Canada, the first 40 days!

Reality set in as we flew over the stunning Rockies! We were going to be landing in Vancouver soon… our new home! On our arrival we were greeted at the airport by Randal and Rachelle only to be whisked away to Randal’s apartment (now ours) and onwards to his friend’s boat where we watched the festival of light, an extravaganza of fireworks out in English Bay. Barely staying awake for the fireworks we managed to get back home and proceeded to sleep away the jet lag.

Vancouver is a beautiful city and I can see why it is rated as one of the most livable cities in the world. Walks on the sea walls, immaculate parks, luxury condos and a buzzing atmosphere surrounds the city. Vancouverites are friendly people and its not strange to get into conversations with someone in the same lift as you especially if you make a pleasant comment about their dogs. Yaletown is the yuppie area of Vancouver where everyone seems to be really successful and own several businesses although small dogs seem to have replaced children with many of the people that live here.

After our european binge Helen and I decided to get back into shape, the city was full of athletic fit people who are all body beautiful and this provided us with extra motivation to join the masses that cycle, run and rollerblade along the sea wall. On a trip down to Seattle we were surprised to notice that Americans are generally larger than people here in Vancouver, although that didn’t stop us from chowing down good ole doughnuts at the famous Pike Fish Markets.

With Helen getting a job within a couple of weeks I was left to plan our trip to Whistler. Whistler blew our minds, the weather was horrible but there was no shortage of activities that we could participate in. When we first arrived we checked in to our hotel and immediately started looking for activities. I managed to convince Helen to go white water rafting on the Green River. Helen mastered the rapids and only may have held on to the side of the boat once… me, I may have fallen out on to a rock but I blame the beautiful scenery of alpine mountains distracting me as we raced down the river. That night we relaxed in a hot tub and were entertained by an Irish Pub Band before spotting a black bear on the mountain side. The next day was booked with mountain biking and canoeing down the River of Golden Dreams. We are now amongst a select few who know this river as the River of Frozen Screams as we found out after capsizing our canoe after a beaver dam got in the way! Damn beavers! Damn Beaver Dam! Damn cold water!  The water was probably around 6 degrees. Apparently I was going too fast… thankfully our guide overturned our boat and got the water removed from it so we could continue.  He definitely earned his money with us! I slowed down after that.

Randal and Rachelle offered us a trip to Penticton last weekend and we gladly took it.  After a 4 hour drive we made it to the lakeside resort town and quickly went to the pub, which was the roughest I’ve been too since the Hutt; with leopard skin outfits and a solo guitarist playing Metallica I felt right at home. The next day we went to the Burrowing Owl vineyard where we proceeded to eat and drink gorgeous food and wine to a spectacular view of the Okanagan Valley, it was amazingly relaxing and we were prepped for a big night out with plenty of beers, strawberry margaritas and perhaps a little gambling at the casino.

Its been a blast so far and we are looking forward to what’s to come! Huge thanks to Randal and Rachelle for looking after us on our arrival and getting us out all the time!!!

D

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Relaxing in the UK

After a high speed train ride to Calais, a ferry across the English Channel, a bus ride to Victoria Station, the Tube to Richmond and a quick bus ride we arrived in Twickenham; my home of two years. Walking up the steps to the White Swan gave me goosebumps and I was very nervous to see all my friends once again. We sat waiting at the Swan wondering when they would appear and sure enough Tom Ganf arrived; it was great catching up with Tom and he gave us a brief rundown on what every one was up to over a cold Guinness. From the White Swan to the hospitality of Dan and Lisa’s beautifully renovated house, their place is amazing! Roy told me before we arrived that we were going to be staying at the best place in Twickenham and he was right. After a quick curry and a beer (to be repeated for four of the five nights we were here) we hit the sack and were out like a light, only to be woken early by the mischievous Mingles who only fueled the fire of Helen’s desire to get a cat.

