WEIHNACHTSMARKTS!!!!

So ever since Chicago I've been obsessed with Christmas Markets. I had never heard of these before but Chicago had one set up and all my German friends were like, "Yeah, Christmas Markets. That's normal."

No, that's freaking WONDERFUL.

The other day I had a forty minute wait between trains at Bochum. Rather than wander the train station aimlessly I decided to head into town and grab a billion dollar Starbucks coffee. What a fabulous surprise when I rounded the corner and in front of the Starbucks was this:

Spotto.

It was absolutely magical, especially at dusk with everything lit up. I bought myself some caramelised peanuts, was overwhelmed with the smell of pflammkuchen, crepes, and bratwurst cooking, and had to restrain myself from buying all the hand crafted goodies.

Then yesterday I met up with my friend Kate for lunch in Dortmund and we wandered along the markets there.

This is part of a display of fairytale characters for the children to enjoy. All I want to know is, what does Dortmund have against children???? This display was the creepiest thing I've seen in a long time. The girl that you can only partly see had her eyes closed and was all freaky looking, complete with a rising and falling mechanised chest. (See if you can notice it in the (shoddy) video below.) You can see how this is the country that produced writers like the Brothers Grimm.

And of course, it wouldn't be a Weihnachtsmarkt without the gluhwein!!!

Excuse us for looking sheisse - it had been pouring all day... also, don't judge, y'all!

Gluhwein is basically spiced, warm wine, perfect for freezing days. It's served boiling hot and when it's snowing the top exposed liquid gets cooled enough for you to drink but the rest of the cup is kept warm for your hands. They also come in these cute little Christmas Market booties. I plan on collecting one from each of the weinachtsmarkts I visit to add to my lonely little Chicago bootie, and trust me, there are plenty more to come.

So Fairies DO Exist?? And Travel Disappointments

I just gots me mah scholarship moneyz!! Woop woop! Is it wrong that the first thing I'm going to do is buy this gorgeous pair of shoes that I saw last week and was desperate to have? Yes. Actually, first I'm putting a tonne of money on my credit card. Well, I don't think I've put the amount on there of what I've actually spent on my card in the last few weeks (travel expenses, presents for people, castle souvenirs...), but I don't want to not be able to travel towards the end. A girl's gotta save her money.

Plus, Rachel's coming this weekend and on Monday we're going to go to Oberhausen, home of Centro, the biggest shopping mall in Europe. :) Naughty.

Plus I'm planning a bunch of trips:
Friday 11th to Monday 14th December - Amsterdam
Monday 14th to Thursday 17th December - Belgium (pretty much so I can go to Bruges and say, "It's a fucking fairytale. It's a shame it's in Belgium...")
Sunday 20th to 23rd December - Prague
Sunday 26th/27th (not sure which yet) to 4th January - Italy (Venice, Trieste, and somewhere else, not sure yet)

That's what I've got so far. Lara and I are planning a day trip to Hamburg in January sometime, and Lara's coming with me for the weekend when I go to London at the end of this trip.

BUT, for all the things that have gone well, there have been some big travel disappointments. The main one is Ukraine. I have wanted to go to Ukraine since I first met my friend Natalia in the US. Natalia lives in Stuttgart but grew up in Ukraine and told me how wonderful it is and I was hooked. This was only intensified when I watched Long Way Round:



Doesn't it seem AWESOME??!!! I think the guy bringing out the machine gun solidified my desperate need to go. "Usually people bring a coffee, he brought a fucking machine gun!"

So imagine Rachel's and my elation when we discovered I could fly from Dortmund to Kiev for about AU$60 return. We almost booked straight away. Luckily Rachel checked her Lonely Planet guide and discovered we'd need visas to go there. What? Basically the only countries in the world that need a visa are Australia and New Zealand, the two countries we just happen to be from. Racism, much? I mean, they even let Mongolians in visa free. MONGOLIANS??? You'd prefer Mongolians to Australians?? What, is my dollar not good enough for you? Or you know, I could get a visa but I'd have to forfeit my passport for however many days it takes to process, and I'd have to pay to have it done, and I may not even be able to do it because I may or may not need a letter of invitation from a travel agent over there. Is Ukraine worth it? Once upon a time I would have said yes, now I think it's too much hassle.

