Extra post tonight as I’ve just checked my blog stats and they were double what they normally are in a day for today (about 100) with loads of referrals coming from the Lonely Planet site so I’m quite pleased with that.
Also, I don’t half get some strange Google (or whatever search engine) searches bringing people to the site. Who the rubber duck is searching for ‘Dan Bowen Food Lion’ ?!?!
Pic is of a couple of Vespa 50 Specials I spotted earlier. Make a nice couple don’t they.
I finally had a decent kip last night and consequetly didn’t wake up until after 11 meaning I’d missed brekkie, drataster. This meant that my lunch plans were in limbo also, you see the main advantage of your average continental breakfast is that it makes excellent loot for meals to yet follow. Try stuffing a ‘Full English’ in your sky rocket.
These bleedin’ mosquitoes have laid siege to my body once more. But the cunning flying devils are not content with stealing my blood and making me itch lots, they have also decided to strike in unusual areas, my right ear and little finger being two such. The blighters.
The Premier League begins this weekend once more and I’m a touch excited, it’s going to be an interesting season. Me and my fantasy team (Manchester Oilers) are ready for the challenge. Claire has kindly found an Irish bar in Vilnius (where I think I will be on Saturday) that is showing our opening match against Fat Sam Rovers, bring it on.
I just had a gorgeous lasange and Bitburger at the hostel for lunch. Now I know what you’re thinking, lasange and a burger for lunch, you fat b@stard, but take that back you cretin! Bitburger is a lovely German beer served for €2.50 at the hostel, I’ve become rather fond of (and possibly dependent upon) the old girl.
Today has been another one of those days where I’ve had to spend ages planning stuff so I’ve not got out much.
I’ve booked an extra night in Riga to make it 3 and then 2 nights in Vilnius, another 2 in Warsaw and 3 in Krakow. Have also sorted a bus from Riga to Vilnius with Eurolines and researched how to get from there to Warsaw. I wish I could find a way of incorporating a Dad’s Army style map on this site, showing my Blitzkrieg like rampage through Europe with monster sized arrows.
So when I finally left the hostel grounds it was after 8 but I managed to fit quite a bit in considering.
First up I went to one of the East Berlin areas Pekka had reccomended to me, Prenzlauer Berg. It’s only about a 20 minute walk from where I’m staying and is your standard bohemian sort of suburb with lots of Apple Macs out on tables surrounded by lattes. It was worth the stroll up though and I saw a clothes shop called ‘Hoolywood’ (not a bad ‘casuals’ pun) that looked okay and if I get a chance in the morning I’ll take a proper look when it’s open.
After that I headed back over to The Reichstag which is open until midnight but last entrance is 22:00 (I did’t know that bit until I got there) and it’s now 21:50 with a pretty hefty queue so it’s not looking overly promising.
Phew, just made it. Frankly, I didn’t fancy coming back again for a third Reichstag attempt. Oh come on, you can’t surely expect any better from me by now?
It wasn’t bad actually, it’s all free and they give you an audio tour headset thing in your own language.
I then went over to the TV Tower (Fernsehturm) and thought about going up it but I decided to hold on to my 10 Euros instead. It wasn’t like I’d gone out my way to it as I had to change lines at the Alexanderplatz station next to the structure anyway.
And that was that, not a bad night’s work really eh readers.
I’m just rewarding myself with half a litre of Bitburger while I upload this bad boy. There’s a fella sat near me in the hostel who is a good shout for a Didier Drogba lookey likey except he’s a bit mincier, actually he’s a lot mincier. I bet he doesn’t dive as much though.
Today has been relatively uneventful, mostly hostel bound. I’ve been sorting all my legacy posts tags out for this Blogsherpa thing so that took a fair while. After that I got talking (about fantasy footy) to these 3 lads from Glasgow and spent most of the day with them.
These fellas were getting an over-night train to Amsterdam that so it’s a shame I didn’t meet them earlier in my stay as a good time would have no doubt been had. Today we skulked around the hostel, drank some beer and played some pool.