The next day we did the tourist thing and travelled into London. First stop the London Eye which provided a panoramic view of London, the day was almost clear and the view was spectacular. From the London eye to Westminster Abbey; perhaps one of the more historical churches on the trip with plenty of English Kings, Queens, Lords and Ladies resting here. Then we made our way to Green Park towards Buckingham Palace. The Palace was only 200 meters away when the heavens opened and we were caught in a downpour! Sheltering under a tree we bolted it to the nearest tube station to be whisked back to the safety of Twickenham. Hampton Court Palace was planned for the next day where we wandered the gardens, hardly got lost in the maze and paced the halls of Henry the VIII residence. Saturday night arrived and we were treated to Dan and Lisa’s wedding anniversary, a lot of the old swan crowd (and some new!) arrived and the catching up continued into the early hours of the morning. We caught the train to Wales on Sunday where we met up with Rachael and Jason who are living it up over there! We were treated to the Big Cheese at Caerphilly Castle, one of the great medieval castles of Europe. Having never made it to Wales before we loved the relaxed atmosphere! Back to London on Monday where we finally made it to Buckingham Palace and all the other sites and sounds of London; Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Covent Garden.

Watford: The Return

On Tuesday I succumbed to Helen’s request to visit her old home, Watford. After an arduous trip on the tube towards the outer edge of London we arrived in Watford. We walked the streets aimlessly until Helen recognized a landmark when she was here last (as a 5 year old). Unfortunately Helen didn’t recognize anything until we stumbled upon Granville Road and the terraced house she used to live. We then walked to her old school which was all locked up over the summer break, but we still managed to look really dodgy by peaking over the fence. On our return to Twickenham we stopped off at the Camden Markets where I replaced my Atari t-shirt and then had a final drink at the swan, where my baby photos are still hanging (sorry Mum). We managed to have a quick rest before heading off for Vancouver at the crack of dawn!

Thanks for catching up with you all (sorry to those I missed out on), and I hope to see you again sometime soon. Big thanks to Lisa, Dan, Rachael and Jason for looking after us!!!

D

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Viva la France!

We weren’t sure whether we would get to France after our last night in Roses as ‘planned’ because we hadn’t actually planned or booked anything! We got up early and tried to cram in as much dry bread, ham and cheese, oily eggs and bacon and too strong coffee as possible, just because it was included in the tariff, not because it was good for us. We then finished packing and high-tailed it to the bus stop where we caught a local bus to connect with another bus which took us to Figueres, the closest city where we could catch a bus to France. We booked two of the last seats left for the coach to Toulouse, southern France, whew! The bus turned up 45 minutes late. Oh well, such is the Spanish way of life as I tried to explain to a slightly worried Derek. We sat on the bus for around 4 1/2 hours including a half hour unscheduled bus stop for our crazy driver to catch up with some of his mates and a bite to eat. We made it in to Toulouse just after 4:00pm and decided to stay at a hotel right next door to the railway station, very convenient for the following day’s train trip to Dijon.

We left Toulouse just before midday and proceeded to sit on a train for nearly 4 hours to Avignon where we switched trains and sat on another train for another 4 1/2 hours, finally getting there at 9:00pm…Dijon is a lovely little city and we’re so glad we made the effort to get there. The following day we had to do an obligatory wine tasting mission (Dijon is not only the home of mustard (we didn’t see or taste any mustard by the way, I think it’s all a hoax) but the capital of the Burgundy wine region) and were half cut in the French countryside by 2:00pm…life is so very tough. We managed to get back to the hotel in time to ask the very obliging bar manager to switch channels from the live Tour de France coverage to the Rugby (!) and caught the final half hour or so of the AB’s/Aussie match - victory!! How satisfying.

The following day we killed time doing exciting stuff like laundry prior to catching the train over to Paris, arriving once again in the evening. Paris was a little bit daunting but we managed to get to our hotel with surprising ease via the metro. The next day it rained!! Noooooo!! But that that didn’t stop us; we went and saw the Lourve (note, saw, didn’t go in), the Notre Dame, the Opera House (as you will see, a stunning building), and walked up the Champs de Elysées and looked at the Arc de Triomphe. By that stage our feet were killing us so we caught the metro back to the hotel and didn’t move to far for dinner that evening.

The next day was far more promising weather wise so we took a train out to the Château de Versailles, in Versailles. King Louis The Something (aka The Sun King) expanded what was a royal hunting lodge into the largest palace in the world. In true kiwi style we couldn’t be bothered queuing up for three hours to get into the Palace itself so we took the garden option instead; it’s free! You could easily spend a day wandering around the gardens - as we didn’t have a day we hired bikes which was heaps of fun and a more exciting way to see the park. That evening we set out for the piste de resistance (sorry, King Louis) - the Eiffel Tower! We walked up, because the queue to walk was heaps shorter…do you see a theme here?! We rewarded our efforts with a beer when we reached the first platform. We tried our luck at one of the restaurants but were told with snobby undertones that it was fully booked all night - bugger. Was it the sneakers? Was it the jeans? Was it the Icebreaker? Was it the Knight Rider t-shirt? Probably. We were told the light show starts at 9:00pm so we ran back down the stairs and across the road to get a good posse only for it not to happen…probably because it was still light…so a nice dinner and a bottle of wine later we saw the 11:00pm show and it was awesome! I jumped up and down like an excited kid!

