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- category: "Germany" -
October 02, 2004
Deep in the Black Forest
Greetings from Freiburg, Germany. I arrived here yesterday after a five hour car ride from Roland, a software engineer, from Munich. I was going to catch the ride by hitchhiking (or "autostop", as most of the Europeans call it) but it was pooring down rain all morning and rain is not a hitchers friend. So with the help of a great German ride board I found a 15 Euro ride all the way through the Swartzwald (or Black Forest) to the small but bubbling university town of Freiburg.
Quickly upon arriving I met up with Olivia, my 39th host of my adventure. Olivia is a college student from California studying German and Psychology at the Uni here in Freiburg. I've been here less than 24 hours and we've already done so much! Last night we cooked a great salmon pasta with this...I can't remember what it's called. Let's just say it was really yummy. Today we walked all over the city and up a mountain trail that overlooked the whole town. I loved it.
Now it's 6pm and I'm exhausted. Olivia just left to catch up with her boyfriend for a Spanish movie that's either in spanish with german subtitles or german language with spanish subtitles. Either way, I opted to hang out at here place for some alone time. I haven't read any of the books I have in my pack in a week or so and I just keep amassing them. Time to get reading!
By the way, thanks again to Glenn for the books London and Celestine Prophesy and Olivia for...I can't think what it's called right now:)
Who will be host #40? Find out soon! Wanna see my CouchSurfing profile? Click here.
September 29, 2004
Oktoberfest... and then some
Well, I survived! Jen and I had a super time in the HB tent at Oktoberfest in Munich. Don't worry Mom and Dad - we didn't drink too much. Mostly we had just loads of fun. At one time our table had 8 people from 6 different countries. I love it!
Yesterday I made it out of Munich and on to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to visit my friends Amy and Micah from Dallas. If you were reading my site in April you might remember that I visited them then to catch the last bit of skiing to be done on the mountain for the season. This time I'm too early to do any more skiing but there's still plenty of fun to be taken in. Tonight we're cooking fajitas! My mouth is drooling already.
Speaking of food, does anyone in the States know of Doner Kababs? All over Europe it's the turkish version of fast food. For $3 or $4 you get this great pita sandwich with i-don't-really-know-what kind of meet inside of it along with lettuce, onion, tomato and some great spice/sauce combo. I've never seen them anywhere in the States but over here there's rarely a day that goes by where I don't have one. Good stuff!
Friday I'm taking off again for another country. I haven't visited this place in over nine years. Who can guess which one it is?
September 26, 2004
Oktoberfest!
I finally made it to Munich! Jen and I arrived Friday night at Glenn and Silvia's home at around 8:00pm. The thing is, though - we left Paris Thursday night at midnight. So it took just about 20 hours to get here which was longer than it took me to get from Dallas to Paris. Crazy stuff.
Amazingly it didn't cost us a think to travel the 900km to get here. Our first ride took us more than half way from Paris to Strasbourg, on the French/German border. Claire and Stefane, a great couple who hosted me last time I was here, gave me and Jen the ride. They just happened to be visiting friends and family in Paris at the time and leaving when we were wanting to go. The only catch was that we left at midnight.
The ride to Strasbourg seemed to take forever. There was a lot of construction going on so we had to take loads of detours. Therefore the ride that should have taken around 4 or so hours took double the time. No worries, though. At least I was able to sleep little bits here and there.
Saying goodbye to Claire and Stephane in Kehl, just across the border in Germany, we dropped inside a convenience store to get supplies to make our hitching sign. We wrote simply "M - Oktoberfest!" on one sign and "Bitte!" on another so we both held one. "M" is the german sign for Munich while Bitte means please. :)
Within about 20 minutes a trucker (or a "lorry" driver for you UK english speaking folk) stopped for us. Truckers are the best rides! We were exhausted and here a truck stops with two beds in the cab for us to lay out on. What a treat!
He had to pick up a load a little out of the way so the ride took longer but it was worth it. The drivers was also SUPER strange and had creepy stories to tell but overall he was a really nice guy. He drove us all the way into Munich and apologized profusely for not being able to drop us off at the door of the house we were staying in. What a nice guy - even if he was more than a little strange.
