Birmingham

We have spent the last 3 nights in Birmingham, this is our last night before heading back to Cardiff for the Ale and Cider festival. We have had a good time here and have pretty much relaxed and not done much touristy stuff. Our hostel is ok, the room is quite small, they have a big screen tv and all the gaming consoles. They also have a fish tank – Which really really needs a clean, poor little fish!

The first day we were here we went to the cinemas and saw Iron Man 2 – it was the tinest cinema, the screen wasn’t even a third of the standard size screen. Nonetheless the movie was good and the cinema was fairly quiet.After the movie we went to the supermarket to get some dinner and when we came out it was pouring rain, and it wasn’t letting up, so we walked in it back to the hostel. We discovered that our shoes are no longer waterproof! We both ended up with soaking jeans and socks…So we dried everything off and had a dry and relaxing evening.

Thursday we headed out to a small town called Bourneville. It was in this town that the world famous Cadbury Chocolate was born! Walking from the train station past the factory to the Cadbury World you could smell chocolate in the air. The tour was good. There were lots of movies, interactive displays and even a ride! We got lots of free chocolate which was great. We watched a video on how they make Roses Chocolates and the Cadbury chocolate sticks.. It was really interesting. We got to write our names in chocolate and make a “chocolate creation”, which you just tell them which sweet (eg marshmallow, shortbread, wine gums etc) you wanted and they poured warm runny chocolate over it. It was quite tasty but very sweet after a few mouthfuls. There was an interesting film showing when they were first creating Cadbury and how close they were to giving up on it… I couldn’t imagine a world today with out Cadbury, in my opinion it definitely stands out as one of the best chocolates. Cadbury was one of the first company’s that gave their employees good benefits like sick days and holidays. I think they would be a great company to work for! We did have a few suggestions for their gift shop though, like squishy chocolates, or shot glasses. The shop was quite lacking in creative ideas, which we were quite disappointed about, considering it is meant to be the biggest Cadbury shop in the world! After we were all chocolated out we caught the train back to Birmingham.

We have had a quite day today, we went out for a nice lunch and Kath is playing the wii this afternoon and I am going to read my book (my last one)… I have read 4 books since being back in the UK.. they are so cheap over here.. Kath has  read more then me, but she is much faster at reading then I am.

We hope everyone isn’t freezing too much..

It is getting warm here and we love it, most days!

Chat soon

Cindy and Kath

Bordeaux

Our trip to Bordeaux was great – the train was soo comfy… we did sit in the wrong carriage to begin with… but it was the nicest and  comfiest train we’ve had to date.

Bordeaux is very nice – the people have all been nice and we found the hotel very easily. They have great trams here that go along the river.

We checked into our room – of course we’re on the top floor and the stairs are nice and steep and windy!

The first day (the day we arrived) we went out and had lunch and just walked around and saw the grand opera, the water, some nice fountains, found the local supermarket.

We had a nice chicken salad for dinner that night and had a quiet night.

The next day we went out and got milk for our cereal and then after breakfast headed out to do the bus tour around Bordeaux. Their tourist buses are very cheap in comparison to other cities. It was a nice little ride – just under an hour. We didn’t get to sit together which sucked but it was still nice to be driven around and not have to walk for once.

After the tour we walked down the main shopping street and I found the difference between a German town and a French town is that where locals sit in the sun and drink beer – here they drink wine.

The weather here is amazing, we’re actually wearing t-shirts and feeling the sun on your back… We haven’t felt the sun in awhile. They have this cool water mirror thingo where you can walk in this sheet of water (like 2cm deep) and its refreshing but after however long – the water goes away and it’s sprays this mist out and thats awesome!

The lighting from the sun does something to the buildings here – it makes the ugliest building beautiful…. however, there aren’t many ugly building in Bordeaux – they have amazing limestone (I think) buildings.They’re quite WOW. I also like the olden day street lamps – they’re awesome.

After an exhausting day – we bought a roast chicken and potatoes from the supermarket and had a nice dinner.

