TravelStream™ news feed for member sanderson256 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sanderson256 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:30:13 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1153521240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1153521240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1153521240/tpod.html Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:30:13 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Cologne, Germany

Well this will be my last entry for this trip. I will just be giving you a summary of my experiences in Germany.

Needless to say I have had the time of my life over here. This trip could not have been at a better time with it coinciding with the World Cup. Just being here in Germany to feel the vibe has been fantastic and it was a shame that I was unable to get tickets. I have seen the highs and the lows of it all with the ultimate low being the Italians winning the cup. We all know they didn't deserve it, but that's football. I can just say that unfortunately I have seen the worst of the Italians here and I can say they are horrible winners. They will taunt anyone of the opposite team to the point of starting a fight with them. This was the worst during the final when I felt sorry for anyone from France, even though every German was barracking for France to win. Theres nothing wrong with Italy, only that its full of Italians. On a lighter note, I enjoyed this World Cup so I have a goal to go to every World Cup that Australia participates in. Next stop, South Africa 2010.

While most people in the world would imagine Germans as being tight ass, methodical and cold people, I have seen a different side to Germans. Any German over the age of 30 holds that stereotype quite well. There is hope for the Germans loosening up with the younger generation though. Many of the Germans I have met here have been great fun to be around. The World Cup was an excellent opportunity for the Germans to show a different side and this was reflected by the motto of this World Cup, "time to make friends". I think with another generation or two you may end up seeing a warmer Germany.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Cologne. Europe really is transformed during the Summer since I only got a taste of the winter here. The past month or two the temperatures have remained between 25-30 degrees in what Germany calls a "heat wave". So it's been great being able to just wander around in shorts and thongs (little hint, don't called them thongs here, you get laughed at) for most of the semester. I have found that Cologne has been one of the few cities in Europe that I could actually live in. With a population of about 1 million, it's not so big that it is impersonal but in the mean time it has everything you need. It's famous for sports since it does contain the best sport university in Europe.

Some people have been asking me if I am looking forward to coming home or if I would prefer to stay. The answer is yes I am looking forward to coming home but I will miss certain aspects of this place. There are many notable differences in Germany. One thing that I am most definitely looking forward to when I get home is some deacent fresh produce and food. Here, the vegetables look like they have been on show for about 2 months and taste like cardboard. The cheese here tastes like plastic so little things like that I miss. What am I going to miss the most? The BEER of course! I am going to miss the local brew called Kolsch, and I am not looking forward to going back to either drinking XXXX or overpriced import beers. Here you will pay 0.70 Euro for a top beer (500mL) (about 50 cents once you take the bottle back for recycling). Also the fact that you can drink in the streets, I still love that. It's such a perfect system since you drink in the streets, leave your beer bottle on the ground and the homeless people pick up the bottles to cash them in.

Another thing Im going to miss is the friends I have made here. Ive made friends from about 15 different countries from all corners of the globe. It's been a great experience learning about all their different cultures. I think one thing that amazes me is that if you really want to communicate with someone in the world then you can. One experience is that I have a class with a guy from Argentina and he speaks very little English and I speak very little German (much to some Germans disgust). Yet we understood each other perfectly when we wanted to communicate and had a great friendship.

One thing is for sure though, I will be returning to Europe in the future. I think it's going to be hard for me to return to real life back home after all this, so please bear with me if I lose a grip on reality for a while. It's going to be one hell of a semester...

Anyway to let you all know, I will be returning to the land of Oz on the 21st of July around midday. This will be after 30 hours in transit (bloody 10 hour stopover in Bangkok). I will leave you with some photos from the semester here, including my going away party. I look forward to seeing you all and having a beer with you all when I get home. See you when I get back. Ciao.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150966500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150966500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150966500/tpod.html Fri, 23 Jun 2006 05:47:02 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Cologne, Germany

Unfortunately I didn't get to go to Stuttgart because I couldn't find a cheap way to get there. Bloody German rail system! So I stayed in Cologne to watch the match between Australia and Croatia.

I was suprised at home many Aussies were still in Cologne. I thought they would have moved on elsewhere. There were enough there to get the atmosphere going and some of the English fans came out to cheer us on as well. After our success, the fans went absolutely nuts. Afterwards many of the Aussie fans headed out and took over a small club where we took over the music. Great night. You can't really explain the atmosphere and the feeling so just check out some of the photos and videos.