So we finally made it. Oktoberfest is super crouded on the weekends so we've decided to hit it hard tomorrow around lunch time. We walked through it a bit today and checked out all the food, beer, and gobs of people. Tomorrow sounds like it will be a lot better to get around. We're both really looking forward to it.
Tchüß from München!
July 09, 2004
Heidelberg
Hello from Heidelberg!
I´m on a whirlwind tour of the city here trying to meet up with some people from Spirit of America. While I´m here I´m staying with my host Kevin from CouchSurfing, his girlfriend and 11 month daughter he calls Pumpkin. Kevin is a photographer with the US military and has been all over the world taking great photos. Tomorrow he´ll leave for two weeks in Norway (i´m almost as green as Norway with envy) to lot more great shots.
In Munich I stayed in the coolest little garden house of Glenn and Silvia. I loved it! And they were wonderful hosts who have had around 15 other guests. They love getting messages from people wanting to visit them in Munich. If you make it their way you should definitely try and meet up with them! I know I´ll be back to their place. Everyone should make it to Munich at least once. It´s a place not to be missed.
June 09, 2004
"Cowboy Jim from Texas"
People (in Germany, anyway) keep telling me there is a children´s song called "Cowboy Jim from Texas" or something like that. Does anyone know of it? Send me the lyrics!
May 24, 2004
Bremen to Lübeck
Welcome to all my new visitors from my eBay auction! Pull up a chair and stay for a while!
A few days ago I had planned to go to Hannover. Somehow I ended up instead going to Heide then Bremen and then now Lübeck - every which way I could go from Hannover. I supposed I´ll never see the city but now I don´t remember why I was determined to go there anyway (or if there even was a reason). Anyone know if there´s anything there I just shouldn´t miss to make my European adventure complete?
Bremen was...
...boring. Very boring. I stayed in the hostel to meet some travelers. Instead I met a few people who were there either on business or looking for a house in the area. Those people were interesting enough but I need travelers. Where have all the travelers gone?
Well they´re not in Lübeck either. I know, I know - I want other people I should go to the bigger cities. But I´m glad I came to Lübeck, even if I was the ONLY one in my 8 bed room last night. The 10 bed room next door was completely empty as well. But I love this hostel. It´s a very cool place and you should go there if you come through. The woman who runs it is über-friendly. I enjoy talking to her.
Last night I had the whole place to myself. I spread out my stuff around the table downstairs and caught up my journal while I listened to some CDs i burned at Jan´s place in Hamburg (thanks Jan!). I hadn´t written in my journal in almost a month and I´ve almost caught it up to date. It´s something that I want to have at the end of my trip so I´m glad I´m making a least some attempt to keep it up.
Today is (surprise) a lazy day for me. I´m going to walk around town a bit and see where the day takes me. Tomorrow I may head to Denmark.
May 22, 2004
Hannover or Heide?
Question: How does one intending to go to Hannover and end up going the complete opposite direction to Heide? Answer: That´s just the way my kind of traveling often (and even preferably) goes.
Thursday afternoon I started out in Hamburg with my hitching sign instructing drivers i wanted to go to Hannover. While the street was busy with lots of cars I wasn´t having much luck. I had been told it was a good spot to get a ride and apparently other hitchers thought so too. There was another guy going a different direction just ahead of me. He had a mohawk and was completely dressed in black. AND he got a ride with just a few minutes waiting by a beautiful Danish blonde in a Mercedes. If this guy can get a ride surely anyone can.
Minutes after he left another guy jumped out of a car with his own sign. He was going a different direction than me (ie. we weren´t competing for rides) so we talked while we waited. His name was Sören and he spoke fantastic english. Anyway, he was heading home to Heide for a wedding. After about 30 minutes with neither of us getting a ride yet he invited me to come along with him if I didn´t have any plans. Plans??? What are those?
Coincidentally the girl that picked us up was the sister of the girl getting married. What a crazy world this is. She didn´t recognize him or anything, just picked us two guys up because she was going the same direction. Very cool.
I ended up eating dinner with his family who were very nice and then going out to a few local pubs with Sören and his friends. There were a great group of guys and for some reason didn´t let me pay for anything. I had to pratically beg to pay for breakfast on the way home.
