Euro Trip Day #5: Geneva, Switzerland/Ornex, France

Saturday 18^th December

Watches, chocolate and neutrality greeted me as I arrived into Geneva airport. I was heartbroken when there were no customs officers to stamp my passport – it is my mission to get as many pages stamped as possible. Not even crossing the Swiss/French border a doezn times a day warranted any sort of passport check. I could have gotten away with anything!!!

Calum picked me up at the airport and drove me back to his place just outside Geneva in a town called Ornex, just over the French border. The views are incredible! Mountains everywhere you look. On a clear day you can see Mount Blanc and the Swiss Alps…absolutely breath taking!

We spent the morning fixing Calum’s car after he had an “incident” involving hand braking and snowy roads…Andrew would have been impressed. We checked out the town of Ferney Voltaire, home of the great writer Voltaire, and relaxed in the café his step-brothers worked at. Very European of us!

In the afternoon we headed back into Geneva to check out the sights around the city. More spectacular views! Eventually it became time to pick up the girls from the airport, which we did in style with Calum in a monkey costume holding a sign for the girls like a chauffeur. We could have started charging for photos with kids there were that many people stopping us. They arrived and after much embarrassment we headed home for the evening!

Landing in Geneva

Calum's house



Mountains everywhere!



Candle lighting ceremony





Euro Trip Day #4: Berlin, Germany

Friday 17^th December

Day 2 of Berlin was equally as exciting. My language/communication fears were still present…but iun a different form. It seems that my accent was too convincing (Jan and Hannah had both asked where my German relatives were). Now when I tried out my limited vocabulary on a german they qould take me as a native and rattle something back at me. That is the point where the typical “confused tourist” eyes would kick in and I would respond with “Sprechen Sie Englisch bitte.“

It didn’t help that half the German words I knew were completely inappropriate for daily conversation...or any conversation for that matter!

I headed off to the Reichstag, Parliament House, after leaving the others to do the same walking tour I had done the day before.

Berlin is currently under a Terrorism Alert so there is a heigtened police and security presence around the place. All the embassies have an armed officer outside. The UK embassy has 4 officers whereas the rest have 1...intersting!

Consequently, the Reichstag’s usual policy of “turn up on the day, take a tour and check out the view from the top of the giant dome we built ontop of our parliament house built in the 1800s“ wasn’t in play. Instead you had to book online which involved a 3-4 week waiting list. Oh well.

After a lot of walking and sigtseeing I headed back to the hsotel for a quick nap before heading out with the others on a pub crawl organised by the free tour guides. It took us to a very cultural and funky side of Berlin with some great street art and great vibe!

Knowing I had a 6am flight the next moringin I didn’t party as hard or as long as the others. I headed back to the hostel to work out transport to the airport. When I realised I would need to leave by 3.30am I figured deepsleep would be redundant. After skypiung dad for a bit I packed my bags and lay down for a nap only to realise there wasn’t even time for that! I am currently questioning why I paid for a second night at the hostel???

So here  I am typing away in my seat aboard my flight to Geneva. When you read this I will be well and truely back in England but rest assured your are getting a minute-by-minute live recap of my European adventures.

It is with a sad sight that I say Auf Wiedersehen to Germany. I am eager to get back here one day very soon and perhaps with a slightly larger German vocabulary. 



Me infront of a remaining section of the Berlin Wall



The Queenslanders infront of the Berlin Wall

The Reichstag (Parliament House)

Berlin's Golden Angel
Not very impressive given the construction works

Euro Trip Day #3: Berlin, Germany

Thursday 16th December

Ich bin ein Berliner – the famous words of JFK.

I arrived in Berlin with a flourish of excitement and trepidation. This would be the first time I would be in a non-English speaking country without a local with me to translate. This was the ultimate test to my crash course in German from Jan and his family!

After wandering around the train station for what felt like an age I finally figured out where I was going and how I would get there! Across town and to the hostel was my first priority! I found my lodgings nestled between the North Korean Embassy on the right and a coffee franchise attached to a newer upmarket shopping complex on the left. God bless capitalism and irony…who said the big guy didn’t have a sense of humour?

Bags dumped and off I went in search of the free city tour that would keep me entertained most of the day. The weather was a little depressing but it cleared up towards the afternoon. The tour took me around East Berlin and filled me in on the history of Germany post-WWII.

Coincidentally, and rather surprisingly, another student from QUT was in Berlin for the weekend. Hannah, yes another Hannah, is at Leeds as well at the moment. We caught up that evening and checked out some of the “posher” markets that Germany had to offer. They were incredible. Nobody does Christmas like the Germans! We wandered around for quite a while eating, looking and listening to a choir singing carols in various languages. As we stood watching the choir the sky opened up and it began to snow…very atmospheric…perfectly timed…Hollywood moment!