In fact I had a rather epic encounter with a lad named Ally, my early form was unfortunately on par with Robbie Fowler’s for England and I found myself 5-1 down. In my rather weak defense, I did find the black potted (by myself) earlier than required on no less than 4 occassions. Later on the score became 8-4 and my form was improved but my knack of cruel flukey early blacks continued. Set of b@stards. Well done Ally.
So my new Scottish pals headed off into the sunset (well they didn’t, it was pitch black, but that doesn’t work does it) in search of a border hopping juggernaut to a land of dams, tulips, funny speaking people, cloggs, Heineken and much more.
Before they’d left they’d introduced me to a few other Scottish mates of theirs still knocking about who seemed sound enough too. But there was an ever increasing crowd including several people who I found not to my liking so when the call came to move on I decided for once not to bother.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt on my travels it’s not to socialise with people I suspect I won’t like as generally it ends up in a shite night and money spent regardless. Though saying that sometimes you can be pleasently suprised.
So I done some more solo drinking and interwebby things and before going to bed (and writing 86% of this) I had a few games of pool with a Californian bloke and his 16 year old son. They were both long haired with a free and hippy look about them but had a kind of contradictory competitive rigid edge which I found not to be Unamerican.
By this time I was playing pretty well as my form generally improves the drunker I get. My pool style is based on interest, mojo and confidence; all 3 rise for me on the table after several (or several more than) pints (or 0,5l). Flair is the way forward.
I leathered the youngster twice but was narrowly beat by Popster, which was most annoying when considering their competitiveness (though granted, I’m probably just as guilty). Again in my rather weak defense, there was no chalk and the tip was flatter than a cake made in a pan the day before Ash Wednesday, this led to a particularly untimely black ball miscue on my part. Thrice buggery.
Doesn’t the Brandenberg Gate look menacing from this angle at sunset.
The Hostel (Pfefferbett Hostel) I’m in is ace in every way except there is no kitchen which is a bit of a pain when I’m here for 4 nights.
So I had a quality salami pizza last night at a little gaff called La Cucina in the Pfefferbett area. The thing was huge and bloody gorgeous, only 5 Euros for it too. What I would like to happen is a repeat of the same for the next 3 nights but then that’s not exactly what one would consider a balanced diet is it.
Crazy Oscar is the fella working behind the hostel counter, he’s a full-on type of guy and never stops talking about something utterly off the wall while getting on with whatever task is in hand. A nice chap and certainly preferable to Oscar the grouch which it’s not always that uncommon to get in these places.
I know I’ve alluded to this many times already and it probably holds about as much interest for you as a Colleen Rooney (are they married? Who cares actually) column, but proper geared Vespas (not just PXs either) are everywhere in this country, it’s great. Well done Germans.
I’m about to go on a completely free tourist walk of Berlin, not generally my sort of thing but it covers loads of things I was interested in seeing anyway and did I mention it’s free. It’s provided by Sandemans and supposed to be one of the best in the Europe apparently, though they are hardly like to say that it’s bobbins are they. Seeing some of the sights in this manner will give me more time to explore the large amount of alternative stuff the city has on my own.
I’m making more of an effort to include the actual names, websites etc. of places I talk about as if some of my stuff is gonna be on the Lonely Planet site it may as well be of use to any fellow travellers foolish enough to click through to it. Here’s how my blog comes through on the LP pages, in this case, for Ottawa.
Most annoyingly, I’ve just discovered that I’m missing my iPhone earphones. Some times I’ll listen to stuff before going to sleep as I did last night. So in the morning they will generally be loose in the bed but I can’t find them anywhere. The other 5 people in my room all checked out this morning so I reckon they must have fell on the floor and one of them snarffled them either by accident or on purpose, whichever it was makes little difference to me. Scoundrels.
The tour was excellent, I’d recommend it profusely to anyone, especially if you like your history. The guide was a well to do and slightly eccentric St Andrews student who presented things in an over the top thespian sort of style, but it worked and she clearly knew her stuff. A tip was optional but it was one of those kind of situations where it’d be awkward not to and I didn’t mind anyway as she was good, so 5 Euros it was.
