Hometime!

I woke up on Thursday morning in Paris and caught a train to Amsterdam. A very expensive train. Even with my eurail pass, I had to pay 40 euros for a compulsory seat reservation. It was a pretty fancy train though, not that I took advantage of anything because I just napped pretty much the whole way. Anyway, I arrived in Amsterdam with four hours until my flight. I tried to check in as soon as Emirates check in opened, but alas! It turns out that Emirates weigh your hand luggage. As in, they get you to put every single item you are carrying onto the conveyer belt. I have never ever had my hand luggage weighed, and I'm pretty sure I've never carried on seven kilos or less. WELL I had to throw out some stuff. This was a very heartbreaking and traumatic experience, especially with the shock of seeing exactly how much crap I was intending to carry on the plane and then having to make snap decisions to part with things. Well, I went through my stuff, and walked around the airport giving things away. It was interesting trying to find native English speakers to give books to, since books were obviously heavy things. I tried to check in about five times, only to discover that the mountain of things I had gotten rid of was not even nearly enough. By the end I was in tears of frustration and exhaustion, and the mean Emirates ladies were telling me I had to chuck out three kilos of stuff NOW or they'd have to take me off the plane. Gah. Most of my books went, except those that I managed to smuggle into the giant pockets of my coat. It is so not fair that I can add four kilos of stuff to my person and that's not counted. Next time I go travelling I'm going to make myself some sort of epic coat with epic pockets for stuff. I'm so skinny that there will probably still be heavier people on the plane than me. It's not fair. I reckon people should be included in the baggage allowance, and you get on the scales with all your stuff. I also ended up leaving behind all of my toiletries, half the chocolate I'd bought for presents, and a whole bunch of clothes. My German/English dictionary got left behind, and I am really lamenting this now. That dictionary has been with me through so much, and has given me so many answers *wibble* I'm not sure that I can find a replacement as good as that one was *woe*

Anyway, I eventually got on the plane, after going through the epic Amsterdam security check. There's this big x-ray machine thing you have to stand in looking like an idiot with your hands above your head, then I got an veeeery intimate pat down from the lady security officer. She even checked the little shelf of my bra between my boobs. I suppose it's because we were in Amsterdam :P Somehow I ended up in the exit row next to the wall. There was no window, but that's ok, because I had a nice wall to lean on. I was a bit cranky at first because I couldn't find my entertainment system and the mean ladies had made me chuck out all my stuff SO THIS FLIGHT BETTER BE GOOD DAMMIT! But then it was under my seat. But then we had a crap selection of movies and they were all censored. But there was pretty awesome food.

It was six hours to Dubai and then I had a ten hour wait until my flight to Perth. I think I maybe napped for two hours in total on the plane, with my pillow sliding forward down the wall so I'd have to sit myself up again every few minutes. When I got to Dubai I discovered that some idiot had decided to make all the chairs with arms on them, so you couldn't lie down and sleep. I tried the floor for a while, which would have been fine except it was tiled and the evil cold tiles sucked my heat away, so I woke up half an hour later shivering with a numb arm and leg. I went for a walk through the duty free shops, and sat myself down outside MacDonalds with my laptop. By about 3am I decided I was hungry, so I had a delicious greasy MacDonalds meal. They are so much better than in Australia. I made it to 3am before deciding I was tired again so I went in search of a recliner chair dealie. They have these chairs that are just like all the others, except the backs are higher and they lean back a bit with space for your legs, like those poolside chairs you always see in the movies. Well, I eventually found one and curled up for a restless sleep for the next two hours. After that things become a blur. I vaguely remember eating icecream and then deciding my handbag looked comfortable sitting there on the bench next to me, then waking up twenty minutes later unable to move my neck or feel my legs, which I had left in sitting position.

Finally it was time for my flight. I ended up in the back of the plane sitting on the aisle, with the seat next to me free. I also had an amazing selection of movies, much better than the first plane. I watched The King's Speech which was AWESOME, Tangled, which was also AWESOME, Toy Story 3 which made me cry, and Jerry Maguire. This didn't leave much time for sleeping, but I did doze off for short naps between movies and foodtimes. I arrived in Perth at 1:30am, and was out and through customs by 2am. It seemed like I ticked a lot of boxes, but all I had was some chocolate (the stuff that managed to survive the purge) and my boots had been in muddy places. The lady was really nice and just asked me why I had ticked each box, then sent me through without even looking at my stuff. Easy as. Mum was there to pick me up, she had literally only just got there so we didn't even have to pay for parking. I was wide awake and chatty so we chatted all the way home, and then some, so we didn't get to bed until after 3am. I was up early Saturday morning because I was so excited to see Spoh and give my family their presents and stuff. I pretty much spent the enitre weekend delirious with lack of sleep. It was a bit interesting :P

So here I am, home again! As soon as I arrived it felt like I had never been away. I had a fantastic trip with some amazing experiences, and I even learnt some German! Thank you all for reading my blog and staying with me through all my adventures. I guess this is the end of my Adventures in Deutschland blog, but definitely not the end of my adventures! Stay tuned for the next one! Not sure when it will be, I'll keep you posted :P

The End.

