My arrival in Valencia was less than spectacular as Ryan, Nic and I dragged ourselves from the Valencia airport to Nic’s hotel in Palameta. We were all completely shattered after three crazy nights in Ibiza and were just looking for somewhere dark and cool to chill for a bit. We spent a few hours coming down from our cloud in Nic’s room before Ryan headed off to find his own hotel and Nic and I went out to get some food. The whole area stunk of rotten food. I originally thought it was the dumpster bins that were near the entrance to the hotel, but we walked around the whole block to get to the supermarket, and the whole area smelled rank. Not a good start from Valencia, but Nic and I were in a bit of a daze anyway and all we wanted to do was have a bite to eat and get some kip.
A few hours later, Nic’s roommate rocked up and then went out again. And later Nic’s friend, Trish, who had organized Nic to go on the Fanatics La Tomatina tour, arrived from San Sebastian. They were pleased to see each other for the first time in ages, and Nic then made some plans to go out for drinks that night. I didn’t pay a lot of attention I was still wrecked. We got some more sleep and then at about 8pm, we headed out into the city of Valencia to get some food and have a few drinks. We were all too tired to make a deciscion, so we ate at Burger King, before finding the Irish pub, Finnegans, where most of the Fanatics were supposed to be. I didn’t even have a beer, but I did watch in great disappointment as Liverpoool got comprehensively pumped by Aston Villa. We all then left the pub and went back to Nic’s hotel, where I was crashing because I had no accommodation that night.
Tuesday morning I woke up feeling slightly better, although still a little scattered and packed up my stuff and left Nic’s hotel to go check into my own. Hotel Venecia was right in the centre of town, and I expected big things from it as my La Tomatina package with Busabout was way more expensive than Nic’s fanatics package, and her package included an extra nights accommodation. The hotel wasn’t bad, and after check in, I went out and grabbed some Paella from down the road, before coming back and falling promptly to sleep.
A few hours later I woke up with a great pain in my stomach. The stupid Paella had given me food poisoning. I guess that serves me right for going to the cheapest corner store I could find. After a bit of time in the WC, I felt a bit better and went back to sleep for a few more hours before going out with Ryan and his friends Mary and Bron for some sangria and some food and a random little Italian place that was decorated with a lot of fake antique furniture and gold paint.
About halfway through dinner I received a call from Paula. She had hitch hiked from Barcelona to Valencia and was wondering what I was up to. She made it very clear that she didn’t spend ten hours hitch hiking to solely to see me, but I chose to ignore those comments, choosing instead to believe that I have that kind of power over women. So awesome that I make them risk their life and use up their whole day to see me. Surely that’s believable? I finished dinner and then met Paula back at my hotel, where neither of us got much sleep, due to my roommate being quite a loud snorer and the street being very noisy below.
The next morning was the last Wednesday in August, and hence, the day of The Red War. La Tomatina is the world’s biggest food fight and apparently dates back to 1945 when children started throwing tomatoes during a festival. I was up and out of bed by 6:40am for the rather shitty breakfast that was put on by the hotel. I needed a bit more than stale bread and some cheeses and meats to get me going, but as is the way as through European hostels, that’s all you are getting. At about 8am I said goodbye to Paula and went downstairs to get my free Busabout La Tomatina T-shirt and headed onto the bus and off to Bunol, about 40kms away from Valencia. The bus trip itself took close to 45min making it about 9:30am at arrival. The actual tomato throwing doesn’t start till 11am, so we had plenty of time to walk through the crowd, buying some sangria along the way for me and Matt. We drank about half of it while it was still in its delicious sangria form, before emptying half of Matt’s bottle of vodka into each cup. It now tasted like wine coloured metho, and was no fun to drink at all. As we walked down the hill and through the town, we ran into Kate, Erin and their crew, and also a few other people we knew, all making their way into the centre of the small industrial town in preparation of the mayhem. By the time we got into the middle of town, the crush was on big time. All you could do was push through and keep going, just like the bigger moshpits of Big Day Out or any other large concert. We got to an area where we were reasonable happy, and waited, getting pushed, crushed, shoved, but all in all, having a great time yelling out for to the Bunol residents for water to be tipped on us from their balconies by screaming “AGUA!” to them. At around 11am (I don’t know for sure, I didn’t wear a watch) the first cannon went off and the crowd roared. The pushing hyped up into overdrive as the crowd prepare for the oncoming barrage of tomatoes, however the barrage didn’t come. Instead we just got pushed further and further down a side street and as much as we tried to get back into the action, there was no way back. We could see tomatoes being thrown on the main street and screamed for some to be thrown down to us. I caught one in my left hand and fired it back, but that was it. For that first fifteen minutes I thought that would be the extent of my La Tomatina tomato experience. We decided to drop further back, walk along a side street and make our way up to the main street a little closer to where the trucks come from. This plan worked brilliantly as we were soon back on the main street, right in the thick of it as the truck came down and dumped off their tomatoey missiles. There was more tomatoes than I could throw as I concentrated on getting the reasonably complete ones that I could fire off with a little more accuracy at people in the distance, when they ran out of would pick up handfuls of mush in my hands and dump it into the faces, pants and tops of those around me. After probably 30 minutes of red mayhem, the second cannon fired and the war was over. We all celebrated with another roar and looked around at our handiwork. The tomato mush ran ankle deep in the streets, covered the walls of nearby building and caked on centimeter thick onto the hair, skin and clothes of those nearby. We began the long walk back up the hill, stopping at the houses of locals who were out the front with their houses to rinse us off. Most of these hoses were operated by men, and as such, they would generally show more affection (and water) to the ladies who were prepared to show them a little cleavage. Hence, for most of the way up the hill I was still pretty messy until we finally got somewhere which wasn’t all that busy and could get a decent rinse. We got back to the bus and I changed into my other clothes, and then promptly fell asleep on the bus, waking up outside my hotel in Valencia.
I then had a short nap in my hotel before going out to find Paula, who had wandered off around Valencia without a map and was now unable to find her way back. She then committed the cardinal sin of being lost, which was giving me her location and then moving, but after a bit of pissing around, we eventually found each other, and then decided to go to the beach. The Valencia beach is heaps nicer than Barcelona. Actually, while we’re on it, Valencia as a city is much nicer than Barcelona. It may not quite have the nightlife, soul or vibrancy of Barcelona, but it’s much cleaner, prettier and safer. The Valencia beach is a wide strip of powder sand (yes, sand) between a tree lined boardwalk and the warm ocean, which even has a few small, rolling waves to play on. Paula and I stayed at the beach until sundown and then made our way back to my hotel to get changed and go out for a few drinks with some of the crew. We met Ryan out, but Nic had decided to go home and get some sleep. We all walked through the wide pretty street and plazas of Valencia until we found Kate and her crew. After a bit of faffing about we decided on a bar and stopped in there for a few drinks. We shared all our crazy stories of the wonderful ball of silliness that is La Tomatina, before realizing how late it was and deciding to say my goodbyes to Kate, as I would not see her until London in late October, and Ryan who I wouldn’t see until our planned Krakow trip in mid October.
Paula and I got back to the hotel and tidied up our stuff. I was off on the bus to Madrid then next morning, and she would be on a train back to Barcelona at 6:30am, the beginning of a long day of travel which will eventually have her back in Hamburg by 10pm that evening. I was once again sad to see her go, but we had planned for me to come see her in October in Berlin, so that once another trip to look forward to in what is rapidly becoming a very booked out September and October.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Ibiza – Why does my brain, body and wallet hurt so much?
Nic, Ryan, Woo and I strolled off the plane and into the morning Mediterranean sun as we crossed the tarmac of Ibiza airport. It was hot and dry and still only just after 9am as we got a taxi to take us to the Lux Mar Apartments in Figueretas. Luckily nobody was to be checked out of our room, so we were able to check in immediately and head up to our room. We spent the day lazing about the pool, catching up on sleep and generally preparing ourselves for what would be a massive weekend of partying and Spanish flavoured craziness.
By mid evening on Friday, we had purchased our tickets for the infamous Pacha nightclub, got some food and booze for the evening, but had still not been able to locate any motivation for the evening’s festivities, however after a bucket load of red bull and vodka, we were on our way into the Ibiza night with a lot of expectations. We arrived at Pacha, and while it was still pretty empty, the club itself was very impressive. Rooms led onto arena which split into outdoor areas and secluded caves with more bars and rooms sprouting off them. Before we knew it, the club had filled up in what seemed like a matter of minutes and people filled every area. As the night wore on our inability to find motivation frustrated Woo, Ryan and myself as with a red bull and Vodka costing 30euro, we didn’t have alcohol to fall back on. Nic however found a group of British lads who were happy to ply her full of whatever motivation she was after. She had “possibly the best night of [her] life”, whereas Ryan, Woo and I all enjoyed our night, but were home and asleep a good few hours before Nic.
The next day consisted of sleep, lying on the beach and sleep. I was lucky enough to randomly bump in Erin, as I had lost Kate’s (Erin’s sister) mobile number when my phone was stolen and had planned to meet up with them in Ibiza for some party times. Down the beach Woo was able to locate something he had been looking for and we returned to the hotel, ready for a night out at Bora Bora and keen to take on Ibiza in round two. Somewhere around this time, I apparently lost my mind. I remember so little of this evening that hearing the stories of me chucking a tanty, taking photos of scantily clad Italian girls and general poor behavior are nearly as embarrassing as seeing the photographic evidence of me dancing around like a douche bag with my shirt off inside the club. Awful, disgraceful scenes. Although, until I heard all this the next day, I thought I had a pretty fantastic night and was once again back on the program and looking forward to the third and final round.
The next day consisted of sleep, lying by the pool, and more sleep. We dragged our asses out of our hotel by 10pm and went out to a bar where we got some reasonably priced drinks and Woo was once again able to sniff out some motivation for the group. We rocked up at Space nightclub by just after 11pm, met up with Kate, Erin and their crew and got the night cranking with a set of funky tech with a live drummer belting out some rocking beats. We then moved into the main room and the night cranked up another gear and we rocked into the night, occasionally going up to the terrace to hear the planes fly low over our heads as they came in to land at the Ibiza airport.
By about 6am, it was time for us to leave. We needed to be on a plane to Valencia by 9am, and would have no time to sleep. We got back to the hotel, packed all our stuff and got in a taxi to the airport. I said my goodbyes to Woo at the airport as he is heading back to the UK, while I head to Valencia and La Tomatina. We trudged like sickly, sleep deprived zombies out across the same Ibiza tarmac as we had three days ago. We came. We saw. We kicked its ass. Kinda.
By mid evening on Friday, we had purchased our tickets for the infamous Pacha nightclub, got some food and booze for the evening, but had still not been able to locate any motivation for the evening’s festivities, however after a bucket load of red bull and vodka, we were on our way into the Ibiza night with a lot of expectations. We arrived at Pacha, and while it was still pretty empty, the club itself was very impressive. Rooms led onto arena which split into outdoor areas and secluded caves with more bars and rooms sprouting off them. Before we knew it, the club had filled up in what seemed like a matter of minutes and people filled every area. As the night wore on our inability to find motivation frustrated Woo, Ryan and myself as with a red bull and Vodka costing 30euro, we didn’t have alcohol to fall back on. Nic however found a group of British lads who were happy to ply her full of whatever motivation she was after. She had “possibly the best night of [her] life”, whereas Ryan, Woo and I all enjoyed our night, but were home and asleep a good few hours before Nic.
