Berlin

G'day folks!

Before we made our way all the way down to Munich and Oktoberfest, Sonja and myself decided to make a detour through Berlin, the capital of this majestic and powerful country. We checked into our 10 bed dorm which turned out to just be two single beds in a lovely quiet room - Sweet! Berlin is big on three things - History, politics and party. For the start of our time in Berlin though, Sonja and myself just focused on the history. Sonja proved herself to be as good as any guide someone could pay for, but at the same I could tell her if something was boring the hell out of me. She also added all her own experiences into each part of the city from her previous trips.

Throughout the city you can find a few pretty cool fountains that sort of "Dance" I guess. They squirt up in synchronised patterns and it's a nice decoration for a built up city. One day on a free day with a school trip, S-daw and a few of her school mates bought a couple crates of beer, ripped off their clothes and played in the fountains for the day. With the beer drinking age of 16, no-one was breaking any laws, although I'm sure a lot of people were staring. Sounds like fun!

Anyway, we spent the day walking around the entire city, and I learnt a lot about how Germans deal with what happened in the war in every day life. Sonja told me about at school where the teachers would just drill into their heads how awful and mean the Germans were in the war and that everyone hated them. In every country, most kids just learn about their own country's history, and in Germany, the war was a pretty significant peice of history I guess.

When the sun goes down in Berlin, the history of the city takes a back seat and party takes control. Not tonight though for us, we decided to find somewhere really nice to eat and just have a quiet one. We found a greek restaurant with prices not too hideous and chowed down on. Bloody hell the greeks must eat a lot. Even as I was sitting there starving for most of the day, I struggled to eat half of what was on my plate - Sonja had the same problem, but she got through a quarter. The lady who served us seemed convinced that we thought the food sucked, but I would be disgusted to find out if anyone could finish one of those.

The next day we set out on an adventure to find some currywurst (A chopped up sausage that is covered in a curry sauce and sprinkled with curry powder, pretty brilliant). Berlin and Hamburg are rivals for who has the best currywurst. Although I couldn't taste a huge difference, I definitely think I preferred the Hamburg ones. Sonja said there was no comparison and that the Berlin one tasted like ass...I guess the Germans are pretty passionate about it. They all hate Australian sausage, and despite German sausages knocking the Australian attempts way out of the park in excellence, I think I can still go home and enjoy a good ol' sausage sizzle with onion on white bread.

Having been on a few pub crawls myself, I guess Sonja was sick of hearing about them and just finally wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so she decided that we should take on one of the Berlin pub crawls. We picked a good looking one from the outrageously large list of options and met up at the meeting point for the "30 minutes of free beer". That alone should have told us it was going to be a big night.

Not long into the journey we met a English chap hanging out with a group of three girls from Belgium and we almost became inseparable from the throughout the night. They were all pretty cool and that girl's hair was amazing.

When I mentioned that I was going to make my way Belgium, they went crazy and all offered me a beer and couch to sleep on on my arrival there. It turns out not many tourists go there - Sounds pretty good to me! They warned me of the beer in Belgium though - The most common one's over 10%.

As the night went on, free shots were being thrown at us every time we turned around and before too long, we were both unbelievably drunk. As everyone made their way to the final destination - A crappy club that all pub crawls end up at, Sonja and myself decided to bail on the idea as we wouldn't have even made it inside the door. Throughout the whole time in Berlin Sonja was the navigator, but this evening was my turn apparently, even though I couldn't understand what she was saying most of the time and I could hardly see in front of me.

Somehow we made it back to the hostel, but it wasn't pretty. The pub crawl was a long night, but the next day was even longer for poor old Sonja, she couldn't physically sit upright in the bed until midday and couldn't get out of the bed until 4. This was a hangover I hope to never experience myself.

With the day to myself, I went for a three hour walk to a half built monument, sat in a park on a bench watching people for an hour and went on a quest to find Berlin's best bratwurst (Plain, big, fat Sausage, sometimes served with mustard, tomato sauce and a roll). For the capital city of Germany, the capital country of sausages, it was so bloody hard to find one. It's not just a touristy thing either, the locals love them, so why was no-one selling the bloody things?

Shortly after my return to the hostel at about 5ish, we heard knocking at our door and it was Lucy and Callum! We weren't supposed to see them until we got to Munich. They were really hungry, so we took them to the same Greek place we went to a couple nights before. Sonja was still very slow in moving, but made a pretty good effort as she hadn't seen either of them for 2 or 3 months - since she left Townsville.

7am the next morning we made our way out the doors of the hostel as a group of four and made our way to Munich, bags on backs. We filed onto the bus, with about 30 other smelly Australian backpackers. Everything that was said on the bus was in German, and after translating it to me, Sonja noticed all the other Australians leaning over to try and hear what was being said too, so eventually she just turned around, and yelled out what was being said for everyone to hear. I felt pretty lucky to have my own private translator.

I told you last time that this blog would be about Oktoberfest, but I promise you the next one will actually be about it!!

For now though, keep being awesome and I'll whack up the next blog soon!

Byyyyyyye!

Dialogue in the Dark

Ooook!

So we've seen the Reeperbahn, the Lake Alster and we've eaten German food. This next story is not special to Germany by any means, but it still happened in Hamburg. Sonja had been reading and reading about something called "Dialogue in the Dark" since before she even went to Australia and as she never got around to going to it, she saw my visit as the perfect excuse. Of what she'd told me, I had a very vague idea of what exactly we were going to get ourselves into, and I'm not sure if Sonja knew much more than me. Basically, what I was told is that you go to a building, and are taken into a set of rooms all in complete darkness. The idea of it is to show people what it's like to be blind.

We arrived about 30 minutes before we were due to start our little tour, and slowly and slowly, more and more people turned up and we waiting with us. A quick check and listen around the room made me discover that I, again, was the only person with no German speaking skills. This means it's always going to be fun. Finally, our group was called and it was our time to start. Walking into the first room, a lady stood at the front of the group and said "Who is the English speaker?". I raised my hand and she gave me a card with a list of pointers and things to and not to do. While I was reading, she explained everything I was reading to the group. If there ever was a chance to learn some more German, I guess that was it, but due to everyone speaking German, I thought I'd better concentrate on the things I wasn't supposed to do. I'd never want to get a German angry, they sound angry enough when they're just telling a joke.

So after the rules, we were given our walking canes and we were pushed through a curtain, where our eyes had to adjust to being in the darkness, and then we were put through a door where EVERYTHING was in complete darkness. I cannot being to express how dark this was. Sonja leaned over to me and said "Geoff...It's actually pitch black, I never though a room could be so black". And she was not wrong, there wasn't a flashing exit sign, a little speck of like a hole in the wall...NOTHING. It didn't take me long to start feeling claustrophobic, all my comfort was gone. Due to everyone speaking German around me, I even felt a little more on edge, but then came the reassuring voice of our guide who said "Ok, who is our English speaker, what is their name?". She was a lovely lady and had a really calm and comforting voice, exactly what you'd need in this situation. I introduced myself and she did the same. She said that I had to stick with Sonja through the ENTIRE 1 and a half hour session. I'd never felt so attached and reliant on Sonja in my life. If I lost her, it was all over for me as I was concerned.

Walking through the first room was easy enough, it was just to get a feeling for our cane and adjust to our current environment. After a while, I felt less claustrophobic and a little more adventurous. A couple times I would have my hands out, feeling the walls to see what I could find, and I would grab an arm, back or chest. Somehow a boob never managed to fall in my hands, but maybe that's a lucky thing, I wonder if a slap would hurt more in the dark?

After walking over cobblestones, through "markets" and streets, our guide found me again and put my hand on a box and said "Ok Geoff, in your country, what colour would this box be? Here it's yellow". It was a post box, and when I told her red, she said "Ok, I have no idea what red is, or yellow for that matter, I'm not completely blind, but colours don't exist, I just can see light and dark and even then, not much of that". It really made me think, that she had gone her whole life, and she was asking these questions, not even really knowing what I was answering.

