The Big OE

Sorry to leave Switzerland, we drove on to Freiburg, in the south west corner of Germany, close to the French border and is where Alissa has been living and working as an Au Pair, for the last 7 months. She looks after a small boy and a preteen girl, and it was really interesting for me to see how different her life was like as an Au Pair, and how lucky I’ve been with my family.

We took a tram into the city centre and strolled around for a while, before finally settling on a small restaurant near the Rathaus. For the first time since arriving in Germany, I managed to make my first big mistake when ordering dinner. I don’t know a lot of German, but I’m good with names of food, and so was perhaps a little too cocky for my own good. The waiter approached the table, and asked if we wanted drinks, no problem. I then asked for two menus. No problem. Then the waiter brought out a noodle soup, alarm bells didn’t ring as I thought it was complimentary and perhaps a Schwarzwald (Black Forest) thing.

Oh so smug, before the plates come out

Then a plate of beetroot slices came out, which is when I kindly asked the waiter if we could still have the menu’s because we hadn’t ordered our mains yet. The man looked at me, like I’d lost the plot “ das ist das Menü”. So I made the internationally recognised hand gesture of opening a book, that’s when he said ‘Ahh die Speisekarte?’, that’s when the penny dropped and I realised I had ordered the days 3 course menu option complete with Ox knuckles and sauerkraut, or something equally revolting. As quick as anything, I apologised profusely “Es tut mir Leid” and luckily for both of us it was still early enough to change our orders. But never did it occur to me asking for two menus, would be a problem – lesson learned.

Freiburg is a pretty cool city; sadly a lot of it was heavily damaged during World War II when in 1940 German planes mistakenly dropped close to 60 bombs, near the centre. Still there is a lot of old style charm about the place, including an unusual system of gutters (called Bächle) that run throughout its centre. These Bächle, once used to provide water to fight fires and feed livestock, and are constantly flowing with water diverted from a nearby river. The Bächle were never used for sewage, even in the Middle Ages, and it is said that if you accidentally step in a Bächle, you will marry a Freiburger.

Alissa had a train pass which lets her take another passenger for free on Sundays, so we decided to go deep into the Black Forest, to Titisee. After Alissa finally escaped from a man trying to sell her a cuckoo clock, we found a small café hidden away from the large tourist crowds, but still right on the lake front, where I got to indulge again in my beloved spätzle, and I couldn’t leave without trying a slice of a Black Forest cake. Blessed with perfect weather again, we hired a little electric boat and took it out for a spin on the lake, and a spot of people-watching. That night Stephanie, Alissa’s host, cooked a roast dinner, which is just what I needed. The next day sorry to say good bye to Alissa, and a little bit ‘road tripped’ out I drove back home to Wiesbaden.

This road trip was about several things, exploring some new parts of Europe, crossing some things off the ‘dream’ list, and meeting new people - and boy did I do that. Although driving 2,500 kms in a few days is pretty exhausting, I had such a fantastic time and it reminded me of just how spoilt rotten I am sometimes. The people that I have met and have been surrounded by this last year, have been immeasurably kind to me, and will make it so much harder for me to leave in a few weeks time. To make it even more difficult for me, when I returned to Wiesbaden it was as if someone had let off a green bomb while I was gone, and the entire city had woken up and exploded in full bloom. Everything was lush, vibrant and glowing in all its spring glory. Since I’ve been home, the sun has been out in full force, a whole two months earlier than usually, and the city is loving it.

When looking for people to couchsurf with in Switzerland, I was offered a woman’s apartment in Bern for a few days, in exchange for looking after her cat - so I naturally jumped at the chance. After driving through the picturesque countryside, and stopping at various villages along the way, I arrived in Bern, a few hours early, as I didn’t bother going back into Zurich’s city centre as originally planned.

Sabine, and her home was so warm and welcoming and the sun was glorious so I sat outside in her garden that afternoon, chatting and read some of my book. That afternoon, I finally got to meet Alissa, an Au Pair also working in Germany, and who is from my home town in New Zealand. Although we have lived within 2 kilometres of each other for most of our lives, and know a lot of the same people, we had never met. Introduced through email by my step sister Erin, we had been in contact for a few months, and I decided to invite her along with me.