The next day consisted of sleep, lying on the beach and sleep. I was lucky enough to randomly bump in Erin, as I had lost Kate’s (Erin’s sister) mobile number when my phone was stolen and had planned to meet up with them in Ibiza for some party times. Down the beach Woo was able to locate something he had been looking for and we returned to the hotel, ready for a night out at Bora Bora and keen to take on Ibiza in round two. Somewhere around this time, I apparently lost my mind. I remember so little of this evening that hearing the stories of me chucking a tanty, taking photos of scantily clad Italian girls and general poor behavior are nearly as embarrassing as seeing the photographic evidence of me dancing around like a douche bag with my shirt off inside the club. Awful, disgraceful scenes. Although, until I heard all this the next day, I thought I had a pretty fantastic night and was once again back on the program and looking forward to the third and final round.
The next day consisted of sleep, lying by the pool, and more sleep. We dragged our asses out of our hotel by 10pm and went out to a bar where we got some reasonably priced drinks and Woo was once again able to sniff out some motivation for the group. We rocked up at Space nightclub by just after 11pm, met up with Kate, Erin and their crew and got the night cranking with a set of funky tech with a live drummer belting out some rocking beats. We then moved into the main room and the night cranked up another gear and we rocked into the night, occasionally going up to the terrace to hear the planes fly low over our heads as they came in to land at the Ibiza airport.
By about 6am, it was time for us to leave. We needed to be on a plane to Valencia by 9am, and would have no time to sleep. We got back to the hotel, packed all our stuff and got in a taxi to the airport. I said my goodbyes to Woo at the airport as he is heading back to the UK, while I head to Valencia and La Tomatina. We trudged like sickly, sleep deprived zombies out across the same Ibiza tarmac as we had three days ago. We came. We saw. We kicked its ass. Kinda.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Barcelona – The Best and the Worst
Driving into Barcelona we were told two things by our rather useless guide. A) Barcelona is awesome. B) At least two of us out of that busload would get mugged. While it was hard to ignore the obvious excitement of being in my first Spanish city, I found myself dwelling on the second point more as I walked down to the ATM to get some cash to pay for the hostel. Our hostel in Barcelona was in a pretty dingy area, not too far from La Ramblas, but also swarming with delinquent types and prostitutes, despite being over the road from the police station. While checking into the hostel all I remember is Elena, the gorgeous German hostel manager, who had a penchant for pulling faces when people pissed her off, even though she wasn’t aware she was doing it.
After getting settled in the consensus decision amongst the group was that we would do the pub crawl tonight, the first day in town. Remembering the same decision in Prague turned a little pear-shaped, I was hesitant at first, but being easily led, and this time making sure I had a decent map, we all headed out to the crawl. There is not a lot I remember about that night. I thought I remembered most of it, but later found out that a lot more had happened than what I thought. I remember stupidly trying to hit on Lauren all night, even though she had a boyfriend back in Perth. I remember meeting Kelly, a sweetheart Canadian at the club at the end of the night. Apart from that, it’s all a mess. But I had fun (I think) and didn’t get mugged on the way home, so all in all, it was a success. My friend Ryan, however, did get mugged. They cut the watch off his arm and ran off, cutting his arm in the process. Bastards.
The next morning I woke up and went for a walk around town with two American girls in my room named Megan and Surly. Yes. Her name is Surly. I was as surprised as anyone. It felt weird to be calling someone else Surly. Very weird. So, anyway, we walked around town all day to look at the various examples of Gaudi architecture. I must admit I know nothing of Gaudi before getting to Barcelona, but it truly is awesome stuff and completely different to anything I had seen before. When I returned back to the hostel, I found that the Woo Tang Man had hit town and was looking for me. That night, Woo and I went out on the town with Kate, Erin and some lads from their room. We went out for traditional tapas and then cocktails before hitting up more bars and ending up at Boulevard nightclub at around 3am. It was good to see Woo again, and he was back to the old Woo, striking up conversation with anyone and generally having a great time being silly with everyone. We rolled into our hostel at about 4am and crashed hard.
The next day Woo and I rolled out of bed quite late and decided to go to the beach with Surly for the afternoon. We walked the 20min walk in the blazing sun and were very glad to get to the beach finally and see that it was sand (well, dirt really) and the water was cool and blue. We were on the lookout for bag snatchers as apparently you couldn’t leave any you stuff on its own or it would get promptly stolen. I started talking to a stunning German girl named Paula. We compared tattoos and generally paid out on each other’s stupidity. After a few hours on the beach it was time to leave and we made the long walk home, stopping along the way for a Gelato, and got back to hostel feeling tired, hungry and slightly burnt. Woo and I then head out to a local British pub to watch the opening Liverpool game of the season, and despite being very disappointed with Liverpool’s loss, we met some top class Irish lads who were a great laugh and demanded that Woo and I go over to meet them for some big nights in Dublin at sometime.
We had to rush out on the Irish lads, Steve and Phil, as we needed to get ready to go out to dinner with a bunch of people. Surly and Megan had offered to take us out to a “Neo-tapas” restaurant. Megan liked to dub this sort of food “bread sushi” because everything came out on a piece of French bread, in the same way that some sushi is a bed of rice, with a piece of fish on top. Woo had invited Carolyn, and German girl from his room along for the meal and I had invited Paula, although as she didn’t have a phone I was going to be waiting on a call from her to give her directions on how to meet us. However, by far the most illustrious guest was Nic, who had arrived on the bus that night, and I hadn’t seen since Salzburg a few weeks earlier, and was super excited to be seeing again.
The “bread sushi’ was pretty amazing, apart from the occasional let down, and we ate our fill of it and drank lots of sangria before the waiter came around to count our toothpicks to tell us how much we owed, as there was a toothpick in each portion of food. I finally got a call from Paula, only an hour and fifteen minutes late, and managed to give her sufficient directions to make it to the Orio restaurant. She arrived about fifteen minutes later and had a glass of sangria with us before Surly, Megan and Carolyn decided to head back to the hostel. Nic, Woo, Paula and I all decided to head out from some cocktails at the bar we had been to the night before, as we could still make it for most of happy hour. A few cocktails later and happy hour was over so we cruised around the inner city of Barcelona, having a drink or two in a few random bars before by about 3am Nic and Woo and decided it was time to return to the hostel. Paula and I decided to go down to the beach, so I grabbed my bag and we started the walk.
About ten minutes into the half hour walk, I realized that in addition to having my towel in it, my bag also contained my camera and ipod. Being as the only reason I had grabbed my bag is that I knew it had my towel in it, I was a little annoyed at myself, but I wasn’t prepared to walk all the way back to drop it off, and wasn’t planning on letting the bag out of my sight, so decided it would be fine. Paula and I arrived at the beach and put down our bags on a spot far away from anyone. We occasionally had someone walk past us, but were both very surprised to notice 30minutes later that our bags, which were sitting right behind us, were gone. I sat there in disbelief for a good ten minutes. I could not believe the incredulousness of what had just happened, however after having a conniption at the realization that I had lost my phone more than anything else, it was time put Paula on a train back to her place, and make the long walk home, going to sleep as the sun was rising.
The next morning was all about doing a police report, which took me over an hour and a half, and then heading out for some food with Ryan and Woo. I did have dreams of going to get some stuff, such as a new phone, backpack and possibly camera, but in the end I just didn’t have the energy so I ended up just sitting around the hostel for most of the day before we had all planned to go out for tapas and sangria, before going to a massive club night at Apollo. Nic’s hostel was supposed to take a big group of us to an all you can eat paella place, with cheap sangria, but that never eventuated, so we all headed out into the town to find one ourselves. As always when you have a group of lots of people and no leader, we ended up walking around aimlessly looking at menu’s with nobody making a decision for about half an hour before we finally decided on a restaurant not too far from where we were originally congregated. The paella and sangria were good, and not too expensive, and afterwards we headed out to a shot bar down one of the back streets. This bar was really cool, with thousands of different shots available, all for 2 euros each. Some involved setting the bar on fire, roasting some marshmallows on the fire, then doing the shot. Very cool stuff that would be unlikely to ever be allowed in Australia due to OHS and fire code restrictions. The problem for me however, is that I was absolutely rat-shit tired and I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer, regardless of how many shot I might have. I said my goodbyes, left the crew out and headed back to the hostel to be in my bed and out like a lamp by midnight.
The next morning Woo, Ryan and I went into the shopping district as I needed to get a new phone and a new backpack. We walked around for ages, with very little success. In the electronics store I noticed that many cameras were being bought by tourists, and I wondered how much Barcelona’s economy relies on theft. If everyone stopped getting their camera or ipod etc stolen in Barcelona, then they would have no need to buy a new one here, and I think Barcelona would see a 10-15% drop in sales of consumer electronic goods. They’re all in cahoots I say! Oh well, it’s only a theory. After finally finding a Vodafone, we were told that we needed our passports to get a phone. I didn’t have my phone so we made the long annoying walk back to the hostel to get them. Ryan, who also needed a sim card, and I, left Woo at the hostel and went back out to Vodafone on our own. I also found a new backpack along the way, and although being nowhere near as good as my previous one, it would do the job. I got my sim and finally got everything working in English and was very glad to have a phone again, even though my new phone is shit, and Spanish call plans are in no way cheap.
That afternoon I ran into Matt and Sarah, whom I had not seen since my first stop in Vienna and let them know we had decided to stay in the hostel that evening and drink some store purchased sangria. We went through about six bottles of sangria before heading out, again going to the cocktail bar, as it was all night happy hour tonight. Matt, Sarah, Ryan, Nic, Woo and I all got thoroughly destroyed on 3.50euro cocktails before at 2am deciding hitting up Boulevard would be a good idea. After 3 hours of completely spastic dancing, but no more drinks due to their ridiculous prices, we took the short walk through the shitbomb area back to the hostel.
We woke up Wednesday morning with our priority being to get tickets to the Barcelona FC game at the Nou Camp versus Manchester City. Tickets were 30euro, not terribly good seats, and we had to split up into two groups of two, but we were all very excited to be going to one of the most famous stadiums in the world and seeing the reigning champions of Europe play the richest club in the world. After getting our tickets, everybody had different plans, with Woo going out sightseeing with some of his Contiki friends, while Ryan and Nic wanted to have a nap. I planned on doing some washing but got a call from Paula, and instead hung out with her for the afternoon. There was nobody else in my hostel room, so it was nice to be able to spend some time one on one with her, without the fear of having my stuff stolen. That evening we all congregated on the hostel roof for a few hours of sangria, laughter and conversation before heading out to the Soccer game, saying my goodbyes to Paula, who is not a sport person, before we left.