Before long, we found ourselves in a room, and there was no English, everyone was speaking German and I had no idea where Sonja was, just as I was about to call out for her I heard something shut...Something like a door. When that happened, everything was silent. Everyone else had moved into the next room and had closed the door behind them. It didn't take long for me to start to panic, I had no idea where I was, or where anyone else was. My guide and Sonja were nowhere to be found so I started to knock on the wall. I frantically moved around the wall feeling for something, a handle, a door knob, anything! I couldn't find anything but I could finally hear voices through the wall, so I just tried to push on a section of wall, hoping at the same time to not destory something and by complete luck, it just happened to be the door. Thank God. This entire ordeal would have taken maybe 15 seconds, but it felt like half an hour. I could hear Sonja looking for me and I pretty much ran to her and held on for dear life.

At the start, we were given a ticket and were told to NOT lose it because this was our ticket for the boat. We stepped onto the boat and had to give our ticket to the boat person, our guide. We sat on the boat and it started rocking. Again, I can't really express what it was like, but when you can't see everything rocking along with your motions...It's a completely different feeling, especially when the boat 'hit' something unexpectingly. Pretty much the whole time everyone was on edge, because if the boat veered quickly one way, you would almost fall off your seat.

Stepping off the boat, we filed into a room where we sat on the floor. Still in complete darkness, our guide then played a few tunes. Listening to music like this was completely different too. Although not the sort of music I'm used to listening to, it was still an unreal and unforgettable experience. After spending about an hour in the dark already, all my other senses were on overdrive. I could hear what every instrument was doing, and the quality of each song, whether it was really much different at all, was pretty obvious to me. I picked up on the most slightest little glitches in each song, something I would probably never do when listening to a song normally.

Anyway, filing out of that room (Fiercly holding onto Sonja with a death grip), we made our way to the bar. While here we could buy chips, beer, soft drink...Whatever...But all still in the dark. We got ourselves a beer each and a packet of chips. Again, the senses were still in overdrive. I could sort of tell the coins apart, but didn't have enought to buy our stuff, so I had to pay by a note. I knew I had a 10 and a 50...I just had to give the right one. Our guide can easily tell which coin she's holding, even without any other coins to compare with, but to figure out notes, she had to measure them. When she gave my change back from a 10, I was really hoping I'd given her the right note.

We couldn't drink too much in the bar, firstly due to the fact that we didn't have time, but also because of if we got drunk...I think it would be near impossible to get us out when we were stumbling around completely sober. Just before leaving though our guide told us to guess how old and what she looked like. Sonja and myself agreed on a 20 something average height blonde girl, as did most of the group. Everyone was pretty shocked when she told us she was in her mid-40's though. She seemed to have a young voice and I was told that when she was speaking German, she was using popular slang that only young people would use. She was very good at the deceit game. We weren't allowed to see what she looked like though, her ruling was that she doesn't know what any of us look like, and she never will, so we're not allowed to see her. It was shredding me to peices though and I'm sure it was the same with everyone else, I just wanted to see her more than anything, as the picture in my mind had been completely blown into the sky.

As soon as we got out of the darkness, and made our way into the light, it was so much more comfortable, and for an hour I kept telling myself how thankful I was to be able to see. Life is about a million times easier. When we were signing the "visitors book" and I saw my awful and disgusting handwriting, I didn't really care, because at least I could still see what I was writing.

When we walked outside and made our way home, we had to walk past the back entrance and we heard a few voices and we turned around and saw her. I feel a bit bummed because we weren't supposed to see her and it ruined everything, but she just a little taller than my tummy, was definitely mid 40's and she had brown hair. She had the same voice and was sure enough wearing her sunnies. The imagine I constructed in my mind was most definitely destroyed.

The whole experience was AMAZING, and if anyone ever went to Hamburg, or anywhere else where they have the Dialogue in the Dark, I would highly recommend it. It was fun, terrifying, exhausting, informative...Everything!!

Next time, Sonja and myself make our way to Berlin to meet up with Lucy and Callum and then make our ways to the most famous beer festival in the world - The Munich Oktoberfest, popular for one litre beers, dirndls, lederhosen and drunken buffoonery.

Reeperbahn

Hi!!

In Sydney, you go to King's Cross. In Dublin, you go to Temple Bar. In Amsterdam, you go to the Red Light District. In Hamburg, you go to the Reeperbahn. Anyone who has gone to Hamburg has probably found themselves at the Reeperbahn. Here you find streets full of bars, clubs, sex shops, prostitutes and it has it's own Red Light District of it's own. This is my story:

For a couple weeks, Sonja had news that she'd been invited to a Hen's night, a party for a girl she didn't even really know. She was invited because this girl doesn't have many friends in Hamburg, so Sonja decided to go and make the most of it to give this girl her special night. I was left at home to chill out with Gina and Rainer. Rainer had perhaps the biggest music collection I've seen, and what was in display wasn't even all of it. When it was just at home, we would often sit on the couch and he would play me music from all over the world, all of it brilliant. He even introduced me to a Tom Waits song called "Reeperbahn', who'd have thought? So this particular evening, we were going back and forth with each other, as Gina would have to ask me something through Rainer, and Rainer would translate it to me, and I give my answer to Rainer (Sometimes I would have to spend a little while explaining) and then he would have to translate it back to Gina. I'll be honest, it was draining if we carried on too long like this, I can't imagine how Sonja or Rainer felt when I would do it to them every day.

After just getting comfortable, having sunk a few Holsten's (Top 5 beers of my life), we got a call from Sonja. She was telling me that the groom also happened to be having his Stag's night, and we knew absoultely no-one as he was from Canada. Great I thought! English speaker! The chaps on his Stag night so far were just the boyfriends or other friends from the Hen's night. I was invited to his Stag's night to make things a bit better for him. Having never been to a Buck's party myself, going on a Canadian/German Stag's night on the Reeperbahn with complete stranger's sounded like a bloody good start to me. I got changed, Rainer gave me his phone and he dropped me off at the first pub of the night. A billiard's bar. On my arrival, the chaps had already had a couple beers and a couple games and were just about ready to get out of there.

It turns out the Canadian groom was living in Canada, but had originally come from Austria, where they speak German as their first language, so I was still the only one in the group who could speak no German, but I still felt comfortable enough, probably more comfortable than the groom himself unfortunately.

As I said, the boys were just about ready to leave, so after only one beer, we all jumped in someone car and made our way to the Reeperbahn. Our plan was to wait out in a bar, and we would get a call from one of the girls when the Hen's party were going to arrive, and the boys would run out into the street and give the bride-to-be a huge surprise. From that point, we would all go out as a massive pre-wedding party I guess. Before all this took place, we decided to have a gander at the Red Light District, no Buck's party would be complete without it on the Reeperbahn. This Red Light District is one long street rather than spread out over a large area like in Amsterdam. On each end of the street is a huge wall with posters and graffiti on it that basically tells girls to piss off. No girls are allowed on this street. Apparently, the girls in the windows would throw urine or other nasties on any female caught on the Red Light District. I'd love to remember the correct German name for this street, but alas, this street is usually only combined with drinking alcohol, so whatever brain cells were created to remember the name were probably killed in the same night. The girls in these windows reminded me a lot of the one's in Amsterdam...The one's who stand in there and tap on the window and encourage you to go and talk to them. It was only a brisk walk and we got out of there pretty quickly. Sure enough, there were red lights, windows and girls wearing not much at all. Fairly predictable and not so much of a shock to see any more.


The wall.