Even at 3 and a half hours long it was pretty action packed. Here’s a selection of what we took in: Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (also known as the Holocaust Memorial), Hitler’s underground bunker spot (where he spent the last few weeks of his life as the Russians closed in on Berlin), Goering’s Luftwaffe offices (later to became the main goverment office of the GDR and post Cold War a tax office!), a small stretch of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie (actually a tourist trap re-creation of), Bebelplatz (where years prior to World War II the Nazis had burned 25,000+ books of basically anything not the Nazi ideology) and the Fernsehturm (iconic TV Tower Eastern bloc balls up).
The Holocaust Memorial (also known as The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) was quite errie and impressive, it’s quite hard to visualise but it’s basically a large series of blocks at different heights creating a bit of a maze. It doesn’t sounds like much but I liked it. The architect (Peter Eisenman) leaves the thinking behind the structure ambiguous for you to interpret what it means yourself but he has said he was inspired by the Jewish Cemetery in Prague and having been there also, I can see a connection.
I did go back to The Reichstag after the tour to have a look at the interior but there were huge queues even at 20:30, I’ve still got 3 days here though so there will be time again.
By this time I realised I’d not ate for donkeys and was starving so I went over to The Sony Centre (which I’d planned on visiting anyway). It’s just an entertainment complex with restaurants and a big cinema, but the building is really modern and unusual. I had a look at a few healthy and different options but then I was that hungry and tired that a disappointing meal would have made me want to lock myself in Hitler’s bunker. Wings and ribs with fries.
With regards to the picture, obviously some Berliners think it funny to take a pish in a Dunkin Donuts cup, put the straw back in (as if to suggest help yourself) and leave it at the side of a U-Bahn entrance. If I’m honest, so do I.
The Melbourne lad (Rhaun) from my room came with me to the FC St. Pauli stadium for the game last night. By the time we got there the 2nd half had already started so it was too late to get in but we watched the rest of it in a pub built into the ground. They got the winner against Ahlen in the 92nd minute so the atmosphere was great. I’d like to come back one day and sample it from within the stadium.
Post match was a little crazy. There was some huge protest march by the fans (living up to their reputation). There were a good 5 thousand + I reckon and there were a lot of seriously heavily protected and armed dibble on the prowl, there were even armoured veichles and trucks with water-canons on. It all looked peaceful enough though. The most frustrating part was that I couldn’t get to the bottom of whst the whole thing was actually about.
After that we had a few beers down on the Reeperbahn, it’s quite a long strip and all very seedy. I couldn’t believe how busy it was, thousands of normal looking revellers (i.e. not just there for a bit of titilation!) flooding up and down the street. It was worth a look but I wouldn’t want to go back.
The last 2 mornings I’ve had free brekkie and free lunch as well for that matter. It should have been 4 Euros but Rhaun had managed to wangle an extra pass (as it happens I never needed it as they didn’t bother checking). I had a wee bit of cereal and then made a ham and cheese bun up for me lunch, as travellers must. Jobs a good ‘n.
Apart from St. Pauli I’ve not really seen much of Hamburg but from what I did I liked the look of it, it seems to have a very liberal populous and a decent vibe about it. I’ve also never seen so many Vespas in one city. Good stuff.
I did have one hour to kill in Hamburg city centre before I got on the train to the nation’s capital and I picked an interesting time to kill it. I left the station and walked slap bang into the middle of a gay parade. There were lots of ‘women’ with suspicious jaw lines and blokes walking about in cod pieces and chaps. The open top buses full of badly dressed men, dancing badly to awful Euro dance made for a hilarious sight.
I’m just on the train now and am listening to a BBC Football podcast about Newcastle United. Hearing them forever droning on about how great and passionate they are as fans is embarassing. Some of them are nearly full on blubbering again when they are talking about their relegation. Get a grip. Let’s see how many of the World’s greatest fans turn up this season eh.
