Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Stop troll!

The trip to Oslo was my first with Ryanair. As I was sitting on the flight, I was sure it would be my last. Not due to some ballocky safety reason, but because they're one of these clowns who think that everyone flying to Oslo is a short troll. Unfortunately I'm one of these guys who then sprawls their legs out in the aisle to keep the circulation going past their knees. This wasn't to be my last experience with troll seats though, but that's for later on. Ryanair left from Frankfurt Hahn airport, which was two hours by bus. The trip to Oslo from the landing village (Torp) was also around two hours. On the way in to Oslo, I was sharing the bus with a couple of South Africans... uh oh.... And to no surprise, they pulled out their bottle of Absolut and mixers and started getting amongst it at 4pm. I kindly declined since my walnut bladder probably wouldn't last the journey without causing me internal damage.

We were both staying at the same hostel and in the room we were staying in was an Aussie from Perth - the trifector. There was also an American, who had been staying there for a few days beforehand so knew all the places to go. If any of you have ever visited any Scandanavian countries, you'll know that the arse-ripping expensiveness is indescribable. To keep your sanity, it's best not to ever, ever convert back to any currency. So to keep myself in some degree of light insanity, I won't mention any numbers, suffice to say it's not cheap. There was a local full of crusty people imbibing the local cheap ales, so it was just the place for us. This was Saturday night so town was reasonably humming. Billy, the American reccomended to metal bar in the middle of town, where the locals hung out. We stayed there till when closing time came, which was 3:30. All other bars were also emptying their insides at that time, which reminded me of England. In fact, lots of other things about Oslo reminded me of England. Everything was expensive to buy, the hostel was old fashioned in that they kept their rooms unmixed (since we wouldn't be able to control ourselves, ripping off clothets at the mere sight of bare female ankles, of course), the general hospitality service was ok, but nothing too special, and lastly all bars had early closing times. I finally got back home at 3:30 to an empty room. The South Africans had split off (I think one of them had a lady in tow), the Aussie had left before the place shut, and the Swedish guy had gone off with the American dude to some girls' apartment.

The following day was Andrea Bocelli concert day, as well as recovery day. I spent the day wandering around the city, and took a trip out to the Viking Museum and on the way back, the folk museum. I definitely reccomend the Viking museum, and if you get a chance, head out to the end of the peninsula where the Viking Museum is located and check out the beach. It was especially nice since I hadn't seen the sea for ages, living in landlocked areas for 5 months. The folk museum was alright, but nothing special. They have replicas of old town Norway as well as a folk art exhibition from the middle age, renaissance, rococo and baroque period. Quite interesting.

Just before the concert, a flaming anusly hot curry was required. It delivered the goods, but still not as good as Daawat. The concert was pretty good..... as was the Chezch symphonie orchestra. Andrea performed several songs with a soprano (who's name escapes me at the moment), which sounded choice-as. The echo was pretty pronounced on her first few bars, but that got fixed pretty early.

The following day was pretty uneventful, and spent most of it travelling to and from airports and countries. Not sure if I'll travel Ryanair again - it's heaps of hassle to get to and from airports, as well as putting up with little punk kids on the plane (having marginally costed flights means lots of families travel on Ryanair). Maybe I will, but only to the more exotic destinations. The leg room is pretty atrocious, but it's pretty cheap (50 euro return to Oslo including taxes).

Reflecting on the Norway experience, I'm still a bit ho-hum. There wasn't anything that really struck me as anything special, apart from the absolutely huge number of McDonalds everywhere. The sea-centred (or is that bordered) landscape reminds me of home and the city wasn't anything special that struck me as different from anywhere else. But I'm not naieve enough to discount it altogether. I think it will need a few trips to the country and up to Hammerfest (to see the northern lights) before I make up my mind.

Kia Toa,

Chris

Links zwo, links zwo. Schnell!

One of the rare times I have an update to make about goings on in the week, I went to see Sideways at the movies one weeknight. It's starring a couple of well-ish known actors (I'll fill this spot in when I get back home after landing) but I'm shitted if I know why it's been nominated for 5 ocar awards. It's a linear plot about a couple of dude mates who leave home to go on a stag do (there are just the two of them). They get in to some mischef while they're away (both finding shag buddies), but that's about it. It's relatively predictible and I struggle to see how the two of them have maintained their friendship for so many years (or how the impression was so given) since they're two vastly different types of people. One is a loud extravert confident happy-go-lucky type, and the other is a life drop-out on depressants who has the balls and confidence of a unich.