The real shock lies in the girls who work the streets. As soon as you catch the pattern, you can spot a prostitute a mile away...Enough time to veer your course. How they decided this would be the dress code...I will never know. The prostitutes that walk the streets of the Reeperbahn are easily identifyable by their ridiculous white joggers, plain jeans, bum-bag (or fanny-pack, however you like to call it) and a bright, puffy jumper, usually white, pink or purple. I think it looks awful, but that's just what they wear. Anything else and no-one would be interested in them. Walking alone around these girls can be dangerous...They see you, hold on to your arm and will talk with you for ages, through streets, bars and whatever, until you forcefully push them away and get angry. Safety in numbers - Or if you have another girl with you.


Anyway, after the Red Light District, we made our way to the bar where I met the other half of the group who I hadn't met yet. I couldn't understand half of their names and can't remember the other half but they introduced me to a thing called Mexicana. They seemed to be far more drunk than I, which improves their English like crazy.

Felix - "Heyyyyyy, you're Geeeeoffffffff, the ooooshtraaaalien...Have youuu drinked MexiCANA!??!?"
Geoff - "Naaaaaaah man, what is it?"
Felix - *walks away and speaks to bartender* "Haaaaallloooo!! DREI MEXICANAAAAAAAA!!"
Everyone - "Prooooosst!!"

And the rest is history.

That night I will never forget, the night I discovered the Mexicana. Of what I can remember, mexicana is vodka, tequila, tomato juice and the most important ingredient - Tabasco sauce. Whether it would take off in Australia, I do not know, but after freezing your ass off, a Mexicana burning up in your gullet is exactly what you need on a night out in Germany.

So eventually, the girls finally made it. Hen's nights (And I assume Stag nights) in Germany are a lot more different than in Australia. The organisation factor goes beyond ok for my liking. Although I've never been to a Hen's night in Oz, I assume it's usually just a theme, something to dress up as, and maybe a stripper, and then everyone gets blind rotten drunk. I can't remember all the finer details of this one, but there are all these crazy activities the Bride-to-be has to do. For example, while on the underground trains, she had to get a group of chaps to sing a couple songs with her...They went to a hospital for drunk people (Drunk people were taking up too much room in the regular hospital, so this was specially made) and she had to carry out a number of tasks, like find all this stuff...And fundraising. To make money for the Hen's night, so the bride wouldn't have to pay for any drinks, the girls bought a couple boxes of cheap, nasty shots and sold them for a euro or two to people walking past in the street. With each shot probably costing like 50 cents, they basically made a 100% profit. Then they cut up a massive peice of sheet into a game. The sheet had two holes, one hard and one easy. The idea was to get people to kick soccer balls and try to get the soccer balls into one of the holes, and if they got it in, they would win something awesome. I don't really know successful it was.

In the end, everyone met up successfully, but 75% of the group disappeared. The remaining 25%, myself included kind of felt a bit bummed about it all and after sending out some texts with no replies, we decided to call it a night.

Despite a let down at the end, I believe the whole night went pretty well, I made enemies, friends, discoveries and can now say I've been to the Reeperbahn. Believe me, this was definitely not my only time at the Reeperbahn, there are plenty more stories, but that will do for now.

Thanks :)

This isn't relevant, but this is Sonja with the result of a bull castration:

The Lake Alster

Lake Alster

I awoke in the morning to find a German stabbing me in the back with her finger. "Get up you lazy shit! It's a sunny day, they're pretty rare in Hamburg. I have a surprise for you". For weeks I'd been hearing all about this "surprise". My only clues were that it would have to be a sunny day when I get it, otherwise it wouldn't work very well. I didn't know if it was an object I'd be getting, an experience, a new friend, a story...Who would know. After a brilliant breakfast (Sonja told her mother that Australians eat bacon, eggs, sausages and toast every day for breakfast, so that's what they bought me to eat) we set out on our big adventure to whatever my surprise was. As we were leaving the house, Sonja gave me a big bag which weighed probably 6-8 kg's. I wasn't allowed to look in it though, otherwise it would ruin the surprise. After getting on a bus for 20 minutes, then a train for 10 minutes, we found ourselves walking for about half an hour. We went past her old school, a couple parks and ended up walking around the most prized and loved natural landmark in Hamburg, the Lake Alster.

While we were walking through the parks, I decided to sneak a quick feel of the bag...Maybe I could make out something. I felt a couple pole-like objects, I thought maybe it was a set of goals and she was going to take me to a park to play soccer...That wouldn't explain why it was so heavy though...And I couldn't feel anything ball shaped. She caught me feeling it and got angry, so I just had to walk along thinking about it.

Eventually, we arrived at the point of the lake and Sonja said "Ok, so I do have with me...An INFLATABLE BOAT!!". Words cannot describe how excited I was at this point, I could not for the life of my suppress my smile. Our only problem was that there seemed to be nowhere to launch the bloody thing, all around the lake seemed to be dangerously sharp rocks, or it was just far too shallow. Unlike in Australia where you just take off your shoes and push the boat out, here you would have to take your shoes off, roll up your jeans, somehow not get hypothermia and die, and avoid stepping on any broken glass or whatever else is floating around in the lake. Therefore finding a good take off point is critical. After walking and walking and walking, we finally found somewhere that looked relatively suitable.



Sonja went for a pee in a cafe, and I pumped up the boat. It's ok if there are two people pumping up an inflatable boat next to a lake, but I looked like a lonely loser. Anyway, when she came back, she had with her a little feast from the cafe so we could have a lovely lunch out on the water. As soon as we got the boat in the water and launched with the pair of us in it, the clouds came...And the wind. For starters, I've never rowed a boat in my life. I've been in canoes and kayaks, but never a row boat, so paddling this thing was challenging enough as it was, let alone the fact that the bloody oars were only slightly bigger than my hands. I couple times I thought whether I would have just been better off paddling with my hands. Oh well.



Shortly after making it into the water, it was decided that we go to the very middle of the lake, and there we could sit somewhat peacefully and eat our food. After a painful and exhausting paddle, we made it and ate our sausage meat with salad. It quite lovely sitting there then, the waves were only gently rocking the boat and the sun would spit through little bits of open cloud.



After lunch, it was time to paddle again. Sonja had a plan of paddling to a particular end of the lake which connected to I guess the other half of it. This was against the current and due to my lack of fitness, lack of experience and teeny paddles, there was no hope, so we just made our way to a little bridge and it looked like it would have started raining soon. My lack of experience definitely showed when the waves pushed us to the other side of the lack, when we were getting dangerously close to the jaggered rocks. Through this bit of the ordeal, the waves and wind had gotten stronger, and water was now spilling over the side of the boat, onto me and running down into my bum. Everything on my lower half was wet. In a hot place, this is fine, and even refreshing. In the September temperatures of Germany, it's bloody outrageously cold and uncomfortable.



Some of the people standing on the side of the lake were staring at us, probably wondering if I had some kind of disability due to my paddling skills. They looked genuinely worried and I'm sure if I saw someone in our situation, I probably would have been too.



Somehow, I managed to get out of that, and we made it to the bridge, just as it started raining, so we camped under the bridge for a while and when it started to clear up, we went beyond the bridge. Contrary to what we though was going to be beyond the bridge (Another lake), it turned out to be a long canal that stretches through the whole city. This was the highlight of my day.

With bugger all current and the sun finally out, Sonja cracked open a couple beers, whipped out her mp3 player with speakers and we floated along the river listening to The Beatles. Although still bloody freezing, I was happy as a pig in mud.




Paddling past house-boats, ducks and swans, children who pointed and stared and trees that tried to eat us, we eventually reached a point where we had to get out. It was getting late, cold(er) and the speakers had run out of battery. Just like getting into the lake, getting out of the canal isn't an easy task. You can't simply find any wall and just climb out of the boat. We went past a couple ladders, a couple more bridges and we considered climbing onto one of the house boats to escape. By our luck, we managed to find a little jetty/dock thing. Getting out was probably more stressful than getting in, because we had to somehow make sure that the boat didn't float away. No way was I swimming after it, I was wet enough as it was.

