so i'm at my destination

i'm here. in heidelberg. freezing my arse off. i've been here for a couple of days now and this town is beautiful. it's all old style buildings and completely german, as opposed to frankfurt's 'look at me, i can be western too!' the first thing i noticed here was that there are no youths and junkies milling around the place giving tourists and uneasy feeling. there's plenty of milling going on, but nothing compared to the creepy vibe you get in frankfurt. to compare, frankfurt is irreversible, to heidelberg's sound of music. (the comparison may seem a little harsh, but i believe i have made my point! lol)

the train trip here was pretty uneventful except for me sitting in the first class section and the conductor telling me off in german. to which i said, 'sprechen sie englisch?' she sighed and then said move to the back, behind the dining car. (the dining car, incidentally, was just a little dude with chips and coke to sell. not much of a dining car, more a snack car.) once i moved back there though, you could tell it was economy. people cramped in and looking very unpleased by the situation. especially me with my big bag smacking people around with the dangly clips. my most used phrase at this point, 'entschuldigung' - sorry. once in heidelberg though i was seriously overjoyed. this place looks amazing and like a postcard. no matter where i go, things are beautiful.

when i got off the train i walked up the escalator and found alexis. i was a little worried about meeting him as i've never met him in person and i was worried that as an aussie i would be too loud and way too obnoxious. even though he's cuban, he's lived in europe for ages and i thought he might think, 'dear god! who have i invited to stay at my house?' this wasn't the case though and i was quite pleased to find him very accommodating and very friendly. something that i would need in the coming days, as i just spent some solitary time in frankfurt and needed to talk to someone that i knew from before my travels begun. he made a brilliant dinner that afternoon (remember, i'm kinda still on australian time, where 4pm is really midnight), and remembering that australian's like lamb he made something that was absolutely fantastic. it was like a three course meal, with fried bananas, a kind of lamb casserole, some rice and a dark bean sauce/side dish. it was delicioso! unfortunately my return meal of pasta didn't work out as well as this, mainly because the pasta here tastes different and the only meat we could find for the sauce was a weird combination of cow and pig called hackfleisch. that's right - two animals in one called hack flesh. it's the name it as you see it game. it tasted okay and alexis seemed to like it, so it was all good. i just wished it could've matched his meal. but as i can't cook bbqs and lamb is terribly expensive, the only australian thing left to cook would be lamingtons, and that, my friends, is no meal. it's hardly even a snack! haha...

anyway, after sleeping for what seemed like 5 minutes, but what was really about half a day, it was now sunday and a day for meeting some friends of alexis' and going out for brunch followed by a walk around the town. alexis' friends were fantastic. paula who is columbian and her german husband matthias along with their two kids, samuel and lucas, took us to a place that serves a buffet brunch. now sam and lucas didn't talk to me much, they were a little in awe of an australian, cause as paula put it, i'm from where nemo comes from. haha... i tried to ask them stuff like how old are you etc in german, but they were very shy and i decided to stick to talking to matthias and paula. now this didn't go very well as i was kinda overwhelmed with the atmosphere and the food on offer. from what i'm told it was a very german affair, a massive spread of various meats and side dishes. it was good to see ye olde pasta salad make an appearance, a little bit of simple home in the middle of a german banquet. all this, by the way, only cost about 9.50euros, bargain and a half! but as i've come to see, food here is very very very cheap. i went shopping with alexis some time later and we bought food that cost us 15 euros, in aust $$$ that's around $20-$25, but at home would have cost us about $50.

after lunch they took me for a massive walk around heaidelberg, taking in the philosopher's walk, the old town and the hauptstrasse (main street). i was overjoyed at this, mainly because for the first time since i got here i got to see the castle (or schloss). not up close though, from a distance, i'm saving the castle and the chairlift beside it for another day. the chairlift takes you up higher than the castle and to a place called the king's chair, where you can see all of heidelberg and surrounding areas. after this very tiring walk we went over the neckar river into the old town and then went for a beer followed by a stroll down the hauptstrasse. i'll tell you about that and a few other things, like visiting mannheim and just trying to go to the heidelberg supermarkt and buy some coke and nibbles, next entry as this one's already fairly long. probably this afternoon as for the first time in a few days i'm by myself and don't feel rude typing up a storm. til then auf wiedersehen.

supermarket? not while there's photos to be taken!?!

i was suppose to go to the supermarket this morning and pick up some things. after a disastrous attempt at going to buy shampoo and conditioner yesterday, (it took me twenty minutes to distinguish the conditioner from other hair care products - i laughed insanely the whole time, and i think the woman behind the counter thought i was high. i would have thought i was high.) this was not a trip i was looking forward to. i was almost fearing it to tell you the truth. i know how to say how much is that? and so forth, so it wasn't going to be too bad, but i just had this feeling i'd be there for hours trying to find the things i needed. and without annoying the staff by having them drag me around like a blind dog, i was walking with some trepidation. however, after asking the guy at reception where the nearest supermarket is i was off. but before you can say zeig heil mein fuhrer! i veered away from the path and was lost in a mass of old-school buildings in the middle of a fancy residential area of frankfurt taking happy snaps of buildings. so i still haven't gone to the supermarket. haha. but i have some brilliant shots, which to be honest isn't that hard when you're in a town that looks like the opening credits to La Law and schindler's list had a fucked up baby.