The Nou camp isn’t an overly impressive stadium from the outside, but once you enter it, you realize that the ground level inside the ground is significantly lower than outside, and the hundred thousand seat stadium in a cauldron of noise, lights and Catalan pride when inside. The spectacle of it all was fantastic, and although Woo and I were nearly directly behind the goals on the opposite end of the pitch to the only goal that was scored, it was still an amazing experience to be there. The problems however started arising after the game when Nic and Ryan, who had been seated in another section of the stadium, had walked off in a different direction and had no map. Eventually we had to go find them, and by the time we returned, the metro railway system had stopped running. The game did not finish until 12:30am, with a full house of nearly one hundred thousand people, and yet there were no trains less than an hour later. Nice one Barcelona. We ended up walking nearly half the way home (about 5kms) before we finally got a taxi at around 3am and got back to the hostel to pass out after a night that ended up being a lot later than we had planned.
Thursday would be my last day in Barcelona, and like every single other day before it, I did not get up in time to take advantage of the free breakfast. I spent my morning organizing my bag and getting my washing done before meeting Paula and spending the day with her. We went to possibly the most expensive ‘model food’ restaurant I have ever been to, with meals costing 18euro and being the size of a small entrée. The next morning I said my sad goodbyes to Paula and met Nic, Ryan and a still very, very drunk Woo for the early morning taxi to the airport, and our flight to Ibiza. Woo had done to pubcrawl the night before, and got massively fucked up, missing his alarm, packing his bag that morning, waking up everyone in his room, making the taxi wait for us, and was generally loud, drunk and fucking hilarious, especially when he asked an attractive airport worker if she would like to accompany him to Ibiza. Classic Woo.
Barcelona included the absolute best and worst times of my holiday. The nightlife was outstanding. Every night there was an absolute blast. The city is gorgeous, with some of the more stunning and different architecture in Europe and your doorstep. However, the crime and consistent fear of crime is always there and dilutes any enjoyment you might be able to have in your time there, destroying your growing love of the amazing Catalan capital.
After getting settled in the consensus decision amongst the group was that we would do the pub crawl tonight, the first day in town. Remembering the same decision in Prague turned a little pear-shaped, I was hesitant at first, but being easily led, and this time making sure I had a decent map, we all headed out to the crawl. There is not a lot I remember about that night. I thought I remembered most of it, but later found out that a lot more had happened than what I thought. I remember stupidly trying to hit on Lauren all night, even though she had a boyfriend back in Perth. I remember meeting Kelly, a sweetheart Canadian at the club at the end of the night. Apart from that, it’s all a mess. But I had fun (I think) and didn’t get mugged on the way home, so all in all, it was a success. My friend Ryan, however, did get mugged. They cut the watch off his arm and ran off, cutting his arm in the process. Bastards.
The next morning I woke up and went for a walk around town with two American girls in my room named Megan and Surly. Yes. Her name is Surly. I was as surprised as anyone. It felt weird to be calling someone else Surly. Very weird. So, anyway, we walked around town all day to look at the various examples of Gaudi architecture. I must admit I know nothing of Gaudi before getting to Barcelona, but it truly is awesome stuff and completely different to anything I had seen before. When I returned back to the hostel, I found that the Woo Tang Man had hit town and was looking for me. That night, Woo and I went out on the town with Kate, Erin and some lads from their room. We went out for traditional tapas and then cocktails before hitting up more bars and ending up at Boulevard nightclub at around 3am. It was good to see Woo again, and he was back to the old Woo, striking up conversation with anyone and generally having a great time being silly with everyone. We rolled into our hostel at about 4am and crashed hard.
The next day Woo and I rolled out of bed quite late and decided to go to the beach with Surly for the afternoon. We walked the 20min walk in the blazing sun and were very glad to get to the beach finally and see that it was sand (well, dirt really) and the water was cool and blue. We were on the lookout for bag snatchers as apparently you couldn’t leave any you stuff on its own or it would get promptly stolen. I started talking to a stunning German girl named Paula. We compared tattoos and generally paid out on each other’s stupidity. After a few hours on the beach it was time to leave and we made the long walk home, stopping along the way for a Gelato, and got back to hostel feeling tired, hungry and slightly burnt. Woo and I then head out to a local British pub to watch the opening Liverpool game of the season, and despite being very disappointed with Liverpool’s loss, we met some top class Irish lads who were a great laugh and demanded that Woo and I go over to meet them for some big nights in Dublin at sometime.
We had to rush out on the Irish lads, Steve and Phil, as we needed to get ready to go out to dinner with a bunch of people. Surly and Megan had offered to take us out to a “Neo-tapas” restaurant. Megan liked to dub this sort of food “bread sushi” because everything came out on a piece of French bread, in the same way that some sushi is a bed of rice, with a piece of fish on top. Woo had invited Carolyn, and German girl from his room along for the meal and I had invited Paula, although as she didn’t have a phone I was going to be waiting on a call from her to give her directions on how to meet us. However, by far the most illustrious guest was Nic, who had arrived on the bus that night, and I hadn’t seen since Salzburg a few weeks earlier, and was super excited to be seeing again.
The “bread sushi’ was pretty amazing, apart from the occasional let down, and we ate our fill of it and drank lots of sangria before the waiter came around to count our toothpicks to tell us how much we owed, as there was a toothpick in each portion of food. I finally got a call from Paula, only an hour and fifteen minutes late, and managed to give her sufficient directions to make it to the Orio restaurant. She arrived about fifteen minutes later and had a glass of sangria with us before Surly, Megan and Carolyn decided to head back to the hostel. Nic, Woo, Paula and I all decided to head out from some cocktails at the bar we had been to the night before, as we could still make it for most of happy hour. A few cocktails later and happy hour was over so we cruised around the inner city of Barcelona, having a drink or two in a few random bars before by about 3am Nic and Woo and decided it was time to return to the hostel. Paula and I decided to go down to the beach, so I grabbed my bag and we started the walk.
About ten minutes into the half hour walk, I realized that in addition to having my towel in it, my bag also contained my camera and ipod. Being as the only reason I had grabbed my bag is that I knew it had my towel in it, I was a little annoyed at myself, but I wasn’t prepared to walk all the way back to drop it off, and wasn’t planning on letting the bag out of my sight, so decided it would be fine. Paula and I arrived at the beach and put down our bags on a spot far away from anyone. We occasionally had someone walk past us, but were both very surprised to notice 30minutes later that our bags, which were sitting right behind us, were gone. I sat there in disbelief for a good ten minutes. I could not believe the incredulousness of what had just happened, however after having a conniption at the realization that I had lost my phone more than anything else, it was time put Paula on a train back to her place, and make the long walk home, going to sleep as the sun was rising.
The next morning was all about doing a police report, which took me over an hour and a half, and then heading out for some food with Ryan and Woo. I did have dreams of going to get some stuff, such as a new phone, backpack and possibly camera, but in the end I just didn’t have the energy so I ended up just sitting around the hostel for most of the day before we had all planned to go out for tapas and sangria, before going to a massive club night at Apollo. Nic’s hostel was supposed to take a big group of us to an all you can eat paella place, with cheap sangria, but that never eventuated, so we all headed out into the town to find one ourselves. As always when you have a group of lots of people and no leader, we ended up walking around aimlessly looking at menu’s with nobody making a decision for about half an hour before we finally decided on a restaurant not too far from where we were originally congregated. The paella and sangria were good, and not too expensive, and afterwards we headed out to a shot bar down one of the back streets. This bar was really cool, with thousands of different shots available, all for 2 euros each. Some involved setting the bar on fire, roasting some marshmallows on the fire, then doing the shot. Very cool stuff that would be unlikely to ever be allowed in Australia due to OHS and fire code restrictions. The problem for me however, is that I was absolutely rat-shit tired and I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer, regardless of how many shot I might have. I said my goodbyes, left the crew out and headed back to the hostel to be in my bed and out like a lamp by midnight.
The next morning Woo, Ryan and I went into the shopping district as I needed to get a new phone and a new backpack. We walked around for ages, with very little success. In the electronics store I noticed that many cameras were being bought by tourists, and I wondered how much Barcelona’s economy relies on theft. If everyone stopped getting their camera or ipod etc stolen in Barcelona, then they would have no need to buy a new one here, and I think Barcelona would see a 10-15% drop in sales of consumer electronic goods. They’re all in cahoots I say! Oh well, it’s only a theory. After finally finding a Vodafone, we were told that we needed our passports to get a phone. I didn’t have my phone so we made the long annoying walk back to the hostel to get them. Ryan, who also needed a sim card, and I, left Woo at the hostel and went back out to Vodafone on our own. I also found a new backpack along the way, and although being nowhere near as good as my previous one, it would do the job. I got my sim and finally got everything working in English and was very glad to have a phone again, even though my new phone is shit, and Spanish call plans are in no way cheap.
That afternoon I ran into Matt and Sarah, whom I had not seen since my first stop in Vienna and let them know we had decided to stay in the hostel that evening and drink some store purchased sangria. We went through about six bottles of sangria before heading out, again going to the cocktail bar, as it was all night happy hour tonight. Matt, Sarah, Ryan, Nic, Woo and I all got thoroughly destroyed on 3.50euro cocktails before at 2am deciding hitting up Boulevard would be a good idea. After 3 hours of completely spastic dancing, but no more drinks due to their ridiculous prices, we took the short walk through the shitbomb area back to the hostel.
We woke up Wednesday morning with our priority being to get tickets to the Barcelona FC game at the Nou Camp versus Manchester City. Tickets were 30euro, not terribly good seats, and we had to split up into two groups of two, but we were all very excited to be going to one of the most famous stadiums in the world and seeing the reigning champions of Europe play the richest club in the world. After getting our tickets, everybody had different plans, with Woo going out sightseeing with some of his Contiki friends, while Ryan and Nic wanted to have a nap. I planned on doing some washing but got a call from Paula, and instead hung out with her for the afternoon. There was nobody else in my hostel room, so it was nice to be able to spend some time one on one with her, without the fear of having my stuff stolen. That evening we all congregated on the hostel roof for a few hours of sangria, laughter and conversation before heading out to the Soccer game, saying my goodbyes to Paula, who is not a sport person, before we left.
The Nou camp isn’t an overly impressive stadium from the outside, but once you enter it, you realize that the ground level inside the ground is significantly lower than outside, and the hundred thousand seat stadium in a cauldron of noise, lights and Catalan pride when inside. The spectacle of it all was fantastic, and although Woo and I were nearly directly behind the goals on the opposite end of the pitch to the only goal that was scored, it was still an amazing experience to be there. The problems however started arising after the game when Nic and Ryan, who had been seated in another section of the stadium, had walked off in a different direction and had no map. Eventually we had to go find them, and by the time we returned, the metro railway system had stopped running. The game did not finish until 12:30am, with a full house of nearly one hundred thousand people, and yet there were no trains less than an hour later. Nice one Barcelona. We ended up walking nearly half the way home (about 5kms) before we finally got a taxi at around 3am and got back to the hostel to pass out after a night that ended up being a lot later than we had planned.