So here's the plan: AUSTRALIANS, we must BOYCOTT UKRAINE!!! This is a call to arms and it will be easily enough done, what with us not being able to go there anyway. Seriously, I feel so hard done by. Now I know how the _[insert some maligned people here]_ felt.

My other travel disappointment: possible not being able to go to the Nuremburg Kristkindlmarkt. We had found this bus doing a day trip there but it won't be possible for us to get to this bus. We could take a train, but that would cost about, oh, 180 euros. Yeah, no. So I don't think it's going to happen which is so bad because I was hoping to meet up with Judith and Natalia there. But we'll just have to find some other time to meet up.

My other travel disappointment really stems from the fact that I realised I only have 3 more free weekends in which to actually travel, and these are all in January. I'm thinking of going to Budapest on one of the weekends because I found some cheap flights there. One place I really wanted to go while I was here was Mont St. Michele in France but I just don't see how I'll be able to get there, or once I get to the area, how I'd get around without a car. It's just not going to happen.

But I'm also not sure where else I want to go while I'm here. There are so many places I want to see that I'm struggling to decide on any. So make me a suggestion!

Judith, Schloss Neuschwanstein and I

So straight after uni on Friday I hopped on a train to Munich to visit Judith. Or actually, I hopped on FOUR trains. Which I don't normally mind, except when it's dark and freezing (possibly literally) and you have to wait in the dark, freezing cold for the next train to arrive. But eventually I arrived at München Hauptbahnhof at almost midnight to find Judith there in the cold waiting for me - that's love! She looks exactly the same as she did when I left her on a teary day in May, 2007, just with shorter hair. And she's exactly the same too, in a good way. It was like no time had passed. Unfortunately, our friend Natalia couldn't make the weekend, otherwise it would have been a big au pair reunion, but we made the most of it anyway. (We are FABULOUS company!)

Saturday morning started out nice and lazy, but we both woke up with massive headaches. Judith informed me all about föhn, where the winds change or something (let Wiki tell you all about it) and how she thought that's why we were both in pain, but some coffee and headache tablets and we were right as rain. We had a massive breakfast, walked through the area near her house where the Olympic stadium is and grabbed some Starbucks like old times. Lattes, of course, but not ventis because just a tall latte in Starbucks in Germany is 4 euros, and these are tough economic times!

We then took our lattes to the Englischer Garten and took advantage of the beautiful weather by just wandering around and eating bratwurst mit semmel (not brötchen in Bavaria - and it means bread roll).

Oh, and by the way, beautiful weather just means sunny - it was still heaps cold!

That's the Felderrnhalle where Hitler made one of his way famous speeches. Such a nice square with such an infamous legacy. We saw a whole bunch of other stuff, and may I just add that Munich is gorgeous. Check out the photos linked at the start of this post for evidence.

That evening we topped off a fabulous day with dinner at the Löwenbräu Keller, which featured heavily at my farewell, which feels like a million years ago now. Oh, and we've all been pronouncing it wrong. It's actually pronounced "Loovenbroy". Just doesn't roll off your tongue as well as "Low-en-brow" - less bogan is sometimes less fun.

The next day. We used up all our good weather bonus points because it decided to rain for the rest of my stay. Judith knew the way to my heart and took me to Schwangau, the home of my castle. But first, did you know there's actually TWO castles there? Always overshadowed by my future home, Schloss Hohenschwangau is a gorgeous fortress-style castle built by Maximillian, Ludwig II's daddy. It's really beautiful inside, although it is a little show-offy with all the king's birthday presents on display. We get it, you had friends that gave you better presents than candles and soap. But did they send you a box of Tim Tams like Emma sent me? I think you will find that my friends beat your friends. Ner ner.

But Schloss Hohenschwangau is just there to whet your castle apetite, because after a horse and carriage ride up one very steep hill I finally set eyes on my baby:

Schloss Neuschwanstein!!!!!!!!!! That's a picture of me exploding. I must have embarrassed Judith greatly with all of my squealing and, "I can't believe I'm actually looking at it and it's not a picture"s. See, I don't even realise that I'm standing next to two horses, I'm that excited.