I’ve got a plethora of different things to see and do in Berlin so it’s a good thing I have 4 days to do it. Pekka has given me an impressive list of bars, clubs and areas to check out and there’s loads of touristy sort of things that have caught my eye in the guide book. Should be good.
I had a bit of interesting news today. If I say Blogsherpa to you, you will probably think I’m back on the Wuppertal (stop it!!) path of sillyness but that would not be the case.
Blogsherpa is a relatively new (I think it’s still in beta) system that Lonely Planet have put in place to integrate 3rd party blogs into their own content while passing any advertising revenue to the bloggers themselves. This morning they emailed me saying they liked Send The Bugger Back and wanted to incude it in the program.
Non nerds (that’d be 87% of you then) may (will) want to skip the next few paragraphs. It’s a pretty simple but clever system, once you are approved your RSS feed will be scanned daily and any posts tagged with ‘Blogsherpa’ plus the relevant country and city, will be picked up and included on the corresponding pages on the Lonely Planet site. If anyone clicks on an ad while on a page featuring my stuff, the Google AdSense dosh goes to me.
This is good for me as one I don’t want to put uncontrolled ads directly on here for aesthetic and integrity reasons and two I can’t anyway as I use the free WordPress.com and while it has a great dashboard, you are limited to what code you can include. If you want full control (and the ability to use Google AdSense and similar) you need to use WordPress.org and pay for them or another provider to host the content, at least a tenner a month. Not for me at the moment. I’ve submitted the AdSense application so I should hopefully get a green light in a few days.
I do find Web 2.0, search, cloud computing, cross integration and the related eco-systems etc. pretty intriguing. It’s far more interesting than the day to day Windows sys admin I’m used to anyway, It’s also one of the fastest growing industries of this century so it looks like the future is cloudy.
I’m not expecting anything to come of this or to make any real money but I am quite pleased that a travel literature giant like Lonely Planet thinks my content is good enough to include on their site. It should also get my readers numbers up (currently averaging about 50 hits a day). Big chuftty badge in the oven for me.
Ok, you can come out from behind your mouse mat now, the geek stuff is finished.
I don’t seem to be having much luck with my room mates at the moment. This hostel has various pros and cons but it’s basically a hotel with shared rooms. I’m in a 6 person room but within the room there is another semi-segragated room with a bunk bed in it and I’m up top.
At exactly 5 in the morning I was stirred from my slumber by loud vibrations with Celine Dion blaring out ‘My heart will go on’ (it might not if someone does the decent thing and puts a mousetrap on your tongue love) directly after. This was followed by lights on and a loud exit to the ensuite and then 20 minutes lates lights on again so he could put his phone on charge. Great eh.
In the morning this dude below was oblivious to last night’s events and asked if he could borrow my toothpaste. He had a chirpy friendly nature so I didn’t hold a grudge and said sure why not. I’m not sure where he’s from but he has an African accent and apparently works in Riga (he’d forgot to turn his 7:00am Latvian time work alarm off, hence Celine). He asked me if I’d ever been and I said I was going soon. “You will see me there!” was the reply. Blimey.
Speaking of Latvia, the confirmation email for my Riga hostel booking said they offer trips to an AK-47 shooting range. If it’s cheap enough I may well have a dabble as it’s sounds like a veritable hoot to me. Though in this day and age if AK-47 training on foreign soil works it’s way on to your CV I reckon you could well end up at whichever underground facillity replaces Guantanamo Bay. Oh crikey, my card is well and truly marked now.
Last night I briefly met 2 other roomies, a guy from near Milan and another from Melbourne. Everyone seemed nice enough but one thing I’m not happy about is there are no lockers anywhere, they should be a given in any hostel. You’re forced to put a lot of trust in people you don’t know from Adam (what does that mean!) otherwise.
Hamburg seems to live up to it’s reputation of being the coolest city in Germany, I’ve not seen very much yet but even on my short journey from the HBF to my hostel in the bohemian Altona area I saw 2 nice Vespas and a Lammy in transit, always a good sign.