Oh, I´m still not used to the sun coming up so early. AND the bars don´t really close until everyone is gone. We were out at one place and I didn´t think it was that late until I looked out the window and saw what I thought couldn´t have been (but decidedly was) daylight. 4am sunshine is a weird thing to get used to.
The next day we went out to the beach at Büsum which was awesome. I love the feel and smell of the sea air. Not long later he had to run off to the wedding and I was dropped off at the local Heide hostel. The place was completely deserted. The doors were open but even though I walked all over the place I couldn´t find a soul. The place reminded me of the hotel in The Shining so I got the hell out of there.
While I had Sören´s phone number to call in case the place didn´t work out I decided to just head back to Hamburg. It was only 100 kms away and I found a ride easily enough from a cool female doctor heading home from the beach. Luckily Jan (a very cool guy I stayed with a week or so in Hamburg) let me crash on his couch again.
When I got back to Hamburg Jan wasn´t there. Instead Lady from Chili was in his place. She was another GlobalFreeloader who was staying in his room. With a mix of her bits of english and my "un poquito espanol" knowledge we ended up having fun conversations and a good night out on the town.
Sometimes the fun never seems to stop out here, especially when things don´t go anywhere near as planned and you don´t end up in Hannover.
May 19, 2004
Hitch and hike (continued)
Ok, if you haven´t read the previous post you should do it now or you´ll miss part of the story.
Moving on...
So I get out of the truck and try to hitch up the road. Once again, no luck. I´m trying to hitch directly on the main Autobahn running north/south through Germany and the cars are flying by too fast to slow down if they wanted to. Plus, it wasn´t only illegal to hitch from here but probably dangerous. I decided to pack it in for the night.
Although I´ve used my sleeping bag several times in people´s homes I have never been more glad to have it than last night. I slept by a picnic table at this rest stop for a few hours. It really wouldn´t have been bad but it gets fairly cold at night in northern Germany, even at the end of May. I had the drawstring at the top of the bag closed in around my head pretty tight. The sun doesn´t set in Germany until after 11pm and, even better, it rises around 4am. I slept as long as I could until it was way too bright and the trucks starting taking off at around 5:30am. No one wanted to give me a ride. I tried again to hitch from the motorway for a bit until I saw the guy who dropped me off coming up the exit way. Here´s what was playing in my head:
"Great! I hadn´t missed him afterall! Why isn´t he slowing down?"
Not only did he keep on going by me but as he did so he shook his index finger at me seeming to say "tisk, tisk, tisk - too bad for you".
So there I was stuck at least 10 kms from either Flensburg or Schleswig. I figured Schleswig was a little bit closer so I started walking that way. I was mad at the trucker for stranding me out here and anger alone is enough to drive me for a few kms.
As it is illegal and somewhat dangerous to hitch on the Autobahns it is also the same for walking on its shoulder. I made it about 4 kms before the german police had a problem with what I was doing. After explaining my situation (or at least trying to while dealing with their limited english comprehension) they actually gave me a ride to the next exit. The next exit just happened to be to Schleswig. The even found me a good place to hitch from!
I was only 2.3 kms from town so I decided to walk the rest of it. It would have probably taken the same amount of time to hitch it. I made it to town and to a hostel without further incident. A warm shower never felt so good.
May 10, 2004
Rainy days are here to stay
The saying here in Germany (at least in the southern, Bavarian part of Germany) they have a saying that goes "April, April. Er weiß nicht, was er wünscht" which translates to "He knows not what he wants". It Italy they say "Aprile Pazzesco. Li vedete il sole e portare un ombrello" that translates to "crazy April, you see the sun and you bring an umbrella." Even in the US is "April showers bring May flowers" (and, of course, what do Mayflowers bring? Pilgrims!) But where are those may flowers? What happens to the crazy April that brings a nice May? So far I´ve experienced more rain in May than any other month. The whole time I was in Berlin I was hit with rain literally "out of the blue". I would look up to see blue skies and ten minutes later it would be raining.
Yesterday the rain, at least, worked in my favor a bit. I was standing it on the outskirts of Berlin trying to find a ride to Hamburg when a guy felt sorry for me and picked me up. Of course I had to stand in it for almost an hour before that guy pulled up. But on to blue skies!
