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.

Hamburg & Berlin

Tuesday morning was a small lie in and headed to make breakfast. We saw our friend Rachel and chatted to her while we ate breakfast. She was doing the free walking tour as well that day but she left with the guy for the hostel pick-up. We finished our breakfast and went and got ready, then caught the metro to the start point for the tour.

The tour guide was really good, he was from the Netherlands and has been living in Hamburg for awhile now. The tour itself wasn’t as exciting as some of the cities we’ve been too… there’s a few old churches, lots of counting houses, lots of things were destroyed in the great fire of 1842. We saw the building where the gas was made for the Nazis during WW2… I hadn’t known that they used a pesticide and altered it to suit their purposes. We then continued to the old port and the new port. It was a nice walk around the city and it was a lovely day.

After the tour we said goodbye to Rachel and we then headed to the K-Z-Neungammen Camp, which was just outside of Hamburg. It took a while to get there… but we arrived at 4 to realise they closed at 4 (the buildings with the exhibitions). So we walked around the grounds, a lot of the buildings had been torn down over the years. The German/Hamburg Government actually put a penal system (a jail) on the grounds after the war (so that was only torn down in 2003). The ground was quite eerie… we read the information board around the ground and the conditions some of the ‘prisoners’ had. The camp was both a camp and a slave labour camp – as they used to make bricks and dig coal and stuff there. It wasn’t a death camp as such but a lot of killings still occurred, it was quite sickening to see where the ‘camp brothel’ was and the site of the camp crematorium.

After an hour or so, we caught the bus back into the the train station to get the S-Bahn back to the city. We picked up some ingredients for dinner (spaghetti) and headed back to the hostel, the hostel had cooked too much chicken for the school kids that were staying there so we grabbed a lot of chicken and Cindy got the meat of the leg bones for chicken sandwiches for the train the next day. We invited Rachel to have dinner with us and we had a good meal and a good chat… we also started talking to a Canadian guy too.. Rachel gave us some apples for the train the next day.

We had a reasonably early night and this morning packed our bags then headed down and ate breakfast. We then went back upstairs and got our stuff together and went and hung out downstairs until check-out. We saw Rachel and said goodbye (we’re meeting up with her in Berlin in a few days). We headed of the the Hamburg HBF (central station) and am now at the Mc Donald’s drinking an Orange Juice… we just missed the breakfast menu – so just an OJ. German Mc Donald’s are lame as they charge 8 euros for the wi-fi. We don’t know if it’s just Hamburg or all of Germany.

Our train leaves in an hour so we’ll just hang out in Maccas until they kick us out (if they do or not).

Train was very nice and speedy. We ate our chicken sandwiches (they were okay). We found the hostel reasonably easily and the girl on the desk was very nice and upgraded us from a 6 bed female to a twin room (as we’d have to change rooms throughout our stay)… the rooms quite crampy but we have our own bathroom and TV. We went and found a supermarket and bought some stuff for dinner and afternoon tea. This afternoon we looked at tours to do here and stuff to see here in Berlin.

Skype tomorrow – no promises about the speed of the net though.

Photos may be posted for Germany and the last day in Brussels tonight.

Amsterdam -> Antwerp

The canal cruise was pretty good, we realised we got a bargain because the price we paid for the tickets was more than half the actual price of the cruise! It was great seeing all the canals and bridges all lit up. It was an enjoyable evening!

The next day we went to the Anne Frank house. There was a big line, but we were prepared for it… It didn’t take as long as we thought it was but it was freezing because there was a really cold wind. The museum was okay, it was quite sad when you hear the audio accounts from Meip and Otto. The attic was really small and it makes the memory of the diary come to life. It would have been nicer if it wasn’t so busy… The man behind Cindy kept standing on her feet.. It was packed… Its like that everyday… they charge 9 euros a person… They must be making a killing…. I don’t agree with that at all.

After the house we went back to the hostel and had lunch… at this stage it decided to hail… which was crazy.. next minute the suns out… This side of Europe, the weather is very bi-polar. We then went out walking around the city some more.