Next up is Italy on the 26th June. Tough game. Ciao.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150501860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150501860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150501860/tpod.html Tue, 20 Jun 2006 05:30:55 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Munich, Germany

Well I made it to Munich without any travelling mishaps. Iona and I went there by plane since it was the cheapest way. If you have ever seen any pictures of Germany with people sitting around drinking steins of beer and Germans in their funny little outfits, then Munich is the place that you will find all this. It's a beautiful city that has plenty to see.

The first sight we decided to see was Dachau, the first ever Nazi concentration camp. It was first opened in 1933, when Hitler first took power. One interesting thing is that the first prisoners in the camp were from the opposition political party, not Jews. Dachau was designed to hold around 2000 prisoners but when American troops liberated the prisoners, there were around 30,000, so conditions were atrocious. Not only were the living conditions atrocious but the prisoners were also used for experiments. One example was testing the hypothermic effects the human body by placing a prisoner in an icy bath. Another was to see how long a human can survive by drinking nothing but salt water. These are just a few.

All the other Nazi concentration camps were modelled after Dachau, hence the term the 'Dachau Model'. The feeling you get from this camp is very depressing and it is hard to believe around 30,000 people died there. The worst part of it was the crematorium where people were gassed, hung and shot. The pictures of the piled up dead bodies really hit that point home.

Then on a lighter note we headed to Nymphenburg Castle after the camp. This castle is one of the few that I have seen that is still in original condition. We met some Arabic guys there who are from Syria. They were very interesting and I got a small insight into some of the Arabic culture. For a fact, for an Arabic person to leave their country and get a visa it will cost them about 10,000 Euro and they have to wait outside for 3-4 days just to hand in the application form. Syria sounds like a very interesting place to visit someday. Not every place in the middle east is as bad as the media portrays.

I heard that there was a great science and technology museum in Munich. The next day, we accidentally went to the wrong museum. It was still called a science museum but it was boring as hell with nothing worth noting.

After that we headed to a place called the Englischer Garten. This place is the largest metropolitan park in Europe. From top to bottom it is about 30 km long. Contained in the park are 4 of the largest beer gardens in the world. We went to one called the Chinese Tower, the 2nd largest beer garden in the world. It can hold about 17,000 people. The beer in Munich is magnificent. Munich is famous for it's weissbeer(white beer). It was first brewed by monks in Munich and I have never tasted a better beer (although I haven't been to Belgium!). Munich is the first places in Germany that I have found beer sold in steins (1 liter). For me, there was nothing better than kicking back in the afternoon, drinking beer out of a stein, eating a huge chunk of pork off the bone and watching World Cup soccer.

It was interesting when we came to Munich because we only booked our first nights accommodation since most places were full or charging ridiculous prices. So Adam was in Munich as well and he booked his accommodation many months ago. We snuck into the hostel and stayed in his room, on the floor for 2 nights.

Adam and I decided to hit the town that night but we ran into a big problem. Adam was wearing his Wallabies jersey that night and none of the clubs would let us in because of it. Yet people in Brazilian jerseys were quite happily let in. We were getting frustrated so we snuck in through the back door of an 'invite only' party. It actually wasn't bad and we stumbled home.

The next day was a day that I have been looking forward to for many months: Australia Vs Brazil. It was the day that all the Aussies came out of hiding and green and gold could be seen everywhere. In the streets there were more Austrlaian supporters than Brazilian supporters which is a good effort considering every man and his dog jumps on the Brazilian bandwagon. It got frustrating at some point because some people in Brazilian shirts were saying how they were going to beat us and when we asked where they came from they said any country but Brazil. I found the real Brazilians to be very arrogant supporters, having no respect for other teams. To put it simply, some of them deserved a punch in the face. We seemed to be more relaxed and enjoyed ourselves compared to the Brazilians who have to win at all costs.

Anyway we headed to the Olympic Park to watch the game. Once again there was a massive TV screen and it was well set up. There were about 40,000 people at the park, so it was the next best thing to being in the stadium. It was fantastic seeing all the Aussie supporters, some were hilarious. It was a mad day and of course we were disappointed with the loss. I personally think we deserved at least a draw but in the end we didn't take our chances. A supporter we met later said whenever there was a crappy ref decision (of which there were many) the Brazilian fans made gestures to suggest the ref was payed off. Wouldn't suprise me with what happened in the Italian league. Anyway it was a great day and we only have to draw with Croatia to go through.