The next weekend (relative to the blog) Sargent Doctor Laine Cousins came over to stay for the weekend. She is/was in the Army band with me in Wellington and is working in University Mainz on curing cancer. It was her last two weeks in Germany and I had stayed over in Mainz twice, so it was time for her to come over. Being a single girl in a smallish German principality in Hessen (the word doesn't fit, but sounded cool so I thought I would use it) doesn't give someone much of an opportunity to go out for nights on the waste. So by the end of the night, we had done the rounds at several bars all around Frankfurt, beginning at 5.30pm and ending at some unknown time in the morning. On the way home, we decided to stop off at the local dairy and grab some supplies - a bottle wine, two bottles of beer and a cork opener. All for only 10 euro - it's the cheapest pokey corner dairy in Frankfurt, I'm sure. Once again, Billy Connolly was the fixture in the house for the end of the night. Laine said she had only been out for a bender four times in Germany, and three of them were with me. Kiwis unite!

Kiwis unite

Mouse was making the mission over from Taiwan to Frankfurt a couple of weekends ago. Jaharmes arrived around lunch on Saturday by train, and Mouse shortly after by plane. We decided to pour the culture on that night, so we charged to a typical German restaurant for some gastronimic action. In typical German fashion, I was told that I couldn't have Sauerkraut with my Fleischkäse since it's not how it's done. The meal was great, and in my attempt to really impress them with Frankfurt's finest beverages I permitted them some Appelwine. That went over the line, and after their first sip, I got that confused and horrified stare and the "how could you have done such a thing to us" look. Admittedly I couldn't stomach it either since warm, Appelwine has a curious Hessen taste, but cold it's downright horried.

To be honest, I was a little worried about what I could show tourists in Frankfurt for a day. It's similar to the quandry that Wellington inhabitants have when they have to be the tourist guide. There's the chocolate fish cafe and Te Papa, but that's about it. During the night, it's no problem, since there are enough bars to keep anyone happy, either in Frankfurt or Wellington. Luckily I had prepared earlier a parade that had lasted for around 2 hours. This was called Fashing and was a celebration that's celebrated over most of southern Germany, especially along the Rhine river. The parade was choice-as to watch. Several of the characters in the procession had oversized peanut-looking dark brown heads. I never got to the bottom of it, but whatever, or whoever they were supposed to be, they didn't look too German. I'm probably just being ignorant of a whole bunch of culture and heritage though.

Later that afternoon, we went to the Städtel museum across in the Sachsenhausen area. I was surprised to find a couple of Picasso origionals and some nice sculpture work. It's definitely true that Frankfurt am Main is a museum town - heaps of them all along the Main river. There is even a communications musem which I'm looking forward to going to see at some stage. Not many others share my enthusism so I'll probably end up going on my own.

Later that night, after chowing down at another German restaurant and several wheat beers later, we headed back to town and watched Billy Connolly's Too old to Die Young tour on DVD for a few hours. It's definitely worth a watch if you get the chance.

Jaharmes had a lecture to get back for on Monday afternoon, so headed back to Strasbourg with Mouse in the morning.

so weit die Meldungen

As far as diamonds go, I still wouldn't have a clue about Antwerp, however I cam impart some knowledge about Antwerp's night life its pulse. Many moons ago I arrived in Antwerp Centraal station by rail. As with most train stations around Europe, they're placed right in the heart of the red light district. I guess every train traveller is supposed to be needing a release of some sort after a hard journey on the caboose.

The hostel I had booked was in Pilgrem's Straadt, but after several passes along the length of the short street, my best guess as to where it was located was a bar; couldn't be... Sure enough, after ringing the telephone number, the burly bar owner told me that I had the right place. I was greeted with what I can only describe as a cross between Young Einstein (the guy who put bubbles in beer) and a more pudgy version of Lurch from the Adams family. With several grunts to answer my questions, he parted a heavy curtain and let me out the back and up some creaky stairs to my room.

"Be back before 3am otherwise the front door will be locked, since the bar closes then", he told me.
"No worries" I replied.

I made several trips around the area, but at 11pm, there wasn't much in the way of food open. I made my way to a pizzeria and chowed down on a tasty 15cm before heading to as close a local bar as I could find. I wandered in to the pub and ordered a Hoegaarden straight away. Hoegaarden is like ambrosia to me, since Germany imports very little in the way of beers, so whenever I can, I always order Dutch or Belgian beer when I was overseas. I met one of the local lads there, and after a few rounds, we wandered on to a local bar which was one of his favourites. I wasn't able to match his enthusiasm since a rawdy sailors bar (Antwerp being one of Europe's major shipping ports) wasn't my idea of a good time. Besides, it was nearing three and I'd prefer not to have spent a night in the streets of a Flemish town. I got up the next morning after having spent a couple of hours in the bar listening to a gay Irish fiddler sing some odes to ole bonnie Ireland.

