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May 12 Frankfurt and MunichI ended up heading back to Frankfurt to catch up with the friends I made in Berlin. I see why they like to go to Berlin, cause there really isnt much to do in Frankfurt.
I spent most of my time sitting by the main river, people watching in the sun. Theres not really much else to see in Frankfurt except a whole lot of banks and a big train station! They did issue the euro here though. Wow.
Caught up with my friends a couple of times, and managed to go out on my last night which was good fun but not very busy. Unfortunately they were sick on the day I got in so I didnt get to see them as much as I would have wanted to! Ariane, Anke and Ollie, you will have to come to Australia so we can catch up again!
The german police accosted me on the street, and searched me for drugs. It was really scary, even though I knew I didnt have anything on me. Really didnt want to end up in a german gaol for no reason hahaha.
From Frankfurt I travelled to Munich for a couple of days, which is an amazing Bavarian city full of bmws, leiderhosen, beer gardens and beautiful german women. The weather was great in Munich, and we spent most of our time in the sun drinking german beer and you guessed it, people watching. There is some amazing architecture in this city too, most of it recently restored after WWII bombings. Should have some great photos of the city up soon! It is amazing. May 06 HollandWell... picking up where we left off. I had landed in Amsterdam and some dodgy guy on the street helped me find a hostel. Thank goodness. I was told that there was only one hostel with rooms left in all of Amsterdam because of Konnoningenday (Queens Day, I hope the spelling is right Madous!). And you could really see why this place had rooms left. The sheets were dirty, ripped, the rooms smelt of feet and cigarettes, and there was a stray black cat that would walk around trying to eat your food.
I had booked there until the Saturday of Queens Day, and decided that I would check my bag into a train station locker and stay up all night. Sure beats paying forty euros to stay in that dump (Hostel Kabul if you ever go to Amsterdam). Queens Day was full of canal and street parties, it seemed as though the whole country had descended on Amsterdam with all their orange clothes. Thankfully, an exhaustful day was accompanied with some amazing dutch hospitality and my sister's host brother Sjoerd, put me up at his house for the night. So good to have a bed and a real sleep without drunken englishmen coming to wake you up at 3 in the morning.
Found a great hostel (the bulldog) after Queens Day and stayed there for another 6 nights. Met some great people there, and now know about 15 people going to the Roskilde festival that I will need to catch up with. Just need a phone now :)
Spent quite a bit of time with Sjoerd,Inge and Sarah. We had dinner at Inge's one night, dinner and a movie at Bazar another night and checked out a screening of a film Sjoerd had directed in Utrecht.
All in all I spent about ten days in Amsterdam. I made the most of the museums, visiting the Tropem, the Rijk, Van Gogh and Stelijk CS Modern Art Gallery. Spent a lot of time relaxing in the Vondel and Ooster parks, which filled with people in the hot hot weather here. It was about 25 degrees today, really nice for travelling.
Also managed to see liberty day here in Amsterdam, which is a bit like Australia day, just with even more street parties. A great time of year to be in Amsterdam, with the Queens Day and Liberty day.
I have headed off to visit Sjoerds family for the weekend, and they have been looking after me soooo well with food and a real bath... and a bed! A really lovely family and I can see where Claire has picked up a lot of her 'dutch' humour from.