The next day (today) we jumped on the tourist train which chug’s through the city – down nice little back streets and we saw some roman style ruins – after this tour we grabbed some lunch and took it down next to the river and had a great afternoon lying in the sun watching people cycle/run/skate/walk/hobble past.

The day was a perfect fish and chip day – but the lady from the tourist office just looked at us funny when I asked her if they had any fish and chips shops… suggested Mc Donalds. I don’t think she’s ever been to Australia…

Anyways… we’ve had a great time here in Bordeaux – probably be better if we liked wine. We’re off to Toulouse in the morning – hopefully another lovely train.

- Sorry for horrid blog. I suck at writing.

- Photos will be up for Bordeaux (France) after I post this.

Kath and Cindy

and btw – the person who voted our last blog 2 stars – not happy jan!

Krakow

Saturday

We got up early, as we had to change hostels and wanted to go on the free walking tour of Krakow. We checked into the new place but just put our bags in the luggage storage – then off we went into the city centre. We had a bit of time to kill so we walked around and looked at some information for tours that went to the Salt Mine and Auschwitz (we realised that they were quite pricey)… Krakow has so many info points it’s scary… but when you ask them how to get to these places by yourself… they tell you lies about prices and tell you about the tours. So we just kept it to ourselves and went to the starting point of the tour.

This free tour is run by a different company to the ones we have done everywhere else… The tour guide was Polish and seemed pretty good. He waffled on during the tour… The tour was good though we saw the the main market square, the cloth hall, a church,  the town hall tower,  the florianska gate (which is this cool medieval wall and tower that has survived around the centre of krakow. When we were here we saw a parade of Krakow’s army, police and veterans march past us for the 65th anniversary of the end of WW2.

We then walked through a nice park and saw the old pope’s living quarters… where we saw a large angry Catholic protest…we continued to the Wawel Castle which is not really a castle but is on top of a hill surrounded by a wall and towers and stuff… we walked up the hill and saw the church where all the dead kings/presidents are laid to rest.  We saw the old residence and heard stories about the people who used to live here.  We then saw a carnival and the dragon (which is a metal giant statue of a dragon that breaths fire every couple of minutes).

At the end of the tour we were very hungry and walked back into the centre of town and had a late lunch at an Irish Pub. The meals were massive and cheap.

After lunch it was about 4pm so we walked back to the hostel, and checked into our rooms and hung out – resting our leggies.

Sunday

The next day we decided to go be salt miners!! We had asked the tour guide the day before about how to get to the mines. He told us which bus to get and everything. When we got there we bought our student tickets to the tour and waited to go down the mine.

We walked 380 stairs down to be 64m below ground level into level 1 of the mine. Our guide informed us that the mine had 9 levels and 264km of mine and we were only going to cover 2.5km. We walked through various mine shafts and saw and felt the sides of the mines. It was pretty amazing to see some of the equipment they used… They used to keep horses down there to work and only bring them back to the surface after a number of years. The last horse to leave was only 8 years ago…

We made our way deeper and deeper into the mine, and saw many cool chambers and some pretty impressive salt sculptures. They have lots of churches down there and one was massive!! It was pretty cool for a church and they actually have weddings and things down there now.

We saw brine lakes where the salt content is so high… I don’t think anyone could sink or drown in it.  They did a cheesy sound and light show in one section…  We saw the difference of the tunnels dug by hand and by explosive… Miners these days have it much easier… I’d hate to dig those sized tunnels with only hand tools.

We ended up at level 3 which is 135m deep and caught the scary mine elevator up to the surface. This lift is what the miners used everyday. Quite scary.

The tour was great – we had an amazing time. We’re glad we didn’t pay for the tour company though as we paid 114 polish for transport and tour to paying 110 polish each for the tour company to take us. I started to feel sick again… which sucks.