The next day we went on a bike tour. It's run by Americans, for Americans but it was still a lot of fun. At least we got a full view of the city and some of the history behind it. After that we just killed some time before our flight by kicking back and drinking lots of beer with some Scottish guys. By the way, I wouldn't recommend trying to find a check in terminal while drunk. Not fun.

So that was my experience in Munich. Austrlia play Croatia on Thursday in Stuttgart so I'm going to try and head there. Adam said that when Australia played Japan there were plenty of scalpers around so I'm going to try and get some tickets at the stadium. While all the tickets have your name on it, they do not check your passport like FIFA proposed so it's worth a shot. Ciao
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150099500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150099500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1150099500/tpod.html Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:00:27 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Cologne, Germany

UnFREAKINGbelievable. Well what a day it was for Australia. I went along with Libby, Lina, Iona and a few other German friends who had been to Australia that came and supported us. We all got dressed up to be as Aussie as possible then headed into the city. To watch the game I went into Heumarkt with the huge TV screen there.

I was quite suprised to see how many Aussies were in Cologne when I arrived. I would have thought that they would all be elsewhere in Germany but I guess they all came out of hiding for this game. There was a small contingency of Japanese fans but they aren't exactly the loudest supporters. After that first crappy goal they were a bit louder.

After we scored our first goal the crowd went ballistic and after 3 I had lost my voice from screaming so loud. It was amazing, even the Germans got into it. There were even some Germans in Australian jerseys who were trying to do the Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi chant, but they kept stuffing it up. I couldn't have been more happy to be an Australian at that point. After the game Iona, Libby and I got our picture taken for some local newspaper so I'm interested to find out which one.

Walking through the city afterwards was just as amazing as watching the game. Australian flags everywhere, hanging out of Irish pubs, waving in the air, people dancing in the streets. I was very suprised when celebrating throughout the night of the amount of people who congratulated us. People in the streets wearing Italian, German, USA and Brazilian jerseys came up to us and shook our hand and said well done. Here in Germany I think the underdog teams are all sticking together, trying to band together for an upset of a major team. It's suprising the amount of Trinidad and Tobago, and Angola fans there are here. When we sat down in an Irish pub, some came and congratulated us. It is great seeing all the underdog countries coming together and having a great time.

Well that was my experience in Germany on the events of June 12. If you want an experience of someone who will be in the stadium for all 3 Australian games then I suggest you take a look at Adam's log (I have a link on this site) beacause I'm sure he will be writing something about it (once again, lucky bastard!). I have booked my tickets for Munich, I'm not missing this plane! Bring on the Brazilians!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1149202380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1149202380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1149202380/tpod.html Fri, 09 Jun 2006 21:35:15 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Cologne, Germany

On the first of June I was supposed to go to Berlin but as my run of luck continues I will tell you how it all went horribly wrong...again.

I had everything booked to go to Berlin from the 1st June till the 5th of June, by myself. I was catching the night train which left at 20:39 and took approximately 6 hours to get to Berlin. On a normal day it takes 20 minutes to get from the university to the main train station in Cologne, by tram. The whole time I have been in Cologne, trams have never arrived late or early. On this night the 20:00 tram i was supposed to catch was 3 minutes early so I missed that one. It was ok since there was another arriving in 10 minutes. Unfortunately this turned out to be about 15 minutes later...

To add to my dismay I was also on the tram with the slowest tram driver imaginable. He stopped at each station for about 30 seconds longer than he had. Needless to say I was a wreck by the time the tram arrived at the destination and the time on my watch read 10:38. A small glimmer of hope. I bolted past everyone and made it up to the platform only to watch my train close the doors and leave the station without me.

Anyway I was determined to get to Berlin so I went back downstairs to purchase a 90 Euro ticket for the next train. I thought my luck finally turned when a German gentlemen saw I was buying a ticket and offered me his for 20 Euro, since he could not use it in the time required.I was very grateful and he was genuinely trying to help me. he even pointed me to the right platform. So there I sat at the train station until 12:30 waiting for my next train.

I actually caught this one this time. Once I boarded and was on my way, feeling more relaxed, I got another rude shock for the evening. I managed to get the rudest, strictest ticket inspector imaginable. Now normally ticket inspectors check the date, stamp your ticket and off they go. Oh no, not this son of a bitch. He wanted to make my life a living hell. He reminds of the kind of guy who likes to make people miserable, must make him happy. Written in pen on the ticket was the gentlemen name who I bought the ticket from. The ticket inspector demanded to see my passport (which I didn't have on me). After telling him I didn't have it 3 times, he started yelling at me, most of it in German. He said that I would be fined. So then I explained my situation to him and like a typical, uncompassionate German, he didn't give a shit. So by that stage I was fed up and started giving him a lesson in Aussie swearing to show my disliking of him.