We wandered around inside and I considered the remodelling job that's ahead of me. You know, only 17 rooms of the castle were finished before Ludwig II was declared insane (which he really wasn't - they did it because his grand vision of all these fairytale castles had sent the country into massive debt) and de-throned.

Here's Judith and I in front of the castle. Let this be a lesson for you: never rely on others to take important photos for you. Why the eff would we ask someone to take our photo standing in front of the castle if we didn't want the castle to be properly in the picture. Use your brains, random people that were at Neuschwanstein on Sunday!

Another of the castle. So. Bloody. Impressive. Seriously, it is just as amazing in reality as the photos make it seem.

And one last one from the car on the way home. I'm so glad the weather cleared up in the afternoon so we could actually see a bit of it from down the hill.

So to sum this weekend up in one word: fabulous! So glad to see Judith again, and glad that it feels like no time has passed, and I'm glad that I can finally begin my plans to get my castle ready for when I eventually move in.

Oh, and people think I'm joking about this. I am ALL of the serious.

Germania Müsik

So I've been meaning to do one of these posts for ages, and seeing as I've wanted to do it for so long a lot of these songs are outdated. But I don't care.

So, German music is a lot of fun. And would you believe that there's more to it than Ramstein's "Du, du hast, do hast mich," the Schnappi song (although, that song is a bloody classic) and 99 Luftballoons? I know. So here's a selection of songs I've been singing along to. Obviously not singing actual words because I can only pick out randoms, but it's probably better for society if I don't sing anyway...

Alles Kann Besser Werden, by Xavier Naidoo



Ich War Noch Niemals in New York, Sportfreunde Stiller



Das Geht Ab, Frauenarzt & Manny Marc (this one just cracks me up)



Stadt, Cassandra Steen (this isn't the film clip because I can't imbed the proper clip. But clicky here and you can see it)



That's all I can think of at the moment. There's a bunch more but I can't remember them right now... But enjoy.

What is this - Eastern Europe??

So I spent this past weekend in Krakow. :) With Rachel. And it was FABULOUS!

I arrived on Thursday afternoon at Krakow Airport and exchanged some money (so frustrating - everyone just move to the Euro!), trying to figure out how I'd get into town to my hostel when I heard, "Sarah!" I can't even convey how awesome it was to see Rachel at the airport. She'd come to pick me up and wanted to surprise me, which she definately did. It was so good to see her again and it was like no time had passed, even though the last time I saw her was at the beginning of May.

So we caught the bus back to our hostel and went to go see some of Krakow. We didn't get to see very much. Not because of my blindness (though that really didn't help me), but because even though it was 4:30pm it was pitch black. It felt like it was at least 8pm and we were looking for restaurants for dinner before realising what time it was. Woops.

Anyway, things that are awesome about Krakow:

It is stunningly beautiful. It's a little bit Paris and a little bit Florence and it has so much history.

It's hard to decide what my favourite things were - the food, the buildings, or the dragon. Yes, the dragon. There's this legend that there was a dragon in a cave under Wawel Castle and it was terrorising (yes) the locals. Then a lowly cobbler volunteered his services and using his brains because he lacked the braun of the sword-weilding knights that had preceeded him, killed the dragon by tricking him into eating a sheep stuffed with tar and sulfur. The dragon, his stomach feeling like it was on fire, ran to this river:

So then, the dragon drank and drank and drank... until he exploded. Pop!

And that was the end of the dragon.

Oh, and did I mention yet that Rachel and I totally slayed one too?

Or at least, had a dragon come up to us we would have been prepared fo sho.

Other things I liked about Krakow: how much they love John Paul II. I get it, right, he's Polish? Yeah? And he's all over the city. Rach and I saw one girl praying (and crying!) to a relief of JPII on the wall of the Dom late one night (actually, it was 8:30pm, but it was so dark it felt like 1am), there were several statues and pictures of him throughout the city, and there's even a banner outside a house that he lived in back in the day when he was a priest:

Actually, the building was on a really cool street, allegedly Krakow's oldest street, dating from the Middle Ages. I dunno though - it was pretty and all, but it seemed a bit new for Middle Ages, and considering the fact that Poland was pretty much flattened during WWII... but who am I to argue with the guidebook?

