from Paris to Berlin, and the smaller cities in between

so I haven't written in a little while, this could be a big post. I've seen and done so many things, where to begin?

Let's start at Paris. Oct 29-Nov 2
Well arriving in such a city was surreal, I walked from the L'est station, North of the Seine, and made the trek towards my hostel (too freaked to jump on public transport as of yet). I think I fell in love on the way. As i walked by restaurants, waiters greeted me with Bonjour, hoping for another customer. I can so vividly remember walking along the Seine for the first time, it was beautiful and all the old buildings gleamed 'France!' My accommodation was great, a 3 bed dorm, cleaned daily and only 10 mins walk to the Notre Dame Cathedral, and as soon as I had unpacked, that was exaclty where I was headed: Notre Dame. It was beautiful. I again couldn't believe I was actually seeing it. I arrived at the stunning Church from the back, where there's a pretty garden, full of couples and families. As I walked along the side, the smile grew on my face, looking towards the gargoyes, many of which are headless. I had to sit down and take it all in when I got to the front. Of course, I can not deny the Disney childhood, and how much it reminded me of the cartoon movie 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. I don't think I need to upload a photo... you know what it looks like! I kept exploring the city and as I crossed one of 'le' bridges, suddenly I could see it over in the distance, the Eiffel Tower, despite being surrounded by a hemisphere of smog, it was still so beautiful. It took me a few more moments to take this in as well.

waaaayeah!!!

Mealtimes were interesting in the city of love. I still want to know what's so lovely about not being able to find cheap food anywhere! My hostel didn't have a kitchen - mega lame. However I made friends with my local supermarket. The expensive meals in the evenings were still enjoyable. On the 30th October I went on a free walking tour of the city, led by an Aussie girl, who really knew her stuff. It was a great way to see the things which I otherwise wouldn't have seen or known about. I met an aussie bloke from Cairns, yes, Damien, or Damo. We hung out for the rest of the day and took a look at Montmatre, Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge, Hungry le Jacks, and the Eiffel Tower at night. Now that was awesome to see! The hourly sound and light show was stunning.

I really enjoyed being by myself just wandering the streets of Paris, with out having a particular goal. The Louvre was interesting for an hour, but a little overwhelming, it is such a huge building, and yes I saw Venus de Milo and Mona of course.
The spontaneous weekend trip to Paris was certainly an adventure, but the feeling of material-saturated-consumtion-culture made me look forward to leaving. For such a rich, well known city, there are too many people living on the streets. Maybe the bigger the city, the less anyone cares, or feels obliged to help.

My next trip was a day trip on the 21st Nov with Uni to Cologne. The German city of Karneval and Fasching. It was pretty to look around, particularly the old Gothic Cathedral is something to note, which took altogether 600 years to complete.. I wonder if they knew at the beginning how long it would take, if they would still bother?! Much of the city was destroyed during the war, so the mixture of modern and old architecture is pretty cool.

Köln Dom

Next up was play time on the Autobahn, something that I just had to do while here in Germany. So I a rented Mercedes Benz C Class from 27th-30th Nov and enjoyed a solo roadtrip through some of Western Germany. Aachen for the first night on Friday, most Western German city, then towards Dusseldorf the next day for a housewarming party of a close German friend. The trip was relaxing, it was more about the freedom of driving and cruising around at speeds close to 200km/hr and the fun party on Saturday night. Sunday I met up Donna in Dusseldorf who came from Amsterdam, so that we could travel back to Heidelberg together. Thankfully, my phoneless cousin and I conveniently stumbled across each other in the rather large Dusseldorf station, despite our very vague plans of meeting up. We made our way back through Cologne and on to Heidelberg. I had to say goodbye to the car on Monday, and it was back on the bike for esty.

Pitstop.

Back in Heidelberg Donna and I spent a few days (never mind uni) hanging out and seeing a bit more of my town. Like the castle -stunning-. Broken, but beautiful nevertheless. More Christmas markets were seen, and before I could say 'wow I should start doing some homework at some stage' Donna had to leave.

View from Heidelberg Castle.

Next I headed to Berlin, to meet up with cousins Donna, Ashley and Daniel. If you haven't been to Berlin, you must go. I've been lucky enough to go twice, but I would certainly go back. The alternative city excites me, and the history over the past 80 years as well is something which no one can ignore. Taking a look at The Berlin wall from the East side (where people were killed trying to get 'into' West Berlin) was interesting, the controversial artwork upon the wall by those young and old, German and Internationals, informed and well informed artists is fascinating.

Berlin Wall, true that.

We did a free walking tour, and learned many new things as we walked through the city for over 4 hours. Berlin is actually built on a swamp, and founded in 1237. There is sometimes a funky swampy smell near the Brandembourg Gate, don't let me turn you off though, I think it adds to character. We all had a great time together, Donna had organised a great, cheap apartment to stay in which made it a really comfortable time. Waiting 2 hours to get into the Reichstag, below 0°

Nazi propaganda, the perfect happy German people

I think that's all for now. Thanks for reading, and best Christmas wishes to you all.

what's with the wooden shoes in the Netherlands?

Heidelberg is only getting better, I've really settled in and I am managing to find my way around more confidenty. Secrets of this incredible city keep unfolding as I explore more.

I'm getting to know people that live in my student residence building, and baking them cakes as thankyou for hospitality when, say, for example, we (a housemate and I) lock our keys in our flat at 1am and it's zero degrees. I'm checking out the great sport facilities which the uni has, and have even 'tried' my strength at rugby. Tuesdays are a good night to go to a local bar called 'Brass Monkey', plenty of international students go and it's always a fun night to hang out with people from all over the world.

