Things I've learnt whilst travelling

Inspired (a much better adjective than "stolen") by MacDoogs's post (you post chola-brows photos of me, I call you MacDoogs on my blog :P), I decided to share a few things I have learnt in the past few months. Or as many things as I could think of on my train trip this morning.

• Don't listen to people who tell you that it's better to use a backpack for travelling around Europe. "Think about lugging a suitcase over all those cobblestones, Sarah," they said. "Think about all the stairs at trainstations." Well, you know what? They LIED. Cobblestones? Pssht. Your suitcase will just bump a little, and cobblestones aren't the Big Bad that people make out. And stairs? This isn't the Middle Ages. We have things called elecators now. And for those very rare occassions where the left isn't working or there isn't one, there's usually someone nice enough to give you a hand. Trust me. Dragging something along behind you is SO MUCH easier than hefting the weirght of that thing onto your shoulders. Not to mention the inconvenience of packpacks whilst riding a train and having to take up a seat with it. Maybe it's fine for travelling around Asia or South America, but it's not necessary for Europe.
• If you refuse to take my advice re. Backpacks, make sure you ignore your inner Scrooge (a relevant example given that I've just opened my second door on my Advent calendar) and go out and buy a good one and have it properly fitted. I went and looked at some backpacks, saw the $500 pricetag and ran straight back out. I used my brother's one. Good work. Yes, I kept my $500, but were the brised shoulders, sore back and bracing pain worth it? Essentially, you're carrying the next few months of your life on your back - even hobos use a trolley. I'm just saying.
• August is not a good time to visit Italy. You will develop a dirty, dirty tan, eat too much gelato in an attempt to cool your body down (although, whether such a thing as "too much gelato" exists is up for debate), and you will sweat profusely. Your photos will look like crap (and don't lie - we all know how important photos are), and you will end each day absolutely buggered. Plus, it's Europe: they're not so big on that crazy new-fangled invention called, "air-conditioning." Fools.
• You are never going to read those stupid guide books that you buy from every house/museum/castle you visited. Never. And you will have to spend a lot of money sending them home. You're an idiot.
• Just because your camera was under $200 and pink, doesn't mean it's going to be a good camera. Actually, because your camera was under $200 and pink it is not going to be good, regardless of the amount of megapixels. But you can always console yourself with the fact that you have a fabulous pink camera. Imagine if you'd bought it in silver - then where would you be??
• Bad idea: becoming friends with people in your hostel room. You don't actually have to become friends with the people in your hostel room. In fact, don't even bother being polite. The majority of the time it will result in you going laces your don't want to go, staying out later than you wanted (Sarah is great fun drunk at 3 am, not so much fun at 5 am when she has a flight to catch), and finding yourself in awkward situations. Because you are then stuck with them for them for the next however many hours or days. AWKWARD. (NB. It sometimes works out for the best and you have an amazing time and make some awesome friends. Risky though.)
• Meeting people in the breakfast room is actually a great idea. Nothing beats bonding over a shitty meal and crappy coffee.
• Don't try and be smart - take the bus that everyone else is taking. Even if you are starving and need to pee. Otherwise you might get stranded at a (most likely) haunted concentration camp in sub-zero weather in Eastern Europe. I'm just saying.
• Don't say the word "bitch" in a Dortmund nightclub as it will seem like an open invitation for some random to come up and tell you off about how you shouldn't say that word in Dortmund and blah blah and why is she even listening in to my conversation in the first place? Bitch.
• Take you umbrella everywhere. Leaving your umbrella in your hostel in LONDON is a STUPID IDEA. What is the one guarantee in the UK? It's going to bloody rain. And you will get caught in that rain so you need to take your umbrella everywhere. Otherwise you will end up forking out your precious money on a rain poncho from a tourist shop. And you will look ridiculous.
• Don't buy a travel rain poncho. Seriously. You wouldn't wear it at home, why would you wear it overseas? And then don't leave the already bought poncho in your hostel room next to your umbrella when you're in London. Idiot.

That's it for now.

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.

Ooooh yeah!

So tomorrow (TOMORROW!) I'm off to see Krakow and to see Rachel!

This photo is from a year ago. That was the most recent

(half decent, not drunk yet) photo of the two of us I could

find. Must remedy that this weekend.

I have not seen this girl since May because the mole has been getting her tourist-on across SE Asia. You can read all about it if you click on the link on the side bar. Her's is the one entitled "Rachel's Travel Blog" incase you're having difficulty with that whole connecting-words-to-concepts thing. I know I've been having a massive problem with that lately. Thinking hurts.