Anyway, I will write soon from Germany again, as I travel back to Frankfurt then to Munich. By the way, if you dont have my email it is stephenharland@gmail.com
April 29 Berlin Part IIWell, sunday or monday quickly turned into wednesday, as I discovered
just how big berlin really is. Found some great art galleries, but
didnt make it to the pergamon. Will have to make it up in Amsterdam. Found a really great gallery in an old squat that had been hollowed out for some artists space, a bar and cinema. A really great atmosphere with some really talented modern artists and sculptors. Managed to discover some great berlin bars that night too, and partied way too late. The next morning we checked out the german baths, where you need to get naked (hi podders!) and roam around some really great baths. Not quite as impressive as Hungary (50 year old naked german women hahaha) but still an experience! Spent the next day touring the city by beach cruiser bikes, which was a great way to see the city, especially the tiergarten park where the operators werent too happy with us bunnhopping, skidding and endo-ing their bikes! But a litre stein went a long way at the halfway point and riding became a little more dangerous. Managed to squeeze in a bit of shopping for some new shoes to replace the ones that got ripped dancing two nights before. Spent my whole last day in Berlin chasing up accomodation for Amsterdam, which is completely full because of queens day. Couldnt find anything but still came, and found a dump of a place with 16 bed dorms that is definitely the worst hostel yet. Sjoerd has put me up tonight, which is fantastic, so I have a clean roof over my head. Then onto the bulldog tomorrow, which sounds like a great hostel. But queens day today was an amazing sea of orange all over amsterdam. I cant even describe it, but the city tomorrow will be a mess of beer cans and orange streamers. April 21 BerlinEnded
up giving Cesky Krumlov a miss, as Im running out of time to get to
Amsterdam for the queens birthday, which is this weekend (I think, will
need to check lonely planet). Spent most of the first day recharging my
batteries, laundry etc but managed to see a little bit of Berlin on
foot, near the enormous television tower and Alexanderplatz. Had a
feeling that I had hardly scratched the surface though, and I was right
the next day. The next day I managed to get in a pretty good trip around Berlin's two main 'suburbs'. Some amazing 14-16th century architecture, some great street art too. Some of the more modern buildings, built to replace the devestation of world war II were also monstrous and really well done. Spent a bit of time at checkpoint charlie, visiting some WWII sites including the place of Hitlers bunker, the Brandenburg gate and Museum Island. A long day (10 hours of walking), made all the worst by a tiny hangover from the 'white trash' bar the night before. Met a couple of bartenders from Melbourne there which was pretty amazing. After our 10 hour walk I met a few kids from Frankfurt at the hostel, and thought it would be a good idea to go and check out Berlin's gothic scene. An amazing subculture here, if you could call it that because it is just sooooo huge. Went to a gothic bar, decorated to the 9s and a gothic club, which was an old soviet bloc (or similar) shelled out and converted. Those buildings are pretty amazing, they are all pre-fabricated and I was told they could be constructed in 2 weeks (a 5 storey apartment bloc). Going to spend today people watching and shopping, then a quiet night in the hostel. Will probably hang around in Berlin until Sunday or Monday, then catch a ride with a ride sharing agency to Munich, then onto Frankfurt to catch up with the friends I made last night. April 17 PragueWow, what a city. After arriving in Prague with Chris the Pom and Tali the Israeli, we met up with a guy who runs tours of Prague and promised that we would come on his tour the next day. Which was quite strange because we were all anti tour operators carrying around sticks on fluffy animals.
But as it turned out, Stephan, our tour guide/history professor hated those tour operators two - he called them 'the evil!'. He was a very funny guy with an amazing passion for PRague. On top of this, he was a history professor and knew so much about well, everything. He took us off all the backstreets in Prague, showed us some amazing streetart, some beautiful architecture and some great shopping spots. Possible the best thing I did in Prague. Even meet this funny rabi who wanted cigarettes and then stole Chris camera and demanded a donation to charity to get it back! So we all kicked in a few krowns and we got it back hahaha.
Unfortunately, we were moved from the hostel we were staying to a place in the city. It was full of english stag parties who took a lot of pride in tearing apart this beautiful city. At least the hostel was close to the heart and we got to see a lot of prague in the few days we were there. The opera house was amazing, just unfortunate it was an italian opera subtitled in Czech. Hm. There was a bit of love a bit of fighting and the guy got the girl.
We also managed to find a few too many bottles of absynth here. Amazing stuff, pity it tastes like rat poison. Might see if I can get some through customs ahhah.
Have seen most of the major tourist sites here now, so think I will be heading off soon. Was thinking of going to a small town called Cesky Krumlov but its a little out of my path so might go straight for Berlin. I have some photos of Hungary, will upload them as soon as I can. |
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