I just saw on CNN that Real Madrid were charging fans 15 Canadian dollars a piece in Toronto just to watch the team train! No wonder they could afford the gelled tumbler.
Shortly I’m going to make my way to the St Pauli area (where The Beatles famously first started gigging), it’s supposed to be a cool alternative part of the city though I think it has it’s seedy side too. Also Topi has put me on to the fact that it’s the opening game of the season for Budesliga division 2 side FC St Pauli tonight, I’m unlikely to be able to get a ticket but it will be worth the trip to soak up the ambience.
They are a very interesting side with a big reputation for having an alternative leftist following. Check out the club culture part in the Wikipedia entry here.
Another thing that caught my attention today was this piece on the City site, it made my neck do the hairy stand up thing. I too was there, I too was 16 at the time and I too had to convince my Dad not to hop it.
Tomorrow afternoon I head to Berlin for 4 nights, I’m looking forward to it as I’ve heard good things about the city from friends and also it will be good not to be constantly moving around for s little while. The last week has been a bit hectic!
Again I’ve given up on trying to keep these posts short, it just isn’t my way. If you’re finding them to be too mammoth my suggested solution is to only read every other paragraph. It might end up coming across as complete gibberish but some would argue that’s the case anyway.
Over.
Wuppertal I say to you and Wuppertal once more Sirs. Wuppertal is where I’m just passing through on the train as I write today’s entry of STBB. Amazingly the predictive text on my phone offered up Wuppertal when I was only a Wupp in, that’s quite the dictionary. Anyway enough of all this Wuppertal wubbish.
Last night I went in search of that bar Topshop put me onto but about half way there my route was impeded by some seriously heavy duty roadworks. I considered finding a way round but it was dark and late and the area I was in looked a bit humpty so I didn’t want to hoist the tourist flag high by getting a map out, you may as well where a bumbag as do that. A walk down The Rhine and a few cheap bottles of Kolsch at the hostel was the rest of my night.
I’ve not really met anyone I’ve liked on this trip yet, maybe I’m just fussy in my company but you don’t half get a lot of muppets in hostels. I’m quite happy to keep myself to myself a lot of the time though as a lot of conversations you over-hear are either inane or pretentious. You do get sound, nice and cool people but I don’t find them to be in the majority.
This morning I just about had time to go to the Schokoladenmuseum (chocolate museum) before my train. Very extensive it was to, they cover every facet of the process, from the cultivation of the crops (usually in tropical 3rd world countries) to a working factory plant showing you it being made. There’s even an enclosed room which has the exact required temperature and humidty to grow a cocoa tree in, it was hotter than a sauna in there, I’m surprised the Germans weren’t getting nuddy. The most interesting part for me was reading about how the Conquistadors first brought cocoa back to Europe from the Aztecs in the 16th century. You also got a few little beaut samples of course.
So my route today that has had me pass through Wuppertal (no! Stop saying Wuppertal!) first takes me from Koln to Munster, then a change to get to Osnabruck, another one to get to Bremen and then finally one more to my ultimate destination of Hamburg. It should take 6 hours 21 minutes in total. I have to wait nearly 40 minutes in Bremen so I might get to have a wee butchers there, which is okay as I was at one point considering it as a stopover.
A lot of other travellers (backpackers not toothless people selling pegs) I’ve seen about on trains and that don’t half lug some amount of gear about with them. I don’t get it, it can’t be much fun, they look like roadies for a U2 ‘concert’. Not me, I’m a firm believer of keeping it simple and travelling relatively light. I’ve pretty much got everything I need and very little besides.
I’ve not shaved since I’ve turned 27 but it’s getting to that critical point when a hint of redness can be caught from certain angles on a sunny day. Damn that dormant Scottish ginger gene. I used to think that there was only a lot of ginger beards north of Hadrian’ Wall because they were always dribbling Irn Bru but apparently not.