So when I say I'm going to "see" Rachel and Krakow, I should mention that I will see vague shapes. I currently have an eye infection (you know, because suffering from death wasn't enough, let's just throw in BLINDNESS) so I can't wear my contacts. And my glasses prescription is either from highschool or from that year I thought I'd give TAFE a go. Either way, it's bloody old. It's never been an issue before because I only wear my glasses for that hour before bed once a month when I actually take my contacts out to replace them the next morning. But now for two weeks I shall be blind, and I think all this straining of my eyes will make them worse. Win.

But I'm sure being blind to begin with will make it seem not so bad when I'm blind after all the Polish vodka I will be drinking...

WoopWoop!!

Update on yesterday's post: it's all systems are GO for München on the 7th November with Judith. So excited!

Also, Rachel's coming to visit me on 14th November. Oh my gosh. I cannot wait!

I'm seriously all of the exciteds right now. No one else in the world can be feeling this emotion because I'm using it all up.

Also going to see Eskimo Joe with my Dortmund Double and one of my friends tomorrow night. Have I mentioned the Dortmund Double programme yet? Basically students at the uni who have been on an exchange, are going, or just have an interest in meeting some American students volunteer to be partnered up with one of the US exchange students. I'm included in this group because there's no programme for Australian exchange students going overseas. In the US they have ISEP, in Europe they have Erasmus. For Aussies they have nothing. So anyway, I have two Dortmund Doubles, Mareike and Helene, who I met for the first time last week. Basically they system works like built-in friends at the uni. Mareike lived in Brisbane for a year studying English and became a big Eskimo Joe fan and heard they were playing in Düsseldorf so she asked if I wanted to come along. Hells yes I wanted to come along! So we're going tomorrow night.

Way to piss me off

So my mum just called me. I haven't heard from her in about a month, and before that the only times I'd heard from her is when I called her (several $500 phone bills later...). We parted on very angry terms when we last spoke, in that I was having trouble hearing her on my tenuous skype connection and so I asked her to call me instead and she said she would. Except she didn't. I waited by the phone all freaking afternoon and she didn't call. And I hadn't heard from her since.

Then just now, at 11:30pm I get a call and it's her, like nothing's happened. Oh, except for the fact that I decided that I was done with you, although you didn't know it because YOU NEVER CALLED ME. (Oh, and it's not the phone call (or lack of one) that made me decide that emancipation was healthier - it's been one thing after another on this trip (and in life) and I'm kind of done with everything.)

Anyway, what has this got to do with travel? Nothing at all. It should probably be on my other blog.

Oh wait, I know what this has to do with. Calling me on a day when I'm sick (it's probably death. You know how it is), when I'm staying up late in order to call Centrelink as soon as they open because they've cut off my payments, yet again, and when I'm so cranky because I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN MY SCHOLARSHIP MONEY.

First things first:

Centrelink: reason for cutting me off: "Your Youth Allowance has been stopped because our records show you are still overseas." How fucking observant of you, Centrelink. Because, you know, that hour and a half I spent in the Centrelink office (not including waiting time) before I left to come here, filling in forms and providing proof of my exchange, obviously was just for fun. I wanted to just steal all of your money (which I'm pretty sure I've paid in tax anyway) so I could go on a holiday and disguise it as a learning experience. Which is true, but I'm still entitled to that money, and I was counting on it for things like, you know, food. And when I called a few minutes ago my crappy skype was being... crappy... and it was hard to hear the woman in the call centre, but basically all she said was she'll email the Baulko office to follow it up. I'm going to be eating dog food, I can see it now.

Second:

Scholarship money: WHERE IS IT??? It's after the 15th now. In fact, in Australia it is the 19th (which it will also be in Germany in about 10 mins). Where's my money, bitch? Argh. Is tomorrow too soon to send another email asking where the money is? Here is the correspondence so far - note the dates:

27/08/2009 2:53 > pm >>>>
Dear Sarah and Steve,>
Education Australia Limited is delighted to be able to offer Sarah an
IDP Student Mobility Scholarship as detailed in the attached letter. Funds
have been transferred to The University of Newcastle who in turn will
arrange payment to yourself Sarah for this scholarship.

