Germany
/ northern Europe - SPAM
We arived in Amsterdam a few days
later and found we had to take the bus instead of the train, as like everywhere
on the planet they were doing reconstruction in preperation for 2000.
We didn't see much as we were trying to organise to meet the guy about
a car we wanted to buy. We walked around and saw some museums and
that sort of thing. No big deal as we will
be heading back there a couple of
times anyway.
We found out where exactly he lived
and took the train (huge cost) down to Kaufbeuren, in southern Bavaria
(every German wonders why this was our first stop, not much there). As
we got there on a Friday, and things wouldn't be worked out until Monday
he put us up for the 
weekend
as he said it would be cheaper - turned out to be quite a bit cheaper than
staying in some other lodgings, as, with all the meat and salads, veges,
breakfast, beer and wine we consumed (and accomodation of course) - it
was free.
One thing we have found is that the
Germans are very generous and if they say we 'invite' you, then they are
going to pay for whatever, a couple of times we may have accidently offended
someone because we decided we couldn't afford whatever it was, but they
wanted to pay... Damn these language barriers. Last Sunday was a
freebee to the Frankische Schwiss on the lady that contacted our placement.
She invited us to a Fresh Trout lunch (Frisch Fisch), coffee and cake and
even bought us a souvineer. She's great fun, and generous beyond
our means of repayment (just our wonderful company).
So,
we bought a car. It's a fine example of German engineering, an '87
VW Polo for DM500 (around AUS$400). It's nice and light dur to the
extraordinary amount of rust in it's body, a fact that lead us to name
it 'Ferris', last name 'Oxide'. Needless to say we don't go to fast
on the Autobahn (mainly for fear that the wind resistance will tear off
a panel), and are quite comfortable in the slow lane. The insurance
that was the hardest thing to get, and one lady we work with put it on
her insurance (the trusting soul). The cost of the insurance was
19 Mark less than the actual car.... We decided against full comprehensive
insurance seeing as though the premium would have written the car off before
an accident. A great buy, even if the handbreak has already snapped.
Driving on the right (not the antonym of wrong, but rather of left) side
of the road posed no major threat, just a lot of chanting when we go around
corners - "Turn to the right side of the road, right side of the roooaaad".
We're quite
comfortable with it now, although
it will seem quite ironic when we turn our first corner in Australia onto
the right side and smack head on with a postal van coming the other way.....
Touch wood.
The work we are actually doing is
a bit unusual. We are at a German landcare type of place in Ansbach, 45min
from Nürnberg. The problem is we can't read, write or speak German.
They get us to check their pamphlets and homepages and correct the English.
We assume they recognised straight away that our english was gooder than
sum off they'res, and its nice made there English gooder than it used to
did.
They also take us out into the field
and see the work they are doing on their projects, creek 
management,
forests, grazing, plantations and all sorts of different things.
We get to see a lot of the middle Frankonia this way. About 20 min drive
is Röttenberg which is one place in the American tourist book 'Do
Europe in Seven Days'. It was nice when we were there, not
so many real tourists (although there
was a small gaggle of Japanese tourists taking numerous photos of bells
ringing. They had waited 15 minutes to take the photos... Sort of
puzzled us why they didn't take a "silent" photo and just tell their friends
and family they were ringing at the time...Oh well.)
We went down to Lake Constance -
just after the huge floods so everything was saturated. We had to
go to Nördlingen on the way as it is the sister city of Wagga, the
curator of one of the musuems was suitably excited when he discovered our
nationality, more so when he found we were from/near Wagga (bit of a shame
really, if we had pretended we were British we could have dispensed with
the inane chit chat). It has an intact wall (the original one apparantly,
but we feel there may be varying degrees of originality) surrounding the
old city and is located in a 25km wide asteroid crator that american astronauts
trained in for moon exploration for Apollo 
14,
waahoo. One camping place at Konstance turned us away and said to come
back later to see if it had dried. We stayed at another place that
had no-one in it but was still cramped because of the high tide.
As has happened the majority of time it was cloudy so we left for another
lake near München where you could still see the Alps. It was
sunny when we saw the view and we thought "gosh, we must come back down
for a photo, that would be spectacular". Of course
the sun was never to be seen again
20 minutes later. Went to Dachau which was a haunting place to visit.
The quality of the day didn't help mucheither. It was nice to see
it though.
Went to the Frankische Schwiss by ourselves. We were told that there is around 300 breweries in a 50km radius. We found a couple, tried the brews and looked at some castles. The area is quite nice and a lot of motorbikes get about on the roads because it is nice and windy (curvy, not blowy). We saw one stacked, luckily he was only white and shaking. The drivers on the Autobahns are absolutely *nuts* (in the left lane, the sensible people hang out in the right hand lane and hardly ever venture into the others). There's quite a few impressive skid marks going from the left to the right across two or three lanes by drivers obviously unable to comprehend the physics involved in stopping a Mercedes Benz doing 220km/h before they slam into the back of a poor sod in a lowly BMW who only does 150 km/h on the road and didn't have time to get in front of the truck it was overtaking. It throws a whole new light on overtaking when you have to check your mirrors for "oncoming" traffic. Luckily Australians on tour in a shitty old rust bucket have no need to get anywhere terribly fast, so they can wait for a *big* lull in traffic.