I don’t know much about chromosomes (except that mongaloids have one too many, as in the ace Devo song) and the like but I hope this doesn’t mean that if I ever have ankle biters they will be full-on afflicted. If it skips a generation that’s fine, someone else’s problem then.
Apologies for the above to Ronnie (who doesn’t read this blog anyway), Coopa (strawberry blonde my arse, tinge at best), Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Chris Evans, Spuggy from Byker, Chesney from Corrie, Gary Megson, Winston Churchill and Jesus Christ. I’m not convinced about the last 2 but Ronnie swears by it.
Apologies to all Scottish folk also, but it’s alright I’m allowed to say these things as I’m half McDuff. I’ve even got the ginger beard to prove it.
While in Osnabruck I had my first dalliance with currywurst. A bit of bread, some nice tangy curry sauce and some diced bratwurst. Umm umm.
I’m going to have to try and trim these posts down a bit, they’re taking me Buzz Lightyears. I think when I spend a lot of time on my tod I get to thinking too much and a smidging of it gets documented here, dear oh dear eh.
Great flaming tankards of Wuppertal to you all.
This hostel is miles better and more in tune with the hostelling experience, the last gaff was too instituionalised. I’m going to try and avoid HI hostels on the whole as although some have been good plenty of them don’t have fun very high on the agenda. This place does a half litre bottle of Kolsch for 2 Euros 20, Jurassic Park.
I obviously slept a lot better than the night before (it’d be pretty much impossible not to) but it was not without incident. I got to bed about half 12 and shortly after some American or Canadian fella did the same, only he wasn’t so accomodating to the other 4 people in the room as I was. He was going about with his torch (sorry flashlight) not worrying who’s eyes it went in, then his very bright laptop came on and to boot he was incessantly fidgeting noisely.
I could handle all this though, it was the crisp (sorry chips) eating that did it. He had a massive bag of the buggers and was forever digging around the salt ridden crevices and then making exceedingly loud crunching noises (even my earplugs were penetrated).
When the dingbat had woke me up for the 3rd time and he was still munching away an hour after he had started I said “Do you wanna give it a rest pal, there’s people trying to sleep over here”. No reply back but crisps away, laptop off, everything hunky dory.
This morning an English bloke (seemed a sound lad actually but he checked out before I really got speaking to him) who had the bed between me and munchy (so had it worse than I did) asked me what that greezer was all about. We just don’t know.
For the vast majority of today I’ve been in the hostel making use of the free web access on PCs (with IE 5 on them, a full 3 versions out of date!) to plan my travels. Quite handy as most hostels just provide free wifi and charge for use at the machines.
For the US trip I’d spent ages planning most stuff (mainly transport and accomodation) before I went, where as due to not having the time beforehand and the rough nature of my route anyway, this is all planned as I go. It allows for more freedom which I wanted but it can also take ages (taking away time from actually seeing things) to sort out the transport side in a cheap manner, the accomodation booking isn’t that bad. You have to book stuff in advance really to do it cheaply as prices tend to go up the longer you leave it.
The perfect combo is an unplanned route (or largely unplanned) and your own set of wheels (2 preferably but 4 does the trick too).
Anyway, I’m an expert on the quirks of the German rail system now, which not unexpectantly is pretty bloody good. I’ve sorted a train from Hamburg to Berlin for less than 40 Euros but couldn’t get a cheap ticket from here to Hamburg as I’m going tomorrow and cheapo tickets have to be bought 3 days in advance minimum. That means nearly 80 Euros, gulp. But aha, I found a workaround didn’t I which meant I only had to pay 35. Okay it will be on slower regional trains and take me over 2 hours more to get there and I will also have to change 3 times I wouldn’t have had to with the more expensive fare, but still, Jurassic Park.
I’ve also booked my next 3 hostels and booked a flight from Berlin to Riga for about 90 Euros. I’ve had to cut Dresden from my plans which is a shame but can’t be helped. So my next week and a half or so will now be Hamburg-Berlin-Riga. From Latvia I then plan to go (probably via bus) to Vilinus in Lithuania and from there Poland and Slovakia. Then who knows.