You can't visit Krakow without making a trip out to Auschwitz. I think it's really important to visit places like this. I'd already gone to Sachsenhausen when I went to Berlin, so I knew what I was in for. It's still so depressing though.

We also went to Birkenau, but because of the timing and everything we basically had 20 minutes there. So not enough. And because it was very dark and cold, we basically had a look at the train tracks and the bookstore.

Then the real adventure began. We took the last bus back to Auschwitz and it was packed. Sardines, man. Then everyone from that bus stood waiting for the bus from Auschwitz to Krakow. By this stage Rachel and I were tired and hungry, and deciding we would never all fit onto that bus, and seeing that there was another bus an hour later at 6:20, we decided to head across the road and have dinner. Gosh we are full of awesome.

Tummies full of borscht and pizza, and patting ourselves on the back for our brilliance, we stood waiting in the dark for the bus. The bus that never came. With no idea of what to do we asked for help from the man at the gate of Auschwitz, which was now completely deserted except for him, a whole lot of fog, and a bunch of ghosts I'm sure. He told us there was a bus at 7:30. We decided we didn't believe him on account of a particular bus that was supposed to arrive at 6:20 that never did. After wondering what to do for what seemed like forever (it could have been 2 minutes, but 2 minutes in minus weather is a very long time), we headed to the hotel across the road and asked them if they knew anything about a way to get home. Luckily for us the man on the desk was lovely and looked up the train timetables and told us how to get there. It was only a 20 minute walk away. Oh good? We also might be able to find a bus back from the bus station which was at the end of the road on the way there.

So we left the hotel and started heading into the mist. We had noticed two guys talking to each other on the other side of the road, but when we walked past one of them broke away and started walking behind us. When he started saying something I kind of maybe freaked out and Rachel and I started walking faster to put some distance behind us. Anyway, long story short (and we all know I have trouble achieving that), we eventually "lost" them when we made it to the bus station. I'm sure they were perfectly respectable boys who just wanted to know directions to something, or were asking for a light, but it was dark, they had obviously heard us speaking English and knew we wouldn't understand them, and it was cold and we were very worried we wouldn't be getting home that night. So we were really freaked out by this incident.

Anyway, bus station = no more buses that night. In fact, I think that 6:20 bus left from the bus station, not from the bus stop at Auschwitz. If that was the case, A LITTLE FREAKING SIGNAGE WOULDN'T GO ASTRAY. (Wow, it's a lot of effort to do Kanye West capslock.) Eventually we made it to the train station with me saying the entire time, "Are you sure this is the right way? Shouldn't we be there by now?" Poor Rachel. But it's her own fault, what with being blessed with the ability to read a map. We waited another 40 minutes for a train and made it back to the hostel by 10:30. By this time all thoughts of a big night out went out the window, and we had a lovely night of nanna-age watching Seventeen Again. (Which, I might add, is surprisingly HILLARIOUS! Wow. I actually rate Zack Efron. Something is not right.)

Sunday was spent wandering the town because we had booked our trip to coincide with bloody November 1st, All Saints' Day. Seriously, the airline should have warned me when I booked my dates and said, "Are you sure? Cos on Sunday EVERYTHING will be closed." Grrr. At least pubs, restaurants and cafes were open. Which meant that we got to drink the world's best hot chocolate at Nowa Prowincja (basically just melted chocolate. Epic WIN), have a couple of tatankas, which is a Polish drink consisting of Żubrówka, which is vodka made of bison grass, and apple juice (YUM), have some nasty Polish beer, and eat again at the restaurant we ate at on our first night with the best barszcz (beetroot soup with dumplings) I've ever tasted. Ok, so it was the only barszcz I've ever tasted, but it was amazing! I hate beetroot, but I love this.

So that's pretty much our weekend. If you want to see all the photos they can be found here. Next stop - MUNICH on Friday. Aaaah yeah.