That evening, before Sabine left oh her own holidays in Vienna, she cooked for us what many Swiss people consider their national dish; Rösti, which is basically a fried potato pancake, which I have since tried to recreate and failed miserably. The next day after biding Sabine farewell, Alissa and I drove south to Interlaken, in the heart of the stunning Bernese Oberland. A small city wedged between two lakes, and the Alps as a backdrop, you couldn’t have picked a better location. We walked around the small town, taking lots of photos, and admiring the vistas.

Not really having a plan, and too poor to take the infamous alpine train to the Jungfraujoch, better known as the highest train station in Europe, we drove up to Lauterbrunnen. We were lucky that we were so early in the session, that it really didn’t have a big touristy feel. We could admire all of the water falls, and sights in peace. LOTR fans out there may be interested to know that Lauterbrunnen provided the pictorial model for J.R.R. Tolkien's sketches and watercolours of the fictitious valley of Rivendell.

We decided to venture on up through the valley for a bit longer, and found a cable car, going right up to the Shilthorn. We decided to go to the cable cars first stop of Gimmelwald, a small car less village right in the heart of the Alps. A truly beautiful little farming village, with small little cheese shops, traditional Swiss homes and several bed and breakfast’s. It had a nice lived in feel, and not just a show for the tourists.

We then drove on to Brienz, at the opposite end of the lake from Interlaken. The water was a perfect turquoise blue, which blew us both away. We then followed the road, hugging along the lake side, back to Bern.

That night was late night shopping in town, so after dinner, Alissa and I took a stroll around some of the markets, and old city streets. Bern, the capital of Switzerland is largely medieval with lots of orange tiles roofs, with its most famous sight being the Zytglogge, an elaborate medieval clock tower with moving puppets, and which apparently aided Einstein in his discovery of General relativity.

Another unusual aspect of the old town is its 6 kilometres of arcades, which boasts one of the longest covered shopping promenades in Europe. In somewhat of a quiet protest I didn’t go to the Bärengraben, a bear pit that has been in the city, since the 16th century. We found a café by the Casino, selling the best ice cream I have ever tasted in my life, a little expensive at 5 Swiss francs for a tiny portion, but boy was it good.

The next day, we drove to Luzern (or Lucerne in English) which both Alissa and I have picked as our favourite Swiss city. The city sits right on the shoreline of Lake Lucerne, and as we were blessed with a beautifully warm and sunny spring day, we wasted no time in joining the locals, to sit along the water front and enjoy the view of all the paddle boats on the lake, and Mount Pilatus and Rigi in the distance.

We eventually dragged ourselves away, and walked to the city's most famous landmark; the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge), a wooden bridge originally built in 1333, although much of it had to be replaced after a 1993 fire, allegedly caused by a group of smokers – why am I not surprised? The city centre itself felt like it was already in summer mode, and we were happy to stroll along the streets, admiring the historic buildings covered in intricate murals. The only downside to my day was realising I'd put a huge finger smudge on my camera lense and ruined most of the days photos, and I also had to find a post office to pay a 40 SF (ouch) parking fine I’d got in Zurich.

After a bit of a sleep in, and tidy up of Sabine’s place, Alissa and I reluctant to leave Switzerland, drove back into Germany.

Sorry for the long delay, I’ve just gotten back from a fantastic two week roadtrip around the south of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. I think I’ll have to split up the sections, as there is just too much to write (and read) all in one go. So here are the first few days covering Bavaria and Austria.

I decided to give the Mitfahrzentrale thing another go, after my Belgium experience, and managed to get three fellow travellers to help share costs. Julia, Mandy and Adrian were all quite chatty, which was good, and I hope I didn’t scare them too much. I met up with Ana (my sister) at the Wombats hostel, and then headed out to dinner with her and a woman she’d met earlier that day on a tour she was with. We walked around the city, for what felt like forever, before finally finding a small little restaurant with some scrummy Bavarian fare – oh how I do love German cooking.