Thursday would be my last day in Barcelona, and like every single other day before it, I did not get up in time to take advantage of the free breakfast. I spent my morning organizing my bag and getting my washing done before meeting Paula and spending the day with her. We went to possibly the most expensive ‘model food’ restaurant I have ever been to, with meals costing 18euro and being the size of a small entrée. The next morning I said my sad goodbyes to Paula and met Nic, Ryan and a still very, very drunk Woo for the early morning taxi to the airport, and our flight to Ibiza. Woo had done to pubcrawl the night before, and got massively fucked up, missing his alarm, packing his bag that morning, waking up everyone in his room, making the taxi wait for us, and was generally loud, drunk and fucking hilarious, especially when he asked an attractive airport worker if she would like to accompany him to Ibiza. Classic Woo.
Barcelona included the absolute best and worst times of my holiday. The nightlife was outstanding. Every night there was an absolute blast. The city is gorgeous, with some of the more stunning and different architecture in Europe and your doorstep. However, the crime and consistent fear of crime is always there and dilutes any enjoyment you might be able to have in your time there, destroying your growing love of the amazing Catalan capital.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Nice – A nice place to go.
I rolled into Nice and 30’ heat after a long day on the bus which included a stop in Lake Como on the way from Lauterbrunnen. My first impressions of Nice were not great, as I had decided not to stay at the drop off point, instead going to The Villa Saint Exupery, a hostel which has been voted in the top 5 hostels in the world every year for the last 5 years. This hostel is a little out of the city and hence I had to catch a tram out to the burbs and then get picked up by the Hostel shuttle. While on the tram on the way out, the driver announced something in French, everyone groaned, and then half the passengers got off the bus. I had no idea what was going on, as I don’t speak French, and therefore just stood dumbly in the tram for half an hour before it started moving again. I finally got to my hostel, checked in and then had to come straight back into town for a dinner which I would not have bothered going to, had I not already paid for it on the bus.
The next morning I headed into Nice to go to the beach and walk along the boardwalk. It was hot and sunny, so I can definitely see why it is such a huge holiday destination; however their beaches pale in comparison to Australia’s. As far as I’m concerned it you don’t have sand, and you don’t have waves, then it’s not a beach. It’s a big, uncomfortable pool! I walked down the boardwalk, talking in the sights, the beautiful women and more than a few leathery old men. Later that afternoon I met up with Hannah, and some of her friends that she had made on the Southern Loop through Italy, and we all made our way down to the beach at Cap d’Ail.
Cap d’Ail is just before Monaco, and is a very small, secluded beach. It’s still pretty touristy, but nowhere near as much as nice or Monaco. It is also nearly a sand beach, as in the pebbles are quite small. We stayed there for a bit, with the girls choosing not to go for a swim due to a few clouds in the sky and them being typical women who go to the beach with no intention of getting in the water. After a few hours at Cap d’Ail we caught the train back to Nice, having plans to go out that night, however after a day in the sun, sand and sea, I decided that I’d just have a few drinks at the hostel.
Tuesday morning was the big trip to St Tropez; hangout, harbor, and hometown of the famous and obscenely wealthy. I started the day with a quick trip to the Museum of Modern Art, where I was blown away by some of the pieces, whereas others confirmed my hatred of any art that is more about what it is supposed to represent rather than any artistic ability of skill in its creation. The St Tropez trip started with a 2 hour bus ride and then a few hours free time in Port Grimaud. Port Grimaud is basically a gated community where there are more boats than cars and has been created to look old and historic. It’s not old and historic. It’s fake and soulless, and the best part of my time there was falling asleep on the beach.
After an hour and a half at Port Grimaud, we boarded the bus again and went to the harbor, where we got on a boat for our 90 minute cruise to St Tropez going by celebrities mansions and hearing stories of their escapades. At St Tropez, Jarrad, Erin, Kate and I went for some incredibly expensive pizza, and then made our way around the old town area of St Tropez, making our own fun with photos and jumping into the ocean. When we got back to the boat we found out that we had missed out on spotting celebrities Sting, Shakira and Karl Lagerfeld. None of which I care deeply about, although Sting is cool.
Wednesday was a few hours old before I finally made my way out to Monaco to have a look around and lay on the beach. The beach itself was nearly sand, but absolutely packed and the water did not seem terribly clean. I took a few pics near the F1 track and walked around the Monte-Carlo casino. The amount of money in that place is absolutely mind boggling. I’ve seen Ferrari’s, Aston-Martins and Lamborghini’s before, but in Monaco you see these supercars with the regularity that you see Toyota Camrys in Perth. After an hour’s walking around in the glaring heat, I spent the next few hours lying on the beach, swimming and reading my book before bussing back to Nice and meeting up with Erin and Kate for dinner. After dinner we all headed into Nice, taking some photos, getting lost in old town and watching the B-Boy crews perform their break-dance routines for the many people out on the street that night. Nice is a very lively place out on the street at night, but there isn’t much in the way of nightlife, hence we were back at the hostel and the night was over by 2am.
Friday was my last day in Nice, so I walked up to the top of the hill overlooking Nice to take some photos. It was quite an amazing view over the old town, beaches and out to the Mediterranean. I then met up with Erin and Kate at the beach for a few hours before some massive (1foot) waves signaled it was time to go back to the hostel and get ready for the big night in Cannes.
We got to Cannes, tickets in hand for the outdoor festival gig that was being headlined by Sinden, a DJ I had seen open the Villa nightclub in Perth not 3 months earlier. After finding the festival grounds, Kate, Erin and I then searched around for a supermarket and purchased a bottle of vodka and some lemonade. We polished the bottle off in a park just outside the gig, then went inside and tore it up with Frenchy and tourist alike, having a fantastic, silly time. The last time I saw Sinden, I was with Sara at the opening of Villa nightclub, and more than once I wished she was with me in Cannes also. Next year I guess.
The last train back to Nice left at midnight so we had to leave the gig an hour before it finished in order to get home. We travelled back in first class, rightly assuming that nobody would be checking our tickets on a midnight train, and reach Nice at about 12:30am. I got myself a Royale with cheese at McDonalds, before going back to my hotel and into the sauna that was my room, getting maybe 2 hours of sleep before I got up at 6:30am for the bus to Barcelona, where I would meet up with many of my friends I had met over the last 2 months as we all congregate once again for the craziness that will be La Tomatina.
The next morning I headed into Nice to go to the beach and walk along the boardwalk. It was hot and sunny, so I can definitely see why it is such a huge holiday destination; however their beaches pale in comparison to Australia’s. As far as I’m concerned it you don’t have sand, and you don’t have waves, then it’s not a beach. It’s a big, uncomfortable pool! I walked down the boardwalk, talking in the sights, the beautiful women and more than a few leathery old men. Later that afternoon I met up with Hannah, and some of her friends that she had made on the Southern Loop through Italy, and we all made our way down to the beach at Cap d’Ail.
Cap d’Ail is just before Monaco, and is a very small, secluded beach. It’s still pretty touristy, but nowhere near as much as nice or Monaco. It is also nearly a sand beach, as in the pebbles are quite small. We stayed there for a bit, with the girls choosing not to go for a swim due to a few clouds in the sky and them being typical women who go to the beach with no intention of getting in the water. After a few hours at Cap d’Ail we caught the train back to Nice, having plans to go out that night, however after a day in the sun, sand and sea, I decided that I’d just have a few drinks at the hostel.
Tuesday morning was the big trip to St Tropez; hangout, harbor, and hometown of the famous and obscenely wealthy. I started the day with a quick trip to the Museum of Modern Art, where I was blown away by some of the pieces, whereas others confirmed my hatred of any art that is more about what it is supposed to represent rather than any artistic ability of skill in its creation. The St Tropez trip started with a 2 hour bus ride and then a few hours free time in Port Grimaud. Port Grimaud is basically a gated community where there are more boats than cars and has been created to look old and historic. It’s not old and historic. It’s fake and soulless, and the best part of my time there was falling asleep on the beach.
After an hour and a half at Port Grimaud, we boarded the bus again and went to the harbor, where we got on a boat for our 90 minute cruise to St Tropez going by celebrities mansions and hearing stories of their escapades. At St Tropez, Jarrad, Erin, Kate and I went for some incredibly expensive pizza, and then made our way around the old town area of St Tropez, making our own fun with photos and jumping into the ocean. When we got back to the boat we found out that we had missed out on spotting celebrities Sting, Shakira and Karl Lagerfeld. None of which I care deeply about, although Sting is cool.
Wednesday was a few hours old before I finally made my way out to Monaco to have a look around and lay on the beach. The beach itself was nearly sand, but absolutely packed and the water did not seem terribly clean. I took a few pics near the F1 track and walked around the Monte-Carlo casino. The amount of money in that place is absolutely mind boggling. I’ve seen Ferrari’s, Aston-Martins and Lamborghini’s before, but in Monaco you see these supercars with the regularity that you see Toyota Camrys in Perth. After an hour’s walking around in the glaring heat, I spent the next few hours lying on the beach, swimming and reading my book before bussing back to Nice and meeting up with Erin and Kate for dinner. After dinner we all headed into Nice, taking some photos, getting lost in old town and watching the B-Boy crews perform their break-dance routines for the many people out on the street that night. Nice is a very lively place out on the street at night, but there isn’t much in the way of nightlife, hence we were back at the hostel and the night was over by 2am.
Friday was my last day in Nice, so I walked up to the top of the hill overlooking Nice to take some photos. It was quite an amazing view over the old town, beaches and out to the Mediterranean. I then met up with Erin and Kate at the beach for a few hours before some massive (1foot) waves signaled it was time to go back to the hostel and get ready for the big night in Cannes.
We got to Cannes, tickets in hand for the outdoor festival gig that was being headlined by Sinden, a DJ I had seen open the Villa nightclub in Perth not 3 months earlier. After finding the festival grounds, Kate, Erin and I then searched around for a supermarket and purchased a bottle of vodka and some lemonade. We polished the bottle off in a park just outside the gig, then went inside and tore it up with Frenchy and tourist alike, having a fantastic, silly time. The last time I saw Sinden, I was with Sara at the opening of Villa nightclub, and more than once I wished she was with me in Cannes also. Next year I guess.
The last train back to Nice left at midnight so we had to leave the gig an hour before it finished in order to get home. We travelled back in first class, rightly assuming that nobody would be checking our tickets on a midnight train, and reach Nice at about 12:30am. I got myself a Royale with cheese at McDonalds, before going back to my hotel and into the sauna that was my room, getting maybe 2 hours of sleep before I got up at 6:30am for the bus to Barcelona, where I would meet up with many of my friends I had met over the last 2 months as we all congregate once again for the craziness that will be La Tomatina.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Lauterbrunnen – Amidst the Alps and the Falls
Lauterbrunnen is a cosy little hollow a few miles further up the mountain from Interlaken in the middle of the holiday area of Switzerland’s Alps. The name Lauterbrunnen means “place of many waterfalls” or something like that, and it has become popular in summer as a great place for adventure sports such as skydiving, white water rafting, canyoning and even some base jumping. I arrived at about 8pm after a short journey from Bern. I wasn’t staying at Camping Jungfrau so I had to get to my Hostel, which luckily was only a few hundred meters on the other side on the river. After checking in, Steve and Jenna (a couple from Southampton, that were also in Bern) and Myself went over to the bar for a meal and a few drinks. I had a Swiss Rosti, which is basically grated potato, fried like a pancake, then cooked with an egg, cheese and bacon on top. It was awesome.