The next day, the bar was deserted and the other guests were just wanding in behind the bar and out the back grabbing various supplies for the "all inclusive breakfast". It wasn't like they were getting in to anything they weren't supposed to, but it was odd to see the guy opening his place out to his guests in such a very informal manner. Perhaps he was able to look in to our eyes and see that we all had good hearts - just like Donald Rumsfeld. I met Emile later in the morning and we spent the day wandering around the city doing shopping and having breakfasts (I think we were up to three by the end of the day). In between the breakfasts, we helped ourselves to Belgian waffles and Belgiam chocolate (usually at the same time). Very tasty. The shopping in Antwerp was really fantastic (didn't spot any diamonds though). It seemed like there were no locals around, since everyone was doing the same thing as us - spending our disposible (or Visa's) money.

That night we had relatively early ones since we both had benders the previous night. The next day, as with most European cities (except for Amsterdam) the city was deader than Elvis. So dead in fact that we tried to resort to movies, but the only one that had a showing that was suitable for us was a German movie (der Untergang) with French and Flemish subitles. We would have needed a lot of entropy to go through with it, so we both left Antwerp early. I headed to Brussels for a hour of soaking up the EU captial and Emile headed back to Amsterdam via Brudge. Surprisingly a lot of Brussels was open, but I didn't have much inclination to stay there long - quite touristy and a bit dirty - as dirty as I found Paris, so I think it's a French thing myself (since most of Brussels is French-speaking). I caught a quick cappuccino and boosted to the train station with perhaps with 5 minutes to spare before the ICE (inter city express) left to Frankfurt.

The trip back was a bit of a laugh. The train lost about 50% of its traction on the way back, so we had to cross over to another ICE, which was pretty full anyway so for the next hour I was standing between two carriages, feeling like a washing machine agitator. Luckily I had some conversation to keep me interested - a couple of German students coming back from a bit of a hui in Brussels.

Now I'm still three weeks behind after this update... so next weekend is Jaharmes and Mouse coming to Frankfurt. Right now I'm hoping that I don't miss checking in to my flight from OSlo to the 'furt. Expensive beer up here in Scandanavia.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Well, a great deal has happened since my last insertion to the interweb blog. I didn't get to see Austria, but instead spend the weekend wandering around Munich. It's a really nice city, and was snowing the whole time which gave it that added twinge of "awww". It is the second or third largest city in Germany and was the birthplace of the Nazi party. The Hofbrauhaus is the most famous Beer hall in Munich. It's the oldest in the Bayern region (Bavaria) and its beerey goodness was only available to be consumed by the royalty which occupied the region. It wasn't until later when it the commoners were able to consume it. This beer hall was where the Nazi party had their first meeting. There were the typical beer wenches wandering around with seveal litre beers in each hand. It was overpriced though, since it's quite touristy.

What was really nice about all the beer halls that I visited was that people of all ages were in their at all times. Not in there just to drink to get plastered as would seem the most common reason for us, but just spending quality time, obviously getting plastered in the process, but that's not generally the main intention. On Friday night, Munich had won a soccer match against Hamburg, so the city was alight with all sorts of inebriated lads. I remember one guy who stumbled out of Maccas and fell over backward and hit his head on the pavement. After we went in to investigate to see if they were serving some McWhiskey or something, the guy in front of me said to the Maccas order chicky, in a drunken voice:

"Ich habe zwei mal von alles, ausser daß was er hat gehabt."

I bumped in to some random locals there and we went back to one of the dudes' place and had further drinks and danced to techno. This guy loved techno - he'd been all around the world to trance parties and had a constant beat in his head - over when not on something. The next day on Sunday I became aquainted with drinking by oneself. My other companion had returned back to Austria early on Sunday morning, so had the day to wander around and have a few quiets on the way. I visited the Residenz Museum - 188 rooms of royal sprawl in the northern part of the city. Nothing special to report from there, except when you're wanding around the rooms, you're always reminded how destructive the city bombing really was. For example, most of the artwork in the residential palace is reconstructed and there are lots of places where once a painting once was, but couldn't be restored because it was right royally rooted over.

If you get a chance, it's worth vitising the royal crypt under the main church... think it's the Frauenkirche - the one with the two bulbs on top of the towers. Bit gouly, but interesting all the same. Of note, there is also a clock in the town square that, when it goes off at midday, a mechanical display of a re-enactment of the royal marriage between Duke Wilhelm V and Renata of Lorraine is actuated. I headed back in the train to Frankfurt around 3pm on Sunday after a quick last Weizen beer on the way.

Better get back to work now.... Belgium is the next update (so I'll only be two weeks behind).