Woke up to a very cold and miserable day in Munich, which was a blessing in disguise, because Ana was planning on making me do a three hour bike tour if it had been as nice as the day before. I made sure I was in time to be at the Marienplatz to see the famous Glockenspiel in action. Then I strolled down to the Victualmarkt, one of Germany’s biggest food markets with a huge variety of fresh food and delicacies, which aren’t exactly cheap. Decided to splash out on some exotic fruit, which I think the guy said was from Vietnam, but I found pretty tasteless.

Pigs trotters anyone?

That afternoon Ana and I went to Dachau, which is a memorial site on the grounds of a former concentration camp. Unlike Bergen-Belsen in the north, Dachau has a lot of the original buildings still standing. It was not a designated 'extermination camp' as Auschwitz was, but the camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a ‘school of violence’. Dachau was in operation from 1933 to 1945 and in that time thousands of inmates were worked or starved to death. One of the more intriguing aspects of the history of the place, is that they undertook 'experiments' on inmates. These ranged from tests to ascertain how long someone would survive if plunged into ice-cold water, to testing a German version of penicillin by injecting patients with various viruses and seeing if the drug had any effect. What scared me most about all of this was that the reasoning behind it was fairly sane, in that I could see the thought processes behind it. It wasn't straight-out sadism, it was planned and calculating. For example, the ice-cold water tests were undertaken to work out how long the air force should look for survivors from a plane crash. The difficult thing to digest is that the information they collected has been crucial even for today’s medicine and medical practises.

Work brings freedom

Even though the weather was against us, we still decided to check out the Schloss Nymphenburg, a large baroque 17th-century palace which was the summer residence of the Bavarian monarchs and then to the English Garden, which I found both mediocre. For dinner we went to the Rathaus Keller which I highly recommend, but would advise you to go right to the back of the building, as it seems the most atmospheric, which sadly we didn’t see until we were leaving.

Cheimsee

The next day, I was severely sleep deprived – while I was out to dinner some girl had stolen my bed, so while she was out I moved her stuff to the top (empty) bunk above mine. I don’t think she realised you had to make your own bed, and get the sheets from downstairs. When she came back, and I was already in bed, she stole someone else’s lower bunk, and from then on everyone else who came home, had to steal someone else’s bed. But of course each person came back at a different time, each turns on all the lights, starts cursing that someone’s in their bed, then spends half an hour russelling around in a plastic bag, before finally falling asleep with the light on. The drunk 18 year old who came back at 4 am, who couldn’t climb up the stairs, and wouldn’t stop farting was the last straw. And of course the construction crew outside has to start up at 7 am. Oh how I hate hostels.

I’d brought sleeping pills with me, but as I knew I had to drive the next day, I just put up with it. Ana decided to join me for part of my drive to Salzburg, after being stuck in a lot of holiday traffic, we finally got to the Cheimsee, a large lake known as the Bavarian sea, and is a favourite for day-trippers from Munich. We took a ferry to a small island in the middle of the lake called the Herrencheimsee, where you can do a tour of one of crazy King Ludwig the II’s palaces. Although never finished, it is the most expensive of all three of his castles, (of which I have now been to all three, including his birthplace, Schloss Nymphenburg). As it was still early in the tourist season, it wasn’t too crowded, but sadly for us none of the impressive fountains were on. I dropped Ana at the local train station, and carried on by myself, along the foot of the alps, till I got to Salzburg, Austria.

Schloss Herrencheimsee

As things never go quite right when I’m involved, I’d been waiting for something to go wrong with the car for a while, and of course they did. Nothing major thank goodness, but somehow I’d lost the oil cap, and I’d remembered I’d been told it was extremely dangerous to drive with out one. I’m positive I’d screwed it on tightly the last time I’d checked, but something had happened to it. I started to panic that this was going to be one of those stupid situations that it’ll take 5 days for the part to get there and will cost €50, but I needn’t have worried. Using my best German I found a VW dealership and 5 minutes and €6 later I had a new cap. Brilliant! I was also lucky enough to find a host, through couchsurfing called Emanuel, a 25 year old student. He had to work that first night at a bar in town, but like a godsend, he gave me his flatmates room, who was on holiday in India and told me to make myself comfortable. So I crawled into the bed, and watched movies on her computer, which is exactly what I needed.