Monday

Today we got up early (and I was sick) and went to the bus station to catch a bus to Auschwitz. On the way we popped into the info point to ask which bus – she didn’t help but wanted to sell us a tour, we politely said no and found the bus ourselves. It took 2 hours to get there… we arrived just after 10.   Apparently Auschwitz is so busy that they actually make you buy a tour guide to take you around… but it was quite cheap and we got in as students so I wasn’t too miffed. The tour guide was very good, we started in the Auschwitz camp – which was a museum – that showed the lives of the prisoners, their personal effects, and the history… the personal effects was quite tough to see… they had a room full of all the shoes, the glasses, the pots and pans, and what was horrifying to see was the human hair and the quantity… it was really disgusting – as you could make out whole pony tails, or plaits.

We saw a room with photos of children – who were brought to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Birkenau is where the mass genocide was done and was one of the largest camps. We went there after the tour and it was MASSIVE. It was so big  and down the middle of the camp were train tracks that stopped at the platform – where the Nazis would pull everyone off and split the men from the women with children. The Nazi doctors would then decide who would live and who would die. Most women and all children were nearly always sent to the gas chambers.

The living conditions here were much worse than the camps in Germany that we saw as they lived in horse stables without floors, or insulation, or anything.

The gas chambers were blown up by the retreating SS just hours before soviets liberated the camp. You could still see parts of the chambers as it built underground. One chamber could fit 1500 people and kill them in less than 30 minutes. They had 2 of these chambers in this camp. They had massive industrial burners to cremate thousands of bodies a day. It was horrendous. Auschwitz -Birkenau killed over 1.3 million people (1.1 were jews).

After we had finished, we caught the bus back to Auschwitz, then waited under a tree in the pouring rain to get the bus back to Krakow.

We ended up saving money again by not doing one of those tours. In your face Information points! haha

We got back to the hostel at 6 and found we had been moved back to primary school as most of the rooms on this floor have been filled with school kids. So that night we spent listening to kids run everywhere slamming doors, yelling, playing with balls and throwing it agaisnt walls… needless to say we complained – the guy said he’d talk to the teachers… but hasn’t improved much… They’re here for 5 nights… thankfully we are only here for 1 more night.

Today we are off to the aquarium (biggest in Poland) and off to the pub… We take a 22 hour bus to Brussels tomorrow… not looking forward to it. We have plenty of new movies to watch… so that should be okay… shame the computer can’t recharge itself…

Well that’s the update for now.

http://www.goldcoastmarathon.com.au/default.asp?PageID=7665

Germany, Austria to Poland….

Our last day in Germany we spent at Karen’s doing our washing and packing our bags. When she got home from work at lunch time she took us to see the beaver dam, trout farm, deer farm and for a walk through town. We saw a glimpse of a beaver swimming near the dam, apparently the farmers always pull down the dam (as they are “pests”…) and they just build a new one. The trout farm was not that big, but it was cool to see lots of fish, they only looked quite small when we saw them. We met up with Tash in town to go to the bottle shop, to get some drinks for dinner. After we were done there we walked back through the town and past the deer farm. We fed them some bread. There was a male deer and he was quite mean to the female deer.

We had a nice chicken curry for dinner and watched part of a movie, then we said our goodbyes and were taken to the train station. Karen saw us off as we headed back into Munich. When we arrived we had to wait a while for the bus to come as it was late… We were stuck with some of the last 2 seats, in the back seat.. I was between Kath and an old man who was half sitting on my seat.. I hit him during the night (by accident), he touched my arm and I thought it was a bug… hahaha.

The bus ride wasn’t too bad… We arrived early in Vienna and made our way to the camp site. We had to wait there for 2 hours before the reception opened, luckily enough we were allowed straight into our bungalow. It was a bit dirty and dusty… We made our beds and explored the campsite then headed out to the supermarket for our groceries.

The rest of the weekend we spent around the campsite, it was awful weather. One day we went into Vienna and rode on trams, we saw the Palace, Royal Theatre, Reistag, old churches and a protest that was happening. The tram was great to ride on, we had front seats of the second carriage so we had full view.. Kath spotted a few hummers driving along together taking up the entire road…

On Thursday we finally had some nice weather… We put our tables and chairs out in the sun and had some drinks, played cards and relaxed.. It was great (what we wanted the whole week to be like). We ate up all of our food Thursday night and packed our things to leave early the next morning.