Bar one altercation on the metro on our last night, the French were really great; the hotel staff and restaurant waiters were all super friendly and super helpful which I wasn’t really expecting after everything you hear and especially when Derek and I only know two words in French; merci and deux - Yoplait and ménage à trois don’t really count!. They love their little dogs and it seems you can take them everywhere, quite strange when you see one walking down the train aisle! A little French lesson; Fou (a la Derek Foo) in English means crazy, what you are if you buy a real Louis Vuitton handbag.

H

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The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain

Well it doesn’t really, we didn’t see one drop of rain. Only blue skies and soaring temperatures. After a dodgy flight with Ryan Air (be aware; no seats are allocated, mad rush ensued which resulted in us not being able to sit together) we arrived in Girona and spent a night here, a beautiful historical town with a lively town square where we had an abundance of tapas and drinks. The next morning we made our way to Barcelona, and with my own personal Spanish guide (Helen) I felt safe in the knowledge that we could communicate with the locals… only to find out later that the local lingo is Catalan, a derivative of Spanish. Barcelona is an amazing, hot, bustling, tourist mecca. The architecture and vibe of the city stems from the brilliant architect Gaudi who masterminded the Sagrada Familia which is still being built today. We purchased two days travel on the Bus Turista which has three routes through Barcelona and gives a running commentary on each of the plentiful tourist attractions and historical buildings. Our three days were too few in this place, you need a lot more time to soak up the atmosphere and visit each attraction!

Whilst in Girona Helen befriended our taxi driver who proceeded to tell us to go north towards the Costa Brava and Roses after our time in Barcelona. We took his advice and proceeded to Roses by bus from Barcelona. On our arrival we checked into the Hotel Rosamar. We ditched our gear and headed straight for the beach where hundreds of French and Spanish tourists flock to during the holiday months (in fact, Spanish was even more useless here as most people spoke French). We found a nice spot on the beach and stripped down to our swim wear. That’s when I noticed how tanned everyone was and how pasty white we were; think of two solitary dull stars in the night sky, well we were those stars. We ran into the water pretty quickly to hide and body surfed that afternoon. The next day we hired a bike and rode around the white sandy bays, this was exactly how you would imagine the Mediterranean to be, beautiful villas overlooking sandy bays and crystal clear water. That night we went to a restaurant where a beautiful singer and an keyboardist where putting on a show. After a few too many wines I convinced Helen to dance with me, we were the only ones on the dance floor but thankfully the song finished soon after. The singer then came over to our table and convinced me to join her (after losing Rock, Scissors, Paper against Helen) where I proceeded to dance with my two left feet. She quickly gave up on me and grabbed Helen who did a far better job than I could ever manage. On our final day in Roses we took a cruise along the coast, where we were allowed to swim off the boat with its own built in water slide! It was a good relaxing break from the hustle and bustle of the major cities we have been visiting, however, if you do come to Roses make sure your room has air conditioning. We sacrificed a teeny tiny room for a bigger room with no air conditioning (hotel is being renovated) so we had to sleep with our sliding door open only to be woken each morning by seagulls which had the loudest most annoying squawks ever.

D

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Derek’s Big Mac Challenge

I, Derek, have taken it upon myself to taste a Big Mac in each country we visit. This blob is dedicated to all that is Big Mac and will contain many pictures of me stuffing my face with a Big Mac.

Shanghai, China: Being convenient as always, a store was not hard to find. Translation of “Big Mac” was slightly difficult but the point and wave technique worked successfully. The classic “box” wrap preserved the freshness and taste of the burger. Overall the Big Mac was great, beware the pickles though, probably best left out of the burger as they tasted like pickled Korean entrees…

Stuttgart, Germany: A McDonalds was hard to find in Stuttgart but after some walking and pub hopping we stumbled across one. The fresh bun and delicious meat patties went down the gullet very quickly, the “Big Mac” tasted very much like a “Big Mac” back home. With all the beautiful German food around it is hard to stay true to the “Big Mac” challenge…

Innsbruck, Austria: Austria is riddled with stores and a Big Mac was not hard to find, and, after a long day going up and down cable cars it was well deserved. I have to say this one tasted a lot like the German Big Mac.