I pulled out my ticket from Cologne that allows me to get off at Dusseldorf for free. Much to his distaste, he didn't get to fine me and with a quick one finger salute from me, off he went. So then I had to make my way back to Cologne. By the time I got home it was 3am and I was exhausted and frustrated. So that was it for my mid semester holiday, a trip to Dusseldorf. At least I can look back at this one and laugh...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1149895440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1149895440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1149895440/tpod.html Fri, 09 Jun 2006 21:33:11 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Bonn, Germany

This entry is split into 2 sections, both happened on the same day. The day started with a trip to Bonn with Iona. Bonn is about a half hour train ride from Cologne and we get to travel there free with our student pass. Bonn has a mountain on one side with a lookout called Königswinter. There is also an old castle on top of the mountain and the view is spectacular. You can see right up and down the Rhine River. Once we climbed down the mountain again we took a walk along the Rhine and then headed home. I ll let the pictures do most of the talking for this one.Once we got home we headed to Heumarkt, a suburb in Cologne that was the center of all the World Cup action for the game between Germany and Costa Rica.

In every city in Germany at the moment they have set up 2 gigantic TV screens. In Cologne they are located in Heumarkt, the Dom (the giant Cathedral) and outside the World Cup stadium. You have to pay a small fee to get but we got back about an hour before kick off so the streets were packed. The atmosphere around town was amazing. German jerseys everywhere, people guzzling beer in the streets and horns going off everywhere (check out the video if you want a sample). Of course, there was also your typical bunch of English soccer hooligans who were antagonizing the Germans (good video).

So to watch the game we headed into an Irish pub where they were showing the game in English and we got to sit down to watch the game. Wasn't a bad game to start the World Cup, 4-2 to Germany. You would have thought the Germans won the World Cup after the way they acted in the streets! I have never seen so many beer bottles in the streets before. The homeless people would be loving this recycling chance. It was even more amazing to think that this wasn't even a city that held the game so I can only imagine what it would have been like in Munich. It put a smile on my face to think that there is 30 days of football madness and I am at the heart of it all. Thanks to Mum and Dad I have a whole load of gear ready to distinguish myself as an Aussie in the crowds.

Getting around in Germany is going to be difficult but I am going to do my best. Needless to say, accommodation in Germany is scarce and a hostel can set you back 60 Euro a night so this is where contacts might come in handy. If there is a way for me to get to Munich on June 18th when Australia play Brazil then I will be there. Ciao.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1148738160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1148738160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1148738160/tpod.html Sun, 28 May 2006 10:28:27 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Kassel, Germany

As the name suggests, Kassel has many Castles. Kassel is mostly famous for the Brothers Grimm. The brothers Grimm are famous for writing fairy tales and it is easy to see where they get their inspiration in this town.

Our first impressions of Kassel were not great. It reminded me of the slimy part of Frankfurt actually. But as you slowly moved away from the train station the town soon became an impressive town. The town has a perfect blend of old and new with modern features blending in well with the old buildings.

At first we were going to spend 2 days in Kassel but we decided to do only one since the weather was horrible. That means we didn't have much time to explore Kassel and many of the older castles are located well outside the city. Instead we decided to explore the park that was located closest to the city which contained one of the castles. There is real point in me explaining the park, I 'l'm let pictures do the talking. But I can say that it was a very relaxing walk.

After walking through the park we headed home.

With some luck I should be heading to Berlin on Wednesday and should come back on Sunday (4th). If I don't make it this time then I swear I should give up on Berlin! We have our mid semester break from the 3rd - 11th June so I might also be heading to Munich on the 5th - 10th of June. I can't wait. The World Cup starts on the 9th of June so I will be in Munich when the opening game is being played (Deutschland Vs Costa Rica, go Costa Rica!) After being here for 4 months I can say that if I see Michael Ballack's or Oliver Kahn's face again I'm going to scream!!! (For those of you who don't know Michael Ballack is the captain of the German Soccer team). Anyway Ciao
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1148469960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1148469960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1148469960/tpod.html Sun, 28 May 2006 09:52:30 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Marburg, Germany

It was high time for another random trip to somewhere in Germany. This time it was to the small town of Marburg. I went with Iona who knew all about Marburg. Before she started studying at the Spoho, she spent a month studying in Marburg. So she decided to revisit her old time and I tagged along.