We managed to get ourselves, our bags and the boat out after a little while...But to a place we didn't know. We had to ask some strangers for directions and eventually we found a train to get home. There was dirt, water and grass all over us, and the bag with the boat had stuff coming out of it, because we couldn't get it back in properly, so I'm quite sure we probably looked homeless walking around the train station...I didn't care though, I just wanted a shower and a soup.

After an hour or so journey home, we gave our boat a wash, deflated it and roll 'er back up for next time.



All in all, I had a pretty good day I like to think. That being said though, I wasn't in any hurry to jump back in and do it all over again.

Hamburg P.1

Guten Morgan!

Translation: Good morning.

My bus from Amsterdam left at 11pm and arrived into Hamburg at 7am. This meant no sleep for Geoffy boy. About an hour and a half into our journey, we stopped off at a little petrol station for what I thought was going to be a 10 minute break, or maybe we were going to pick up some more passengers. This wasn't the case. Instead, we stopped for over an hour and the bus driver went for a walk. To me, this seemed like a complete waste of time and I was pretty pissed off because of it. Maybe it's the European ways rubbing off on me that you always have to be on the move and in a rush, or maybe sitting on a bus for an hour not able to do anything or go anywhere is a valid reason to be annoyed. Especially at 1am in the morning.

After setting off again, we arrived early in the morning and stepping off the bus I heard the words "You must be Geoff". I turned around and Sonja's (my German friend from Australia) stepfather was standing there with a huge grin on his face. The plan for my arrival in Hamburg was a secret from Sonja and for weeks, her stepfather had been contacting me sorting out when I should arrive. Sonja told me quite often neither her mother, father or stepfather knew any English and that it would be very weird when I came to visit. Yes, well, unbeknownst to her, Rainer (pronounced like Ryan-er), her stepfather, had reasonable English, enough to hold an intellectual conversation about music, politics, war and embarrassing stories of Sonja.

We arrived at the apartment and her Mum (Gina - Short for Grazyna) ran up to me and gave me a big fat hug. She pointed at Sonja’s door, gave me a huge grin and thumbs up and pushed me towards it. I opened the door and gave Sonja a huge hug. She knew I was coming one day, but because I was in her face right then, I think she was pretty surprised. The four of us had what I know now as a typical German breakfast. Contrary to what I thought they would have for breakfast (Sausages and a litre of beer) we sat down and ate fresh rolls and strange bread with all sorts of toppings.

When you set a breakfast table for Germans, you need coffee (Real coffee, it’s pretty uncommon to find instant coffee in Germany, let alone catch a German drinking the stuff) cheese, salami, ham (a couple kinds), tomato, fruit, Philadelphia, jams, Nutella, butter, a couple kinds of bread (I’ll explain the bread thing later) and a couple kinds of rolls. They are the normal things, and then come the things I was not accustomed to. Also on the table is teewurst, or leberwurst, a kind of meaty paste that looks, smells and probably tastes a lot like that sausage dog meat you can buy in Oz. Sometimes, salty gherkins are on the table, whole gherkins. When you bite into them, there is usually a hole somewhere else on the gherkin and the liquid in it squirts out into someone‘s eye. Then there are a few kinds of salads, known in German as salat. I can’t recall the others, because they weren’t anywhere near as good, but I discovered my most loved breakfast item on the earth. Despite the awful name they’ve chosen, Fleischsalat is by far the best thing I could ever have stumbled across. On normal toast (Our bread is called toast, and children usually only eat it.) Fleischsalat is nothing special, but still pretty good if you were sick of all the crappy sweet stuff you would usually put on it. On German bread (Again, I’ll explain soon), it’s magical, like the first time you drive by yourself after getting your P’s, like the first time you ever heard Stairway to Heaven in it’s entirety, or like putting on an awesome new shirt for the first time. I should probably explain exactly what it is, and I’m sure it doesn’t sound too appealing, it didn’t to me the first time.

Translation:

Fleischsalat = Meat salad.

Fleisch is the German word for meat. That alone scared me. The word fleish sort of looks and sounds like flesh, not a particularly nice or pleasant word, especially when it involves something you’ll be eating. Every time the word comes up, I have an imagine of someone out in the back yard tearing some flesh off a bone of some poor beast. It’s barbaric and terrifying. To make matters worse, the word for mince meat is…You guessed it, Hackfleisch. Ewwwwww!! My imagination goes into overdrive when I hear that word too. I picture Gina hacking up the flesh of a cow when she’s cooking with mince.

I’m getting off topic - Fleischsalat is basically a really good mayonnaise, finely chopped gherkin and finely chopped/shredded ham/speck. There are more little and finer things which I don’t know, and they’re probably what makes the difference as to why it’s so good. I eat Fleischsalat every morning, and I’m sure my cholesterol is through the roof because of it, but I DO NOT CARE. We have a personal joke in the house that it is now called Flesh Salad, rather than the German Fleischsalat (Pronounced like Fl-eye-sh salat) because of my disgust in the name.

Moving on with the breakfast table, we arrive at German bread. I have no idea what the names for the bread is except pumpernickel and toast, because we have these in Australia. Pumpernickel is a kind of bread you’ll find on the lowest shelf in the supermarket, or in health food stores. To, it’s a heap of seeds and rye squashed together to make a very dry and hard to eat substance. This is the base of most German bread. Sometimes there are more seeds, or more rye, but most of it is similar to that. Toast, as I mentioned before is not commonly eaten, among adults anyway. Where we have white, wholemeal or wholegrain, to a German, it’s all just toast. Another bread that sticks in my mind is a really dense and REALLY hard to eat bread, I can’t think of it’s name, but when you buy a loaf, it is literally as heavy as a brick and if you threw it at someone, you would give them a concussion. To cut it, you almost need a chainsaw, or in the case of a knife, huge biceps. The crust is where most of the weight lies I believe, it’s really tough and babies or old people would have no hope getting through it. I don’t know why, I should hate the stuff, it doesn’t even taste that good, but I’m growing awfully fond of it. To eat it you have to smother it in something, something like flesh salad ;) I think I’ve just discovered why I like it so much…

Another thing I found pretty cool about the country is that instead of having one or two big chopping boards for the whole house, they have a mini chopping board for each person, so instead of having a plate, you just take the little chopping board. Oh they have a couple big chopping boards too for big chops, like the brick bread.

Moving on from breakfast, Sonja took me for a walk around her area, around her city centre and we just chilled for the day I suppose.

At lunch time (The main meal of the day), Gina had cooked Sonja’s favorite dish. They were just meatball things in this kind of sauce with potatoes. Gina is a brilliant cook and would never do something from a can or packet, everything is fresh.

Another fundamental for German cuisine is potatoes. With every main meal you have to have potatoes and to the Germans, potatoes aren’t considered a vegetable. I think they think of potatoes rather as Gods than food, they love ‘em! Their food is more about the flavours in the sauce and meat rather than the nutrition it seems. The potatoes are used more like rice or noodles, to soak up the flavours. Vegetables are a bizarre idea. If vegetables were in a meal (there were many occasions where they just simply weren’t present), they were prepared a bit different. Sauerkraut, a vegetable I don’t think many Australians are familiar with is pretty good if prepared properly, and in this case, it was cooked in the juices and fats of the meat that was the main part of the meal. Of course it tastes brilliant. Steaming vegetables is out of the question and I think I saw it once for the duration of my stay. Even then, the vegetables were then drowned in butter. How Australia is the fattest (Or 2nd, I keep losing track) nation in the world, I have no idea.

So, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m about two months behind in my blogs, and for this whole time, I’ve been in Germany. For the next couple blogs, I’ll just tell a couple stories about my time in Hamburg and then eventually I’ll catch up. I apologise profusely.