Today we took the train to Krakow… We stopped at Katowice on the way to change trains from our nice eurocity train to a dodgy very old broken down regional train. Katowice station was a very scary place… I felt more safe in Egypt!! Kath spotted a guy with black boots and white shoe laces!! NOT GOOD!!

Our train ride from Katowice was painful, literally… The seat was quite uncomfortable and it was like they were kick starting the train every time we stopped! The noise was awful.. sitting in a metal works factory would be quieter! We saw (what we think) was an old satellite camp… Very old and run down.

We are in our hostel at the moment, we had a nice dinner at a pub/bar thing around the corner. Tomorrow we check into our other hostel and we will be doing a walking tour and a few day trips from here as well… I am going to be a salt miner for a day!!!! haha!

Munich, Dachau, Fussen

Saturday

We both slept exceptionally well… Not hard I guess when you are in a nice house, in a nice bed without springs poking you! After a shower and some breakfast, Karen drove us down to the local train station and showed us the route to take when walking back… We caught the train into Munich and when we arrived we saw that there was a Red Cross event on.. There were people doing scuba diving, dogs on parade and some rescue people. We had a walk around the block and made our way back to the starting point for the walking tour. We learnt the history of the Glockenspiel and some stories of the old and new town halls. We then made our way to an old church called Frauenkirche hat the “devil” built. On the pillars in the church you could see statues of the people who built the church. It was pretty cool (for a church), it also had the ‘devils footprint.’ We then went to another church where we saw a canon ball in the church from like the 1400′s but the church was destroyed in WW2, but they made it exactly the same from before ww2 – so the canon ball was put back up.

We saw the new synagogue which is quite ugly… we continued to the Viktualienmarkt which is a massive outdoor market which is pretty cool but very pricey! There was a fountain that allowed you to fill your water bottle with fresh spring water, it was outside a nice looking beer garden. They had an awesome may pole in the centre it’s pretty awesome looking.

We saw the famous beer hall – Hofbräuhaus, and had a break there (no beer though), we snuck into the Starbucks toilets without paying for anything… (hehe) for once a line in the woman’s toilets was appreciated.

We then walked down a very expensive shopping street – so many Porsche lined the streets… apparently you see stars shopping here every now and then, we saw a very expensive watch for 175,000 euros (who would buy that!!). Across the road, was the National Theater (that beer built) and the Royal Residence. After hearing the history of the Royal family in Bavaria we saw the Feldhernhalle and heard about the Beerhall push (where Hitler tried to take Munich and failed {ended up in jail}).

After the tour, we went and had a beer and pretzel with our guide and this other guy at a beer garden. It was great – such an amazing experience, beer everywhere! After about an hour or so we decided we’d go back to Karen’s. She was dropping Chris off at the airport – so we cooked ourselves some dinner and when she got back, we chatted for awhile and then we all watched a movie.

Sunday

This morning, we had a lazyish morning – We both chatted with our families and I walked around looking for deer, looking at the sheep. It was such a warm day (like a Brisbane day), it was the first real hot day we’ve had. When we were ready, we made plans to meet up with Karen in Dachau for some ice cream and visit the palace. – we walked to the train station, and caught the train to Dachau and walked to the camp memorial site. We got an audio guide (student discount) and what can I say – it was a horrible feeling camp(as they all are)… but this one was so chilly even on a boiling day. The museum and mini film were quite heart wrenching, seeing the beds and quarters just makes you question how people could do this to other people.

We saw the extermination block and the oven, these buildings were freezing – so cold. The gas chambers (showers) here were never used but the ovens were and it was all horrible to see, and so cold. We then walked to the bunker and as soon as you walk in – it’s like walking into a freezing air conditioned room, the tiny little rooms where they kept prisoners were horrible to see and the torture rooms.