28/08/2009 3:06 pm >>>
Excellent! Is there anything I need to do?
Cheers, Sarah

August 28, 2009 5:32 pm
It is great news!I already have your details from the Travel Grant,
so we will pay you within the next couple of weeks.
Cheers Steve

19/09/2009 3:23 pm >>>
Hi Steve,Sorry to be a nag but I was just wondering when the scholarship
money would be sent through? I just wanted to book some things. No rush
though.
Cheers,
Sarah

September 25, 2009 11:12 am
No worries Sarah,
We will be processing the payment after the 15 October. This is the next
time Grants/Scholarships are put through the system.
Cheers
Steve

So the story keeps changing, but as far as I can see, they have my money sitting in their account, but it's not helping me. Great. Is tomorrow (as in, maybe my tomorrow night so it will be received Tuesday morning by the exchange office) too soon to send another thinly disguised, "Where's my money, bitch?" email? I mean, I didn't lie in my second email. I really don't want to be a nag, I just want my freaking money so I can do stuff and go places. Argh.

Yes, whingey, non-travel related stuff.

So let's add a little travel flavour!

Some stuff! (Oh my god, I LOVE stuff!)

1. I'm meeting up with Rachel in Poland on the 29th October!! I haven't seen her since the beginning of May at her farewell as she has been having the most awesome trip ever. Mole. But we're meeting up in Krakow and gonna drink lots of Polish vodka! Interesting fact: Vodka here in Germany is spelt "Wodka". Still pronounced the same way. Ok, so that fact is not so much interesting as it is something I've stolen precious seconds of your life to force you to know.

2. I'm meeting up with Nicole in Ireland on 27th November!! I'm also seeing her this weekend when she comes to my state to visit family. She's been in Berlin the past couple of months. BUT most importantly, I'm seeing her in DUBLIN!! And we will drink Guinness for the first time and say things like, "BRILLIANT!"



Guinness in a bottle? BRILLIANT! Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure it will taste like shit, but it will taste like shit IN IRELAND. It's all relative, you know? It's science.

3. Fingers crossed, and it looks to be full steam ahead (but with me, it never does seem to work out. A house will probably fall on me. Some bitch will steal my shoes). I am hopefully (finally) going to see JUDITH in Munich on 7th November. And hopefully NADIA will be able to join us for the weekend. Hopefully everyone's workplaces will be the awesome places they are and give them that weekend off! (Flattery works, right?) I will finally be able to see my girls again and move into my home. You know, my home? I've only been crapping on about it since high school. But most importantly, seeing my girls again. Drinking Starbucks together, like old times' sake (only, I'm pretty sure the Starbucks in America didn't charge 4 Euros (or, AU$8) for a small latte...).

There's so much more I want to do except can't because of the money problems, time constraints, and uni commitments, which is another post altogether. And yes, you will unfortunately have to sit through another talking-about-uni-post. How quickly this blog has become my need.coffee blog. But it's part of my travel here and you need to deal with it.

Oh, and before I forget them, more books to add to the list of books for this year:
15. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
16. The Hellbound Heart, Clive Barker (for uni)
17. How Late it Was, How Late, James Kelman (for uni)

Can I recommend that everyone goes and reads the James Kelman one? Then we can all discuss how excellent the writing is and the nature of colonisation and the troubles of the working class and unreliable narrators. Do it!

Rome, if you want to! (and I know you do!)

I've done nothing over the last few weeks but whinge and moan about my language course. And I've forgotten to write about Rome - the best part of my trip BY FAR.

Photos from Rome can be found here. Pictures to go with the story!

The problem is that it feels like it was so long ago and there was so much stuff that happened that what I'm going to do is just write about it in dot points, because I know that no matter what I write I will never be eloquent enough to capture every perfect (and awkward) thing that happened to me.

- I took a train from Florence to Rome and found myself sitting next to a nun whilst I was wearing a strappy dress and reading Angels and Demons. "Come si dici, 'You're going to Hell,' in Italiano?" So shameful, but mostly because I was reading that tripe. ;)

- To add to my shame, I got to Rome and had no plan on what to do. I couldn't check into the hostel yet so I left m luggage there and headed into the blistering sun, looking for somewhere to eat lunch. Instead I noticed there were those open top buses waiting at the station so I ignored my inner travel snob, paid and hopped on. Things that aren't a good idea - leaving your hat in your suitcase, wearing a strappy dress and sitting on an open top bus for two hours in 37 degree weather. Burn baby, burn.

- My first glimpse of The Colosseum. Oh. My. God. This is one of those moments that I wished I wasn't travelling alone. That's a moment where I would have loved to have turned to someone and squealed. Instead I settled for wriggling around in my seat and having an inner squeal. Maybe a small audible one too.

- Spending a day exploring the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Would love to do this again when it's not painfully hot. As it was, by the time I had spent several hours in the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, I could barely muster the energy to wander the Forum properly. I was just trying to find a bit of shade.