my walk went for about two hours, which makes my future 2 hour walk with the hostel kind of redundant, but i'm going anyway. it's a chance to see things i missed, get the names of things i saw already (if you are a friend of mine on facebook, look at my frankfurt pics - i have no idea what half the things i was looking at were. they're very pretty though!), and, most importantly, make some new friends. it's kind of hard to do that here, when you're avoiding americans, aussies and everyone else speaks different languages and is afraid to talk. apparently the thing to do is smile and nod and say hi very quickly before running away. i'm not having a go, because i've done it too! (there was this one guy though, and this is a complete by the by, who came in this morning wearing an american jacket with USA written on it and all the stars and stripes and usual fanfare that adorns such patriotic nonsense that america spews. how many friends do think he'll get? i'd wager not many if he keeps that jacket on. is he aware that america bombed the fuck outta this town? that's like going to hiroshima and wearing a USA hoodie. yeah, thanks for the atomic blast, all our children's children have cancer you bastards!)

anyway, two things happened to me on my walk this morning. one amusing and one creepy. the amusing thing is i was mistaken for a german by an old lady. she looked at me at asked for directions in german - a whole lot of german. (before i go on, please be aware that i don't know how to spell big german words. and they have a lot of them) i responded in german by saying, 'enschuldigung, mein duestcher nicht so gut. sprechen sie englisch?' she responded, 'nein.' and then a shitload more german before walking away. now, it was about two blocks down the street when i realised that what i had said was literally, 'apologies, my german woman is not so good.' i giggled to myself and realised hey, she understood me despite my incorrectness so my german can't be that bad. it gave me some hope for later on when i will have no option but to speak german.

the second and creepy thing that happened, was when i was walking through a statue filled park, taking photos and enjoying the serenity, i noticed a guy apparently peeing in the bushes. now i thought nothing of this, because hey, every guy once in a while has had to go the bathroom at a time when there's been no toilets (that's another thing, frankfurt seems to have no public toilets. unless of course they don't have pictures, only words saying toilet? interesting...), but as i was walking past another guy walked past me and straight up to him. now walking guy grabbed a cigarette out of peeing guy's mouth, lit his own cigarette with the end, before putting it back in peeing guy's mouth. nothing that strange, well okay, it is strange, but i'm in europe, so hey, stranger things are bound to happen. now this would have been fine if that's all that happened, but it wasn't. walking guy, from behind, then looks over peeing guy's shoulder and at his dick. he then stands directly beside peeing guy and undoes his pants. peeing guy then smiles and does a 'reach across'. it is this point where i realise peeing guy is actually MASTURBATING GUY!!! now what kind of country is it, where at 11 in the morning you can pick up another man in the thinly spaced bushes of a public park, where people are constantly walking past, none of whom seemed shocked or frightened or disgusted. it was as if this is a normal occurrence here. just to let you know, on the other side of the thinly spaced bushes is a main road. a jam-packed, full of little german cars main road. and anyone who's been to frankfurt knows that if it's a main road, it is a busy as fuck main road. cause everywhere else is one way and incredibly small. think the movie ronin with robert de niro.

anyway, that's it for now. the one thing i learned about germany so far today, is that apparently you can do anything you want and no one cares. which i must say, gives me hope for the future. especially with the nightlife. hehehe...

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)

nearly finished the before part of it all

and the organisation continues, as of today i know have my tickets paid for in full and collected, along with my passport (such a pretty picture) and the hostel booked in frankfurt. it's kind of a relief not having to worry about any of this stuff anymore. all that needs to be done now is get my injections for travelling and get my visa sorted. i have to say, it's all coming along nicely. i think this kind of rushed organisation is a better way to do things for me. for years i've been trying to get away and travel the world, and every time i've tried to something got in the way. either the people i was intending to go away with changed their minds, money was never abundant enough or just the usual bullshit that stops you from doing anything you want to. but this... ah what a godsend! all in the space of about one month i've got it all sorted. who would have thought that i could do this? i can tell you now that i wouldn't have thought it was possible. sure i've toyed with the idea, there was a time when i wanted to go to japan and another when i wanted to go to the uk, but they never seemed to get off the ground. however now i find myself on the verge of a great journey. i don't mean this in a 'i really learned something over that summer' kind of way. i mean literally. i'm going to the other side of the world and i have no idea what i'm doing. now the fear is over with it's excitement and wonder that fills me.

the first stop on this crazy journey is frankfurt. all i know about frankfurt is that it's about an hour north of where i intend to live for a while and looks like a very modern city. all the photos i've seen just show skyscrapers along a massive river or little quaint houses around a cobbled stoned courtyard. kinda what i imagine japan to be, completely modern and yet completely traditional all at once. i'll be staying here for 3 days in the frankfurt hostel. the address is kaiserstrasse 74 DE-60329 Frankfurt am Main, which i have to say means absolutely nothing to me. all i know is that after something like a 30 hour flight with a 7 hour stopover in hong kong, i get on a train at 7am and go 3 stops to Hauptbahnhof, which i think means some kind of train station. either way, when the sleep deprivation kicks in it's gonna be one hell of a ride just to get some sleep.