That night, we were chatting to some British girls, when these 2 girls come in… One must be sooo drunk because she’s stumbling around, and finally collapsed into her bed and pretty much passed out there and then. The British girls were just about to start playing a drinking game which they invite us and the other girl to play. As they were drinking only vodka and juice, we decided to watch. The other girl agreed and it was a very funny couple of hours, I was rolling around laughing at some of the stuff they said. The girl who joined in with them got so drunk that she forgot which bed was hers and about to pass out in someones else bed and she would not be told, because she was insistent that it was her bed… We finally convince her that her bed was on the other side of the room next to her passed out friend… she then goes to the bathroom and takes her locker keys in with her (Cindy was like that’s odd, because she didn’t come back out with them). Anyways so the British girls go out, and we get ready for bed (time is probably 11),… an hour later the girls come back and not very quietly pass out.

The next morning the girl who took her keys to the bathroom, well she couldn’t find them and it was only until she used the bathroom – she found them… I laughed. The other girls apparently went out and nothing was happening so they got high and came back… They didn’t feel well the next day… I guess drinking and marijuana isn’t a good combo.

We walked around the city today and looked at doing canal bike rides but the weather was horrible so we put it off and just walked around. In the afternoon, the sun and blue skies came out and we thought we’d see if the canal bikes place was still open (it was 6pm)… so we walked all the way there and it was closed, so we just head back to the hostel where most of the girls have just been lying all day in bed (Nice way to see Amsterdam). They went out again that night to see a sex show… turned out its too expensive and just walked around and hung out at a ‘coffee shop’.

I enjoyed Amsterdam, it’s a nice city… but too many people who we met were just all about the drugs… but we liked the architecture and loved the Heineken Experience.

We were first ones up the next morning and Cindy showered.. I started to feel quite ill, sore throat and a yukky cough.. We headed to the bus stop to catch the bus to Antwerp. It was very busy on the roads (everyone going away for the weekend) and we arrived later than expected. We found the hostel rather easily. Its not the nicest hostel we’ve stayed at… Cindy leant on her bed and it collapsed… so we changed beds. After we got settled we decided to go explore the city, we walked down the main street and got something to eat for late afternoon lunch… we then shared a delicious waffle (It was superb)! We saw an Authentic Australian Ice cream store… I didn’t know we made great ice-cream… who knows.

It was starting to get lateish and the rain had followed us, so we headed back to the hostel and hung out.

Today, I am still not feeling 100% but am doing much better. We walked around Antwerp. The train station is probably one of the nicest buildings here. Its amazing. There was this ‘trapped monster’ which is this massive inflatable dinosaur which you can go in and be eaten and see what its like in the stomach of a dinosaur. Looked pretty cool, but we passed it up to go to a pub and try a new beer and cider each. We went to the back of the zoo where they have windows peeking into some of the enclosures – we saw rabbits and a couple of giraffes – the giraffes looked really young (as they were quite short). We headed back to the hostel for lunch and then we headed back out into the sun (which had come out) and walked around the other side of the hostel.

Antwerp is a nice enough town, people seem quite friendly – we’re looking forward to going to Brussels tomorrow.

That’s all for now folks.

Love us.

Madrid, Barcelona and Off to Paris…

We checked out of our Hostel on Friday morning and went walking around Madrid and on one of the main shopping streets there were lots of prostitutes standing around.. we thought it was a bit late in the day for them to be out in the streets..  We had some lunch then headed off to the airport. We waited there for a few hours before we flew off to Barcelona.

When we arrived we collected our luggage (ours was in the first 10 pieces to come out, very unusual for us), we then found our way to the bus, so we could get the train to the city. The train took ages to leave, and it was pretty crowded. We missed our stop as we didn’t realise that they called it something else in the book, so we got off at the stop after which was quite creepy. We had to wait half an hour before the train came to go back in the other direction. It was 12.15am before we were at the metro station. The train station connection to the metro was closed so we had to walk outside in the dark and find the metro. By the time we had got to the hostel it was 1am. We were really exhausted. The guy on the desk was new and he took ages to check us in. When we were finally given our keys we headed to our room. We thought that everyone would be asleep, but instead we were the only ones that were actually in the room. We got our beds ready and jumped into bed. At about 2am we went to sleep. Some people came into the room really late and turned on the lights… We got up at about 8am and went out to get some breakfast.