Zurich, Switzerland: After a big night out with Silvana and plenty of beer we passed a McDonalds on our way home. It was about that time of night that a tasty Big Mac will help settle the stomach. The Big Mac was a little dry as I was scraping the bottom of the barrel at that time of night, however the store itself was impressive with Internet and audio facilities, Big Mac Italy here I come!

Italy: Derek’s Big Mac Challenge encountered a small hiccup through Italy. I was unable to eat a Big Mac although several opportunities were given (If you liked to wait in queues for 40+ minutes). However, my brother Randal (who was in Venice when we were there) did manage to have an Italian Big Mac. He said “Italy big macs are crap”, so I wasn’t disappointed about missing out on them. Let the challenge continue in Spain!

Barcelona, Spain: To make up for Italy two Big Macs were to be consumed in Spain… at the same time. We found a McDonalds on the water front of the Olympic Village and decided that this was the one must have been for the athletes. I ordered two Big Macs and proceeded to stuff my face. This was done at speed; before my brain realized I couldn’t eat anymore. Spanish Big Macs are the greasiest of the lot and had a few burnt bits throughout, giving it a crunchy texture.

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Madness in Italy!

Venice:

We sadly left Interlaken and went by train to Zurich and then onto Venice, in Italy. Were slightly worried about missing our connecting train from Zurich (we only had 9 minutes up our sleeve) but as usual, the Swiss were excellent time keepers and our connections went very smoothly! An Austrian guy who lives in Zurich sat opposite us and inevitably bought up the America’s Cup (they had just won it)…grrr…so I proceeded to tell him that about 11 of the crew were kiwi’s anyway; I don’t think he was too impressed with that comment. He got off in Milan and an Italian man living in Vancouver got on with his younger Hong Kong wife and kid (second marriage) and proceeded to ply us with wine - very nice!! We arrived in Venice at around 7:30pm and promptly got lost thanks to the shocking directions for the hotel…and the fact that we didn’t have a map…the following day we travelled into Venice (the island) and spent the whole day wondering around this crazy place. The tourists! The rubbish!! The expensive Gondola ride (had to be done)!!! The weather was sweltering so we just took our time wandering around slowly, getting completely lost in the little alleyways and indulging in a long lazy lunch and rewarding ourselves with refreshing gelato in the afternoon. That night, clean washing had reached desperation point (for Derek anyway, with his four t-shirts) so we walked around the corner to the Laundromat and befriended some Korean lads who we managed to convince to join us for dinner. We exchanged emails and web addresses and have since heard from our new friend Hyuk who says that meeting us was the highlight of his month overseas. How awesome are we. The following morning we bid a not so fond farewell to Nice Hotel (yes, that’s right, not wonderful, not fantastic, just Nice) where the man in charge was the grumpiest and surliest Italian man you could ever imagine), hoofed it to the station and caught a train down to ROMA.

OMG Rome is nuts:

We had a wild introduction to Rome! We made our way to a taxi stand where a massive argument ensued over us between two taxi drivers. We chose a taxi and then proceeded to have the scariest taxi ride of my life! The other taxi driver caught up to us and they started to argue between the cars at each other, in the middle of Rome! Our driver’s blood pressure reached boiling point and many. many dodgy overtaking maneuvers, taking corners at high speed and yet another America’s Cup conversation thrown in for good measure (he had calmed down by this stage to have a chat with us) later, we arrived at our hotel, relatively unscathed! The following morning we got dropped off at The Vatican where we spent many hours. The Vatican is very impressive, and the Sistine Chapel is an absolute must see in my books. The Egyptian Museum was one of the most interesting - it had a 3000 year old mummy! The next day was another BIG day, but luckily it wasn’t as hot as we had a lot of walking to do! We got dropped off at the Metro and took the underground to the Colosseum. It was amazing just walking out onto to the street and there it is, right in front of you! We also visited the Roman Forum, the Pantheon (Raphael is buried here amongst others), Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. What a day; the camera took a bashing! This was our final full day in Italy - next up Spain!

