Travelling the Bavarian countryside

Hi! We have been busy in the last few days, and it feels like it was a long time ago that we left home, probably because we have been to so many places in the last few weeks.

Neven showed us around his town of Darmstadt, Frankfurt, neaby towns and we saw old Roman walls and ruins from nearly 2000 years ago, and quaint Bavarian towns with sagging, 500 year old houses and cobblestone streets that wind up the hill to the ancient little church. Then we got a ride through a ride-sharing agency (much cheaper than the train) to Munich where we stayed in a guy's apartment for free. He was a member of a hospitality club that is all over the world and you can email different families and ask to stay in their spare room or on their couch, or whatever they have available. It is a great system, they get to meet people from all over the world, and we have free places to stay if we are organized enough to plan a week or so ahead, and get to meet many people.

We went to Oktoberfest with an Indonesian student studying medicine in Germany (Amber and Hardy bailed on Munich and Oktoberfest) and Mike drank a one litre glass mug of beer and ate a pretzel that was one foot across. Oktoberfest was similar to Kondike Days but everything was way bigger and better. The beer tents were huge, with a thousand people in each of the seven or eight tents, all drinking and banging on tables to the live brass band music being played in the centre, and crashing foamy mugs of beer together (Prost!). Many people were wearing lederhosen and funny hats with long feathers sticking out of them. It was very crowded and noisy and the whole atmosphere was drunken (surprise, surpise).

We took a two hour train from Munich to Füssen on September 21, which is a gorgeous little town just 1 km north of the Austrain border, surrounded by huge mountains and rolling green fields with cows wearing bells. We stayed on the edge of a mountain lake and did some hiking in the mountains. We visited a beautiful castle that was supposed to be the inspiration for Disney's Fantasyland castle, and it was gorgeous, every finished wall was painted with murals depicting operatic scenes from legends.

We hitchiked yesterday the 300 km from Füssen to Nüremburg. It took us 6 or 7 rides and nearly 7 hours, but we almost never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride and every ride was very friendly and told us about Germany and Europe and the EU. The "Romantic Road" we took wound through some of the most beautiful countryside and little red-roofed villages in all of Germany. I think our Canadian flag patches help alot.

We spent last night at a hostel in a castle, and it was really neat, except for the screaming kids on school trips staying there as well. Today we are going to see a museum about the Nazis, and soon we will be off to Berlin.

We will put more photos on Mike's site when we find a computer that can download the photos.

Take care and we hope it has not snowed too much already!

Mike and Carli-Ann

Struwwelpeter!

We are staying here in Darmstadt with Neven and his Mom, Dad and Sister. Neven was Matthew´s exchange student in 2002. All the streets here are cobblestone, and the houses are all connected in rows about 3 stories tall. The ceilings are all about 12 feet high.

Yesterday we went to Frankfurt for the day while Neven went to work; it is a 20 minute double decker train ride from Darmstadt. We walked for nearly 8 hours (the only way to see a city but we miss our bikes). Carli-Ann got pooped on by one of the pigeons (Neven says this almost never happens but I don't see how it couldn't with so many pigeons and so many people and so many benches under trees). We went into a museum dedicated to Struwwelpeter, a children´s book character from the mid-1800's who gets into trouble due to his bad hygeine habits...it was tough to figure out what we were looking at at first, but usually when we are travelling we aren't completely sure what is going on around us! We toured the cathedral and ate a brownie at a nutelleria (you guessed it: a bakery dedicated to the divine art of baking using Nutella as the primary ingredient!). And Mike took us into a store, for fun we went up 8 stories of escalators and by chance we found a rooftop to watch the sunset over Frankfurt while the many church bells tolled! It was a very impressive view!

We are trying to add more photos to our website so be patient!

Cheers!

Guten tag

Hi everyone! After a long journey we are now in Darmstadt, Germany! We took a 7 hour, ~400km bus ride from Chester, Cheshire through over 100 round-a-bouts to the London Stansted airport. There, we got a plane (which was late) to the Frankfurt-Hahn airport, which we wrongly assumed was near Frankfurt where our friend Neven was to meet us. It turned out to be about 120km to the west, near Luxemburg. So, obviously, Neven was not there, so we found a nice, cheap hotel for €35/night. It looked like an IKEA commercial! There was a big breakfast there for only €3 each. In the morning, we could take a bus to Frankfurt, then another to Darmstadt, but we were feeling adventurous, so we made a sign that said our destination, stuck our thumbs out and stood on the on-ramp to the autobahn. We waited there in the light drizzle under our Japanese umbrellas while I played a riff on the harmonica. 20 minutes later, a small German semi-truck picked us up. He took us right to where we were going and taught us some German (including the word for pumpkin, and some rude German driving words).

Life in England

A few things we did... We toured the Liverpool Cathedral, a massive stone building which took nearly 100 years to build. We went up to the roof of the tower for a magnificent view of Liverpool. We took a photo on Penny Lane, which was difficult to find since the signs had been stolen. We looked through John Lennon´s glasses in the Beatles museum. We walked around the perimeter of Chester´s ancient - nearly 2000 year old - Roman walls then took a relaxing boat ride down the river Dee. We went to a traditional Anglican service in a "new" church which was built of stone about 100 years ago. On the walk back from church we saw a squashed hedgehog on the side of the road. Very sad! English hedgehogs are bigger and browner than Turnip (he is an African pigmy hedgehog) We photographed a Cheshire cat before it completely vanished - under a car.

We made it!

We made it! We are staying with Gren and Beryl in a village about 20 miles southwest of Manchester. We've spent a nice relaxing day here after arriving at 9am this morning and have taken tea four times already! We've added some photos so be sure to check my photo site.

Gren and Beryl have been keeping us very busy. We have visited two churches over 700 years old, saw some pubs with tree branches twisting around their entrances to look like hobbit holes, walked down canals lined with long houseboats painted with flowers, enjoyed their garden with pink English roses and a pear tree and tall hedges that we are certain must be hiding British hedgehogs, and drank plenty of tea.

Tomorrow we are going to Liverpool to see a cathedral and the Beatles museum and many other sights, I am sure. We have lined up our plans to be visiting Neven near Franfurt next week, so our time in Europe has begun as a smashing success! (Mike already claims to have picked up the accent)

Cheerio!

P.S Any souvenir requests gladly taken, the earlier the better!

Almost Ready!

We're almost ready to go! Just a couple of more days!


We are expecting regular correspondence from Turnip, as is his usual fashion. He moved to Nanaimo a couple of weeks ago. Carli-Ann's sister Lisa has adopted him.

Last day of work!

Today is the last day of work for both of us! Very exciting! Just 5 more days till we leave!