Mirabelle Gardens

I didn’t really know all that much about Salzburg or what to expect, apart from it was the birthplace of Mozart and filming location of the “Sound of Music”. In the morning I strolled around Mirabelle gardens, which was in full spring bloom. I stopped myself from running around singing ‘Doh-rei-mi’ unlike a few of the other English speaking tourists around. Funnily enough the movie never hit the German speaking part of the world, and few have ever heard of it, let alone actually watched it.

Mirabelle garden with the Pegasus Statue, and covered walkway where Maria taught the kiddies to sing 'Doh-rei-mi', with Hohensalzburg Fortress in the distance

I walked all around the alt stadt, and demolished a delicious giant pretzel. I had to cringe at all the poor horses, carting around fat tourists through all the historic streets. Took a funicular up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which towers over the city, and as it was Good Friday, it was too crowded to take the tour inside, but I was happy just strolling around, soaking in the sights of the city and the alps in the distance. Since I’d been lucky enough to be given a brand new navigator, I decided not to do the ‘Sound of Music’ bus tour, but did my own mini version.

The gazebo where Liesl sings '16 going on 17'

So I saw all the main sights, and drove out to the Lake District, which was picture postcard perfect. Emanuel invited me to go to a grill party with him and his mates, at the Hintersee, a small lake far off the tourist trail. It was so nice sitting out in the sun, while the others played on the guitar or didgeridoo, and cooked dinner on the open fire.

That night I went with Emanuel to a friends birthday party, held at a beer hall called the Augustinerbräu. They specialize in brewing a heavily malted Oktoberfest-style beer that is served in huge 1 litre clay-porcelain mugs. Now I’ve never been much of a beer drinker, but this stuff was fantastic, I highly recommend going there. His friends were a great laugh, and it was a great way to end a perfect day.

Bavarian Alps

The next day back in Germany, I followed most of the Alpine Strasse, along the Bavarian alps which were just spectacular, past the “Wank” mountain, which I couldn’t resist taking a photo of, and on to Schloss Linderhof - King Ludwig II retreat in the middle of no where.

This King Ludwig II guy was becoming a bit of a reoccurring thing in this part of the world. So what I’ve gathered of him is that he was king of Bavaria in the mid 1800’s, he is best known for his extreme personal eccentricity (he was rumoured to be gay) and for the extravagant medieval fantasy castles he constructed. He died under mysterious circumstances which are still unclear today.

He was declared insane by his own government because his passion for expensive castles was draining Bavaria’s budget, and he was grounded to Schloss Berg. Oddly enough, he was quite a popular king, and there were rumours he was planning to escape and reclaim his power. Coincidentally he became suicidal and drowned himself in Lake Starnberg (where it is only waist deep). His shrink, who said he was not at all suicidal, drowned, too, coincidentally! Years later, the royal coroner suddenly remembered in his deathbed that there were two bullets in the King’s back, which always struck him odd. Especially since seven witnesses have coincidentally died or disappeared soon after the Kings death. However, others say this is only a wild conspiracy theory. Ironically, nowadays Ludwig’s castles are fairytale cash-cows for Bavaria’s government.

Schloss Linderhof

So after a pleasant stop in the middle of the alps, my navigator took me on a random, twisting drive through back country roads, where I stumbled across pristine turquoise lakes, forests and crossed back over into the Austrian border before finally arriving in Füssen, Bavarias highest town. I had to resort to spending another night in a hostel, but at least no one snored, and we were in a reasonably quiet end of the building. I met a guy there from Mainz, Wiesbaden’s rival city, and we swapped stories. Then at breakfast the next morning, I met Maria and her boyfriend Martias whom I’ve kept in touch with since.

