Landed.

This week I landed in Frankfurt international airport to the sound of customs asking for a sum of money in the vicinity of €45 for tax for my camera. I don't know why I had to pay the tax because it was bought duty free. I will be investigating this shortly...

Coco Pops, German style

We also had to wait in line to get our bags checked for the bird flu. Fortunately, they seem to have forgotten to check mine and I went straight through to where Anita (Frau Schmelzeisen) was waiting for me.

Anita showed me around for the first week and let me stay in her house. We went up and down the Rhine river and looked at castles and stuff and the town where Anita grew up. Her house was a three story one where the higher floors were larger than the ones below. This seems to be a common thing and the joke goes that there were two builders; one with a metre rule and one with a yard rule. Interesting towns all the same.

Falling over in the snow

We had a 'currywurst' along the river at this kebab shop owned by a crazy Turk. A currywurst, which the Germans are mad about is a sausage fried up with BBQ sauce and curry powder - it really was quite crap. The expectations were let down in the most appauling manner.

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The best thing about Germany so far has been the absolute cheapness of EVERYTHING. Beer costs like €7.49 for 20x500mL bottles; and these are good beers too. The Germans are very innovative in that they see a problem and make a plan to rectify it quickly; unlike Australians who take years to do anything. For instance they have a bottle exchange where when you buy the bottle of beer, you pay a fee (about 10c) and then you get the same amount back when you return the empty bottle. What this means is that they don't have to be producing new glass all the time and people tend not to little because they can take the bottles back for money.

Houses on the hills

The weather here has been nice and not too cold. During the day it has mostly been around 1°C, and a little bit fine. Today it is quite nice and I went to the place where the famous burning of the books in 1933 happened. Quite amazing to actually stand on that place and think of what happened there.

And something for the alcoholics...I went into the biggest wine barrel in the world - it holds 1.7million litres. Unfortunately it has a restaurant inside and not wine and therefore I couldn't drink my way out haha. Something I did have at the restaurant was Lebensknoedel. I didn't know what this was because it was ordered for me. When I got it I started eating it and it was ok, but it tasted like an off meat pie. After I started eating, I was told it was pig liver and it suddenly became inedible. Anyway, it had to be done.

Me in the snow!

OK

Auf Wiedersehen (Until next time)

River Rhine

Small town

Some dude out the window

The biggest barrel in the world!

Traditional German town