In the next edition, Sonja and myself find ourselves struggling for our lives in the lake Alsta with burger patties, beer and The Beatles.

Ciao!

Amsterdam: Return of the Dark Side

Hoi!

Stepping off the plane into a new country is always pretty exciting. Landing back in the land of crepes, canals, cheese and cannabis, we find ourselves again in the city of Amsterdam to pollute the eyes of Callum. On the last visit, our campsite was over an hour away from the city centre, which was a real a pain in the arse, especially in a place like Amsterdam. This time, the hostel we booked was smack bang in the middle of the Red Light District.

Our plane arrived in Amsterdam at about 2am and so rather than spend a night’s accommodation money on only a couple hours, we just decided to wait it out at the airport until morning. This was probably the longest and draining stay at an airport I’ve had to date. Everything was closed except a couple café’s and bars. After trying to spend as long as possible at a café without getting kicked out, we still found ourselves with another 2 or so hours to waste before we would make our way into the city. I had about 2 weeks worth of beard, filthy, tomato coloured dreadlocks, jeans stained with sangria, tapas and sand, shoes stained and smelling of tomato and it was cold enough for me to wear my brown homeless jumper. In combination with all this, I was laying on the floor of the airport using a dirty towel as a pillow. At this point I was too cold and tired to care what I looked like but people looked at me as though I was some kind of beast.

When the time finally came that we were to make the journey into the city, I was ready to fall over and sleep. Everyone says that Amsterdam doesn’t sleep…Those people have never been to Amsterdam at 7am in the morning. Nothing was open and nothing was around, so finding out where to go was a toughie to say the least, but we made it. We didn’t really realise that the hostel was in the red light district until we arrived. Next door to our hostel was a couple windows for the girls to sell themselves in, and on the other side was the Cannabis museum. Across the street was a coffee shop (Remember that a café sells hot beverages and delicious cakes and a coffee shop sells the marijuana and space cakes - Still delicious) and more windows for the working girls.
We dropped off our bags and went for a long walk as check-in wasn’t until 2pm.




After smashing up a HUGE breakfast we explored the place and to show Callum what a coffee shop looks like, we found an open one and had a tea. It turns out that they sell hot beverages too! Everything smells like drugs though. I found the coffee shop cooler than most café’s, due to the nature of what they were selling, the staff are really cool and chilled back, and the music is easy and relaxed. They found it bizarre that we went there and didn’t buy any of their ‘specialties’ but were still cool about it all.

Finally, after what seemed another eternity, we checked in to our hostel, had a shower and all went to a pub for dinner. Being right in the middle of the Red Light District, we didn’t have to walk very far to see what we came for. Lucy stayed back and Callum and myself had the ‘man’ walk. It’s someone daunting walking around the area. Some of the girls behind the glass smile and encourage you to have a closer look, others seem like they want to hurt you and whack the window really hard and order you to have a closer look. Some girls would weigh 200kgs and don’t look like they could get off the chairs they sit on. The streets are filled with the red glow from the windows, the potent smell of weed from the coffee shops and the general feeling of skank and grotty sex. Among the hundreds of buck’s and hen’s parties, business men and backpackers are really the only other people you see walking around. Some of the business look like they’re making a really important decision for their business, an idea far from the truth. I assume they’re probably on a ‘business trip’ too. Callum’s reaction was exactly what I hoped for. Sometimes his jaw would drop, his eyes were extremely wide open and he was pointing at everything. I think the whole experience was a pretty big learning curve for him.

Hitting up the beds pretty early due to lack of sleep was next in the books.

We spent nearly a week in Amsterdam which was way more than what we needed. Apart from the Red Light District and the couple museums and history tours, I find that it doesn’t offer much else. To see the real Holland, you would have to go much further into the country than Amsterdam. I plan on seeing these bits on a return trip.

One day though, we got on a train and at almost the last stop, we got off in a little town on the outskirts of Amsterdam. I feel pretty bummed that I don’t even remember the name of it, but here we found a bicycle hire shop. Everything was medieval looking and in a typically Dutch nature, everything was mega-chilled out. In all of my time in Amsterdam, I never once found a Dutch person who was upset, angry or in a rush. I’m sure it does happen, but it’s pretty rare. It seems that everyone is just happy living life exactly the way it is. Riding through the city was so relaxing, especially on the Dutch bikes we were on. Unlike BMX bikes and mountain bikes, these one’s seem to be made for the road and to not be raced, so they’re really easy and comfortable to ride.

One day when I was feeling a little more bold I decided that I would buy some truffles. I can’t remember if I explained them in the last Amsterdam blog, so I will in this one. Truffles are basically magic mushrooms. To sell magic mushrooms is illegal in The Netherlands, but the stuff that makes mushrooms magic can be drawn from the mushrooms and made into these truffles. So you eat them and become really silly. I was scared of them on the last visit, but talked to heaps of people about them, and have heard that they’re quite safe, and you would have to eat a couple packets before elephants start coming out of walls.

When buying truffles, you choose which kind of trip you’re going to have. Each truffles has a different reaction. There is a packet that makes you super giggly, one that makes you hear things, one that makes you see things, one that gives you incredible boosts of energy, anything you could imagine. Then there are truffles that have all of these effects, just on different levels. I bought a packet of them, with high effects in visual hallucinations and ate half of the packet. The other two were going to the Van Gough museum and so I decided to join. My truffles took a very long time to set in as they have to digest. They also tasted like an ass, so I bought some peanuts and ate the truffles with them. About halfway through the museum I started feeling funny and was getting pretty excited, not about what the next reaction would be, but for no apparent reason. I was just excited. I went for a walk with Lucy and Callum to the toilet and waited outside. The floor was made of wood and as I was staring at it, the patterns started moving. When there was a shiny surface, it was gorgeous, and it took a lot of effort to not let my jaw drop from being mesmerised.


Van Gough on a good day was a very colourful artist. He loved his colours and a lot of his paintings are pretty far out, even for the mind without truffles. When we went back to the room with the paintings, I almost lost my mind. It looked as though the walls were breathing, going in and out. The borders on the paintings we sort of dancing. Where-ever I saw a pattern, the pattern would move, kind of like water. Callum would have to remind me to move from painting to painting otherwise I would have stood there all day. I think a couple people realised I wasn’t in the right frame of mind so they left me alone, but others scared me when they stood too close.

The things I went through that day were so bizarre and so unreal. Later in the day, some of my effects turned to my sense of touch. It was as if I could feel EVERYTHING. When I felt the grass, it was as if I could feel the little fibres that are in the outside. I found a screw on the ground, and it consumed me. I was just rolling it around in my hands and I threw it away, but before long, I started to miss it, so I would have to run back to it and pick it up again. I know how Gollum and Frodo feel in Lord of the Rings now with the ring. I almost felt the urge to apologise to the screw for throwing it away. For an hour I was staring at a couple people playing lawn bowls, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

To describe my experience properly, I would need to use gestures and a lot of time.

For my time in Amsterdam this time around, I didn’t really touch weed. It’s hard not to as it’s all around you and everyone else is smoking. Although I didn’t physically smoke a joint, the second hand smoke alone that was present made me a little loopy.

One museum that I found quite interesting was Anne Frank’s house. Although I knew next to nothing about her, Lucy forced me to go, and I’m pretty glad she did. Basically, Anne Frank, her family and a couple other Jewish people lived in a house for a couple years throughout WW2. Jews were being sent to concentration camps, but they hid out in this house. Throughout the entire ordeal, Anne Frank kept a diary, which was them published years down the line. Although I still haven’t read the diary, I think it would be worthwhile. For those years, her and her family COULD NOT leave the house at all. With friends delivering food packages weekly, they could barely look out the window for fear of being seen.

This is a mint tea, they're AWESOME.


A public pissoir.