Dachau camp was so horrible, seeing pictures of the prisoners was just heart wrenching, skin on bones…

What annoyed me is when you saw people posing outside of the gate where it says Arbeit macht Frei “work will set you free” – with a big smile on their face… you just want to hit them. We didn’t though.

After a few hours we caught the bus back to Dachau station where Karen found us on her bike, we walked to the ice cream parlour where we had ice cream and a nice break and had a good chat. We then walked up the big hill to see the palace and gardens. The views from the top was awesome – you could see all of Dachau and even to Munich! The palace wasn’t anything too special but the gardens – they were amazing, something out of a film… can’t imagine what it would look like when the walkway hedges are grown back up. It was amazing – the tulips here in Germany are beautiful – I think I have a new favourite flower. We said goodbye to Karen as she was cycling back home and we were going to catch the train back, so we walked down the other way in the forest and walked along the river and saw fish swimming (pretty big fish).

When we got back to Karen’s, we hung out for a while (Karen fed the sheep) before going to one of Karen friends pubs and had a massive (LIKE MASSIVE) pork schnitzel and chips. It was great. Was sooooo full afterwards.

We planned with Karen, that we’d come back on Wednesday night (as we didn’t have anywhere yet booked) and hang out there on Thursday before our bus to Vienna on Thursday night.

We packed a small bag Karen lent us (so we didn’t have to take a big packs) and were set for the next 2 nights.

Monday

This morning, we went with Karen to Dachau and caught the train into Munich from there. We dropped our bag of at the hostel and went back to the station as we were going to Fussen. We just missed the train by like half a minute – so we had to wait like and hour till the next one. The train ride was pretty good, the weather was pretty horrible (very wet and cloudy). When we arrived in Fussen – we jumped on the bus and saw our tour guide from the other day (she was doing the tour to the castles)…

Fussen is home to 2 very impressive castles that was built by King Ludwig II, he loved building holiday houses with the kingdoms money, that he was found to be insane and was found in the river along with the doctor who signed him off as being insane… bit of a cover up.

So the main castle (Neuschwanstein) was used in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which Cindy loves) so we walked up this massive hill and saw this beautiful castle and amazing views of the mountains with snow and waterfalls (Pollath Gorge) and a scary looking bridge (Marienbrucke). It was great – we didn’t pay the 9 euros to go into the castle – we just looked from the outside. We had an afternoon tea up there – it was nice. We then made our way down slowly and saw the other castle (Hohenschwangau).

It was a great day and we caught the train back and 2 hours later we were back in Munich and we got a snack to keep us going till dinner. We checked into our hostel and got our beds made. We then went to the pub in the hostel and I got 2 free beers with our drink vouchers we got.

We decided to head out for dinner and walked around for awhile before finding a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet for 6.50 with a drink. After we filled ourselves stupid we wobbled back to the hostel and went to bed.

Tuesday

Today we were meant to go to Salzburg (in Austria) but the weather wasn’t looking great there so we decided that we’d do on Wednesday. So today we looked at places in Salzburg we want to go too. Today we went to the Olympic stadium of 1972 – it’s a pretty impressive stadium. We then went to the English gardens and walked around there for a while and found the beer garden where we had lunch and I had my first stein (and probably last). The beer was good… It was just huge and I was in so much pain needing to pee afterwards – I refused to pay to go to the toilet so I had to wait in pain till we got back to the hostel. Steins are only good if the toilets are free.

We then went back into the city square and walked around for a while, we got a huge pretzel – but it wasn’t very tasty. It was starting to get late so we got a metro back to the hostel. Where we started speaking to a girl in the room, she seems quite nice.

We had dinner at the same place tonight and wobbled back to the hostel, where I am now lying down with a very prominent food baby.

So tomorrow – we’re going to Salzburg – Austria… then back to Karen’s tomorrow night.

We’ll be on Skype – Thursday night your time if you want to talk.

We’ll also be putting up photos of Prague, and Munich tomorrow… when we put this blog up.