finally in germany!?!

yep, the title says it all. I'M FINALLY HERE IN DUETSCHLAND!?! and boy what a long trip that was. apart from the three months it took me to organise everything and get myself here, the trip was a killer. 9 hours from melbourne to hong kong, 7 hour stopover (duty free is not that interesting as i don't care for cartier watches and hugo boss sunglasses), then another 12 hour flight from hong kong to frankfurt. i'm here now and loving it, but by god am i tired. irish pete warned me about jet lag, but he said i'd feel it a couple of days after i got here - he lied. i'm feeling it now and i'm slightly delirious. as i sit here typing this, i continually yawn, have to blink to make my eyes focus and am a little scared at trying my very basic german on anybody, let alone an actual german. i'd consider it to go something like this;

tim - guten tag

random german - huh?

tim - guten tag

random german - huh?

tim - guten bloody tag

random german - vbndjg lhbfdjsvghb (read as german for what is wrong with you? are you okay? do you need some help? how about a hug?)

tim (softly) - guten tag

random german (strange look)

tim (sigh and walk away)

on a different but same note, frankfurt is a very contrasting city. there's uber-modern buildings everywhere and yet in the middle of it all there's all these tiny traditional buildings. i went for a walk before without my camera, a spur of the minute kind of thing, and as soon as i hit the old town i wish i had brought my camera. the buildings there have been restored from the war and are almost exactly like they used to be before the allies bombed the shit out of them. well, except for the starbucks and subway 'restaurant' (if you can call it that).

the train station is amazing as well. it's like 'southern cross' on spencer street on the inside (if it was a restored building) and totally traditional on the outside. i'd put photos on here, but i didn't take my camera for the walk. (edit - tried to add some photos, but blogger is currently being fixed and wont let me) there's a good reason for that though, in my current state of zombie-ness i didn't want to add to my troubles by looking like the complete tourist. i already did that in hong kong. try being white with blond hair and surrounded by asians. they like to stare. it was good fun for awhile, a bit of an ego boost, but after the millionth time it lost it's charm and just became annoying.

best thing about being stuck in a hong kong airport? the $18 aust carton of smokes i bought! bargain in any language. worst thing? the smoker's lounges. they are small and filled with, you guessed it, smoke. nearly made me stop smoking.

best thing about frankfurt so far? the architecture. worst thing? the shittiest exchange rate from aust to euro in the world. i regret not changing all my money in hong kong. although i now have 3 different currencies and have no idea what they're all worth separately. although i do know that when i go back to hong kong, i have plenty of money to buy stuff. read as smokes.

(ps sorry about the weird line spacing, for some reason blogger wont let me do spaces between paragraphs)