We got to Marburg by getting a lift with a professor at the Spoho. Everyone calls him Papa since his name is hard to pronounce (Euthanasic or something). Hes from Greece and he is the coach of the standing disabled volleyball team for Germany, and this team won gold at the Sydney Olympics. So his team were doing a training camp in Marburg and we got a lift. Now Papa's car is and old van that has a small kitchen and a bed to sleep in so he was kind enough to allow us to sleep in his van (in a parking lot) while he stayed in the hotel.

Marburg is about 3 hours from Cologne. Once we got there I noticed that the public transport system isn't great. There are only buses that run through the town. The area that we were staying in wasn't the best in terms of getting around town. Once we finally got into town I was pleasently suprised at how beautiful Marburg was. It is split into 2 sections: the modern part of town and old town. Old town is filled with beautiful old traditional German homes. Many of these homes are now converted into shops.

It is definetely clear that Marburg is a students town. They are everywhere in Marburg and the great thing is this is refelcted in the price of food and drinks. You can get an excellent meal for about 5 euros. I got to try a german dish called auflauf (pronounced owf lowf). It conists of meat, rice and a sauce which is covered in cheese and baked in an oven. Beautiful. As for alcohol well Iona knew of this bar where you can get spirits that would cost well over 5 bucks each in a bar in Australia for 1 euro. I could get used to drinking Glenfidditch Scotch for 1 euro! It was a nice change since I've been drinking pretty much nothing but beer over here.

So after our first night in the van we wanted to see as much as possible. One problem was that on Thursday it was a public holiday in Germany. This means that the buses ran on a Sunday timetable which meant 1 bus every hour. So we decided it was easier to walk around everywhere (didn't hurt since all this German food hasn't been good for my weight!). It also didn't help that it was constantly raining for the 3 days we were in Marburg.

The first thing we did was to take a walk up the mountain that is on the outskirts of the city. Up the top of this mountain is an old lookout tower where you can get a 360 degree view of Marburg. Now this mountain is very interesting. During WWII, Marburg was seen as an easy route to move land troops deeper into Germany. The Germans realized this so they trapped the whole mountain with landmines! Before you venture up the mountain there is a clear sign that states that you should not stray from the path as there could still be active landmines out there. Interesting. Well we stuck to the path and it was a very relaxing journey. It was when we got to the top that we cursed that it was overcast.

After getting back down Iona served as my tour guide. We got to walk through the suburban parts of town, visit her old uni. I also got to go inside a house that was built by a filthy rich resident. It is mainly used for functions nowadays. There was also the 2 churches of Marburg. One of them had a service and a German guy rattled off some German to me in which I gave him a blank look. Something about asking if i was Protestant or Catholic.

After an exhausting day we sat back and had a nice meal in a Mexican restaurant. There was interesting feature about this restaurant. Instead of showing sports or tv shows on the tv screens they showed some guy playing a video game. I bet all the nerds of the world would love that job: play video games for hours on end while getting paid.

The next day we had another huge day of walking. The first stop was Marburg's Castle. I have no idea when it was built but it was quite disappointing. The inside was very modern and didn't look old at all. It is mainly used for dinner functions and was converted into a museum. The coolest part was seeing some of the human remains they recovered from the dungeons.

After that we had basically seen all of Marburg. We just wasted time by eating and drinking until we could leave on Saturday morning. After that we headed to Kassel, which is about 1 hour by train.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1146725280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1146725280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1146725280/tpod.html Sat, 06 May 2006 04:15:47 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Weeze, Germany

Well as you would know I planned a trip to Ireland with Libby, Lina, Iona and Marios about 6 weeks ago. And as you will notice, this travel log is not from Ireland so here is what happened...

On Thursday ( Oh an interesting fact about Thursday, did you know that at 1:02:03am on the 04.05.06 (ie. 1,2,3,4,5,6) will never happen again.) we left Cologne and headed for an airport called Dusseldorf Weeze. Weeze is a small town that is about 60km from Dusseldorf so I don't know how they can associate that with Dusseldorf. We caught the train at about 6:00pm and our flight was due to leave at 10:20pm. We accidentally got on the wrong train once since a girl called Nina gave us a bit of wrong information. So we had were stuck at a tiny train station for a while and decided to have a bit of fun (see the photos).