...or so I had hoped. After two fairly quick rides I got to Hamburg where the sun was shining like I didn´t even know it could in north Germany. There were even hot air balloons flying around the city. It was definitely picturesque (and of course I snapped a few pics). A few minutes ago I looked out the window to a beautiful day. But as I sat here typing for a few minutes I started to hear the rain pelt the window. Ugh.
Top five rainy songs in my head:
- Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
- The Doors - Riders on the Storm
- Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
- Heather Nova - Keep Me (London Rain)
- Bob Dylan - Love Sick
May 08, 2004
"Tear down that wall"
I finally saw what´s left of the Berlin Wall today. Wow! It was really amazing to me how much of it was left intact. There´s this really long (or at least I thought it was long) section near the Warshauerstr. U-bahn. I took at 20-30 pics of it today and hopefully (this sounds familiar, doesn´t it?) I´ll be able to put some up here for you to see eventually.
In a few hours I´m going to a "trampen" (german for "hitchhiking") meetup in a few hours. My hosts here in Berlin and most of the people I´ve met through them are big into hitching and there seems to be people from Russian and elsewhere coming by to discuss...I don´t really know what. We´ll just have to see!
I was going to hitch to Hamburg tomorrow but I forgot that it was Sunday AND Mother´s Day (happy mother´s day, Mom!!) and the chances of me getting a ride are significantly lower (or so I hear). So Monday I´ll head there and see if they have any good hamburgers. :)
May 05, 2004
Hello Berlin
So how is it that I´ve manged to find myself sitting in an internet cafe in Berlin this afternoon having no idea where I am (only that I am fairly confident that I am somewhere in the city of Berlin) having no idea where I´m sleeping tonight? This is the question I´m beginning to ask myself.
But I´m getting ahead of the story. This morning I woke up in Dresden and decided that today was the day to make it to Berlin. I thought I had a place to stay here but it turned out I can´t stay there until this weekend at the earliest. Does this deter me in my blind ambition to get to Germany´s "über" modern city? Of course not!
Veit, my host in Dresden, dropped me off at about 2pm at the bus stop. But of course I wasn´t taking the bus today. Instead of a bus ticket I had a Sharpie marker and a piece of cardboard. In a matter of minutes I had my "Berlin" sign made out and just a short time later a ride to Berlin.
Just one ride here in Europe and I can already tell I´m hooked on hitching. It was great! I met a musician/painter that got me to Berlin in record time. The ride should have been free but it did cost me my sunglasses (only because I forgot them in his car!) I hate that I lost them.
I´ve sent out a bunch of messages via the Hospitality Club but so far no response on a place to stay tonight. That´s what I forget for waiting until the last minute to make sure it´s all worked out. But no worries, I´m sure something will work out before it gets too late. Something always does.
May 04, 2004
Dracula
I started reading Bram Stoker´s Dracula last night and had weird dreams about flying through a rocky eastern Europe country side at night in a horse driven carriage. A cool thing about it is that the book is written like it´s in journal form by the characters in the book. The first "entry" in the book starts on 3 May - the day I started reading it. Eerie....
Oh, I forgot to mention. My last night in Prague was a crazy night. I even managed to sneak into and sleep in a hostel (shhh, don´t tell) without paying. In some places it´s easier than it sounds. :)
April 07, 2004
Snow
It was a little chilly when I got here but so far I hadn't seen any snow besides on the mountain peaks. Now it's really coming down.
It's not sticking on the ground but I hear it's piling it on up on the mountain which is good because it looks like I might get to go skiing tomorrow (!!). That should be fun. The Zugspitze is the tallest mountain peak in Germany at just under 3000 meters and is supposed to have great snow. Hopefully we'll see tomorrow:)
April 05, 2004
Greetings from Garmisch
I made it to Garmisch today to see my friends from Texas Amy and Micah. They live and work in a US armed forces resort complex. Hello American keyboards! Oh how I've missed you. Of course I'm somewhat used to the german keyboard now so ironically it's taking some getting used to using the one I've been familiar with for years.