(View of Altstadt and the famous broken castle)

Uni is starting to get difficult, my subjects, as of the moment are:
#Introduction to sociolinguistics
#the german economic system since 1945
#tandem course (practising German on a German, and then a German practicing English on me, 2 hours a week)
# Advertisement since the 1900s (which is just a one day course of 8 hours, certainly a different uni system here... To get credit for this subject I'll need to write a report)
# German Language course (3 hour a week class which improves our language from the the level we're at).

So in total uni is only 8 contact hours a week... pretty good!- you may be thinking. Well yes, it is, because I get to travel over my 4 day weekends. However there is a lot of homework and preparatory reading to be done before the classes, so that is also eating up some time, on the bright side however it is forcing me to read and write more German.
speaking of which...
I'm still just waiting for the German to really click. i'm feeling that i haven't quite kicked over yet, and i'm just waiting and wondering when it'll start to really flow.... ah me of little faith. Germans love to practice their English on me, so that it is difficult to be assertive and explain that we need to speak German. Anyway, at least my confidence in the language has certainly improved since arriving.

(Library entrance, Heidelberg)

The 11th October was spent at an engagement party, a cousin of Sonja's is getting married. So I travelled to the Black Forest via (fast) German train, mostly to see hundreds of plates/bowls/toilets/fine china smashed to bring luck to the bride and groom. Yes, these people are the bumpkins of Germany, 3 tractors brought all of the crockery to be smashed, which was to be swept up only by the soon to be newly weds. Although the Black Forest dialect is very difficult to understand, it was a great night with dancing to many German songs and eating Black Forest Cakes.

(the Black Forest is a place! not just a cake)

I spent the 15th-18th of October in the Netherlands, I must firstly admit my naive attitude towards this flat country... I thought it would be very similar to Germany, in terms of language, people, attitudes etc.

no, not at all...

a few hours in Amsterdam cleared that up for me. who would have thought that so much could be legal in such a little country? i think the contrast between the Germany and Holland is what amazes me now. i get this feeling that in Holland, being alternative and spontaneous is the way to live, in contrast to how the Germans maintain a sense of structure, planning, order and punctuality. I went on a boat cruise around amsterdam that lasted about an hour. I learned about the dykes and how Amsterdam is built at sea level. We cruised past the building where Anne Frank was in hiding and wrote her diary. I really liked Amsterdam, but it was somewhat hectic, there are too many people in Holland!

The stay was really enjoyable and comfortable as I was with a good friend in Arnhem. Unfortunately I only had a disposable camera with me, so there are no photos here to be seen.

Until soon amegos!

putting the est in Oktoberfest

The next stop after Melbourne was Abu Dhabi, where I managed to escape unmarried and untanned. It was a long flight, and after an 8 hour stop over, i was fine to get back on the plane for only another 7 hours of being waited on all the way to Munich. I flew into Munich where Sonja (my exchange student from year 10) and her boyfriend Andreas picked me up. Their apartment is very near to the city, so bike riding around and getting lost in the streets was quite eventful... I was nearly run over twice. There are bike paths, and lots of bikeriders, but not a helmet to be seen.

We visited the famous English Garden, just North of the city. It was very scenic, and is apparently very famous... maybe you've heard of it- but I hadn't. Europeans (much like Aussies) love getting a tan, so on the sunny 25 degree day at the garden, you can imagine that some people had either few, or no clothes on. Whether you're skinny dipping in the little rivers that run through the garden, or just walking around starkers, you're welcome to do what you like. Sonja and I however just opted for a clothes-on picnic.

Tuesday 29th Sep. The visit to Dachau, the first concentration camp constructed in Germany, was intense. Finally I felt I was getting an actual clasp on the reality of it all, after many years of studying WWII and the holocaust, I was standing in the middle of where part of it took place. Sonja and I went on a guided tour, and saw some really horrible images, which played over in my mind as we visited the prisoners cells, gas chamber, crematorium. I guess I can't say much more about that, it kind of leaves you left for words.

(work sets you free), gate, Dachau.

Wednesday 30th (September), was spent at Oktoberfest. Where every second female is wearing a dirndl, and most the men wear Lederhosen. So everyone looks... well, German. Sonja and I shared a 1/2 chicken, and managed to down a maß each, (roughly a litre of beer, and they're not called 'biersteins' much to your disappointment) at 8,50 euro each. The festival is like a huge show, with rides and all, and amongst it are numbers of these massive buildings which can probably seat around 5000 people at any one time. The beer halls get really busy after 5pm, and it's hard to get a seat inside without reserving a table. But all in all it was plenty of fun, and wearing a dirndl made me feel like I was fitting in okay.







I arrived in Heidelberg on Thursday 1st Oct. Eventually I managed to navigate my way to where I had to register with the uni for my room and keys. So I set up shop later that afternoon at my new place, where I'll be spending most of my next 4 months. The view is probably the best part, overlooking the Neckar River, which comes off the Rhine. The housemates are cool, one girl from Peru, and another from Germany. So we're all speaking German which is good practice.








Heidelberg as a city is stunning. It's impressive alright, with the old ruins of the castle overlooking the university area in the Altstadt (old city). I can't wait to discover more over the next few weeks as uni commences, I'll keep you posted.

The language is proving difficult, it's amazing how much confidence one loses when you're in a foreign country, and although I can understand what people are saying well, it's just not working so well when I open my mouth to try and respond with a german sentence that'll make sense. Anyway, it can only get better.
Thanks for reading