berlin, on the way we stopped off in at Madgenburg which is supposedly the oldest city in germany, it wasn't the most exciting place, there was a giant cathedral but thats about it and as it was a sunday it was completely deserted. After that we went to Potsdam, which was cool it had and old and new area, the old area was the centre of town and was really cool there were cafe's and shops lining the main street which were all cobble stone, and we managed to get an ice-cream cone for 1 euro. After Potsdam we made our way to the campsite which at first didn't look that appealing but once we went in and got settled it turned out to be a cool little place we even met some other aussies who were in a similar van to Hans. The next morning we went to Berlin, from the campsite is was really easy to get there, we caught a bus from the end of our street to the train station and then a train into berlin city which took around an hour. Our first impression of Berlin, it was arty, with massive 6 story high murals on the side of buildings, very modern architecture mixed in with the older pre war buildings and lots of people. after getting out of the train station we went for a walk down to the main government building which was very old looking and had a massive glass dome which you could walk up and visit, except we found out that if you did want to walk up it you have to pre book 3 days in advance. then we walked down to the Branden Burger Tor which was the gate to the berlin wall and only reopened in 1989. we walked down the street a little bit more and we noticed some secret service looking cars out side a hotel, when we stopped to see what was happening all of a sudden mike said to me "look its Bill Gates" when i looked over it wasn't Bill Gates it was Bill Clinton getting into one of the cars, mike almost got a photo but Bill was too quick for him. After our brief encounter with Bill we went and explored the city, we went on a canal boat tour and walked though the city streets, we finally got some lunch at around 4.30 at this 5 story high sopping complex and then made our way back the the campsite. when we got back we needed to get some food and when we were driving in we saw this supermarket called Edeka which we thought was a normal supermarket, when we walked in we were in amazement they had everything you could amagine from 10L bottles of Absolute Vodka for $45 euro to 20KG block of cheese for $4 euro, i guess we should of realised then that it wasn't an everyday supermarket, we picked up a few thing (bread, milk, eggs ect) and when we got to the check out they told us thats you have to have a business in order to buy from there, i think they felt sorry for us so they let us buy the couple of things we'd picked up and we went back to campsite to chill out for the night.
thats all for now will keep you all updated in a weeks time….