Jenna, Steve and I kicked on at “The Bomb Shelter”, a Contiki and Busabout only bar at Chalet Jungfrau. Unfortunately it was full of 18yr old GAP year kids who wear having some sort of costume party, as a part of a Contiki theme night. As it was neither Jenna, Steve nor My idea of a fun environment, we headed over to the bar at Shutzenbach, where we were staying. It was a good night at the Shutzenbach bar, we drank far too much and laughed a lot at all the girls trying to dance hot, when they were just plain not. No amount of bum shaking and hair flicking makes up for bad bone structure, years of poor diet and no exercise. In the end I stumbled up the stairs to bed at about midnight, with Steve and Jenna not too far behind.
The next morning I got up and had a bit of breakfast with Josh and Kylie (another couple I met in Bern). We then headed out to Trummelbach Falls. The largest falls in the area where in peak flow twenty thousand litres per second flows through the massive gorges the water has carven in the rock over millions of years. Trummelbach was very impressive and the day was clear as lovely as we walked back towards town. We decided to go up to a smaller waterfall near the Camping Jungfrau campgrounds, which was very pretty, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t stand underneath the waterfall. Josh and Kylie went into town, whereas I decided I was going to stand under that waterfall, trespassing, falling rocks and otherwise were not going to stand in my way. I think I was still annoyed at myself for not jumping off the bridge in Bern into the Aare river, as Josh did. But in my defense, my stuff was all packed and he jumped about two minutes before out bus arrived. Nevertheless, I wanted a special solo memory of my own.
The waterfall was inaccessible from the tourist path; however you could walk directly up to it from the road, over a large grassed area which was someone’s back lawn. They had obviously experienced this a few times and were sick of it, as there were large “Private Property – No Trespassing” signs adorning the fence to the paddock behind the house. Next to the property was a dry creek bed which led up to the waterfall, covered by trees and shrubs. This was the secondary creek leading down the hill from the waterfall and would only have water in it when the waterfall was flowing particularly heavily. I decided this was my avenue of attack and made my way up the creek bed, shirtless wearing my Diesels, which have pretty much lost all their grip as they’ve been the only shoes I’ve brought on the trip. I slipped a few times on rocks, but with my cat-like reflexes I was able to avoid any major spills. I started to feel a little like Rambo as I pressed up the creek toward the waterfall, as there were helicopters bussing around above me, running paragliding and skydiving trips. I was hidden under the cover of the treetops so I crawled through the jungle with the bags and sticks being my only problem. When I got close to the top, the creek began to fill with water, as it got some of the flow from the waterfall, luckily there were still rocks big enough to avoid having to walk in the water and I finally made it to the top with a great sense of pride. Now I had to figure what to do with my camera and mobile phone as there was nowhere particularly dry for me to set them down. I took a few photos in the waterfall and then decided to head back, before I completely destroyed my brand new camera. It turns out that the trip down was significantly harder that the way up, with me nearly slipping on my ass more than once, but I eventually made it back. Scratched, muddy, wet, but with a great deal of pride that I had decided to do something, and then done it, even if it was something as simple as walking up a hill and standing under a waterfall.
That afternoon Josh, Kylie and I had booked to go White Water rafting. We were picked up at around 4pm by Outdoor Interlaken and taken to their base where we got into all the gear and then headed out to the Black Lutshine River. We got some safety instructions and some rafting instructions and then we were straight into the rapids. It was FUREAKIN COLD in that river, despite the wetsuit, as we were only a few kilometers down mountain from the Glacial melt. Josh and I were at the front of the boat, and hence copped most of the spray, but it was absolutely sensational fun and I would recommend it to anyone.
That night Steve, Jenna and I again went out for a meal, and again I got a Rosti. Damn, I love those things. We had an easy night though, as I was getting up at 6am to go on the train up to Jungfraujoch the next morning.
I woke up at 6am and met Josh and Kylie before walking into town to catch the 6:59am train from Lauterbrunnen up to Jungfraujoch, the highest train station in Europe with restaurants, viewing platforms and snow. Sounds great, and it should be for about 100euro, but unfortunately, it was a really cloudy day and all you could see was white. We still had a good time sliding down a hill on the snow disks (basically the same as toboggans) and playing with the Huskies. The only problem was that my Diesels aren’t built for snow at the best of times, and certainly not when they are still pretty wet from the previous day’s adventure to the waterfall. My feet got cold, then they went numb, then they actually started to hurt quite a lot. Still we had a great day, and after the journey back we were all pretty tired.
That night I went out for a meal in town with some girls from Perth that I had met up at Jungfrau. Lauren, Laura and Mel are all from Perth, and are just doing the west loop after having just done a tour in Egypt. Hearing their stories of Egypt has made me even more determined to go there next year. We all shared some cheese fondue, and I had yet another Rosti. That’s four in 3 days. I’m such a tubby bitch these days. It’s embarrassing. I don’t think I’ll ever have another Rosti, but it was nice while it lasted. Josh and Kylie came down to the restaurant and joined us for a beer before we all headed back to the campsite to get some rest before getting on our respective busses the next morning.
Lauterbrunnen has been a fantastic few days, filled with adventure and beauty. I’ve once again proven to myself that wherever I go, there are other great people out there travelling, and I will always find new friends – even if I seem to lose them as soon as the next bus departs. The place has unparalleled natural beauty. As we drove out past the lakes on Interlaken, you can see the lake, with small villages along the shoreline, then majestic mountains stretching up higher than the low layers of cloud. It is truly gorgeous, and I can only hope that the mountains of Kitzbuhel, where I’ll be all winter, are half as pretty.
Jenna, Steve and I kicked on at “The Bomb Shelter”, a Contiki and Busabout only bar at Chalet Jungfrau. Unfortunately it was full of 18yr old GAP year kids who wear having some sort of costume party, as a part of a Contiki theme night. As it was neither Jenna, Steve nor My idea of a fun environment, we headed over to the bar at Shutzenbach, where we were staying. It was a good night at the Shutzenbach bar, we drank far too much and laughed a lot at all the girls trying to dance hot, when they were just plain not. No amount of bum shaking and hair flicking makes up for bad bone structure, years of poor diet and no exercise. In the end I stumbled up the stairs to bed at about midnight, with Steve and Jenna not too far behind.
The next morning I got up and had a bit of breakfast with Josh and Kylie (another couple I met in Bern). We then headed out to Trummelbach Falls. The largest falls in the area where in peak flow twenty thousand litres per second flows through the massive gorges the water has carven in the rock over millions of years. Trummelbach was very impressive and the day was clear as lovely as we walked back towards town. We decided to go up to a smaller waterfall near the Camping Jungfrau campgrounds, which was very pretty, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t stand underneath the waterfall. Josh and Kylie went into town, whereas I decided I was going to stand under that waterfall, trespassing, falling rocks and otherwise were not going to stand in my way. I think I was still annoyed at myself for not jumping off the bridge in Bern into the Aare river, as Josh did. But in my defense, my stuff was all packed and he jumped about two minutes before out bus arrived. Nevertheless, I wanted a special solo memory of my own.
The waterfall was inaccessible from the tourist path; however you could walk directly up to it from the road, over a large grassed area which was someone’s back lawn. They had obviously experienced this a few times and were sick of it, as there were large “Private Property – No Trespassing” signs adorning the fence to the paddock behind the house. Next to the property was a dry creek bed which led up to the waterfall, covered by trees and shrubs. This was the secondary creek leading down the hill from the waterfall and would only have water in it when the waterfall was flowing particularly heavily. I decided this was my avenue of attack and made my way up the creek bed, shirtless wearing my Diesels, which have pretty much lost all their grip as they’ve been the only shoes I’ve brought on the trip. I slipped a few times on rocks, but with my cat-like reflexes I was able to avoid any major spills. I started to feel a little like Rambo as I pressed up the creek toward the waterfall, as there were helicopters bussing around above me, running paragliding and skydiving trips. I was hidden under the cover of the treetops so I crawled through the jungle with the bags and sticks being my only problem. When I got close to the top, the creek began to fill with water, as it got some of the flow from the waterfall, luckily there were still rocks big enough to avoid having to walk in the water and I finally made it to the top with a great sense of pride. Now I had to figure what to do with my camera and mobile phone as there was nowhere particularly dry for me to set them down. I took a few photos in the waterfall and then decided to head back, before I completely destroyed my brand new camera. It turns out that the trip down was significantly harder that the way up, with me nearly slipping on my ass more than once, but I eventually made it back. Scratched, muddy, wet, but with a great deal of pride that I had decided to do something, and then done it, even if it was something as simple as walking up a hill and standing under a waterfall.
That afternoon Josh, Kylie and I had booked to go White Water rafting. We were picked up at around 4pm by Outdoor Interlaken and taken to their base where we got into all the gear and then headed out to the Black Lutshine River. We got some safety instructions and some rafting instructions and then we were straight into the rapids. It was FUREAKIN COLD in that river, despite the wetsuit, as we were only a few kilometers down mountain from the Glacial melt. Josh and I were at the front of the boat, and hence copped most of the spray, but it was absolutely sensational fun and I would recommend it to anyone.
That night Steve, Jenna and I again went out for a meal, and again I got a Rosti. Damn, I love those things. We had an easy night though, as I was getting up at 6am to go on the train up to Jungfraujoch the next morning.
I woke up at 6am and met Josh and Kylie before walking into town to catch the 6:59am train from Lauterbrunnen up to Jungfraujoch, the highest train station in Europe with restaurants, viewing platforms and snow. Sounds great, and it should be for about 100euro, but unfortunately, it was a really cloudy day and all you could see was white. We still had a good time sliding down a hill on the snow disks (basically the same as toboggans) and playing with the Huskies. The only problem was that my Diesels aren’t built for snow at the best of times, and certainly not when they are still pretty wet from the previous day’s adventure to the waterfall. My feet got cold, then they went numb, then they actually started to hurt quite a lot. Still we had a great day, and after the journey back we were all pretty tired.
That night I went out for a meal in town with some girls from Perth that I had met up at Jungfrau. Lauren, Laura and Mel are all from Perth, and are just doing the west loop after having just done a tour in Egypt. Hearing their stories of Egypt has made me even more determined to go there next year. We all shared some cheese fondue, and I had yet another Rosti. That’s four in 3 days. I’m such a tubby bitch these days. It’s embarrassing. I don’t think I’ll ever have another Rosti, but it was nice while it lasted. Josh and Kylie came down to the restaurant and joined us for a beer before we all headed back to the campsite to get some rest before getting on our respective busses the next morning.