Although the weather was against me, I went to Schloss Neuschwanstein, the infamous German castle which inspired the design of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. As I was pretty early up there, I didn’t have to wait very long to get a bus to the top of the hill. There is a bridge about a 10 minute walk from the castle that gives you a fantastic view of the whole area, but it freaked me out. Largely made out of wood, the whole thing feels very unsteady with 100 tourists all trying to take photos at once.

Severlly sleep deprived yet again, early on Easter Sunday morning at Schloss Neuschwanstein

I must’ve been the only person there not planning on doing a tour of the inside, but I admit I’ve been a bit castled out, and after seeing inside Herrencheimsee, Ana said there was no real need for me to see this one, as its all pretty similar. Met a really nice Australian woman and a Canadian guy there and had a decent chat. That’s what I love about travelling by yourself; you’re much more likely to met interesting people. I stumbled upon a local flea market where I found a not too tacky Beer Stein and black glass bead necklace. I popped back into Füssen, and had a stroll around the town before heading on to Lindau, my next destination.

Füssen shop sign

So that’s all for this part of the trip. In the following days I travelled to the Bodensee, to Liechtenstein, Switzerland and back into Germany and around the Blackforest. So I’ll try and get the next update for you in the next day or two. Take care

I may have gotten a little ahead of myself last time, boasting about the return of spring and sunshine, because as we all know nothing is ever predictable when it comes to weather. Winter returned in force last Monday which happened to be Max’s Birthday. We’d picked up 11 boys from his class and taken them up into the Taunus Mountains (more like large hills if you ask me) to a sort of lodge to do rock climbing. When it was time to come home, and the boys had all conquered their fears it had begun to snow. I then woke up the next day (or the one after, all my days seem to blur into one lately) to a blanket of white. I was naturally thrilled, as I’ve been dreaming of running around in snow ever since I got here, and I thought it had all been in vain. Of course it had all disappeared by lunchtime and I didn’t really think about it again – until on Friday when everything went downhill and the chaos began.

This was just for breakfast, he had three cakes in total. One made by Frau Doerr (i.e. the one above), one made by me to take to school, and one by a proper cake maker for his party.

I had been meaning to get to Belgium before my sister left for a while, but as she was off jet setting around Europe every weekend, and I had my fair share of things planned, and expenses to pay, the dates just kept getting pushed back further and further, and as she is leaving Belgium this week, we got to crunch time. As I’m not exactly rolling in money, I decided to take Nicole’s advice and look in to using a German website called Mitfahrzentrale, which is sort of like a hitchhiker/driver match making site. I’d never used it before, because I liked the freedom of being able to stop whenever I want, but having people share the costs of petrol was mighty tempting. So I managed to organise people to come along in various stages of the trip and to help with costs. I’d even arranged to bring back an Antique chair that someone had brought off eBay. I’d navigated the whole site, and was feeling pretty pleased with myself as its all in German and everything was set to go. But on Friday morning, Nicole told me I couldn’t take the car, because the whole Western border of Germany was covered in snow, the roads were chaos, and because we’d already taken the winter tyres off the car, it was too big an insurance risk.

I raced down to the Auto repairers to see if they could put the winter tyres that I’d stored there, back on, but got promptly told there was absolutely no way that they could get them out of a storage facility in Frankfurt before Monday. Absolutely gutted I decided I just wouldn’t go, as I couldn’t afford to take the train. I had to ring everyone and let them know, that I couldn’t take them. Then Nicole suggested we contact the train company and see if I could bring the antique chair (that I’d promised someone I would bring back for them) on the train on the way home. The guy was willing to pay me €150 to deliver it to him, and would there for be able to pay for the cost of the return train. No one would give me any answers so I just took a risk, found a ride from Cologne to Belgium using Mitfahrzentrale and then jumped on the high speed train.

