Chris on train, donate money now.

So as you should be able to tell by now, travelling on the train gives me plenty of time to catch up with some scribing duties. This week had a couple or two things on the go, which are worthy of mention. Tosca was playing at the Oper Frankfurt on Monday night, so I was looking forward to zoning out to something completely different for 2 and a half hours. It was definitely worth paying the 45 euros to go and see. I'm sure I recognised one of the guys performing in Toscar from a couple of weeks ago (someone from Japan sining in Italian), so I was half expecting to hear him mixing up one a chirpy cantata from the historical almost-comedy opera from a couple of weeks ago right when the news broke out of a main character's suicide. I promise not to write a sentence that long again.

I had to work this week, and till reasonably late, so that was a big of a drag, but at least I got a bunch of stuff done. I also booked myself a return ticket with Ryan Air to Oslo in February for 45 Euro. This is to see Andrea Bocelli - couldn't find a closer performance of his - should be awesome spending the weekend in Norway. The lady on the phone who took my booking for the concert ticket was asking about ticket prices in denominations of 100, which made my credit card quiver at the thought. I was half expecting to hear some moose or reindeer lowing in the background while I was giving across my details. I spose it's not as informal as Canada with its local wildlife/pets.

Before I degenerate myself further in to a senseless mess, I'll leave you safe in the knowledge that this weekend I'll be greeting in the new year in Amsterdam, eating plenty of frites with mayo and doing....tolerant... things, that only the Dutch know how to do.

Happy Weinachten

The weekend was also a corker. Imagine was it would be like to be zooming down the ski slopes of Austria for Xmas day. Those of you who would prefer to stay at home with 20 members of your extended family, all with crying children are free to spend your festivus how you like (saps!). It wasn't as cold this time as last (it was -13 degrees on last Tursday and -21 the day before that), but a tropical -2 degrees. The Hinter Tux was closed, so the next field down (Eggalm) was it.

However I'm getting ahead of myself, since Friday is very worthy of a mention. I met Yayeri in Munich on Friday night and went across from the hostel we were staying at to the local beer hall. In the Bavarian region, of which Munich is the capital is a very drinking-oriented city. Everyone in the hall was well on their way through their 10th stein - including all of the the serving wenches. When I had ordered soup as an entree, our S.W. had looked at me like I had made slurring remarks about her moustache hair. She ambled walked away confused, only to return 2 minutes later to recheck my order against the menu, as if in amazement that soup could actually be on the menu. Literally 4 minutes later, she had returned with our starters, that I started slurping at with a casual pace. 3 minutes later, she had returned with a big saucepan of delicious-smelling Bavaraian cooking and upon seeing my soup still being eaten gave me a look of utter comtempt while she made an eating motion as if I was two, then gave a stern "Schneller, schneller" and stormed off, food in hand. The place was classic.

Anyhow, the next day on the field was fantastic, even though there was only really one run. It was different skiing amongst trees, but I still found that NZ field's are better: more varying terrian and runs, as well as more field to play with. Still, it was great having a blast blowing the cobwebs out. We had stayed in a small homestay-type chalet. It had room for six famies and was owned by a kind old Austrian lady. Those of you know know old ladies know they like to keep a tight ship, so the whole place was decorated and finished down to the finest detail. You felt bad just moving the carefully-placed towel off the bed; some people have too much time on their hands.

Those of you who can remember Xmas day through the boozy haze, will recall that it was on a Saturday, so I still had a chance to spend Sunday on the fields, but since I didn't have an easy way to get back to Munich, then Frankfurt other than via train, I decided to spend most of Sunday travelling, and travel I did. First it was the bus from the Tux, to Mayrhofen station, then the choo choo to Jenbach. Then from Jenbach to Munich, then to Frankfurt. All in all, it was a 10 hour journey. Something that was curiously interesting seeing the back country (and wondering why people would settle in a cold and unforbidding part of the world, but also draining at the same time.

I was a bit gutted to find the gym had closed early on Sunday night, so I pottered around the flat, vegetating in front of the box, watching TV5 from France... haw haw haw.

Rampant unproofred blog follows

Skiing on the mountains of Austria on Tuesday was the ducks nuts. One of my Juniper buddies, Hannes Viertel, myself and some other dudes travelled to the Hinter Tux. This is a ski field with an elevation of 3200 metres at its highest point, which was obvious when you took a trip to the top - you were practically blown off the mountain from the wind, then put in cryogenics as you aligned yourself in to a suitable landing configuration. The rest of the group, bar one were all snow boarders, and it was clear I was the spring chicken out of us, since I didn't have a matching team jersey.