We arrived at Weeze train station but Weeze airport is only a small airport which used to be a military base. The only way to get there is by taxi or bus so we caught a taxi. We checked in at about 8:20pm with no dramas and we were waiting at the boarding gate. The Ryanair plane was late due to a technical fault earlier in the day. At 10:50 we got an announcment that the flight was cancelled. We were absolutely stumped as to why they would cancel it. Well we later found out from an irish guy that Weeze airport shuts down at 11pm due to noise pollution restrictions. If a plane can't fly out by 11pm then they cancel the flight because the airport receives a huge fine if they break the restrictions.

So Ryanair gave us 2 options. Get a refund or wait until Saturday night for another flight to Shannon. There was also the option to go to Frankfurt where another plane was leaving to go to Dublin in the morning, but we had no transport to get to Frankfurt. The trains close down at midnight and don't start again till 5am. So after a lot of discussion/arguing we decided to cancel everything and get a refund. This process took until 1am. And just to top off a fantastic birthday, our bags almost got stolen.

Marios, Iona and I decided to get some sleep in the airport while Libby and Lina decided to have a few drinks with one of the airport workers called Sebatian. Earlier in the night we were also talking to 2 German guys from Dortmund. They seemed like ok people. I awoke during my sleep to see that one of these guys was stealing our bags. A couple of them including mine were on a trolley and he decided to take this trolley. It was only that he dropped my bag that I awoke. Oh another thing, this guy was in nothing more than his underwear and a tshirt.

So I was still half asleep and I looked to where he was going. He eventually stopped so I walked up to him and asked what he was doing. I knew he could speak english but I asked him questions like did he take anything, why was he taking them and where was his friend. The strange thing was he didn't give me much of a response, just a blank look. I swear he was on drugs or something because he looked completely out of it. Anyway nothing looked like it was gone so I took the trolley back to where we were sleeping and the guy followed me. I woke up Marios and told him what happened and to keep an eye on this guy. I went upstairs to go get Libby and Lina. Iona and Libby checked their bags and nothing was gone. So then this guy started running around the airport. Throughout the morning we saw glimpses of him running around so there was definetely something wrong with him.

Libby decided to confront the 2 guys in the morning and his claim was that he doesn't remember anything that happened. I think that was a load of crapp and his friend was asleep the whole night and didn't know what had happened. This will ot soon be a birthday that I will forget!

So at bout 8am we headed back home tired and miserable. Im not sure if we are going to rebook our flights to Ireland or if we will just plan to go somewhere else.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1146396060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1146396060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sanderson256/germany_2006/1146396060/tpod.html Mon, 01 May 2006 09:11:15 -0400 The tales of a Queenslander in Deutschland (and other parts of Europe)

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Well on Saturday Iona told me that we were taking a road trip to Amsterdam. I wasn't gonna argue so off we went early in the morning. Did I mention the people at the dorms were impulsive?

The road trip consisted of Iona, a polish couple (Paul and Iga) and Olla and her family. The journey took about 3 hours so we arrived in Amsterdam at about 12:30pm. The previous night I read that on Saturday there was a huge celebration called Queen's Day. Bascially everyone dresses up in orange and celebrate. Sunday wasn't as big but people were still in a mood to celebrate since the city was packed. This time around I got to see a much cleaner side of Amsterdam.

When we got there Iona and I split up from the rest of the group since we had both been to Amsrerdam and wanted to do something different. We started off by heading to a park, and as it turns out it was a zoo. Unfortunately the entry fee was 16 Euro which was more than either of were willing to pay. So we just decided to walk around the city. There was another park we found that was quite spectacular. Wild tulips growing everywhere. Check out the photos. After a walk in the park we got lost and stumbled upon one of the gates to the zoo. It happened be hidden away from view so we decided to sneak in. It worked a charm too. Except that Iona ripped her jeans, that was hilarious.

So for the next few hours we wandered around the zoo. Oh yeah it was snowing in Cologne the previous day ( unusual when Friday's temperature was 18 degrees!). So it was bloody cold in Amsterdam. After getting bored in the zoo it was time to head into the city.

The city was a transformation since the last time I was there. the main square was full of carnival rides (very expensive) and snack stalls. There was also orange decorations around many of the shops. The city was also packed with people. We just wandered around for a few hours after that. Nothing else worth noting.

We got home at about 1am. It's interesting seeing cars flying by you at about 200km/h. Only in Germany...

Anyway Im heading to Ireland on Thursday (my birthday!) so thats where my next entry will be from.
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