I spent about three hours in Cologne, just strolling around, checked out the Dom and walked along the Rhine before I got picked up by Juan, a Colombian student, now living in Cologne who was travelling through to Paris to visit his girlfriend. We picked up Mathieu, a French rugby playing (which is pretty rare around this soccer mad part of the world) friend of his, along the way and they drove me the rest of the way to Belgium. Both were really nice and easy going guys and even posed for a photo for me – thanks guys.

So I eventually made it after all, to the land of Waffles, Chocolate, Beer, Lace, Frites, Mussels, Tintin and Jean Claude Van Damme. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long before Ana picked me up from my drop off point at the Airport, and then we spent a while shopping and checking out the large Belgian supermarket. Both exhausted, we crashed out on the couch and watched ‘Instinct’. Next morning we drove to a town called Ghent, about an hour west of Brussels. I absolutely loved Ghent, and would love to go back there in the summer, of course when we were there it was cold and miserable. The buildings are really spectacular, and the Graslei along the water canal is particularly picturesque.

It had one of the most impressive Cathedrals I’ve ever been in, and since being in Europe I’ve been in a fair few. There are lots of things to look at, and it had a really lived in feel, and not like just a big museum (the city that is, not the church). We found a sweet stall in a market there, and brought some Cuberdons, which are an old Belgian speciality particular to the Ghent/Flemish region. Cuberdons are dark red, raspberry cone shapes (the outside is hard, while the inside stays liquid) and are absolutely delicious. As their shelf life is only about 4 weeks, they can’t really be exported, so you’re going to have to travel to Belgium to try them! We also stumbled upon a random hall with lots of treats and samples to try, best of all were the mouth-watering truffles. It wasn’t until after I got back to Germany that I found out that Ghent is actually the sistercity of Wiesbaden, but what does being sister cities really mean anyway?

That afternoon, we carried on exploring and drove to a small city just south of Brussels called Namur, which is the capital of Wallonia (or the French speaking part of Belgium). A pleasant enough city, with lots of pedestrian streets but the most impressive part of it is the Citadel, which is a fortress built on a hill overlooking the city, and the site has been used defensively for more than two millennia and has tunnels, riddled throughout the limestone hill. We didn’t really get to explore much of it, as the sun was going down and it was getting more than a little chilly. That night we decided to check out the movies, and went to the Kinopolis in the Brupack which has an impressive 29 theatres. What we hadn’t realised is that there was a major free concert in the park called the ‘Stars of Europe’, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of the EU. The Atomium (built 1958), a massive icon of Brussels with nine large steel spheres measuring around 18 metres in diameter, was all lit up, and lasers pointing everywhere, and was a pretty impressive sight. So we checked that out for a while, before heading back to watch a movie.

The next morning, sun shining thank goodness, we jumped on a bus into the city centre and checked out all the famous Brussels sights, including the Grand place, its impressive guild houses and the lucky statue of Everard’t Serclaes. The Manneken Pis seemed more like a joke, than a reason to be a major icon. We did the touristy thing and got a double decker ride around the rest of the city and saw the palace, Jubel park and the EU buildings. I thought Brussels was a pretty nice city, wouldn’t mind going back but not sure you could spend a lot of time there - as a tourist that is.

So after a really pleasant weekend, that afternoon Kriztina, a really lovely Hungary woman picked me up, and dropped me at the train station, complete with a 300 year old Antique Spanish chair. Always one to be a little random, this took the cake. I had to lug the thing on to an extremely busy train full of long distance travellers and all their giant bags, and try and not freak out when ever anyone got too close, or looked like they were going to sit on the very fragile leather seat. I got to Frankfurt Airport without having a heart attack, and even carried it through the airport, up and down 4 escalators, (all because you have to change over to the regional trains) without damaging it. Got a raised eyebrow from a few puzzled onlookers more than once, but that’s the nice thing about not being a local, there’s not much chance of people who know you actually spotting you. So job done, €150 richer, thank you very much and now looking forward to my next little adventure next week where I’m off to the south of Germany, Austria and Switzerland – wish me luck.