The next week-end was on a tuesday
as they has nothing for us until thursday. Off we went to München
into the city this time. We looked at more churches (with an over-the-top
extravagence
that has to be seen to be believed) and buildings, sat at a Biergarten,
checked out the englischer gardens and haus der kunst(art gallery).
Verdict - a city in another country, a lot like other cities in other countries
but with different architecture. It had some nice stuff to see though.
Worked for a day and had the next
one off. We didn't do much as we just got back, we hadn't planned anything
and it was raining. Went with our colleague to the Frankische Schwiss and
she shouted us smoked whole trout, cake, coffee, cherries and strawberries,
souvineers and endless enthusiasm. As this part of the world is a
little more expensive our taste buds were not
used to this sensation delight.
We have become more technical with our cooking - since we don't do as much.
Fire lighters and an old can can heat food up (in another can) quite sufficently,
and the Danube and Weisent rivers work quite well as refrigerators for
beer (notice the food has taken a slide in quality, but we can't leave
a country without adequate perusal of
their brewing talents).
We have recently made international
news (remember Old Einstein whom created the theory of relativity) in one
of the Ansbach newspapers. There promises to be a lovely picture
of us pruning fruit trees (aren't you proud Graeme?) and a whole lot of
useless dribble from us. Fun fun fun. We'll be sure to scan
the paper and send it to all of you (if it's any good...)
We are learning enough German to
realise that we called Albert Einstein "Old One Stone".... Strange
how you think a foreign language is romantic and interesting with extra
meaning in everything.... Up to the point where people's names become
strangely offensive (like Mr. Scorched Pig whom we met today...)
We are planning to head west to Stuttgart
and around this weekend and do who knows what. We are working with
a forestry place and another and then going on a farm for one week. Around
the 9th of July we are leaving the lovely Ansbach.
We are heading up to Berlin and around
the north coast (the only coast) then down west where we will meet Leigh's
sister Tania. She is going to join us in the little Polo, making a total
of three 
people
and three large backpacks for three weeks. Should be fun! Once we
pick her up from Hannover we are heading for the black forest and the wineries
along the Rhine. Around the
24th we'll duck into France and pop
down to Italy, then up to Amsterdam by the 4th of August.
You are sure to hear from us again soon. Don't fret too much. We're halfway there, with heaps more to see, and heaps more to write about, so there'll be plenty more banter from us somewhere along the line.
Take care, talk to you all soon.
Us.
Dear Everyone,
Well, where to begin? Where did we leave off? It seems that it has been so long since we have spoken to you all that we are totally out of touch. Let's see, ah that's right, we left you when we were just joining Tania, and we were leaving Ansbach.
First off, we must welcome the new
additions to our SPAM list, more suckers to listen to our constant (or
not so constant as the case has been) ramblings.
We left Ansbach and travelled north
towards Berlin. We arrived to late to go to the Love Parade, which
is Germany's Sydney Mardi Gras (that is of course a comment only relevent
to Australians..) and went there the next day. We spent the day wondering,
going up tall buildings and sitting on buses. We're sure at any other
time of the year it wouldn't be quite so
dirty. It was very interesting
to get around and see it all. Some of it offered quite an eery feeling
when you consider the old ways.
From Berlin we heading north to the
coast. We went to an island (Rugen) and drove around. In reality
it was simply a lot of sight seeing and the odd swim. There is some
wonderful things to see up there, and we know that we didn't come close
to seeing it all.
We relaxed on the coast for a while
before cutting down to Frankfurt (am Main) where we met Tania. That
was, to say the least, a novelty. In Leigh's childhood (and Nicole's
for that matter) was it ever considered that they would be meeting in a
foreign city, jumping in a car and stopping at the nearest Beer Garden
(which wasn't that near, we made it back to Bavaria
and couldn't find a beer garden anywhere...).
That night we attended the Green Party party and proceeded to explore the delights of German beer together. it was refreshing to say the least.
Now, whilst little Ferris (you will recall the rust eaten little shit box) was grand for Nicole and Leigh, the additional person proved to be quite a test, but needless to say with three graduate degrees between them they managed to find a nice way to pack the car and fit everyone in (which involved Tania sharing the backseat and foot space with a WHOLE heap of junk).
Meandering down through southern Germany the trio decided to head full tilt towards Spain... We can here you doing the quick maths - How much time did they? Where was their next desination? How much driving did they want to do in one day?