Lauterbrunnen has been a fantastic few days, filled with adventure and beauty. I’ve once again proven to myself that wherever I go, there are other great people out there travelling, and I will always find new friends – even if I seem to lose them as soon as the next bus departs. The place has unparalleled natural beauty. As we drove out past the lakes on Interlaken, you can see the lake, with small villages along the shoreline, then majestic mountains stretching up higher than the low layers of cloud. It is truly gorgeous, and I can only hope that the mountains of Kitzbuhel, where I’ll be all winter, are half as pretty.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Bern – Pretty. Expensive. Pretty. Boring.
Now I will preface this blog entry by saying that I am well aware that I definitely could have gotten more out of Bern.
I arrived in Bern following a pleasant 6 hour train ride from Munich that had followed an evening where I had experienced the sound of worlds colliding in the form of some American dude snoring on the bunk above me. I got very little sleep, but snoozed on the train. Upon arriving in Bern I walked to the hostel, and saw that Bern is – like all European towns- a very pretty place. However it is full of little expensive shops and middle aged people shopping for useless trinkets and overpriced clothing.
After arriving at the hostel and dropping off my bags I went back out to get some food, and after walking nearly all the way back to the train station for the nearest supermarket was greeted with horrible service and a whole lot of attitude. I then came back to the hostel and used the internet, always intending to go out at night, but got caught up with a few things and never went out again.
The next morning I woke up and really needed to do some washing. There were no facilities at this hostel, so I needed to walk to one about 2 kms away. It was a pleasant walk along the river, the sun shining but not terribly hot. I paid over ten euro to get a medium sized load of washing done, and most of my socks were still damp. I then dropped my washing back at the hostel and again went out for food. I was really craving asian food at the moment and chose a noodle and sushi place. I ended up paying close to $AUD30 for what was effectively a chicken curry rice from Hans café. I then came back to the hostel and continued reading my book while I waited for my socks to dry.
Okay. So that’s what I did in Bern. Now, what I would have done, had I known about it earlier is float around the river. It’s a beautiful clean river and the locals seem to be floating around all the time. As I didn’t have a full day here, that was never really a possibility, but it would be fun and cheap. If I was loaded it would probably be quite fun to go out in Bern, as there are plenty of bars and restaurants, but being as I know I’ll drop a few hundred euro rafting and bungy jumping in Lauterbrunnen, I’m trying to keep a check on the spending.
I arrived in Bern following a pleasant 6 hour train ride from Munich that had followed an evening where I had experienced the sound of worlds colliding in the form of some American dude snoring on the bunk above me. I got very little sleep, but snoozed on the train. Upon arriving in Bern I walked to the hostel, and saw that Bern is – like all European towns- a very pretty place. However it is full of little expensive shops and middle aged people shopping for useless trinkets and overpriced clothing.
After arriving at the hostel and dropping off my bags I went back out to get some food, and after walking nearly all the way back to the train station for the nearest supermarket was greeted with horrible service and a whole lot of attitude. I then came back to the hostel and used the internet, always intending to go out at night, but got caught up with a few things and never went out again.
The next morning I woke up and really needed to do some washing. There were no facilities at this hostel, so I needed to walk to one about 2 kms away. It was a pleasant walk along the river, the sun shining but not terribly hot. I paid over ten euro to get a medium sized load of washing done, and most of my socks were still damp. I then dropped my washing back at the hostel and again went out for food. I was really craving asian food at the moment and chose a noodle and sushi place. I ended up paying close to $AUD30 for what was effectively a chicken curry rice from Hans café. I then came back to the hostel and continued reading my book while I waited for my socks to dry.
Okay. So that’s what I did in Bern. Now, what I would have done, had I known about it earlier is float around the river. It’s a beautiful clean river and the locals seem to be floating around all the time. As I didn’t have a full day here, that was never really a possibility, but it would be fun and cheap. If I was loaded it would probably be quite fun to go out in Bern, as there are plenty of bars and restaurants, but being as I know I’ll drop a few hundred euro rafting and bungy jumping in Lauterbrunnen, I’m trying to keep a check on the spending.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Munich – Lots of Beer, Lots of Tourists
I arrived in Munich at about 4pm and immediately jumped on the hostels free WiFi to upload Salzburg blog and photos. This is not because there was any great need to upload them immediately, but because the line for check-in was out the door, and I don’t do lines at the best of times, let alone when I’m tired and hungry.
After grabbing a slice of pizza to hold me over, and then checking in after the line had depleted, Nic and I went for a walk through Munich. I needed some credit for my mobile, and a new camera after my 7 year old Canon decided to play silly buggers for most of the time in Salzburg. Nic needed to get a train from Munich to St Johann organized for the next morning so we went to Haupbahnhof train station first t organize that. Once the ticket was sorted, we headed into the main shopping area to find a Vodafone and a camera shop.
What immediately struck me about Munich was the old style ‘German-ness’ of its architecture. Well, that and the shitloads of tourists, locals and crazies out of the street. I put this down to it being a warm Saturday afternoon, and being as Munich has no Sunday trading, Saturday would obviously be the busiest day of the week. I got myself some credit and a new Canon camera, much the same as my old one but smaller, lighter and better quality.
After wandering through the city, Nic and I decided to go and check out the Augustiner brau-struben, which is the Augustiner beer hall that is not advertised, and mainly set up for locals. Due to this the steins are about 20% cheaper and the food nearly half price. Nic and I both had the mixed pan which consisted of a pork knuckle, pork steak, quarter duck and a big dumpling. It was freakin awesome. A meat fest indeed, and the beer was good too!
After enjoying our meal, we went back to the hostel, got cleaned up and met some people in the bar. We had all decided to go to Kultfabric, which depending on whether you believe lonely planet, or the staff at the hostel, either was, or was not an old potato factory. Either way, it is now a massive complex of clubs and bars, just a few hundred metres away from Ostbahnhof train station. In the end there was a group of nearly twenty people coming out, and somehow I had become the person with the information, so I was the person people were asking all the questions of. This effectively meant that I was running a pub crawl and not getting paid for it. I was reasonably confident what I was doing, but it still seemed a bit retarded that I was being asked directions by people who had been in Munich for a couple of days, when I had been there for a couple of hours. In the end we all got there with a little trouble and I was happy to have not been responsible for getting the group lost.
Kultfabric looks pretty awesome, and the idea of 25 clubs in one location sounds pretty awesome. Unfortunately the reality was that every club played pretty much the same cheesy music, had exorbitant cover charges and drink prices and overall was filled with the same mostly tourist, mostly douchebag crowd. The two things that kept me occupied where the antics of a 50 year old bald dude, who danced like Peter Garret and smelled as if he had been dancing without a shower since the early eighties. My own cheesy dancing with Nic and others was also amusing and overall, despite the 8euro cost of drinks, I still had a good night. Five of us decided to leave at around 3am, and being as I hadn’t got to sleep till 4am the night before in Salzburg, I was definitely ready to go.
Sunday morning I awoke surprisingly refreshed, as I got up in time for breakfast and then waited in the lobby for the Munich city walking tour to start. It was very interesting to hear all about the history of Munich, both its Bavarian history and more recent history as the birthplace of the Nazi party. Ozzie, our tour guide was very knowledgeable on all things Munich, but gave out a few questionable answers regarding what happened in West Germany and Munich post WW2. However, overall it was an informative and very entertaining tour. After the tour, I met up with Carly and Ash after they had done the New Europe free tour and it finished in the same spot. We walked back to the hostel and checked a few things on the internet before deciding the weather was good enough and it might be worth checking out the nude park for a bit of a chuckle. I didn’t really care about the nudes, but wanted to see the surf wave, which is in the same park.
Almost immediately after leaving the hostel, the weather started to turn shit. At first it was just a small sprinkling of rain, so we pressed on. We arrived at the park and it was windy, cold and raining gently, hardly the weather for nude sunbathers, so we searched around for the surf wave. We found the surf wave after a short walk through the park, and I was quite surprised at both the size of it, and the amount of people waiting around in full surf gear to ride it. I’m sure all the surf shops in Munich are pleased that what was originally an unintended accident resulting from some work to the waterway, had resulted in so many Munichians taking up surfing.
That night I went back to Augustiner Brau-Struben again, this time with Ash, Carly and Chris. We all go the mixed pan, and it was again fantastic, although Carly preferred to call it ‘pretty good’, saving her food admiration for the new Chicken Nugget burger at Burger King, which she described as ‘sensational’. After a the stein and meal we went into Hoffbrauhaus, which is the most famous beer hall in the world, and also a massive tourist hotspot with high priced steins and Bavarian behavior almost a caricature of itself. However, as much as it is expensive, and full of tourists, it is still a must see while in Munich, not just for the German band, German outfits and pretzel girls, but also for the fact that Adolf Hitler’s failed “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923 occurred in the same building. Woo was at Hoffbrauhaus with his Contiki group, which he happily ditched to hang out with Chris, Ash, Carly and Myself. Woo spent the time catching me and the group up on how much he hated his Contiki and how much he loved New York City. At the end of the night, Woo returned to his very drunk Contiki crew and we headed back to the hostel.
On Monday morning I slept in far too long and missed breakfast. I decided a pretty quiet day was in order, so I spent the first few hours getting my accommodation sorted for the remaining stops I hadn’t booked. I’m going to be burning massive amounts of cash over the next two months, so I’m gonna have to figure out some self control. In the afternoon I went out to look through some of the massive cathedrals in Munich as they were being used the day before when we did the tour, and hence couldn’t look inside. It’s weird being inside a Catholic church. They are so ornate and over the top, and seem to celebrate the death of Christ so much more than his life. Oh well. I don’t understand organized religion anyway, so why should Catholicism be any different? I went up the tower of St Peter’s Chapel, and got a lovely view out over the city of Munich, although by far the most amusing moment was when I passed a woman who was taking her dog up to the top, as I was coming down.
That night I went out for what Chris had described as the ‘best kebab of his life’ the day before, with Chris, Ash and Carly. To Chris’s credit, it was a pretty good kebab. Even Carly had to give it a better than ‘pretty good’ rating. We then said goodbye to Ash and Carly as they were off to Venice the next morning on the bus. I would probably catch Ash again in London, as she’s planning on staying and attempting to get a job. Chris and I again headed to Hoffbrauhaus, as a group of Busabout people were supposed to be meeting us there, but they had gone to Augustiner and decided to stay there. We met up with a few other people we knew and had a stein with them before heading home.
Tuesday morning I got up a bit late and had to rush to be ready for the Dachau Concentration camp tour. The camp tour itself was very sobering, as can be expected when one is walking through gas chambers and past ovens. It was, however, a very different experience to Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. As I did not have a guided tour of Sachsenhausen and could sit on the grass and take everything in at my own pace. I found that this gave me more opportunity to feel the place, whereas with Dachau I was being given information overload by Gordon, our guide, so it was all I could do to try to take in all the info, and was given little opportunity to feel it. Neither was better than the other, and I’m sure when looking over my Dachau photo’s I will have more of an opportunity to mull it over in my head and gather my thoughts and feelings on the place.
