One way to the UK?

The bus trip from Berlin to Prague had two options – well two buses were running, one a direct service which didn’t stop in Dresden to pick up extra people, and the other service did stop there to get extras and drop off others. Mara chose the direct service bus for us, and unfortuantely instead of having Stuart tell us about Prague we had Rhiannon (I think her name is) who really isnät quite the best person to be a guide working for Busabout… her talks etc leave a lot to be desired in comparrison to the 4 or so other guides we’ve had so far. The bus ride was kinda crap as I was still sick (and still am) with aching sinuses and a running nose, but we got into Prague in good time.

The rooms in the new Plus Prague were very nice, and our 4-share was more like a little hotel room with separate shower and sink, and toilet and sink to either side of the entrance door. Nice huge windows the whole way along the other wall meant lots of light too which was nice! The noise the windows let in wasn’t so great, but hey you get that. Duck, Michael and Nathan also arrived into Prague the same day as us. The first afternoone Mara Lis and I walked part way into the city, and then got the tram the rest of the way! We stumbled across the Music Hall, and ended up getting tickets to see a strings performance of The World’s Greatest Songs – more to come on this!

The performance went for one hour, and it was great! Especially for the cheap price! We got back to the Hostel, and went to the lounge/bar/internet area and caught up with some guys from travelling before heading to bed. 

Hello,

Well Iäm one who hasnät had much time on an internet computer for quite a while! Hence I have some catching up to do, which will hopefully happen tomorrow! Been from Berlin to Prague, where I visited Na Holmice Hospital, then to Cesky Krumlov, then to Vienna and now Iäm currently in Salzburg!!!

Hmm will write more on here about what we got up to in Berlin as soon as I can – currently realised I need to check my bank accounts!

Alright, it is now 25 September which makes it a little while since Berlin! But I will try and recount some things that we got up to. The first night in Berlin, once the bus got into the Hostel and we made our beds, we then headed out to the pub crawl with Insider Tours. Just let me say now, that in 2005 the pub crawl in Berlin was excellent, however this year I was seriously disappointed with the leader (Simone) who seemed to be too old to run a pub crawl, and too grumpy, and nearer to the end of the night, too paralytic drunk! All she did from the word go was shout at people and be demeaning towards others, and people from our bus that we were talking to post-Berlin who also had Simone as their pub crawl leader felt the same distaste towards her and the pub crawl in general.

The best part of the pub crawl was meeting some new people including Duck, Nathan and Michael all from Newcastle but they’ve been living in Scotland for this year so far. A great bunch of guys, with pretty much no cares in the world so it was good to see people really enjoying themselves! Made me flash back to being 18 when us girls would always be at the pub every night after work, and stay there for all hours only to do it all again the next night!!!

So that was first night in Berlin – the next day we all woke up pretty late, and went for a walk down towards Alexander Platz and there were little market stalls there, as well as a huge Greenpeace Protest going on. We had some lunch, and then prepared for our afternoon walking tour of Berlin, which started at 3pm and went for a little over four hours!!! Umm just realised I already mentioned that in my previous entry….

Second night in Berlin us girls went to the Cinema to see the final in the Bourne series and took Stuart (our Busabout guide into Berlin) along with us – poor thing got motion sickness a little way into the movie so missed a fair part of it!!! But the film was fantastic I thought, even though I’m hoping they don’t bring out a fourth one as that would be overkill. This second night, Duck & Nathan took out another new guy from our dorm to the pub crawl! Lucky we’re not all that grumpy when being woken up at strange times by intoxicated people getting home!

Next day in Berlin Mara Lis and I went down to the Holocaust Museum, which is located underneath the big Holocaust Memorial. The Memorial is hundreds of grey concrete pillars sticking out of undulating ground, at all different heights and sizes. So it is really a sight to see, and it supposed to depict the confusion the Jews would have felt. The Museum underneath is very interesting and definitely worth a visit. It really brings things home as to what has happened in the world and the injustice people can do to others without batting an eyelid. The last night in Berlin we headed up the TV Tower (built in the East part of Berlin when the wall was up, to try and show people outside on the West that the East was a good and prosperous place to be… even though the East govenors had to sneak in people from the West to complete the top part of the tower!). The view was good, but we got up there just after the best part of sunset which sucked! After the TV Tower we went and had dinner at a restaurant near the base which served traditional food, however during the day we had eaten stacks so all I had was a nice Salmon Salad!

Section 4 was Paris, and 5 was Amsterdam okay!

Alright, so from Amsterdam we boarded the Busabout Bus to Berlin, which is where I am currently writing from. The drive to Berlin went quite fast for most of the day, with one main service stop at Marienbraun (spelt wrong), a place which was the old boarder crossing between East and West Germany. We did a quick walk through the old buildings that were used to check inside people’s cars, and under them, and all the names of people passing through etc. The place is a little scary as there are massive light towers everywhere and a big guard tower where snipers would have been positioned.