Hey there, just got back from a wicked, but tiring weekend in London. I think most people from Commonwealth countries have to make a pilgrimage to the motherland once in their lifetimes but I went because Ellie and Marc after fours years of being together had decided to take the plunge and get married, and I somehow wrangled my way into getting an invite. So I sussed out some super cheap flights and someone to look after the boys and I was off. I left on Friday morning, after getting stuck at security for having too many liquids in my hand luggage (what the!!!) I sat next to a very chatty German student from Essen and again got stuck for over an hour in the ‘Alien’ queue at Stansted Airport passport control, I jumped on the express train into the City where I met Luis, a gorgeous Spaniard. Off to a random start, I stored my luggage at Liverpool St Station and walked down to the Monument and along the Thames. Got a little camera happy with the Tower Bridge (aka London Bridge) and ventured down to the Tower of London. I didn’t go in, but sat and watched all the tourists, while munching on some (very often dreamed about) Fish and Chips. I decided pretty early on that this trip was more observational, rather than going in and exploring all the sights and sounds, I’ll leave that to when I have more time and money.

Tower Bridge

So I jumped on one of the cliché red double-decker buses, with its obligatory crazy tour guide. Saw most of the famous sights, i.e. London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. As it was getting late in the afternoon the route we were on finished, and we got told to switch buses and the next one would be no more than 15 minutes away. But 45 minutes later the Canadians that I’d met and I gave up hope, and I had no choice but to join rush hour traffic on the underground. Wasn’t too bad really, everyone in a hurry, dressed and moving like robots, no room to breathe, an unspoken rule that nobodies allowed to talk (excuse the pun), all iPod clad, everyone avoiding eye contact, you get the gist. But it was still pretty easy to navigate, and you never had to wait for long.

Big Ben

I met up with Hamish, one of my old flatmates who moved there a few weeks ago and he let me crash at his place for the night. It was so good catching up with him again, and seeing him all grown up in his business suit. It was great hearing a kiwi accent again as well, and hanging out with his flatmate, who was also a kiwi.

Westminster Abbey

The boys were off on a Waitangi Day (NZ National Day) Pub crawl across London, nice and early on Saturday morning, and so for convenience sake I splashed out and checked into the hotel that all the other wedding guest were staying at, thankfully they let me check in early, so I didn't have to cart around my luggage. Since it was such a beautiful day and realising my ticket for the tour bus from the day before was still valid, I thought I would use up the rest of the day seeing the other sights.

Parliment Buildings

So (as well as the same sights from the day before) I glimpsed the London Dungeon, Harrods, Royal Albert Hall and Kensington Palace. What I hadn’t realised is that the map is rather deceptive and what I thought would take maybe 90 minutes max, was well over 3 hours and I needed to get back to the hotel pronto to get ready for the Wedding (which was the whole reason I was in London, in the first place) so I jumped out at the freakishly crowded for a Saturday, Piccadilly Circus, zoomed on the underground back to the hotel. Frantically got ready, then raced down the street, where I found one of the Grooms best friends on the street corner waiting for his wife, so we all got to the town hall mere seconds before the service was about to start.

Ellie looked absolutely gorgeous, Marc wasn’t too bad either, and the room was decorated with lots of white candles. Neither of them wanted the very traditional wedding, and it suited them perfectly. I already knew Ellie’s family, from when they came to stay around New Years, and I finally got to meet Ellie’s friends whom I had been hearing about for the past few months. The ceremony, and reception were all thankfully within walking distance of the hotel. The reception was held at a Gastro-Bar, and although there wasn’t a sit down meal, nibbles and goodies were put out through out the night. I thought I would feel like a duck out of water, with all the ‘London’ crowd, but they were all very warm and welcoming. I had a fantastic night, and it was so good to be a part of their special day. Next day I cringed at the hotel bill, not realising breakfast wasn’t included and the tiny bit of scrambled eggs and hash brown I’d had was £14, coming to around $NZ40! Ahh well, lesson learned. Marc’s parents kindly offered to drop me off at the airport, as it was on their way home, and now I’m back in Germany ready for my next adventure, where ever that may be.