After returning back from Dachau I met Charlie in Marienplatz, the main square of the city where the infamous Glockenspiel is housed. We went for (another) stein at Hoffbrauhaus, as I do believe every visitor to Munich has to do it at least once, and Charlie had not been there before. After that we got some food and walked around, catching the 5pm Glockenspiel show before walking back to the hostel. After Charlie did some stuff on the internet, getting very excited about her friend meeting her in Geneva for her next workshop, we went for a walk on the opposite side of the hostel. When we got to the park, we couldn’t figure out what all the construction was, until we realized that this park is where Oktoberfest is held and they were already setting up the tents for it. I say tents, but really the looked more like aircraft hangers, huge sheds displaying the local brewers logo and easily capable of seating thousands of people.
I dropped Charlie at Hauptbahnhof to catch her train and then went back to the hostel to get a decent night’s sleep before negotiating two train changes on my trip to Bern the next day. Unfortunately, one of the three American dudes in our room actually snores loud enough to be heard clearly through my ear plugs, so my night was uneasy and listless and left me kinda cranky the next morning. I had plenty of time throughout the night, awake due to the sound of worlds colliding in the bunk above me, to think about Munich. I had first stated to think about how I felt about Munich while speaking to Ozzie, the tour guide a few days earlier, as he was almost comically pro-Munich, Anti-Berlin, and this grated on me a little due to my love for Berlin. I mentioned that I felt Munich was the Sydney of Germany, whereas Berlin was the Melbourne. He said I was the first Aussie to say that, a point which I found hard to believe due to the amount of Melbournites that had agreed that Berlin reminded them of Melbourne. So, as I lay there trying to ignore the snoring, I ran through it in my head.
Melbourne and Sydney both contain much of the history of the European settlement of Australia, just as both Munich and Berlin are filled with a rich history of their people over the last 1000 years. I think the differences come from how the tourists see them, and the feel of each city. Ask a tourist what they think of when they think of Australia, and after kangaroos and koalas, Bondi beach, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are bound to come up, obviously these are all Sydney. Ask anyone what they think of Germany, and after WW2, most likely you will be told beer halls, and lederhosen. Both of these are not actually German traditions, but Bavarian traditions. Hence as you walk around Munich, it has a tendency to feel ‘more German’ than Berlin. Just as Melbourne doesn’t care that it has less of a touristy feel than Sydney, I doubt Berlin cares. Both Melbourne and Berlin exude a ‘do what you want, I don’t care’ attitude that is extremely freeing and pleasant in today’s society. It’s not as obvious as a giant bridge crossing the harbor, or the most famous beer hall in the world, but Melbourne and Berlin survive and succeed due to the way you feel when you live there.
I really miss Melbourne at the moment (can you tell?), and it’s made worse by the fact the Sarah and Nate will be moving there shortly. Hopefully some white water rafting in Lauterbrunnen and four days on the beach in Nice should make me feel a little better.
After grabbing a slice of pizza to hold me over, and then checking in after the line had depleted, Nic and I went for a walk through Munich. I needed some credit for my mobile, and a new camera after my 7 year old Canon decided to play silly buggers for most of the time in Salzburg. Nic needed to get a train from Munich to St Johann organized for the next morning so we went to Haupbahnhof train station first t organize that. Once the ticket was sorted, we headed into the main shopping area to find a Vodafone and a camera shop.
What immediately struck me about Munich was the old style ‘German-ness’ of its architecture. Well, that and the shitloads of tourists, locals and crazies out of the street. I put this down to it being a warm Saturday afternoon, and being as Munich has no Sunday trading, Saturday would obviously be the busiest day of the week. I got myself some credit and a new Canon camera, much the same as my old one but smaller, lighter and better quality.
After wandering through the city, Nic and I decided to go and check out the Augustiner brau-struben, which is the Augustiner beer hall that is not advertised, and mainly set up for locals. Due to this the steins are about 20% cheaper and the food nearly half price. Nic and I both had the mixed pan which consisted of a pork knuckle, pork steak, quarter duck and a big dumpling. It was freakin awesome. A meat fest indeed, and the beer was good too!
After enjoying our meal, we went back to the hostel, got cleaned up and met some people in the bar. We had all decided to go to Kultfabric, which depending on whether you believe lonely planet, or the staff at the hostel, either was, or was not an old potato factory. Either way, it is now a massive complex of clubs and bars, just a few hundred metres away from Ostbahnhof train station. In the end there was a group of nearly twenty people coming out, and somehow I had become the person with the information, so I was the person people were asking all the questions of. This effectively meant that I was running a pub crawl and not getting paid for it. I was reasonably confident what I was doing, but it still seemed a bit retarded that I was being asked directions by people who had been in Munich for a couple of days, when I had been there for a couple of hours. In the end we all got there with a little trouble and I was happy to have not been responsible for getting the group lost.
Kultfabric looks pretty awesome, and the idea of 25 clubs in one location sounds pretty awesome. Unfortunately the reality was that every club played pretty much the same cheesy music, had exorbitant cover charges and drink prices and overall was filled with the same mostly tourist, mostly douchebag crowd. The two things that kept me occupied where the antics of a 50 year old bald dude, who danced like Peter Garret and smelled as if he had been dancing without a shower since the early eighties. My own cheesy dancing with Nic and others was also amusing and overall, despite the 8euro cost of drinks, I still had a good night. Five of us decided to leave at around 3am, and being as I hadn’t got to sleep till 4am the night before in Salzburg, I was definitely ready to go.
Sunday morning I awoke surprisingly refreshed, as I got up in time for breakfast and then waited in the lobby for the Munich city walking tour to start. It was very interesting to hear all about the history of Munich, both its Bavarian history and more recent history as the birthplace of the Nazi party. Ozzie, our tour guide was very knowledgeable on all things Munich, but gave out a few questionable answers regarding what happened in West Germany and Munich post WW2. However, overall it was an informative and very entertaining tour. After the tour, I met up with Carly and Ash after they had done the New Europe free tour and it finished in the same spot. We walked back to the hostel and checked a few things on the internet before deciding the weather was good enough and it might be worth checking out the nude park for a bit of a chuckle. I didn’t really care about the nudes, but wanted to see the surf wave, which is in the same park.
Almost immediately after leaving the hostel, the weather started to turn shit. At first it was just a small sprinkling of rain, so we pressed on. We arrived at the park and it was windy, cold and raining gently, hardly the weather for nude sunbathers, so we searched around for the surf wave. We found the surf wave after a short walk through the park, and I was quite surprised at both the size of it, and the amount of people waiting around in full surf gear to ride it. I’m sure all the surf shops in Munich are pleased that what was originally an unintended accident resulting from some work to the waterway, had resulted in so many Munichians taking up surfing.
That night I went back to Augustiner Brau-Struben again, this time with Ash, Carly and Chris. We all go the mixed pan, and it was again fantastic, although Carly preferred to call it ‘pretty good’, saving her food admiration for the new Chicken Nugget burger at Burger King, which she described as ‘sensational’. After a the stein and meal we went into Hoffbrauhaus, which is the most famous beer hall in the world, and also a massive tourist hotspot with high priced steins and Bavarian behavior almost a caricature of itself. However, as much as it is expensive, and full of tourists, it is still a must see while in Munich, not just for the German band, German outfits and pretzel girls, but also for the fact that Adolf Hitler’s failed “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923 occurred in the same building. Woo was at Hoffbrauhaus with his Contiki group, which he happily ditched to hang out with Chris, Ash, Carly and Myself. Woo spent the time catching me and the group up on how much he hated his Contiki and how much he loved New York City. At the end of the night, Woo returned to his very drunk Contiki crew and we headed back to the hostel.
On Monday morning I slept in far too long and missed breakfast. I decided a pretty quiet day was in order, so I spent the first few hours getting my accommodation sorted for the remaining stops I hadn’t booked. I’m going to be burning massive amounts of cash over the next two months, so I’m gonna have to figure out some self control. In the afternoon I went out to look through some of the massive cathedrals in Munich as they were being used the day before when we did the tour, and hence couldn’t look inside. It’s weird being inside a Catholic church. They are so ornate and over the top, and seem to celebrate the death of Christ so much more than his life. Oh well. I don’t understand organized religion anyway, so why should Catholicism be any different? I went up the tower of St Peter’s Chapel, and got a lovely view out over the city of Munich, although by far the most amusing moment was when I passed a woman who was taking her dog up to the top, as I was coming down.
That night I went out for what Chris had described as the ‘best kebab of his life’ the day before, with Chris, Ash and Carly. To Chris’s credit, it was a pretty good kebab. Even Carly had to give it a better than ‘pretty good’ rating. We then said goodbye to Ash and Carly as they were off to Venice the next morning on the bus. I would probably catch Ash again in London, as she’s planning on staying and attempting to get a job. Chris and I again headed to Hoffbrauhaus, as a group of Busabout people were supposed to be meeting us there, but they had gone to Augustiner and decided to stay there. We met up with a few other people we knew and had a stein with them before heading home.
Tuesday morning I got up a bit late and had to rush to be ready for the Dachau Concentration camp tour. The camp tour itself was very sobering, as can be expected when one is walking through gas chambers and past ovens. It was, however, a very different experience to Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. As I did not have a guided tour of Sachsenhausen and could sit on the grass and take everything in at my own pace. I found that this gave me more opportunity to feel the place, whereas with Dachau I was being given information overload by Gordon, our guide, so it was all I could do to try to take in all the info, and was given little opportunity to feel it. Neither was better than the other, and I’m sure when looking over my Dachau photo’s I will have more of an opportunity to mull it over in my head and gather my thoughts and feelings on the place.
After returning back from Dachau I met Charlie in Marienplatz, the main square of the city where the infamous Glockenspiel is housed. We went for (another) stein at Hoffbrauhaus, as I do believe every visitor to Munich has to do it at least once, and Charlie had not been there before. After that we got some food and walked around, catching the 5pm Glockenspiel show before walking back to the hostel. After Charlie did some stuff on the internet, getting very excited about her friend meeting her in Geneva for her next workshop, we went for a walk on the opposite side of the hostel. When we got to the park, we couldn’t figure out what all the construction was, until we realized that this park is where Oktoberfest is held and they were already setting up the tents for it. I say tents, but really the looked more like aircraft hangers, huge sheds displaying the local brewers logo and easily capable of seating thousands of people.
I dropped Charlie at Hauptbahnhof to catch her train and then went back to the hostel to get a decent night’s sleep before negotiating two train changes on my trip to Bern the next day. Unfortunately, one of the three American dudes in our room actually snores loud enough to be heard clearly through my ear plugs, so my night was uneasy and listless and left me kinda cranky the next morning. I had plenty of time throughout the night, awake due to the sound of worlds colliding in the bunk above me, to think about Munich. I had first stated to think about how I felt about Munich while speaking to Ozzie, the tour guide a few days earlier, as he was almost comically pro-Munich, Anti-Berlin, and this grated on me a little due to my love for Berlin. I mentioned that I felt Munich was the Sydney of Germany, whereas Berlin was the Melbourne. He said I was the first Aussie to say that, a point which I found hard to believe due to the amount of Melbournites that had agreed that Berlin reminded them of Melbourne. So, as I lay there trying to ignore the snoring, I ran through it in my head.