On the way up to the top of the mountain, I met a young Dutch girl named Yayeri, who was also a keen skiier and will be henceforth named the ski bunny of the day. We decided to blast down the slopes separate to the group, since it slow going for the boarders, even though it was just a matter of aiming down and saying a prayer for Allah.

At the end of the crystal clear day, we had exchanged phone numbers and parted on our various ways - me back to Munich with Hannes and her to say in the area to be a ski instructor for four months. I was origionally planning to stay the extra day in Munich and have a look around the area, but I decided to head back that evening with Michael from DT, to arrive blearey eyed and tired at 1am to Frankfurt main station. Being a true European, he was a smoker so we sat in the smokers train car - I felt like a true nicotine junkie and was sure I'd only be living to see my next five birthdays before I would have to get half my lung cut out from cancer and discover it was a mis-diagnosis anyway.

On the choo choo

As I sit here on the train to Munich Hauptbahnhof and ponder over the weekend (and time is what I have - another two hours before I need to awaken and deal with reality once more), I wonder what one is to do for company when you're overseas and travelling. What would Bill Bryson do?

Well, he wouldn't have gone to a murky underground dance club, but I thought it would be a good way of tackling the problem of not knowing many people in Frankfurt. However, I'm getting ahead of myself here. All enthusiastic and German, I arrived at the opera house for Il Viaggio a Rheims, or The Journey to Rheims, fashionably early. I was as well-dressed as one could be when one brings two tramping backpacks in to the country. It seemed to work as I blended in satisfactorily enough. The first opera I was to see in real life was in two parts (or as Con the fruitseller would say, "yeah, there was an intermission") and I'm happy to say that it was a success - especially the actors heralding a good five minutes of audience applause. I felt rather young milling about in the foyer on the way out - by a good 8 years.

Since it was my first weekend in Frankfurt for a while, I figured the city must have something to offer in the way of nightlife. One rather inviting building (from what you could see of it from the footpath) was an underground nightclub that pumps out dance music till 12 in the morning called U60311. Not really a name that rolls off the tongue with as ease, so I was to see whether the ravers would be saving saving their mouth gymnastics for other activites.

The doorman was happy to relieve me of the onourous burdon of me carrying around 9 Euro as was the barkeep to be glad of relieving me of 5 euro a beer. I plopped myself at a barstool and surveyed the surroundings. The club was a big affair with atypical German dance music and very young (but legal in Paraguay I'm sure) dancers who looked like they had large electrodes attached to their legs. If you can imagine MC hammer having an epileptic attack (but without the Hammer pants), you should be able to picture what I mean. I stayed for another beer, and after feeling like an old grandpa I headed home, feeling dissapointed. The queue outside had grown by around half a century as I left and I couldn't help but feeling that I could save them 10 bucks by letting them in on a secret, but I figure I would have got several quizzical looks. Kids today!

Fast forward to today and the train has stopped somewhere between Munch and Nurenberg waiting for some signals to change. There's lots of snow around the tracks, so hopefully the snow gods will look kindly upon my eagerness at hitting the slopes tomorrow with gifts of falling flakes. The following day (Wednesday) I'll have a walkabout in Munich. Still not sure if I'll be able to get a visit to Dachau concentration camp - guess it'll have to be an early tee off :)

Luckily the band still plays on..

Hail Komarade
As the work minutes thankfully (although not quick enough) turned in to work days, I am left with only a couple of tasks to finish before the week has finally drawn to a close. My superior at work has gone on holiday for a couple of weeks. It'll be different without him each morning popping his head through the door from his office and every time looking like his Christmases have all come at once by seeing that I'm sitting at my desk with a thoughful-looking frown on my face. The numbers of people in the office vicinity have dwindled down to zero, so all I have to remind me there are people around is the smoke lingering down the corridor from a secretarys destress smoke. Still though, there is a great incentive to going to lunch. A brisk walk past the fellow collegues toward the Kasino builds up the anticipation to see who's manning the coffee machine. There's very little competition for me at work, since everyone has at least a wife (I doubt more than one) , and most have kids (but I spose that hasn't always stopped anyone in the past). I try in earnest, but I'll have to extend my efforts farther than compliments on their coffee-making expertise.

Despite its name, Kasino, I have only seen one one-armed bandit - and even then I haven't seen her steal anything). This is the local kai area and the meals are decidedly cheap, and of the three menus, most are well-stocked with various German meats - these guys certainly know their meats.