Eventually it got to a point where we could no longer fell anything below the ankle so we called it a day and headed home where I met up with some other friends, also from QUT/UQ and studying at Leeds/Leeds Met who were staying with me.

Sunrise over Germany

Brandenburg Gate

2,711 concrete blocks of different sizes for the viewer to interpret in their own way

Nazi Airforce HQ - now the Tax Office!

Berliner Dom: Germany's response to St Paul's in London and St Peter's in the Vatican

Me outside the "posh" markets.

One of my favourite shots so far!

Euro Trip Day #2: Münster, Germany

Wednesday 15^th December

I awoke to an overcast morning on Wednesday. Breakfast was on the table when I got out of bed and it consisted of fresh rolls and croissants and plates full of various hams, meats and cheeses. I opted not to try the Mett (raw pork mince) as I don’t think I was ready to go that deep into being German yet!

The original plan for the day was to spend the morning looking at a flat for Jan and Hannah before heading to town. Driving back from Dusseldorf we discussed the quick house hunting plan. Helena, who’s English isn’t as good as the others, in her rough translation between German and English, interpreted house hunting as domestic violence! I cried of laughter!

The domestic violence plan fell through so we headed straight for the town of Munster.

Munster is the sister city of York, near Leeds, and you can tell straight away. It is a beautiful town with two castles, because one isn’t ever enough! The Christmas markets are fantastic and spread out all over town in different areas. We wandered around doing some shopping whilst Hannah and Jan continued my German language lessons.

In the afternoon we met up with Jan’s parents for coffee and continued our tour of Munster, this time with a bit of history as Jan and Hannah have no clue! Some more shopping and a stop off to try some Kinder Punch (me) and some Gluhwein (the others) saw out the rest of the day. We headed home, first stopping off at Hannah’s home where I met her parents and had another opportunity to inflict my German upon them!

I’m getting better...I think.

Back at Jan’s place, his father, the chef of the house, had prepared goulash,, red cabbage, schnitzel and some other typical German dishes for dinner, each better than the next. We settled in to watch the Dortmund football (soccer) game on TV afterwards (Jan’s favourite team and where he goes to uni).

Gute nachts were soon exchanged and i was off to bed, dreading the 6 am train to Berlin the next morning!

Our elaborate breakfast!

On the way to Munster...my first experience at driving on the right!

Jan and I outside one of the castles - now a university

One of the many Christmas marketplaces

Elmo!



The rest of the Sesame Street cast!



Stopping off for a spot of tea!



More markets





Mum has these 3 wise men sitting in our attic!




There are more bikes than people in Munster so this bike pump in the middle
of the footpath isn't out of the ordinary!



Purchasing your Christmas tree
(slightly more authentic than Martin and Hilary's fibre optic tree!)

Buskers

All of us outside the second castle...cause one isn't enough!

Euro Trip Day #1: Hamm, Germany

Tuesday 14th December

We arrived into Dusseldorf on a cold Tuesday evening to find Jan (Yarn) and Thomas' girlfriends, Hannah and Helena, waiting in the terminal lounge rather eagerly! I stood patiently as the couples reunited. If you've ever seen Love Actually, the situation was somewhat similar to when the Prime Minister arrives at Heathrow in the end. I looked around for my “Natalie” (movie reference) but surprisingly no one was waiting for me...not even customs. Oh well!!

We eventually hit the road and headed to Jan's home in a town called Hamm about an hour from Dusseldorf. The journey home consisted of Denglish, a mixture of German and English, and my language education began. Helena asked me to phone a friend of hers who was jealous that I would be speaking English to Helena ad Thomas. For a few moments I felt important!

We made it to Hamm where Jan's parents were waiting for us all to arrive with food already on the table...they won me over immediately!

Jan’s mother, Annette, is an English/Maths teacher so talking with her was easy. Jan’s father, Gunther, has excellent English as well, however slightly more broken than the others...but we managed.

After dinner Jan’s father offered me a non-alcoholic German beer. How could I refuse? I think it must be sacrilegious to drink beer from the bottle in Germany so Gunther showed me the technique of pouring a German beer. As to the taste...the jury is still out on this one!

It grew late quickly and we all packed it in for the night given the day ahead of us tomorrow!

Gute nacht und schlaf gut!

(Goodnight and sleep well)



Jan (Yarn) and Thomas boarding the plane through the fog




Gunther (Jan's dad) preparing my beer!



Christmas Party!

On Tuesday 7th our flat celebrated Christmas together with Secret Santa and a nice roast dinner downtown where we met up with Martina's flat from next door!

Handing out the gifts from Santa's "sack" aka garbage bags!

Happy flatmates...we hadn't opened the gifts yet so we were still friends!