We then headed out to the city centre and went to the markets and had some lunch. There were little pet shops in stalls along Las Ramblas, they sold gold fish, tortises, turtles, pigeons, birds and baby bunnies. We also organised to go on the Tapas and Flamenco Tour that night. We then came back to the hostel and made some dinner (incase we didn’t like the tapas). We arrived at the Travel Bar (our meeting point for the tour) and watched a bit of the Scotland Vs Ireland Rugby match. Scotland Won!! At 8.15pm we were taken down to another bar where we were getting tapas and Sangria. There were 8 of us in our group, 4 Americans and 2 other people (they didn’t really talk to anyone). The first round of Tapas was cold tapas, (baguette topped with different foods), there was salami, prawn, cheese and a potato fritta/quiche thing. Neither of us had the prawn ones, the other ones were pretty good. We had unlimited jugs of Sangria, I only had half a glass, I didn’t particularly like the taste of it, Kath had a bit more then me, but neither of us drank as much as some of the American girls… We then got our “hot tapas”, pretty much we got 2 plates of prawns, 2 bowls of scallops, 2 bowls of baked potatoes, a bowl of mushroom and 1 bowl of beef. The beef and potatoes were nice. It would have been better if we liked seafood. One American girl ate one entire plate of prawns and scallops to herself, she also had many jugs of Sangria! About 4 of us didn’t eat seafood, so it was quite disappointing that all we got was seafood, what if someone was allergic?…. We then went to the Flamenco show.. The walk there was full of dodgy people hanging out in streets so we were very careful of our stuff. The Flamenco show was in a bar/theatre. There was a 3 piece band, a singer and 2 dancers. First there was a lady who came out and did 3 dances. Towards the end of her 3rd dance she was looking very tired and sweaty. There was a 5 min break and then the singer sang a song, he was very talented. Then a male dancer came out and performed. We thought he was better then the female.. He also was very sweaty. It is amazing how fast they move their feet. It is certainly a good work out. I would have enjoyed it more if the lady was wearing a bright dress and the man was wearing a bull fighting outfit.. A bit of theatrics.. haha.  After the show we said goodbye to the people in our group and headed back to the hostel, it was about 1am when we got back, we were really exhausted.

At about 6.30am, 3 inconsiderate girls came into our room and turned the lights on (despite there being light from outside)… They woke up a fair few people in the dorm.  We were very unhappy. Yesterday we went out to the Chocolate Museum. We saw the Arch de Triumph on the way. It is huge and had cool sculptures on it. There were scary looking bats on the side. We also saw part of a soccer game going on. They were playing on turf (very unusual for soccer). When we arrived at the museum we had to wait in line for ages to buy our tickets. We didn’t mind though because you could see some chocolates and smell it all. Our ticket was actually a chocolate bar, it is 73% cocoa, it is very very strong. The chocolate museum showed the history of chocolate and how it arrived in Europe. There were huge sculptures, and scenes of different things. My favourite was one of a knight slaying a dragon holding a princess, the giant Wall-e and the Homer Simpson astronaut figure. After we saw all the movies and sculptures we headed back to the hostel.

We spent the afternoon hanging out in the hostel and watching movies in the cinema they have here. We had dinner quite late, then headed up to beds. When we went to go to bed the 3 rude girls came in and were really noisy, and despite us being in bed they wouldn’t turn off the lights or be quite.

We got up this morning and packed our bags. We checked out and went to the post office. The que was huge… We had to post some of our souvenirs home, they were weighing our bags down too much. My bag feels really really light now… We are just hanging out in the hostel until our bus to Paris at 9pm.

We don’t think we get wi-fi in our hotel in Paris, so we may be delayed with some posts.

The weather is only looking nice for the next few days up north, hopefully it turns around for the end of the week as well.

Love Cindy and Kath

Milan in a nut shell, to Barcelona…

We went out for dinner the first night in Milan to a pizza place that was recommended in our lets go book. We ordered a pepperoni pizza… when the pizza arrived it was actually a capsicum pizza! So we ate that then left, we got charged a fortune. Kath enjoyed the pizza! The next day we thought we would see the one sight Milan has to offer. We caught the metro to the Duomo, a giant church. We walked around the outside, it was very detailed. We then wandered the streets for a while then went back to the hostel and we had a new roommate, he was Mexican. We chatted to him most the arvo/night. We had a horrible salad for dinner. We shouldn’t try and be healthy, it never turns out nicely lol…

The guy had a cold and snored really loudly most the night, so we didn’t get a great deal of sleep. The next morning we hung around the hostel until check out time then went to the train station. We waited around and had some lunch/dinner in a near by family restaurant. When our train arrived we were the first to jump on, we put our bags in the rack and got ready to set off. They gave you a kids find a word on the back of a brochure, It was in Italian so we had no idea what words we were meant to find, so Kath created words then I found them. Then we played boggle with it. We are very creative!