Retail Therapy
Today I finally went out and purchased a jacket. It wasn't just any jacket, but a shiny one. It's always a hard decision between fashion and practicality (i.e. not getting pneumonia), so I was happy to find one that would suit both needs. I also bought a pair of gloves in preparation for Tuesday's skiing trip to the Alps.

Ski bunnies ahoy
I'm going to be heading on Monday night and crashing at wee Hannes's place (the diminutive is due to two Hanneses working in the Juniper EMEA region, and he's the youngest - I doubt it's the endearment type of diminutive). Then on Tuesday morning, we'll head to somewhere in the Alps that I can't pronounce and return Tuesday night. Then I'll spend Wednesday cruising around Munich seeing if I can find some trouble. Munich, I'm told, is a very beautiful city. I'll remember to take some photos and upload them, all for your viewing pleasure - especially the ones of leaderhosen *shudder*.

Opera
Tonight's opera night - Il Viaggio a Reims and I was hoping I'd have some time set aside to know wtf it's about. All I know is that it's an Italian opera and it's got German Untertitlen on a screen to one side. It could be a story about a convicted paedophille for all I know, but I'm sure the program would have an English section....surely.

The 'Dam: that which make me smile from ear to ear

German rail engineering took me from Frankfurt to Amsterdam in just under 4 hours on Friday after work. A couple of stops along the way in Cologne, Dusseldorf and Utrecht. Some people got on the train in Dusseldorf and I had seen something I hadn't seen for ages. They were laughing and had smiles on their face. It didn't take long to realise that they were Dutch and were heading to Utrecht for some mischef for the weekend. I was a cool train ride. I met a couple of kiwi girls on the train - I could pick the accent a mile away... the first step once you hear an accent is to decide if it's American or not - that was easy. Then you listen for the Aussie drawl, since it's invariably an Aussie if it's not English or a Yankee. Surprisingly I heard the unmistakable Cloey of Wainui accent, so I started muttering sentences to them in German. "Sawree, I dun't speak German" one of the girls replied. I had had my fun, and started the usual "where are you from banter". Being a kiwi girl, she was the first to mention that we should go to the beer part of the train for some refreshments. Ace!

I had also met a couple of gals who were teachers at an international school in the Bad Homberg area. They had informed me that it's a veritable fountain of single women teachers and that unfortunately I would have to oblige them with my email address and phone number. I begrunginly divulged them with my prized cellphone number. I bid them farewell at the end of the journey, but it wasn't the last I was to see of them.

I met Emile at the station with a casual "Hey Cunt" greeting. Immediately I remembered why I loved Amsterdam so much (one of the reasons anyway) - there are loads of beautiful girls in Centraal Station. I had never been in love so many times that night :) We did the boost back to his apt and dumped our stuff and went out to a lokal. Beautiful malted Weizen Hoegaarden beer was to flow forth at a local bar. I liked it so much, we got three. In Germany, the beer you get at the lokal is the local Pilsner. There aren't any imported beers, at least not from Pflas (tap), so I had to make up for lost time.

Saturday was a good day of retail therapy and bargain hunting. The 'Dam has great shopping, so I got some bits and piceces. I'm still undecided about getting a shiny Boss jacket. My indecision was and still is tragic - I guess it's from living in Germany for a while. These guys can't make a decision to save themselves. Emile was just as undecided as me, so we were like two old grannies. He'll insist that he knows what shoes he wants (just can't find them), but that's probably a cover up ;) I figured there's gotta be something good to come out of it, so I'll just wait till I get pheumonia then I know I really need to buy one.

Saturday night was spend in Utrecht, at a concert. The artist was Apparat from the label Shitkatapult - heaps of ace beats. Utrecht was not to dissapoint and we enjoyed finding a local student bar serving cheap beer to cheap attactive students (like us... we were to convince ourselves). The trein wasn't going back to Amsterdam at 3am, so we caught the bus back - nice tickey tour around the boonies.

On Sunday morning we were both hankering out for a proper breakfast (one with lots of grease, instead of crusty rolls). The Irish down the road had a phat all day breakfast for 9 euro. It was worth every eruocent - lots of lard was sticking to the stomach all day - a beautiful feeling.

I got a pack of medium frites as a lasting reminder before I got on the train back to Frankfurt. Sitting next to me was a German next to me with an unpleasant demeanour and a nasty scowl - I'm back home already. Just don't mention ze war, I kept telling myself.

Choice

Heidelberg was choice.
Going to Amsterdam this weekend. Choice.