Well again I see that
I have fallen behind in updating you all on our crazy European adventures. But
before this there is one important thing I must mention, this week will be my
last week in Sweden. Emotional? Yes! Excited? Yes! I guess you could say that
we are all a big ball of mixed emotions with having to say goodbye to friends
we now refer to as family. After having our final farewell Ronnen party on the
weekend and a week full of farewell dinners and fika’s we will all be
officially leaving our humble abode at Ronnen International housing at the end
of this week and embark on what is going to be the trip of a life time.
Okay, now for my
German instalment.
Destination: Munich,
Germany
Munich is truly the
city of beer.
We arrive early
morning after another classically minimalistic train ride with DB Bahn, drop
the invalids (Sarrah, still quite unwell, poor thing) off at the hostel and
depart for the city where we would begin the Sandemans free walking tour. On
this tour we passed The Feldherrnhalle, Kristallnacht, Frauenkirche,
Viktualienmarkt, The National Theater & Opera House, Marienplatz, Covered
the Origins of Oktoberfest, Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, The Hofbrauhaus,
Odeonsplatz, Theatinerkirche, Mary’s Column, The Royal Residence, Church of St.
Peter, Maximillianstrabe, New Synagogue, The Glockenspiel, St Jacobsplatz and
much more.
Our tour guide Jon was
a character, and we tipped him well considering he put up with us staring at
pooches, making inappropriate jokes, even answering his rhetorical questions
and being the most interactive participants on the tour. I even stayed focussed
for the three-hour tour, which impressed both Lindsay and Emily! His true
English humour really brought the city of Munich alive. Just a couple more
highlights worth a mention from this tour;
-
Jon’s
explanation of the town clock, the second biggest waste of time/tourist in all
of Europe, that has a combination of ninja baby statues that twirl, a thrusting
clown and the sound of strangled chickens.
-
Jon
complimenting my marvellous whistling skills (told you I’m good mum)
-
Being
mistaken as being a German school child on an excursion and being rounded up
for roll call in the main square
-
Being
introduced to the vomitorium
-
How crazy
‘us’ Australians are
-
Learning
about the craziest ways people have died at Oktoberfest, lost their children
and at times even forgotten they had children let alone taken them to
Oktoberfest with them
Moving on, the tour
was complete and we were desperate to make a quick toilet stop but before this
could happen of course Lindsay was hit on, by a drunk Norwegian who insisted on
telling her how his mother had given him strict instructions to come to Munich
to drink. We could only leave telling him how proud she would be. We continue
on and find ourselves in the beautiful Englisher Garten; if you are ever in
Munich I would definitely recommend a stroll through this fabulous park it has
so much on offer. We continue to stroll through the park and come to realise
that in some sections clothes may be optional. Continuing on and we find a man
made stationary wave in the river, where locals all wet-suited up, scoot across
in front of an audience filled with tourists and their cameras.
I could honestly watch
this forever and we did, 2 hours later we realised what the time was and
continued on with our stroll through this massive park. We soon come to the
Chinese Tower, one of the world’s most famous beer gardens. Order a beer and a
pretzel the size of my head and came to the realisation that all those people
who attend Oktoberfest may actually be onto something; this beer is delicious.
We soon depart with 3 steins and make our way to of course an Irish pub for
dinner and then back to the hostel for a relatively early night.
The next day was spent
in true Munich form, relaxing, drinking beverages and soaking up the marvellous
sun. Although we did manage to embrace our inner tourist and make our way to
the top of an old church bell tower, much to some of our displeasures (Max).
Although I must say credit goes to Max who managed to get one photo with one
foot out the door, the fear of heights really got the girl. The rest of the day
was spent in the sun at the park we had fallen in love with the day before,
naming surfers and giving them fake back-stories. We soon retired for the
hostel as we had an extremely early morning the following day.
After a 3am wakeup
call and short flight we were in Berlin. We of course did a free walking tour,
pub-crawl and drank plenty of beer, why not? We were in Germany after all. On a more serious note we covered plenty
of history, including museums based upon the horrible Hitler, memorials of the
great Berlin wall and the east side gallery.
We also went to the
concentration camp – Sachenhausen. For all of you who may be considering going
to Berlin or Germany I would recommend doing this fantastic and insightful tour
of the concentration camp. Our
guide Nigel really encapsulated the true ambience and I guess you could say
eerie feelings of the concentration camp. The tour finished with one quote that
has stayed with me ever since.
‘The last thing that
dies is hope’.
This is so true;
walking through the gates of a concentration camp where so much torture, pain
and suffering occurred all due to one mans idea of perfection really made me
stop, think and consider how lucky I am, well how lucky we all are. To consider
the fact that this one sick mans way of creating idealistic society was to kill
innocent victims and make them suffer because they were different or did not
conform. To think that we complain about little dramas today when innocent
children and families were murdered for no reason. We really need to stop,
think and appreciate how lucky we are to be free.
Besides this our
Berlin experience was not complete until we of course went on a pub-crawl. This
pub-crawl took us to a few underground bars and bars that were built in old
railway stations, quite the experience. We made plenty of friends, drank plenty
of beer and ended the night in true style, having piggy-back races.
The next day would be
our final day in Berlin and after locating the whereabouts of Genna carefree
Bradley we of course continued on with our tourist expeditions. Berlin was a truly great city, it has a
fantastic arty vibe and they love beer, why not? My taste buds have definitely
warmed to the taste.
Well that was the end
of our May adventures and again the end of a well overdue blog update.
So be sure to keep
posted,
H xxx