A little history kick which is interesting to take on-board is that the Berlin Wall only came down in 1989 – when I was already born and living etc. To think people were trapped in a single part of their city and absolutely not allowed to leave is amazing as you would think things like that have not been happening in the last 22 years of my life while Australia was functioning on as normal.

Visiting Berlin you can’t ignore two main things – the Nazi regeime and the Berlin Wall. We went on a walking tour yesterday, and the leader has relatives who were Nazis and he also lived in Berlin when the wall came down, and he himself climbed up onto in on 10 November 1989. It was excellent to have this person as our tour leader as his stories were amazing, he also kept everyone involved by making us answer questions and kept us entertained with jokes along the way. He even recited poetry and sang songs relevant to monuments we were looking at.

From Paris, we headed to Amsterdam! The drive there was not too bad or long on the bus, but being sick with a head cold and a sore back still made it seem like a crappy way and time to travel! We stopped by Brugge on the way and had enough time to walk to the main old square, look around the church etc and buy some traditional belgium food – fries with mayonaise! Didn’t have time to get into a proper Chocolatier but bought some Belgium chocolate from the supermarket, and did have time to visit the Cat and Dog Shop! So many nice products there for the pets!

On arriving in Amsterdam we checked into the almost brand-new StayOkay Zeeburg (HI) Hostel. The place was great, but the location not so great! Out in the East and had to get a tram into town all the time, or a taxi if you were coming home late. The first night, we went into the Red Light District for a look around with some other girls that we met on the bus and at the hostel. Firstly it was a bit light out still, so we had dinner at a nice Indonesian Restaurant near the main square, then headed to the Red Light District to look around for a while, wandering the streets. You would be amazed at some of the girls – they should be getting paid to be on the catwalk and modelling clothes rather than selling their bodies. It is quite sad, but in Amsterdam as it’s all legal they are looked after very well in terms of health care and insurance etc! Lots of dodgy people around the area though so not a good place to stay too long. The other thing Amsterdam (aka The Damage) is known for is the Coffee Shops… which do not sell coffee, but rather legally sell marijuana. Amsterdam operates on the Harm Principle (legislation) that you can do anything to yourself, but do no harm to others. It seems to work strangely enough! Because no one is armed and drugs are legal there isn’t much to fight over. Oh I nearly forgot to mention, when walking through the District we came across a “movie” being filmed… well there was two scantily clad girls chasing each other and running into a barbie pink Hummer. Sad sad acting and the girls looked like Paris Hilton hahaha.

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Okay, so I am a little behind on my updates due to not having much decent internet time or keyboards around the place!

On our second day in Paris, we all wokr up pretty well with me still sick, Lis coming down sick and Mara feeling fine – lucky thing! So Lis stayed at the Hotel (only venturing out for a little while during the day to buy some shoes) and when I got up i ventured into town to the Post Office and then to meet up with Mara around the Opera House. We had lunch at SAS Brioche Doree which is a great cafe that I first encountered in 2005 in Paris and you’ll be pleased to know the fresh OJ and the strawberry tarts etc are still as great as ever!!! After going through the Opera House, we then ventured over to the Arc de Triomphe and passed under the chaotic no-lane round-a-bout to look around the monument. I wanted to climb up but seeing as my back was giving a lot of pain I gave it a miss – same with the Eiffel Tower. I had seen both placed in 2005 when feeling better, so was not overly bothered second time around about only standing at their bases! Mara and I sat in the sun for a while under the Arc de Triomph and watched for car accidents! Apparently there is about one every 5-10 minutes and as soon as a car enters the round-about their insurance is void for that period! We only saw a few near misses unfortunately (!). On leaving, when we went underground again there was a whole French army platoon sitting down, lining the underground exit (underpass) which was a bit strange!… but could explain the green army bus that was circling around the Arc.. it was probably looking for the platoon! Following this, we walked down Champs Elysees (and bought nothing!) and headed back to Montmarte and the Sacre Cour!
Last night in Paris, Mara and I headed to a restaurant called Le Marmite where even though it was pakced with Scottish men in kilts, it was a notably French place and we had Escargot (SNAILS) for a shared entree! Similar to ocean shell-fish, I was pleased when the snails came in shells that were big rather than the common garden snail variety! They tasted like muscles (moulles) in garlic butter so nothing to fret about! For mains we had duck with blueberry sauce, which was nice although the duck could have been cooked a little more so that it wasn’t still quacking!

Alright, so from Munich we boarded the bus to Paris which was a very long day indeed! We stopped by a few interesting places on the service stops but otherwise were just entertained by looking out the window or at the DVD’s on the bus.. which so far have all had either Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt or Leonardo Dicaprio in them! I think someone in Busabout HQ likes these actors… and they also like old classic love songs as Channel 5 on the bus always seems to be playing them!