Hopefully when I’m in Eastern Europe my budget should start looking a bit more healthy. It’s not like I’ve found Germany to be really expensive (no worse than home really) but still a tad pricey for backpacking finances.
There has been a bit of good news for the coffers though. I got a phone call from Nationwide before asking about what sort of figure I wanted for compensation for the hassle and inconvenience I’d had with their cash card debacle. I said I don’t know but that I’d had to cancel bookings because of it and it had cost me dosh etc. The woman was okay, she said she will speak to her manager and get back to me. I reckoned they’d come back with a hundred quid offer and that’s exactly what they did, if I’d have initially named a figure I’d maybe have got more but they might gave wanted receipts and stuff then and I don’t need the mither when I’m out of the country. Still, a ton isn’t bad and it just shows that it’s worth complaining!
With all the beaurocracy I’ve been taking care of today I’ve seen very little of Cologne but I did make it to the Dom though which is only round the corner. This Cathedral is one of the largest Gothic structures ever built. It’s absolutely huge inside, very poweful and impressive.
After that I found a little restaurant and decided to take a risk, no small event for a fussy eater like my sen. I saw something with the words penne, salsa and curry in (and plently more daftly long German ones besides) and opted for that. It was pasta in a thin mild curry sauce with chicken, broccoli, carrots, parmesan and a bit of other stuff. It wasn’t great but not horrible and probably a lot healthier than the salami pizza I wanted to order.
Now I think I’m going to go and see if I can find that bar Topcat recommended. TTFN readers.
I’m just on the 11:17 train to Cologne. Well not exactly, I’ll actually be on 3 trains to get there for around an hour each with maybe 20 minutes waiting for the change each time. It was just under 50 Euros which I suppose isn’t that bad but regular hits like that aren’t great for the budget. I think I might steal the next Vespa I come across.
My first change is at Trier and I’m not actually sure what country that is in, but I’m guessing it’s already well across the border in Germany. Then from there I head to Koblenz and after that I pick up a train heading to Munster which passes Cologne. It also passes Bonn though which is only 20 minutes away so I think I might stop off for a wee day trip, even if it’s only for a couple of hours. I mean the former West Germany capital must have something to offer?
So I think it was the right decision not to stay very long in Luxembourg. I got there at about 7 last night and after a lasagne at the hostel cafe I just walked round for 3 or 4 hours. It’s nice enough in patches but I didn’t feel the need to hang around for more today. It’s good to be able to say, yes Luxembourg, I’ve been there. It’s a bit like getting Ged Brannan in a Panini pack, okay it’s no Uwe Rosler but it’s still another one in the book.
The indigenous language in Luxembourg is Letzebuergesch (try saying that after 6 Stellas) which is a dialect of German but everyone speaks French and most people English too. Except the lady taking my order in McDonalds this morning, who greeted my question of “Vous parlez anglais?” with a shake of the head. Ah, in that case “Je prends une petite framboise au lait SVP”. I knew this was unlikely to be the correct term but I was hoping it would be close enough and it was kind of as she knew what I wanted apart from she corrected me and said fraise. It was then that I realised I’d ordered a small rasberry milkshake (sort of), oops, though that actually sounds quite nice. Anyone know what the correct term for milkshake is rather than asking for strawberries with milk?
Another reason I’m not gutted to be leaving is that the hostel wasn’t the best. Out of 30 or so I’ve stayed at it is the first one I’ve known to charge for wifi (not a nominal fee either) and it’s also the only one I can remember not having a kitchen for self-catering. Brekkie was also really early (and bobbins) as was check-out. Also some of the Hostelling International hostels can be a bit sterile and void of personality as this one was. It doesn’t make for a good atmosphere to meet people, the place felt like somewhere schools would use for trips and I’m pretty sure there were some there.