- On my third day I started speaking to someone at breakfast who introduced me to her roomie named Catherine who was from Sydney and also Filippino. She was going to Vatican City that day so I invited myself alone (as one does) and explored St. Peter's Square and St. Peter's Basillica with her. Things that one shouldn't do: read Angels and Demons just before going to Rome. Seriously, I bought it because my English language book options were limited and I thought it was fitting to read something about Rome, but then everywhere in Rome I kept having Robert Langdon moments, or finding that I knew random trivia about the stuff I was looking at that I learnt from Dan Brown. Argh. So I'm there in St. Peter's Square thinking to myself, Oh yes, those are the Swisse Guards. Their uniforms were designed by Michelangelo. And there's the obelisk from that scene in the book where... Yep. Lame. But I also do love lame trivia. Like, did you know that the marble in St. Peter's is taken from the Colosseum? Yeah. Mmmhmm. I am so lame. Anyway, the museums were closed that day so we couldn't go. We ended up walking past Castel Sant'Angelo (another Langdon moment. GRRR) and to Piazza Navona where we had a lovely lunch and THE BEST GELATO OF MY LIFE. It was the size of my head. And it was only 2Euro. Freaking awesome. We also stopped by La Bocca della Verita`, or, the Mouth of Truth, and I put my hand in all Audrey-like and came out with it still intact. Because I am the epitome of virtue and never tell lies! Or, it's a -dare I say it?- FAKE! I'm gonna go with the virtuous line.

- How to follow up an awesome day: have one of the best nights of the trip! Met up with Catherine in the evening to have some drinks and dinner. Shared a bottle of wine, got a wee bit drunk, met some American girls (who make a comeback in the next evening - another great night), then went to the Trevi Fountain to see it all lit up. So did all the other tourists in the world. Not that atmospheric, but such an amazing fountain. HUGE. So beautiful. Then onto find the Colosseum to see it all lit up. On the way we were walking behind an Irish couple, and we soon all realised we were headed to the same place and we were all lost together, so we joined forces and found the Colossuem. How do you lose the Colosseum?? It's so bloody big! And AMAZING AT NIGHT. God. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. Anyway, the Irish couple were newlyweds on their honeymoon and the husband shouts us all beer and we end up drinking at chatting (at the Colosseum!) until about 1:30am. It was seriously just perfect. PERFECT.

- So I was supposed to be going to Pompeii the next day, but my alarm didn't go off. Thanks, alarm. So instead I went to the Villa Borghese gardens and to the Galleria Borghese. I have to recommend the Galleria to EVERYONE. It's filled with some of the most amazing Bernini scupltures (except stupid Langdon has ruined all things Bernini for me). Make sure you book ahead of time though because you can't just show up - you have to make a reservation. I then, managing at the same time to give myself the world's biggest bruise, made my way to the Spanish Steps. Didn't walk up them - what, am I crazy??? 40 degree heat and a bazillion steps? No thanks. I did see that there was a Shelley/Keats museum next to the steps and resolved to go back there on my last day.

- Went to the Vatican Museums. So good. Audio guide died two rooms before the Sistine Chapel. WHAT? That was the whole reason for me buying the damned thing. Grr. Had to settle for reading the tiny description in my travel guide. Oh yes, that's right. I bought a travel guide for Rome. And I carried with with me. It was one of those Frommer's Rome Day by Day. I highly recommend it. By this point in my trip I had no sense of tourist-snobbery left in me. And I also got a refund for the audio guide. I felt bad about that - I only wanted a partial refund but instead they gave me a whole one... Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that the Vatican can afford it. I've given lots of money over the years when those baskets come around in Church. (Which makes me think (and we all know I'm not a big fan of the "thinking") - surely if you're Catholic you should be allowed into all parts of the Vatican for free. Yes, St. Peter's is free, but the whole place should be free. The atefacts in those museums were plundered with monetary help from my Catholic ancestors! Surely I'm entitled to look at them for free. And so what if I'm an atheist? I don't have a certificate that says I'm an atheist, but I do have one that says I'm Catholic! Jews have that Law of Return thing for Israel, surely there should be some free ticket option for Catholics going to Vatican City. I'm just saying.)