Tricks and Tips:

Taxi drivers enjoy ripping naive tourists like us off. Luckily, we only got mildly ripped off by the hot blooded taxi driver and after learning from the hotel staff how they like to operate, we actively avoided taxis and used public transport or pounded the pavements instead. If you call for a taxi they will start charging from the phone call and then add at least another 2.50 Euro pick up fee or something, when they arrive. Keep an eye on the meter. Our driver turned it off before we had a chance to see what it cost (we were just so relieved we made it alive!) and then said it was 39 Euro “including luggage”. Hmmmm. We were later advised that we should have run into the hotel, double checked what the cost should be and then have it out with the driver if it’s too excessive. Our ride should have cost 20 - 25 Euro.

Restaurants in the hot spots often add a ‘table charge’ to your bill so don’t feel bad about not leaving a tip, if you can still afford to after eating at these places! Well, we didn’t anyway!

We recommend buying the audio guides which give you information on all the things you’re looking at.

Ladies; throw your no-carb diet out the window with reckless abandon! It’s pretty hard to avoid pasta and bread over here, let alone the cheese, cheese, cheese!

H

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Highs and Lows of Switzerland

We arrived into Zurich shrouded in low lying cloud and drizzle on a late Monday afternoon. Following the hustle and bustle of the banking city to we arrived at the Hotel Otter for a one night stay. If anyone must stay in Zurich this is the place to stay, we had a crazy themed Japanese room, the internet was free, they provided croissants for breakfast and most importantly there was a popular local pub on the ground floor. The only drawback was shared bathroom facilities, but if you had the “hover” technique mastered these were quite bearable (Helen would like to point out that I’ve never hovered in my life). We ate out at a popular Swiss restaurant that night, Restaurant Weiser Wind, where a non-smoking table “would be difficult to find”, the goulash was amazing and I highly recommend it. We checked out of Hotel Otter at midday the next day and moved a few blocks down to the Zic Zac Hotel (now referred to as the Shit Shack). When checking in we were told that our booked room had been closed (we didn’t ask why) and we had been downgraded to another room. What a warm welcome that was…pause…not! The room was pretty shit. Then the rain started again, hampering our efforts to escape the Shit Shack. We succumbed and bought an umbrella so we could get amongst it. The next day was a much better improvement, we got up early and took a bus to the Rhinefalls the biggest waterfall in Europe where 700 cubic meters of water passes through it every second. That night, after much organising and missed calls, we met up with Silvana! It was so much fun reminiscing over her year in NZ and having a good old catchup.

Thursday came and we boarded the train for Interlaken, the train ride was spectacular with beautiful views of green mountains with little hillside villages and blue lakes. We arrived into an overcast Interlaken and checked in to the Rugenpark B&B. This was by far the friendliest accommodation we have had since leaving, we were greeted by Ursula who sorted us out and recommended we travel to the Trummelbach falle in the Lauterbrunnen valley. The waterfalls were inside a mountain and were fed by the highest peaks in Switzerland; the Monch (4107m), the Eiger (3970m) and the elusive Jungfrau (4158m). Walking along the Lauterbrunnen valley we came across the Conitki base camp, ah the fond memories of drinking too much. As we headed to the train station to get back to Interlaken we heard a flapping noise from above, quick instincts warned us to look up and when we did there was a guy falling from a cliff directly for us! He released his parachute 50m from the ground and gently floated onto a paddock, we had a brief chat to him and he seemed like a normal French guy, no nervous twitches or crazy eyes, then he packed up his chute and walked off for another jump. He had done 3 - 4 jumps that day of 450 metres…crazy. We went to bed with our fingers crossed that the clouds would lift. When we woke it was still overcast, alas no Jungfrau trip on this holiday, Helen got lucky too, she was going to get her head buried in snow if we made it up there. We went white water rafting instead, the company we went with was run by Kiwis so it felt just like Queenstown. There were some good rapids, and a lot of spills (some on purpose). The water was freezing cold - being only 2 hours off the glacier! I don’t think Helen paddled once, she was too busy holding on. That afternoon our guide Tony told us that we should hike up the top of the Harder Kulm (1322m) for some great views - we bailed on that idea and took the cable car up and walked back down. We nearly regretted walking down - an hour and a half of steep downhill started to take it’s toll. Our leaving day came quickly and the clouds had to lift when we had run out of time. Poos. Goodbye Jungfrau, we will be seeing you again (if i keep my promise to Helen).