After Amsterdam, I parted ways from Callum and Lucy and went off to see a friend I met on my Australian road trip, Sonja. I travelled with Sonja for about a month and she even came to Townsville and spent a week with me there. I was able to show her my home and where I live and most importantly I was able to introduce her to my friends. This was her opportunity to do the same, and I was pretty bloody excited.

So I jumped on a bus and headed for Hamburg, the second biggest city in Germany. Woo-hoo!!

More details to follow…

Barcelona!

Hey,

So after seeing a little more of Valencia the three of us got on another bus and smashed up the city of Barcelona. This was my second trip to the tourist trap of Spain. Unlike Valencia and Madrid, tourists are everywhere, not only from Australia, but Canada, America, Asia and even a lot of Spanish tourists.

When we got there, we had to find our hostel somewhere 30 minutes from the city by train in the mountains. For every person who stayed there, a massive donation to an organisation that supports the disabled was made. It was a pain in the ass getting there, but at the same time, the idea was brilliant and the hostel itself was really good. They even had a pool, a feature I haven’t seen since my trip in Oz. On our first night, we decided to have a quiet one and chill there rather than visit the city. After the treacherous walk up the hill the hostel was on top of, Callum and myself had a long swim in the pool, ate some vegetarian lasagne cooked by the hostel, had a couple night caps and smashed up some sleep for the night.

On the morning after, we discovered that not only did the hostel donate all this money to this organisation, but half of the employees were disabled. The girl who served us breakfast had down syndrome, and some of the cleaners also had down syndrome. The lady behind the bar maybe had autism of what I could gather and the list went on. I thought it was really cool.

Heading into town, we again saw La Rambla, the main street of the city with all the street performers. They’re always fun to watch.



When hunger set in, we stumbled across a huge market selling all sorts of meat, cheese, fruit, nuts and deli items. It was one of the biggest food markets I’ve ever seen. To eat some watermelon in the scorching weather was refreshing and was a feeling I was becoming unfamiliar with. It triggered memories from home and for a second I started missing home, but quickly dismissed the thought and made the most of the moment.


In the same market were a couple big bars where you would drink a beer and watch all the chef’s cook you food. These were not chef’s, but performing artists. I’m sure if they were behind a wall, they wouldn’t be as flamboyant and crazy with their skills as they were showing off to the people.


We decided to not eat too much seeing as there was a Hard Rock café in the city. For my entire time in Europe, I’ve crossed maybe 5 Hard Rock’s and for some reason I never decided to go in. When Ben was with me, we decided that before we leave we had to go to at least one. Callum had never been to one and so we decided now was a better than time than ever to step in and have a gander. It far exceeded my expectations. I knew that they had merchandise from all the big names, but I had no idea what sort of merchandise. I saw the guitars from everyone, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones…It was awesome. A visit would not be complete with actually sitting down and dining. Everything on the menu was far out of our price range, but for this kind of experience, I was more than willing to pay it.

There was only one seat available and so we were sat down next to Janis Joplin’s guitar. A pretty good spot I like think. Without even looking at the menu Callum and myself knew what we needed. In such an American restaurant, the only thing that speaks out would be a hamburger. When it came out, I wasn’t surprised to see that it would feed a family, but still, foolishly, I told myself I could finish it, did so, and had a stomach ache for the next hour.

After sitting at the harbour with a beer for a while feeding the fish, we headed back to the hostel and met a couple Germans, a couple Americans, a couple Australians and a couple Poms. They were all pretty cool and the usual conversations and arguments took place.

The following day consisted of more sightseeing and more touristy stuff, visiting churches, town halls and other big buildings.

Seeing as a friend I met from Edinburgh on a pub crawl was in town, we saw it to be fitting to meet up once again, on a pub crawl. Janine was her name and she brought with her a friend she’d been travelling with for the past six months.


Most of the bars were pretty ordinary, as were the people we were crawling with, but everything changed in the final destination. Every pub crawl in the world finished with a night club, usually a pretty crappy one, but this one was playing Elvis, Little Richard, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys and basically anything before 1980 and more importantly, anything awesome. Everyone in the night club was on absolute fire, including our boy Callum. For the quiet type, he absolutely ripped the dance floor apart, and everyone was watching him. A couple girls even started copying his style and if it wasn’t for Lucy, I’m sure they would have all tried to have a piece of him. My moves weren’t so powerful and even my moustache proved to be a failure, but I still had a brilliant night out, arriving back at the hostel at 8:30am.

When I awoke from my pretty awful slumber at 11am, I decided to cook up some toast with avocado and eat two Ice Creams. I think my combination of copious amounts of alcohol, the two Ice Creams and the fact that the bread I used was very very mouldy with a not quite ripe avocado was the reason I spent half an hour throwing my guts up. This was the second time I’d thrown up in Europe, not a bad effort I like to think, but this time it was different. For starters, it hurt, it really hurt. My stomach muscles must have been sore from tearing up the dance floor, and every other muscle that a person uses when throwing up. To make matters worse, the other end was more of a liquid than what was coming out of my throat, but just as much was coming out. I wasn’t in a good mood.

Needless to say, I decided to have an easy day and had a quiet one in the hostel playing Starcraft on my computer.

Our next day consisted of getting on a plane flying to Amsterdam for a week. Lucy had been there, I had been there, but a return trip was definitely not out of the question. Callum was still a fresh traveller and hadn’t been exposed to too much of what is vulgar in the world. To destroy his innocence, we jumped on that plane.

On that note I will leave you again and explain more of our trip to Amsterdam in the next addition.

Bye-bye!!

Oh yes, I've attached a little video for a friend called Spanner. Janine, my pub crawl friend from Edinburgh, decided to educate us in the coolest dance move ever, especially for those who like dinosaurs ;) It's called the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Valencia

Oi oi,

Alright so in the last edition of The Heff Takes on Europe, we discovered that La Tomatina was a success - a painful and at times claustrophobic one, but a success none-the-less. A great time was had by all. Before leaving Valencia though, the three of us decided that it we hadn't given Valencia a chance to blow us away, so for the next three nights, we decided that we would smash up the beach-side city. First of all though, we had to get the hell away from this campsite and these Australians. As a follow up party to La Tomatina, the same company, Fanatics, puts a massive party on at the small Spanish Island of Ibiza. We were pretty much the only people out of the entire tour who decided to not go, but I wasn't at all concerned or upset about this.

We found our hostel smack bang in the middle of the city in a prime location to see everything...So for the entire first day, we slept. At sunset, it was time to hit up the city's night life. That’s how things roll in Spain. It was agreed that a feed was in order and so the three of us marched into the bar and restaurant district of Valencia. Our choice of restaurant offered a three course meal with a beverage for about 17 Aussie $’s. I thought it sounded pretty good.On my last visit to Spain, to Barcelona, I explained the popular Spanish meal among tourists and locals alike, Paella. In case you forgot, or simply didn’t read that blog, paella is a dish made with a base of rice, usually with a huge amount of seafood and a couple vegies thrown in. Sounds pretty plain I guess, but the way they make it, ughhh!! It’s bloody gorgeous. Valencia has their own special kind of paella, originally named Valencian paella. This is almost the same thing except the seafood is replaced with chicken and rabbit and there are a heap of different kinds of beans. Out of the three of us, I was only one who ordered the Valencian paella, since I’m not that big on seafood anyway, and I LOVE beans. It was sen-bloody-sational and I wish I was eating it right now. As a main course I ordered some kind of fish, I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t have my camera on me, but it didn’t look that appealing. Lucy was almost turned off her food by the look of it. It was a whole fish (Eyes, tail, skin, fins, teeth) served on a plate with salad. They had prepared the fish so that it was biting it’s own tail. It was terrifying, but it tasted beautiful. For desert I just ordered ice cream, and it was just a drum stick that came out upside down on a plate, but on the way, the waiter lost balance and the ice cream flung across the room and hit me on the shoulder and fell on the ground. He brushed it off, whacked it on the table and said “enjoy”. All in all, it was a pretty good dinner I thought.