- That night I started chatting to two Canadian girls whilst waiting for the two American girls who I was going to dinner with (the ones I met the day before). Turns out these girls were going to Pompeii the next day. I totally invited myself along, seeing as I had already bought my train ticket. The five of us went to dinner in Trastavere, a gorgeous, "authentic" part of Rome. (I'm always very cautious when other travellers and guide books tell you a particular area is "authentic".) But irregardless, the area is beautiful - lots of little laneways and restaurants everywhere, surrounding the main piazza. We went to the BEST restaurant called Da Ivo and had two of the greatest pizzas ever - you can choose from "red" and "white" pizzas (the red ones have a tomato sauce base, the white ones don't. I can't remember what our red pizza was (but I know that it was HEAVEN - I think it was eggplant and something else!), but the white pizza will live forever in the history books. It was - get this - gorgonzola cheese and apple. APPLE! Crazy. We chose it for novelty's sake, but then we took one bite and decided that we were done. This pizza is the food to end all food. The apple was very thinly shaved and the cheese complemented it perfectly. So good. We spent the rest of the night wandering around the River Tiber at the markets and bars set up there. Just another great night.

- Pompeii. First, let me start by saying we began very early. Very. Early. Met a group of bogan guys from Bondi. Why is it that Australian guys travelling overseas seem to need to travel in a uniform of sorts - typical Havs, bordies (Billabong, of course) and navy blue bonds singlet. And they all have the same hair. And they're all very loud. Travel snob returns!! But anyway, there were 8 of these guys altogether, and they were travelling in a group of 30!!! WTF?? Anyway, just wanted to point out that they annoyed me.

- People that also annoyed me: the girls I was with. Note to self: be wary of who you invite yourself along with. This was not the first time in Rome that my being friendly and inviting myself along with someone else backfired on me (note that I didn't mention the other incident. Interesting...). These girls just seemed so normal at first, and I thought it was great that they were classics majors and so were studying Ancient Greece and Rome at uni and so they knew a lot about the time and things like that. I hadn't spent enough time to realise that of course they knew everything in the world about everything, so our audio guide was stupid and pathetic ("Oh my GOD. Is the audio guide explaining to me what a basilica is? I already know what a basilica is! I could tell you what it is in my sleep!"), and they spent a lot of time talking to each other about the architecture of the place ("So they've used doric archways here. Oh, but is that ionic? Surely not!"). I think they were showing off a little in my presence, trying to alert me to the fact that I was a mere pleb. The incident of the day was when they noticed the various stones in the middle of the streets and were wondering what they are and started discussing the possibilities to each other. I had mostly been quiet during their entire showing off but was really confused by their confusion.
Me: Erm, they're stepping stones, aren't they?
Them: What?
Me: You know, stepping stones - so people could cross the roads (the roads are very deep).
Them: That doesn't make any sense.
Me: It makes plenty of sense - the roads are deep so there would have been a lot of dirt and general yuck (speaking like this probably doesn't help my cause in the eyes of the "intellectuals"), and people wouldn't have wanted to step in that so it would have been more hygenic to use the stepping stones to cross.
Them: (smirking) People weren't really that concerned with hygene in those days.
Me: Yeah, but you're not exactly going to want to turn up to someone's place with five inches of sewerage on your clothes. Besides, it's a bit of a climb down onto the road and then back up onto the sidewalk.
Them: But then why are there gaps between the stones? And why were there so many more stones down that street than there are on this street?
Me: The gaps are for carriages and things to get through, I guess, and there are more on that street because that was probably a main street, with lots of businesses and things.
Them: I doubt there were that many carriages. We'll have to ask our professors when we get back home.

PS. I was right, they were wrong, ner ner ner neeeer ner.

But anyway, general notes about Pompeii: So bloody hot. Definately the wrong time of year to go. But amazing to think it was all buried for how many hundreds of years and there's still so much of it there and intact.

- Last day in Rome was a disaster. I basically spent the whole day looking for a dress to wear to Lara's sister's wedding in a couple of day's time. It was lovely of my mother to let me know WITH SO MUCH NOTICE that she hadn't sent the one thing I had asked her to send 2 months previously, and had reminded her to send every week. It was great to find out on my last day in Rome when I wanted to spend it at the Ara Pacis and the Keats/Shelley museum. At least I found out I'd need to buy a new dress (with money I didn't have) after I'd seen the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks. So angry. Decided I'm done with her after a whole bunch of things in the last two months. Way to ruin Rome.

But you can't really ruin Rome because it is just so amazing. When I come home next year I'm starting up my Italian lessons again.

And really, the whole "dot point" thing didn't really work - each dot point is very long. You know me - I don't do "succinct".
Oh, and for those of you without access, here are pretty much all of the photos from my trip so far. I really can't be arsed putting them all on this blog because it's so much effort (seriously, for each picture you add it adds a gap between paragraphs and takes an hour to make it all neat and tidy. And I'm lazy).

London
After London, in Hatfield and Bath
Manchester and Northumberland
Paris
Scotland
Cuneo and Ventimiglia
Firenze
Marcus and Denny's Wedding (with the dress I ended up borrowing from Denny)
Berlin