As I type I am finally uploading my pictures. Yeah! I have a little over 300 of them so enjoy. Right now you can access them at http://www.fliptophead.com/misc/images/ and look at the raw, regular sized ones that are really big. Hopefully I'll also have them on Ofoto with captions, ect. Go ahead and go to Ofoto.com and register. It's free and you'll have to do it if you want to see my pics that way. You can also order copies of them really cheap if you want.
I really enjoyed my stay in Munich. The Breit family was so nice and welcoming. I felt so at home there. I was there for 3+ days and it felt so quick. I hope to see them again.
April 03, 2004
Munich by bike
Today has been a good day. I spent most of the day riding around the city by bike. I love this way of seeing a place. On foot is great (and cheap) but by bike is so much better. You get to see and do so much more in much less time. My host family let me use one of their bikes and I rode all day.
It's great to be in a city where you can get a big mug of GOOD beer just about any time of day. If you've only had the most popular American beers (Budweiser, Coors, Miller, ect.) you are sooo missing out. Germans know how to make beer. My favorite so far is the "weiss beirs" or "white" beers. Yum. They are so flavorable. It's going to be so sad to go home and not have them all with me:)
I did a lot of seeing the city today and spent some time reading in the Englishergarten. I love that place. I talked to a guy at Mike's Bike Tours who said the guy who hires people will be back from Budapest tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to catch him and talk to him about a job. It would be great to live in this city for a while.
Monday I'm planning on going to Garmisch, near the border of Austria and Germany, to see some friends from Dallas who now live there. It'll be good to see them again.
That's all tonight. I'm exhausted from riding around all day. When I got back Melanie's mom was cooking something spectacular. It's been over an hour since I ate and I'm still stuffed:)
Send me emails!
April 02, 2004
On the road to Munich
It feels like it´s been weeks since i´ve been able to write. So much happens every day out here. It´s hard to imagine that so many events can fit into the hours of just one day. Well, as you can tell from the title of this message I made it to Munich, Germany last night. I left from Paris at about 8:00a with Ivan, a student in Paris traveling back to his hometown of Sofia, Bulgaria. He drove across France to Strassbourg, on the border of France and Germany, and then I took the wheel to Munich. I love driving in Europe! Being so used to miles and MPH it feels like the trip flies by when measured in kilometers. And although 120 KPH is only about 72 MPH it feels much faster:) My part of the trip (Paris to Munich) was only about 520 miles but it took almost 12 hours. Even worse was that he had another 1000 or so miles to go and he wasn´t going to stop until he got there. I really enjoyed driving and talking with him I almost hated to part with him. I didn´t yet have a confirmed place to stay in Munich so I almost kept going with him to Salzburg, Austria or so. But it was already past 8:00p and it would have been about 11:00p or so by the time we reached Salzburg. If I had any chance of a place to stay it would be in Munich.
So it was goodbye to Ivan and hello to Munich. I immediately headed to the internet cafe near the train station that I frequented three years ago when I was in Munich and hoped was still there. I was in luck! Not only was it there but once I checked my email I had an invitation to stay in someone´s home in Munich!
Melanie came and picked me up to take me to her flat near the Olympic stadium. Her family was so nice! Even on such short notice they immediately welcomed me into their home. Her mother fed me of good German food and beer until I couldn´t fit anymore in. They were so wonderful and nice.
It´s so great to meet people who are comfortable welcoming strangers into their homes. Last time I was in Europe I stayed mostly in hostels. While I met a lot of people most of them were traveling Americans. This time I still meet a few travelers but I meet so many more of the people who live in the cities and countries. The local perspective and exchange of cultural ideas is an experience not to be missed.
Today Melanie took me around the city with a friend of hers. We went to a biergarten named after the deer that inhabit a part of it (of course, I can´t remember the german name for it even though I asked at least three times) and then to Nymphenschloß (i´m positive i misspelled that one), a castle of King Ludwig. Later we walked around the downtown area of Munich for a while before I went to jail!
Yep, I saw the inside of the Munich jail today. Fortunately I got to see it just as a visitor for Melanie´s mother works there. She gave me the grand tour that is usually forbidden to outsiders. I enjoyed it.
That´s enough writing today. I´m off to read a bit and try and figure out where I´m heading next. I´m going to try and not have too many completely uncertain nights like last night. I´m going to give this planning ahead thing a chance and see what happens:)
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