But the most annoying thing was that I’d gone to bed at half 11 (early for me) to catch up on some kip and it took me an hour to nod off, the other 2 blokes in the room were already asleep judging by the horrific sound of their nostrils.
Then at about 1ish I was rudely awakened by 2 German fellas checking in who turned all the lights on and were crashing about. I shot them some dirties as I was well miffed. When you check in late you sort your stuff out in the morning and just use your torch/phone/whatever to get yourself in your bed, you certainly don’t turn the sink light on to brush your teeth (especially when you can do that in the bathroom in the corridor!). What’s worse is the same thing happened again with another German an hour later. Then another German bloke got up at 6 for the start of breakfast, I could tell he was going to the night before, he had that look about him. He was in an out then constantly with more of them following suit regularly. For a 6 man room it was more like Piccadilly station all bleedin’ night/early morning.
I’d estimate I got between 1 and 2 hours in total, I got more on the over-night Yank trains! Not the best re-introduction to hostelling but it goes with the territory that you get the odd bad experience so I’m not unduly worried.
Sorry about the rant, all these Germans have made me grumpy. Probably not the best time to head to Germany really.
I’ve been listening a lot to ‘The Gulag Orkestar’ by Beirut lately, It’s hauntingly beautiful and has a great invigorating Eastern European feel to it. Also been listening to a bit of ‘Rain Dogs’ by Tom Waits (just like Chuck Norris, get it?) for good measure.
I can confirm that Trier is indeed in Germany, in fact my Europe guide tells me that as well as being the oldest German city it is also the birth place of Karl Marx (I like his brother Harpo best). Blimey.
Well I never, I just got on a German train that was a full 2 minutes late. What is an Englishman on the continent to do when his Euro colleagues ruin long cultivated stereotypes. Scadalous stuff.
So I have 2 nights in Cologne and then I see my revised Germany tinerary as being Hamburg-Berlin-Dresden. I keep trying to find a way to sneak Munich in but Bavaria is in too an awkward location when I want to go to Poland after Germany. I’m having the same problem with Lithuania and Latvia as I will probably go to Warsaw and Krakow in Poland but I can’t see a good way to work it from Dresden if I wanted to go to Vilinius and Riga too. I’ll come up with somet though!
The photo is off a statue of Ludwig Van. He’s from Bonn you see, and don’t they let you know it.
Bonn was alright actuallly, maybe not worth a night but definetely worth a few hours. I had a stroll down The Rhine, a sausage roll, a pint (actually it was more like one these little just over half pint thimbles they insist on serving outside Blighty) and some fresh rasberries from a market where the old lady who couldn’t speak English (another stereotype in smithereens!) taught me the German for rasberries and I returned the favour. The pilsener I had was very nice, it was a Veltins (like the Veltins arena where City mullered Schalke in the UEFA Cup), it shaln’t be my last.
Anyway, guten tag country number 3.
So ‘A Clockwork Orange’, good but not amazing I’d say. How much does Stanley Kubrick like breasts!?!
I’m finally on my way to Luxembourg, though I’ve got a much later train than I intended as it took me ages to sort out the hostel booking for tomorrow in Cologne. This means I’m not going to get very long at all in Luxem but that’s okay as it’s only liccle (in Soccer AM Manc voice).
I’ve quite enjoyed the Belgium leg of this tour, I’ve seen most of the places worth seeing in the Flemish North part of the country and I was thinking of seeing a bit of the Wallonian South like Namur or the Ardennes (where the Battle of the Bulge took place) but unless you go for the outdoorsy stuff (and I haven’t got the kit for that) I don’t think there’s that much to see. A big thanks to the Peckster for putting me up.
This EU lot are an ageist bunch I tell ya, everything is cheaper if you are under 26. What’s that about? I thought the EU were supposed to prevent stuff like that? I don’t know, Microsoft can’t put their own browser in their own OS but Belgian rail can make me pay more because I’m the wrong side of my twenties. Just say no.
A short one today as I’ve just been travelling so I’ve not seen or done ought. I might just start making stuff up.
Onwards to country number 2.
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