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Punks and Mountains in Austria

We found Austria had a completely different feel to it compared with Germany. Generally the people weren’t as friendly, they looked a bit rougher, none of the rubbish bins were being emptied and the train station was FULL of nasty looking Punks so we think/hoped there was some kind of event on that weekend (given that it was a Saturday) and this was not the usual Innsbruck crowd. The instructions to our hotel were pretty shocking; it only took us 50 minutes to work out which tram to take and then find the right street to get off on and locate the hotel! It was a shame we stayed where we did as it was obviously on the non-tourist side of town (read: not so attractive) so we didn’t find out how pretty Innsbruck was until the following day which was noticeably absent of Punks, although we did get told off by a Policeman for crossing the road on the red man! Punk! Fair enough though I suppose, it was a Sunday so he had nothing better to do (everything was closed) and we did it right in front of him, as he drove past us…ha ha. We bought an Innsbruck card which saved us some money and which we used to scale the Seegrube and to get into the Swarovski crystal museum and shop. The crystals had an amazingly magnetising power over me and I ended up walking out of the shop with a purchase. How did that happen?! The weather was hot, hot, hot but lucky for us because the following morning, when we left Innsbruck the mountains were shrouded in low cloud. Phew! Great timing!

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Leaving Fair Germany

We’ve just left Anja on platform 15 at the Stuttgart train station and we’re on the train heading to Innsbruck Austria! We had a really great time in Germany and we thank Anja who travelled five hours to meet us in Frankfurt. She never once got tired of teaching us and correcting our poor attempts at speaking German (words)! Stuttgart was lovely and we really felt very comfortable here except for the two days Derek spent sitting on the bog after picking up a nasty parasite, probably after eating chicken feet in China. What with me losing my voice we were quite the exciting couple (sorry Anja!). Poor Derek - he spent one whole day in bed while Anja and I went shopping, so actually that worked out quite well. On our last full day we went up the TV Tower which was the first one to be built out of concrete and got an amazing view of the Stuttgart region which helped me with my bearings (I am a terrible navigator!) and visited the ‘old’ and ‘new’ castles and the market place.

Top Tip - Koehler Hotel.

You must go here if you’re in Stuttgart. We ended up going eating here two nights in a row, because it offers typical German food in a cosy family run hotel/restaurant and was conveniently (for Derek) located just down the road! We had a feeling it would be good because it shares the same surname as Anja. On the second night we were there we were treated to some Schnapps and then as we were leaving we were given a slab of Lindt chocolate to go with the bottle of wine we were taking back to the hostel. Nice.

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Deutschland ist Zischen!

We’re pleased to report that we managed to escape the Shanghai madness and are now feeling much more comfortable in Stuttgart, Germany! We could actually see the countryside flying into Frankfurt, we can hear birds, see the sky and breathe clean air! As you can probably tell, the novelty of being in China wore off pretty quickly…it all became too much…After the tea ceremony we went to eat at a restaurant along The Bund only to discover that half of the restaurant was being demolished in front of our eyes so after downing our beers we high tailed it out of there. The following day we wanted to hit the markets so we got the hotel to order a taxi to take us to a cheap shopping district but we got delivered to probably the most expensive shopping mall in Shanghai. Unfortunately legitimate Versace, Prada and Gucci wasn’t in our travel budget, and after walking for many blocks we were about to give up when a hawker approached us…curiosity got the better of us and we decided to go with him to check out his wares. He ended up taking us to one of the dodgiest alleyways you’ll ever see (think very dark, wet, slimy sprinkled with aging asian men sitting on old plastic crates). There was no way we were venturing down there; the alleyway was like a t-intersection so we had no way of knowing what would be waiting for us around the corner; if only we could access Google Earth!. He took us next door to a bunch of shops but we didn’t buy anything. He then tried to convince us to go back down the alleyway but to no avail; 12 out of 10 for trying though! That night we ventured out to a fantastic local chinese restaurant which we wish we had found the night before - we were somewhat of a novelty and therefore treated like royalty! The next day we took a taxi back to the Maglev and zipped back to the airport. Anja was waiting for us at Frankfurt airport with a big red sign reading “Kia Ora Helen and Derek welcome to Germany” which we thought was hilarious! We spent the night in Frankfurt and then this morning we caught the train down to Stuttgart and spent the afternoon in town catching up with Meike (the first intern that I met at ENZT) and drinking beer, of course; we’re in Germany!

Summary of Germany so far:

Germany has lots of castles!
Internet access is fantastic - both hostels have free internet and the hostel in Frankfurt had wireless. You could even plug in on the train - awesome
Derek’s german is not crash hot - asking for something in German and being replied to in English isn’t a good sign - but at least he’s trying and doing better then me - travel sickness has taken hold; I have completely lost my voice!

H