Throughout the next couple days, we went and done all the usual touristy things like climbing up churches, eating more Spanish food and drinking more Sangria.



Lucy was shopping one day and bought Callum a present. Since arriving in Spain, we’d been searching for some awesome pants, and Lucy found what we were looking for. Although they were no-where near as tight as we hoped they would have been, the little yellow flowery shorts you see in the pictures done their job.


Although I couldn’t find them, I found this little number and was pretty proud of myself.


To celebrate our purchases, we all went to the most popular beach in Valencia. There were no jellyfish, no nudists, no Australians, but at the same time, there seemed to be no character to it. They’d built really rich hotels right next to it and the sand was completely flat and “perfect”. It was still good to swim in the water. I would hope they won’t make that artificial any time soon.

After checking out the crappy markets near by, and buying some awesome BBQ’d corn, we went back to the hostel and crashed for the night again.

Waking up bright and early the next day, we made our way to the bus station once again to travel to our last destination for our Spanish journey, Barcelona. Although I’d already been there, it was only for a day, so I was more than keen to see it again, properly.

For the last stop in Spain, stay tuned for the next blog.

Much love from Geoff.

La Tomatina!!

Hola again!

And so the story of Spain continues. In this chapter, Lucy, Callum and your story teller get on a bus and head to Valencia.

It seems that the Spanish travel service have not figured out how to use the internet yet. Everyone time we went to book something via the internet, our transaction would be cancelled at the last minute. Despite having three different money cards from three different banks and trying multiple companies with each of these, no-one wanted to take our money, or more importantly, sell us a ticket. Because of this, we decided to buy a ticket the old fashioned way, just walking to the station and giving them actual money. We scored ourselves three 25 euro tickets to Valencia.

The departure date wasn’t for another two days and in that time, Lucy somehow lost our tickets. We didn’t realise until 30 minutes before the bus was due to leave that they were gone and therefore missed that bus. Callum and I got on the 1pm and Lucy jumped on the 3pm. Four hours of bus ride later we arrived in Valencia. And while we sank a few coldies until Lucy arrived, it occurred to us that Valencia, somehow, was hotter than Madrid.

Lucy arrived and the fun began. Our accommodation was through a tour company called “Fanatics” an entirely Australian owned, operated and used company (Unbeknownst to us at the time of booking). For the next three nights, we were booked into camping tents in the sweltering heat. The campsite also happened to be in the absolute middle of no-where. On paper, it was going to take us about an hour and a half to two hours max to arrive at the campsite from the bus station. In reality, it took us closer to five hours. According to Google maps, the city bus would take us for almost an hour and a half and our campsite would be a five minute walk. Apparently not so we found out. It turns out that we were the only campers who decided to use public transport to the campsite…for a reason. Everyone else caught a taxi from the station and it only took them 45 minutes. After getting off our city bus, we asked someone for directions, and it sounded close, but we ended up walking on highways, through hotels, past drive-in cinemas and were almost killed by dogs, trucks and motorbikes. I would love to say that I am exaggerating, but we literally had to spend an hour walking along-side a VERY busy highway. Eventually we made it, tired, smelly, annoyed and more than anything, bloody hot. Our bags aren’t exactly filled with feathers and I will never whinge about having to lift it ever again after what we went through that day.

About 30 minutes away from the campsite, we could tell that we had made it. Not by any lights or signs, but by the yelling and music. More specifically, what was being yelled and what music was being played. Even from 2km’s away, you could hear the Australian buffoon’s yelling “Let’s get F%#&cked uuuuuuup!!” and “Scull scull scull scull scull!!!”.

On arrival, Callum and Lucy were given a tent to themselves and I was to share with someone, and when I discovered that my tent had a code pad-lock on it put on by my new tent mate, I wasn’t particularly impressed. To get away from the bogans and crappy music, the three of us fled to the beach which was conveniently only 5 minutes away. After spending 3 months in the UK, and another month before that without a beach, I was really craving a swim in the ocean. On our arrival to the beach, we were greeted by a big, fat, squishy jelly fish that had washed up on shore. Whether or not it was dangerous, I still have no idea, but for the time being, I decided it was best not to go for a swim.

Returned to the campsite even more depressed, I decided it was time for bed, but on my return to the tent, my tent mate still hadn’t arrived. I felt like having a big, fat, squishy cry, but decided to go and tell reception instead. They moved me to another tent, a bit closer to Callum and Lucy, and on opening the fly, I discovered I had that big boy to myself!! My mood had a complete turn around. The only thing hotter than the temperature was the temperature inside the tent, but it didn’t matter, I could have a sleep to myself.

I awoke the next morning to discover my travel buddies gone and so I took the opportunity to go for a stroll along the beach by myself. Walking down the trail to the beach, I could again hear the Australian’s before I arrived. I decided to take my stroll elsewhere along the beach, far, far away from anyone who says oi, mate, bloody or any of the swearing that has to be used 5 times in a sentence. While walking away from the Australians, I noticed a lot of the chaps trying to get views of all the topless girls who were about 150 metres away. To do this, they had to squint and when they found a new one, they would all yell, shout and point at her. Spain is a dream for the desperate.

As I trudged along the beach in my singlet, boardies, moustache and sunnies, I crossed various sections of the beach. After the Australians there was A LOT of open sand, where no-one seemed to be sitting for some reason (Probably because the Aussies were there). Further along was the family section where there were only families and children running around. All the children had this pong game where you have two flat bat things (Kind of like tennis rackets but made of wood or plastic) and you hit a squidgy ball to each other. There is no real point to the game except keeping the ball in there air. I thought it was brilliant and I wanted a set. Even further along was the nudist section. Needless to say only 5% of the people who were in this section were under 40, but to me it made it even cooler. It almost inspired me to rip of my clothes and show everyone my lilly white bum, legs and willy, but two problems faced me. One, I didn’t want to end up with a shrivelled red willy, and two, I’d just have to walk along with all my stuff in my hands, which would look idiotic and not exactly convenient. I figured that I’d already been naked a couple times on the trip, so that would have to do for now.

This pattern continued over and over again and all of a sudden I felt a surge of thirst, like to the point where I felt like passing out, so I decided to walk up off the beach and look for a shop. I remembered at this point that we were in the middle of bloody no-where. There seemed to be plenty of holiday homes and hotels strangely enough, but no normal convenience stores or supermarkets. Before I died, I decided it was time to head back. I’d walked a very long way though, and I was beginning to think that maybe I should just make the most of my last minutes and go for a swim. Just as I was taking off my singlet, I saw a little blue tent in the distance. It was on the beach so I decided to go and have a look. This thing sold water, ice cream, soft drinks, snacks and beer! Strangely enough, beer was the cheapest thing on the list, cheaper than water! I bought myself a little can of Heineken and little bottle of water and I was good to go again. Sitting in the cool water with a little can of icy cold beer surrounded by topless Spanish girls in the hot sun was my kind of day. Even if a jelly fish came up and stung me, I couldn’t have been upset. After I finished the water and beer I set off again for the journey back home.

I passed all the same Spanish people but with a few new additions. There was some guy in the nudist section on a sun chair/bed thing who had his legs spread for all to see and was facing it all towards my direction. I looked that way at the precise moment when he flipped his wang over to brown the other side I suppose. To me, it looked like he thought of his willy as a sausage that needed to be cooked on all sides. I didn’t enjoy this. Only 20 metres away was some woman who had her girly bits pointed UPWARDS to the sun and had her legs spread. Why the hell would you need to tan that? This being said, they all had lovely tans and didn’t have those stupid white bits like everyone else in the world.