Melbourne and Sydney both contain much of the history of the European settlement of Australia, just as both Munich and Berlin are filled with a rich history of their people over the last 1000 years. I think the differences come from how the tourists see them, and the feel of each city. Ask a tourist what they think of when they think of Australia, and after kangaroos and koalas, Bondi beach, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge are bound to come up, obviously these are all Sydney. Ask anyone what they think of Germany, and after WW2, most likely you will be told beer halls, and lederhosen. Both of these are not actually German traditions, but Bavarian traditions. Hence as you walk around Munich, it has a tendency to feel ‘more German’ than Berlin. Just as Melbourne doesn’t care that it has less of a touristy feel than Sydney, I doubt Berlin cares. Both Melbourne and Berlin exude a ‘do what you want, I don’t care’ attitude that is extremely freeing and pleasant in today’s society. It’s not as obvious as a giant bridge crossing the harbor, or the most famous beer hall in the world, but Melbourne and Berlin survive and succeed due to the way you feel when you live there.
I really miss Melbourne at the moment (can you tell?), and it’s made worse by the fact the Sarah and Nate will be moving there shortly. Hopefully some white water rafting in Lauterbrunnen and four days on the beach in Nice should make me feel a little better.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Salzburg – The Sound of Money
Arriving in Salzburg in the pouring rain on Tuesday, it was immediately evident what a picturesque town this place is, so after uploading some photos to the internet, while waiting rain to ease, I was out walking around the town with my camera at the ready.
I walked through the old town taking in the many statues amongst the town squares and attempting to avoid the throngs of tourists. It seems Salzburg is where Germans and Austrians come for a week away, as most of the tourists were German speakers. The two most striking things about Salzburg are the fortress high up on the ridge, overlooking the town, and the stunning turquoise of the Salzac river. Walking back towards the hostel, I crossed a footbridge over the Salzac and was greeted with a stunning view along the river, to the town with the cathedrals sitting above and the Castle dominating from the top.
After accidentally falling asleep for a few hours I went down to the bar and met Clay, Michael, Matt and Dave who were planning on going out to the Monastery for a beer and maybe a meal. I joined them and we headed out into Salzburg, finding the Monastery after a little bit of walking around in circles and got ourselves a stein. You have to get your own stein off the shelf, then wash it, then wait in line to pay for it, and it is then filled directly out of the barrel. Pretty cool stuff, but I was disappointment with the fact that it seemed much more like a pub with a big beer garden than a monastery.
The next morning I woke up and decided to go out to the Eagles nest, which is a small chalet at the top of a mountain which was given too Hitler by the Nazi party as his 50th birthday present. The tour cost 50 euros, which is pretty nuts, but after my time in Berlin I have found myself very interested in all the history relating to Hitlers third reich. We were taken by bus to a tunnel about 80m below the eagles nest, where we boarded an elevator and were taken up to the Oval room. Nearly everything that Hitler ever used has since been destroyed, so it was a strange sensation to stand in a room knowing that 65 years earlier Hitler himself would have been there. Although he wasn’t there very often, as he suffered from Vertigo and this place is built right on the peak of the mountain with sheer drop offs on 3 sides. One a side note, I starting to think of Hitler as a bit of a fairy. He was a vegetarian, suffered from vertigo and was a failed artist. Seems like someone should’ve given him a cup of harden the fuck up when he was a child.
Unfortunately, the eagles nest has little historical significance remaining as they have turned it into a massively touristy area, with the chalet itself now set up as a restaurant. If this was all I got for my 50 euros I would have been very disappointed. However, the best thing about the tour was the hour we got to walk around on the mountain, and as it was a clear day you could see for over 100 miles. Clay, Michael and I all walked around the mountain for a while, taking some great photo’s and generally being amazed at the scenery.
That afternoon, after making the decision to stay in Salzburg for another two day, I now had time on my hands so decided to take it easy by reading a book in the park. Something that I hadn’t had a chance to do for a few months, so spending a few hours reading was a great relaxing way to spend my afternoon before the night ahead. That night we all went out for a few beers at a bar called Flip. Clay and I then kicked on at some other bars before stumbling home, attempting to eat a pretty average Kebab on the way. As you may be able to tell, I don’t actually remember a lot of what happened that evening.
Thursday morning was taken fairly easy recovering from the previous night and waiting for Nic to rock up on the next bus. She arrived and we sorted out what we were going to do that night and she went off to do the sound of music tour. I decided to go read some more of my book in the park. While reading Stef came and sat down and had a chat about how much she loved the Mirabelle Garten, and I agreed that it is one of the prettiest gardens that I had seen. That evening Nic, Stef, Arija and I all went out for some food, and Arija and I decided to splurge and purchase a meat extravaganza for two at around 20 euro each. I was great to have some real meat for the first time since Australia. Damn I need a good barbeque.
The next morning Nic and I went to the Ice Caves which are apparently the biggest in the world. The trip out there was massively picturesque and the mountain trail up to the caves was astounding. The caves themselves were good, but suffered from what every tour in Salzburg suffers from, which is. “It’s good, but is it worth $AUD100?” Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. However, I’m glad I did it, so I guess it is worth it in the long run.
Nic and I got back to the hostel, after getting a curry at Indigo, and after an hour chilling out we joined some friends at the bar to participate in the quiz night. We didn’t come last, but missed a couple of easy ones that could have won it for us. After the quiz night we went out, again starting our night at Flip, where we met some Austrian dudes. That’s the first time so far on my holiday that I have actually met locals. Inevitably when I go out, I end up speaking to fellow travelers, so it was really cool to hang out with some locals, go to pub and clubs frequented by locals and drinks the drinks that locals drink. At about 4am we dragged our ass home, emptied the vending machine with our late night munchies and headed to bed.
My time in Salzburg was spent doing two things. A) avoiding all things “Sound of Music”, as the movie was filmed here, there is a lot of avoiding to be done, and b) Spending money. Austria is expensive and I managed to burn close to 400euro in 5 days in Salzburg. It’s a bit scary to wonder how I’m going to cope earning 400 euro a month while working on the snow an hour down the road. I did really enjoy Salzburg though, and that’s the main thing, if I’m gonna be spending close to 6 months in the area, I’m really glad I like the area.
I walked through the old town taking in the many statues amongst the town squares and attempting to avoid the throngs of tourists. It seems Salzburg is where Germans and Austrians come for a week away, as most of the tourists were German speakers. The two most striking things about Salzburg are the fortress high up on the ridge, overlooking the town, and the stunning turquoise of the Salzac river. Walking back towards the hostel, I crossed a footbridge over the Salzac and was greeted with a stunning view along the river, to the town with the cathedrals sitting above and the Castle dominating from the top.
After accidentally falling asleep for a few hours I went down to the bar and met Clay, Michael, Matt and Dave who were planning on going out to the Monastery for a beer and maybe a meal. I joined them and we headed out into Salzburg, finding the Monastery after a little bit of walking around in circles and got ourselves a stein. You have to get your own stein off the shelf, then wash it, then wait in line to pay for it, and it is then filled directly out of the barrel. Pretty cool stuff, but I was disappointment with the fact that it seemed much more like a pub with a big beer garden than a monastery.
The next morning I woke up and decided to go out to the Eagles nest, which is a small chalet at the top of a mountain which was given too Hitler by the Nazi party as his 50th birthday present. The tour cost 50 euros, which is pretty nuts, but after my time in Berlin I have found myself very interested in all the history relating to Hitlers third reich. We were taken by bus to a tunnel about 80m below the eagles nest, where we boarded an elevator and were taken up to the Oval room. Nearly everything that Hitler ever used has since been destroyed, so it was a strange sensation to stand in a room knowing that 65 years earlier Hitler himself would have been there. Although he wasn’t there very often, as he suffered from Vertigo and this place is built right on the peak of the mountain with sheer drop offs on 3 sides. One a side note, I starting to think of Hitler as a bit of a fairy. He was a vegetarian, suffered from vertigo and was a failed artist. Seems like someone should’ve given him a cup of harden the fuck up when he was a child.
Unfortunately, the eagles nest has little historical significance remaining as they have turned it into a massively touristy area, with the chalet itself now set up as a restaurant. If this was all I got for my 50 euros I would have been very disappointed. However, the best thing about the tour was the hour we got to walk around on the mountain, and as it was a clear day you could see for over 100 miles. Clay, Michael and I all walked around the mountain for a while, taking some great photo’s and generally being amazed at the scenery.
That afternoon, after making the decision to stay in Salzburg for another two day, I now had time on my hands so decided to take it easy by reading a book in the park. Something that I hadn’t had a chance to do for a few months, so spending a few hours reading was a great relaxing way to spend my afternoon before the night ahead. That night we all went out for a few beers at a bar called Flip. Clay and I then kicked on at some other bars before stumbling home, attempting to eat a pretty average Kebab on the way. As you may be able to tell, I don’t actually remember a lot of what happened that evening.
Thursday morning was taken fairly easy recovering from the previous night and waiting for Nic to rock up on the next bus. She arrived and we sorted out what we were going to do that night and she went off to do the sound of music tour. I decided to go read some more of my book in the park. While reading Stef came and sat down and had a chat about how much she loved the Mirabelle Garten, and I agreed that it is one of the prettiest gardens that I had seen. That evening Nic, Stef, Arija and I all went out for some food, and Arija and I decided to splurge and purchase a meat extravaganza for two at around 20 euro each. I was great to have some real meat for the first time since Australia. Damn I need a good barbeque.
The next morning Nic and I went to the Ice Caves which are apparently the biggest in the world. The trip out there was massively picturesque and the mountain trail up to the caves was astounding. The caves themselves were good, but suffered from what every tour in Salzburg suffers from, which is. “It’s good, but is it worth $AUD100?” Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. However, I’m glad I did it, so I guess it is worth it in the long run.
Nic and I got back to the hostel, after getting a curry at Indigo, and after an hour chilling out we joined some friends at the bar to participate in the quiz night. We didn’t come last, but missed a couple of easy ones that could have won it for us. After the quiz night we went out, again starting our night at Flip, where we met some Austrian dudes. That’s the first time so far on my holiday that I have actually met locals. Inevitably when I go out, I end up speaking to fellow travelers, so it was really cool to hang out with some locals, go to pub and clubs frequented by locals and drinks the drinks that locals drink. At about 4am we dragged our ass home, emptied the vending machine with our late night munchies and headed to bed.
My time in Salzburg was spent doing two things. A) avoiding all things “Sound of Music”, as the movie was filmed here, there is a lot of avoiding to be done, and b) Spending money. Austria is expensive and I managed to burn close to 400euro in 5 days in Salzburg. It’s a bit scary to wonder how I’m going to cope earning 400 euro a month while working on the snow an hour down the road. I did really enjoy Salzburg though, and that’s the main thing, if I’m gonna be spending close to 6 months in the area, I’m really glad I like the area.
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