We hooted down through France (questionable idea scooting through France in a car, Leigh has the firm belief that next time it would be much better to Fly over France in a plane) and hit Spain making the trip remarkably like a Contiki Tour, just less comfort. The Spanish coast was beautiful. The only regret was that we didn't visit a Hosienda (sp??).
So, to Figueres the trio went and found Salvidore Dali's Museum, the reason for the desperate jaunt across Europe. The museum was good but quite a few of his works are elsewhere, but it was still easy to come to the conclusion that the man was, ummmm, imaginative. He designed the museum for his pieces and as a result the whole experience was, well, surreal.
Forget Spain, off they went into Southern
France once more aiming loosely for Gay Paris. Stopping at a few
places along the way it was decided that the people working in the Bakeries
(we tried to type that in French but whilst we are able to say it, evidently
we are not high brow enough to be able to spell it) were quite nice, the
people in the butcheries were quite nice, the people in the Camp grounds
were quite nice, in fact, everyone was quite nice. It sort of ruined
our pre-conceived ideas about the French.
Having said that in the French's
defence, we will say, however, that the French people that get behind the
wheel of any car instantly turn into a total arsehole, not to mention lose
any sense of direction, logic or compassion. That is of course another
story, and not one we can relay without fits of shivering and cursing.
We made it to Versailles and "Did
the Palace" and proceded the next day to go to Paris and "Do Paris" as
well. We went up the Eifell Tower, which we could have missed and
saved ourselves the trouble of constantly restraining ourselves from thumping
every person we saw (it seemed, at the time, that everybody around us was
rude, arrogant, extremely loud and stupid... You
know,
tourists). We dined at the fot of the Arc de Triumph on Baguettes
and cheese and tried to decide who was the greater fool. The person
who thought that giving right of way to cars entering a roundabout right
of way, the person responsible for thinking that a giant round about in
the centre of a city with 13 avenues entering it would be a good idea,
the motorists who
persist in using the stupid bloody
road or the immensely stupid tourists that think to themselves "Rather
that use that nifty little tunnel to get to the monument, I might just
wade into the anarchy and chaos that these people call traffic!".
We decided it was a tie.
We had coffee on the Champs de Elysees
(after which we were being chic and drinking our iced water when we noticed
unsavoury floaty things in our water, that's what we paid the stupidly
high price for we guess, water floaties), checked out the Notredame Cathedral
which was of course like all things in the world during the year before
the millenium hidden under
copious amounts of scaffolding.
Scaffolding business is skyrocketing, it's the game to be in. The
only thing so far that didn't have scaffolding was the Eifell tower - but
let's face it, would we have noticed scrappy metal clinging to the sides
of other bits of scrappy metal?
Anyway, enough of France, off we went to Belgium where as soon as we crossed the border (or at least where we think the border was most likely to have been. The EU has really screwed travelling for people from island continents) the driving calmed and became civilised and polite. Within minutes we had received a friendly wave from a motorist that we moved out of the way for. We could have kissed that strange waving man had it not been in violation of local laws.
More touristy things, went to Brugges,
tried Belgium chips. This was a must, becuase as we all know, the
"chip" was invented in Belgium. On careful tasting we decided they
were still just chips, we guess the rest of the world just copied the idea
very closely. Not hard when you consider the mechanics of making
a "Chip", not much to it really. Strange thing for a nation to be
proud of. Solar energy, the automobile, space flight - all things
a country would be proud of, but it all pales in comparison to the Chip.
We went into holland and after some
minor maintenance on Ferris (the when we left the handbrake was working
thanks to some tape, a hammer, two rocks lots of swearing and 5 tent pegs...
Seriously, it was the most metallic construction on the entire vehicle
even it they did immediately begin to rust) we sold the car to Tania.
10,000 kilometres, less that a litre of oil and many litres of expensive
fuel later we were parting company with a beautiful part of german engineering.
A heartfelt sob was heard as possesion changed hands. Our time with
the car, and Tania was over, both being wonderful partnerships.
Into Amsterdam we went, once more
lugging our oversized and heavy packs. We managed to nearly get shafted
on a room when the guy double booked but it turned out for the best when
we got a room closer to the centre and cheaper.
We walked around once more. Gazing at Anne Frank's house and reading a brochure that some careless tourist had dropped and would have otherwise cost us an arm and a leg and moved on. We had a lovely cruise through the port and the canals and took is some nice food and wine.
There are certain things one must do in Amsterdam and we did one of them. We took in a sex show. We won't say too much on the subject except that one of us appeared on stage....
The next day we met Gilly, an event
that Nicole had been looking forward to for quite a while. We strolled,
drank wine in a park on a canal, met James again and drank more wine on
the bank of another canal. It was a very pleasant evening.
When we had left Gilly we nearly had her convinced to take in a sex show
herself.
Nothing else to say about northern
Europe. Trudging down the road with our backpacks on we caught the
next available plane to Greece. As it turned out we had tickets.