After making it back to camp, I found Callum and Lucy and the first thing they said was “What the hell happened to you?”. It turns out I didn’t put any sunscreen on and apparently my sunburn was pretty bad. Everyone who I passed at the campsite said the same thing. I didn’t notice how bad it was until I started feeling not very good, so I went and sat in the campsite pool which again was full of Australians, and by now, the pool had an oily coat on the top and there were chunks of bubbly foam on the surface, something that I would expect to see in the ocean when the fish have their breeding season or something. It was disgusting, yet everyone was still swimming.

Waking up the next day, we all jumped on the bus at 6:30am. A very early time for a lot of people as most of them go to bed at 4am. Our tomato throwing festival was not in Valencia, but a little town called Bunol, which was about 45 minutes away. We arrived at about 7:30 and followed to the crown to the town centre. Along the way, there were little BBQ stalls set up every 10 metres, and there were people on the streets selling goggles, ear plugs, swimming caps, everything that you could think of to protect yourself against tomato seeds. There were also an incredible amount of make shift bars set up selling 500ml cups of Sangria or beer for like 2 Euro. Brilliant pricing, but alas far too early for the three of us to start drinking.


After a half an hour walk from the bus, we finally made it to the city centre, where we found more Australians, but people from all over the world. When it came to the highest percentage of a nation, the Spaniards were probably the only contenders for Australia. At the top were Aussies and Spaniards, then Americans and Canadians, then the Asians, then the Irish, English, Italians and then everyone else.


After probably an hour of waiting around for something to happen, a big wooden pole arrived with a leg of ham attached. We had all heard of it, but now it was in action. As the tomatoes don’t arrive until 11am, the slippery pole game is put into action to keep everyone occupied. Basically, the pole is covered in a fatty, greasy substance and at the top of the pole is the ham. Whoever can climb to the top of the pole and get the ham, wins the ham. It was brilliant fun watching, but frustrating at the same time. Team work was the ONLY way to get the ham, but everyone wanted it for themselves, probably mostly for the glory rather than the ham. Some people figured out how to do it and would start building a human pyramid and just as it was getting high enough, some annoying Asian man would start ripping people off the pyramid and would try to get the ham for himself…And would fall to the ground and hurt himself. Everyone bloody time it was getting high, an Asian would destroy it. I don’t consider myself a racist person, but Jesus…EVERY TIME!!

My picture is a bit crappy because we were in a pretty crappy position.

Callum was starting to suffer from claustrophobia and therefore we moved ourselves from the thick of it all to the side street away from it all. Along the street here we saw all the inhabitants setting up huge blue tarps in front of their houses. After a while the hoses came out. From the rooves, all the owners had buckets of water and hoses, spraying all those, like us, below. They seemed to love it and thought it was hilarious. For us, it was sensational, because the sun was out and blazing and down on the ground, we were frying up like little eggs.


I thought it was a good idea to bring my camera, wallet, sunnies and towel. My theory was that it probably wouldn’t be that wet and everything would be fine if I just put it in my toiletries bag, seeing as that’s kind of water proof. Yes well...

11am came and everyone watching the ham moved into the street that we were standing in, so any chance of getting rid of the claustrophobia was out the window. There seemed to be more people, but in a smaller space. In the distance at the end of the very long street, we saw it. A big blue truck full of smelly rotting tomatoes was on it’s way down the street, and in the back were about 20 Spaniards, throwing arm-full’s of tomato off the sides of the truck. Some of the people in the back were absolutely launching the red juicies, launching them so hard that if one hit you in the eye, it would definitely leave a bruise if not make you blind. When I thought of a tomato being thrown at my head, I pictured it exploding on impact and me standing there laughing. It’s not like that at all. When the tomatoes hit, especially when you don’t see it coming, it feels like a really hard punch, and depending on the size, it sometimes feels like a sledge hammer. Some of them REALLY hurt. When the truck finally passed us, we all spilled into the middle of the street and war broke out. Before I knew it my ankles were covered in a chunky soup and tomato was in every crevice and orifice I can think of. Every one. I was exhausted by the end of the first round, but then I looked at the end of the street and sure enough, there was another truck.

Some girl I had been gazing at for most of the day threw a couple tomatoes directly at my face, and I thought my nose would start bleeding, but I took this as an indication that she liked me, so I scooped up some of the soup and put it on her head and it went all over her face and she wailed like a 3 year old. She’d also decided to wear make-up this day, so mascara was running halfway down her cheeks and she looked more like a screaming banshee than a lovely girl, so I decided to leave her alone.

Although these aren't my pictures, this is pretty much exactly what it looked like, except there were chunks of tomato in your eye, so you couldn't REALLY open them.

Probably the most brilliant thing about all of this was that I only knew Callum and Lucy, whom I pretty much didn’t even look at through the fight. No-one in the rush knew each other, and yet after throwing tomatoes really hard at each other, everyone still thought it was great fun. I didn’t see a single fist being thrown or anyone getting angry, although I did notice a lot of upset people by the fourth truck. After 45 minutes of constant tomato in your face, I could understand why you’d want it to stop. A chap came up to me with a 500ml cup of tomato and decided to pour it on my head, rub it in, and press, squeeze and roll it all into my dreadlocks. At this point, I realised that I had also had enough and was ready for it to stop.

Seconds later a shirt soaked in tomato came flying from 20 metres away and lobbed me in the head. It took me off my feet and I landed face first in the soup. If someone stood on me, I would have drowned in tomato. By now the soup came up past my knees and there was still another 15 minutes and two trucks to come.

I retreated to the street wall to find Callum with his hands over his face and half-crouched, because if he crouched anymore, his face would have been in the soup. There was a lot of tomato in my eyes and it was starting to hurt. Everyone who was wearing goggles decided to ditch them because they couldn’t see anything through them. Little did they know that things looked exactly the same without them on.

At 12 o’clock the bell rung and the whistles blew. This meant that all tomatoes or tomato juice was to stay on the ground. No more throwing. Thank the good lord. Looking around, it looked like a war field. Red was everywhere, people were crying and everyone just had a generally dreadful look about them. Then the sun hit.

All we wanted to do was have a shower and get this bloody stuff of us, so we had to escape the street. But everyone wanted to do it at the same time. There were at least 50,000 people in this street and everyone was walking the wrong way. Only one end had an exit and so it took over an hour AFTER the fight finished to escape. This meant that the tomatoes had dried on our skin, clothes, and my dreads.


Walking away from the fight, the locals had their hoses and were standing in the streets spraying off all the dirty tourists. It was brilliant and they seemed to enjoy themselves doing it. The entire city was disgusting and just smelt of boiling tomato soup from the sun. On arrival, the tomatoes had already spent five days driving through Portugal and Spain in the back of the trucks through the blistering sun and were already starting to rot. In a liquid form I’m sure they were rotting faster because the scene smelt awful.



These pictures were taken AFTER our hosing unfortunately. The result of the fight was pretty spectacular, but because of that, I couldn't really handle the camera until we were cleaned off.


My shoes were white before the festival. Lucy's were always red. Can you guess which one's are mine?

Back on the bus and back to the campsite, Callum and myself bought some 1 litre beers for a Euro each and hit up the beach. Despite all the jelly fish on the beach, we couldn’t see any in the water, so we jumped in and had a ripping good time getting all the tomato skin and bits out of our hair.

My sunburn was scorching and killing me the entire day and I spent the remainder of the sunlight with a wet shirt on my shoulders and a wet piece of cloth on my face. Within 30 seconds, the clothing was as hot as my skin and I would therefore have to stick it in some water again. It was bloody awful. We didn’t take any pictures unfortunately, but it was definitely one of the worst sunburn experiences I’ve had in my life.

After all the excitement, the three of us decided that since we were in Valencia, we may as well actually see the place, so the next day we headed off for the city and checked into a hostel. That story can wait until the next blog.

Cheers boyyzzzz!