After we left the station a ticket lady came and took our tickets and passports. We watched a movie and then I tried to get some sleep. The seats reclined so they were ok. Kath chatted to some American guys in front of us. They were really nice. They offered her some cake. At our first check point in France it was snowing. The police were in our carriage questioning some guy, after discussion over his passport he was escorted off the train, Phew it wasn’t me! The rest of the journey we both just rested and tried to get sleep.

Kath woke up pretty early and saw the sunrise, then she kindly woke me to see it as well. Nice sunrise over the coast of somewhere (in either France or Spain).

When we arrived in Barcelona we jumped off the train and headed to the Metro to go to the hostel. It was boiling! We had left 4-6degree coldness and arrived in 12degree heat! We found the hostel really easily as they gave you great directions. We checked in, but had to leave our bags in the storage room as we were early. We then headed back to the Metro to try and find the port. We found the port really easily and sat by the water and had some strawberries and juice in the beautiful sun. We saw some really huge fish in the water. People obviously come there all the time to feed the fish bread. After sitting there for a while we decided to go for a walk over the bridge to see what was on the other side. There was a shopping mall, an Imax and the Aquarium. We decided to go for a walk to find the ferry we are going to take to Mallorca. The ferry ticket place was closed, so we went to sit back near the fish feeding area. Apparently there are lots of people who come to get rid of their old bread there. There was one lady that had bags and bags of baguettes she was throwing in the water (whole). The fish were amazing they were really big, Kath wanted to sneak in a line (Look below for a video). We sat and watched them for ages then we decided to go back to the hostel and to the supermarket for dinner food. We were getting quite tired and hungry as we hadn’t really had breakfast or lunch. We cooked pasta for dinner. It was really good, we are so glad to have good facilities in this hostel. There is a big kitchen, big dining/common area, pool table, foosball table, punching bag, 2 exercise bikes, a cinema, and a terrace. We then went to bed and watched a movie.

We were woken up this morning by a rude girl who didn’t even sleep in her bed last night, she came in, turned the light on then left and didn’t turn the light off, so I got up and turned it off. We got up about an hour after that and got ready. We had our breakfast, it was packed in the dining area. Kath spoke to her parents on Skype then we headed out to do a free walking tour. When we arrived in the place we thought the walking tour was meant to start we couldn’t find anyone, so we just wandered around the street. We visited the Martime Museum and then kept walking around and came across a church, it was having massive renovations done to it. We kept walking and found a street parade that was going on. So we went to watch that. There were lots of Spanish dancers.. it was really entertaining. People in the parade were walking along drinking beer! We thought that was hilarious. Then one group came along and set firecrackers off in front of us, it was a bit scary. After the parade finished we walked along to the beach. There were lots of people doing beach sculpting. We walked along for a while, then turned back as the weather was starting to get bad and our feet were getting sore. We walked through some markets then headed back to the metro as it had started raining. The first train we caught was quite busy, 3 guys followed us off the train and through the metro. We were watching our bags and wallets. Then when we were on the escalator one of the guys stepped up onto the step Kath and I were on, so we stepped up a step then he stepped up onto that. As there were people in front of us we couldn’t move anymore. Kath had her hand on her wallet and I turned so my bag was against the escalator wall. Kath thought she felt one of the guys hand trying to get in her camera bag. When we reached the top of the escalator we walked away pretty quickly to the next train line. The guys followed us there as well, but we walked down the other end of the line, Kath checked she had everything. After we got off the next train we realised that the clip on her bag was undone. Nothing was taken, and the guy was pretty stupid to think that we would not realise if her bag was opened (it has a huge velcro strip which is hard to undo at the best of times). We are now back to the hostel and are making an itinerary for tomorrow. We are having pasta again tonight, so I am looking forward to that. Kath had a new beer called Saaz, I thought it tasted ok. I had a magners and now we are sharing a drink called a Damm Lemon (it is 6 parts beer, 4 parts lemon). Tastes pretty good.

Hope everyone is well.
Hope to hear from you all soon (comments are welcome, we are a little sheltered from Aussie life over here).

Love Cindy and Kath

PS: new photos are up in Italy and Spain!