On arrival into Paris, quite late, like 2030 we walked down to our pre-booked Hotel, only to be advised that our room was not available for use (minor problem being fixed apparently) and so we were walked over to another Hotel for the night – a bloody dodgy Hotel where we had to hike up 6 flights of rickety stairs just to get up to our bedroom, which only had a double and one single bed inside! As I was sick I got the single bed (being sick had its advantage haha) but we still had to wake early the next morning to move back to our actual Hotel! It was quite frustrating, but the new Hotel was much nicer, three single beds, towels, a lift that worked and even a balcony! Let me say now, that the night before checkout morning led to an argument between us girls and the Hotel staff over the final price! On the first night they said we would get a discount for moving Hotels, but then they asked for full price, so we argued for the discount and tried to get away with paying nothing for the first night cuz the place they put us in was really crap and we had damn well pre-booked a Euro100/night room not a Euro43/night room! Anyway, we ended up only paying Euro55 for the first night which was okay, but still! If only I knew more French to tell them where to go!

Paris was generally nice as usual. Where we stayed was just near the Moulin Rouge but also a lot of nice things too, and was just a few stops on the Metro from the centre of the city. We visited Notre Dame on the first morning, where I lit a candle for Grandpa Walton, and as it was Sunday we were also lucky to see an actual service/mass taking placed in the great Chapel which was really moving at times.

Well,on the second day in Munich we headed out to Neuschwanstein Castle which was the home,for only a few months, of King Ludwig II, before he was declared crazy and taken away, and then found dead in a Lake along with his psychologist…. Neuschwanstein Castle is a 2 hour train ride, then short bus ride, then a hike (or another bus ride!) up a big hill to the actual Castle away from Munich! This is the castle that Walk Disney apparently based the Disney Castle on, so there you go! There is also a Swan Lake to the back of another Castle (King Ludwig’s father’s castle) and this was apparently the inspiration for the music and then ballet of Swan Lake.

The castle was pretty crazy – and never actually completed. It was about 4 stories high, but the third level was never finished however the ground floor, second and fourth floors were all really nice to look at and so well preserved. The woodwork was amazing around the place, and the walls were all painted in different colours and patters and the main theme throughout was the Swan! King Ludwig II loved his swans, and they appeared all over the place. He also had a great relationship with Richard Wagner and this also influenced many things we saw in the castle.

The whole day trip was great, and we didn’t get back to Munich until 7pm. The trip covered some great country side and scenery and we got to go right near to the Black Forrest and see the Alps all covered with snow! Yup, summer has well and truly left it seems!

The last day in Munich, seeng as we were freezing our tails off on the castle visit, we headed into the main street of Munich to see the ‘onion church’ where the devil left his footprint, and then shopped and shopped! Finally found a jacket each – mine a black one stuffed with duck down so it’ll be perfect in the freezing and snow (when I get there) and then we headed to have a look at the famour Hoffbrau House. The one made famous because back in the Nazi days, Hitler occupied the building as headquarters and when giving a speech he looked up (on the first floor) and saw the Jewish Symbol on the ceiling — he then turned this upside-down and it became the Nazi Symbol.

The morning we left Lauterbrunnen it was sooo freezing cold there, and had snowed overnight again! Nice to see, but it would have been nice if the wind wasn’t so cold blowing off the mountains! We all jumped on the bus thinking we would soon warm up…. but we were sadly mistaken! Just on starting the drive, we were informed our bus had a mechanical problem which meant no heating! Lord knows why the bus taking people to warm Nice got the heater! So yeah, it was really a freezing day driving to Munich. We got to stop into Lichtenstein for a look around which was great! Some people paid 2 Swiss Francs for a ‘stamp’ in their passport for there. We then also had to pass through Austria and the border customs – where the guards took all passports and stamped them all… except mine as it was the only EU one on the bus (Yay, except I have NO stamps at all now in either my Aussie or British one for this whole Overseas experience).

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On the first day, before going rafting, we walked into town to the CoOp and other shops (Swiss Army Knife shop, cheese shop where we bought brie and some other tourist shops). At the CoOp we all bought some chocolate….. and Lis bought ONE of EVERY block of chocolate they had in the store, so people back in Alice Springs make sure you hit her up for chocolate once she gets back to town!!! Following the shopping trip down the main (and only) street in Lauterbrunnen Lis returned to the campsite and Mara and I stopped off for a Hot Chocolate, Mmmmm.

Unfortunately  while Mara and I were freezing down the river, Lis had her paragliding cancelled due to the stormy weather rolling in. We were going to train up to Jungfrau Joch, the highest peak in Europe on day two, but as it snowed overnight as was cloudy as anything we got told not to bother waking up at 0430 as it was pointless going up the mountain for no view so that kind of sucked. Following hot showers to warm up after the rafting and swimming, we got ready to go out again – this time heading to the Hotel and Restaurant Oberland along with Craig and Fran to have a FONDUE! My god I have never seen so much cheese in one pot – we each had the classic fondue which was 200g EACH of cheese. Craig, Fran and I also shared a recommended white wine which went down nicely, especially as the cheese was really quite very strong! No idea what type it was, but we struggled to get through it all! Still a great experience to add to the list!

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