Paris

On Wednesday morning I caught the Eurostar back to Paris. With the time difference and trying to find an ATM and then figuring out how to get to my hostel, it was nearly noon by the time I had dropped my stuff off and was ready to go exploring. I went and talked to a nice man in the tourist information booth, and he gave me a map of the metro complete with little pictures of all the big tourist destinations. It was very handy for finding my way around. First stop was Notre Dame de Paris. What a beautiful cathedral. It was quite dark inside, but I still took a whole bunch of pictures. They're up on facebook. I spent about half an hour there, but as I left ready to set off again I spotted a bunch of people lined up along the side of the cathedral. I went over to check it out and it was a tour of one of the towers for five euros. I decided to join them, and waited in line. The very top of the tower was closed, but we went pretty high up. There were four hundred and something stairs to where we went. That's a lot of stairs.

Here's me at the top. It was really cold in Paris, colder and wetter than London, which was a bit disappointing :P The view up the top was gorgeous, even though you couldn't see very far because of the cold.

Hanging with some gargoyles. In the distance you can just make out the Eiffel Tower. After walking around a bit and taking lots of pictures of gargoyles, I decided I was too cold to stay any longer, so down I went. By then it was around 2pm, and I hadn't had any lunch, so I got one of these!

It's a nutella crepe. They love their nutella in Europe, and when I was waiting in the line for the tower tour across the road from about five shops that sold them, I realised I hadn't tried one since I'd been here. It was pretty awesome, but so messy :P

After my lunch, it was off to the Eiffel Tower. There were so many tourists there it was crazy. As you walk along the road leading to it there's all these guys selling miniature towers from blankets on the footpath. I wanted a keyring, but I only had a twenty euro note and I wasn't willing to take the chance that they'd make change. They looked like they'd just give me a whole pile of Eiffel Tower crap instead. I ended up finding a proper stall thing a bit further away, and bought my cheap trinket there :P

Just chilling under the Eiffel Tower. Seriously, it was bloody freezing! I didn't go up, mostly because I didn't have much money left and I'd already seen as much as you can on the top of Notre Dame. It's not the right time of year for epic city views :P

Next I was off to the Louvre. The outside was really pretty, which was just as well because I had to wait in an epic line to get inside. Then I had to wait in another epic line to buy a ticket. By now I was really tired, so I just trudged through some of the galleries and tried to appreciate the whole art thing. I saw the Mona Lisa. It looks like all the copies, I wasn't that impressed :P Eventually I decided that I'd had enough and my feet hurt, so I headed back to my hostel.

The hostel was pretty dodgy, with it's rude french receptionist and wanting us to pay for sheets. I decided to just sleep on the bare mattress, I was beyond caring at that point. The shower looked awful, and you had to pay for a towel as well, so I forfeited my last chance for a shower before leaving Europe. I cheered up a little bit because I found someone to chat to. I was sharing with a Canadian guy who stayed in the room all evening with me and was therefore a captive audience :P We were also sharing with four other random dudes, and it turned out that they all snored. Gah. I didn't have a very good sleep, and it was up again at 6am to catch my train to Amsterdam.

I went to collect my luggage, and it wasn't in the locker I'd left it in. I was too tired to really have a panic attack, but I was a little concerned when I asked the guy behind the desk where it was. Apparently I was supposed to have paid up front for the whole week, but they don't exactly give you that option. Once you've put in enough coins for 48 hours, it locks the door and prints your ticket. I even asked the lady behind the desk if I needed to give her more then, and she glared at me and told me it was fine. Anyway, the dude had my luggage out the back, so he went and fetched it and I paid the extra monies. All sorted. Then I caught my train, and napped all the way to Amsterdam.

London!

I woke up bright and early Monday morning all excited to venture down to Leicester Square to get me some theatre tickets! When I walked out of the train station right there in front of me was one of the half price theatre tickets booths, so I wandered up and asked if they had anything left for Les Miz that night. He looked at me, shook his head and told me it was school holidays. Cue epic sinking feeling in my stomach. So when school holidays happens it seems that everyone takes their kids to the theatre and there are no half price tickets. The guy was really nice though, and told me to go to the theatre's box office where they would have any tickets that were left. I wandered over there, and found the theatre pretty easily. I was SO EXCITED when I found it! LOOKIE!

SQUEEEEE! The box office opened at 10am, and it was only 9:30 so I went into the Costa across the street for breakfast. Costa is a chain of cafes that is everywhere in London. I got a bit excited because there was a flat white on the menu, so I ordered that and a muffin. I got even more excited when my order came, because LOOK

It was actually pretty decent as well. It was probably the best coffee I had had in two months, I nearly cried. so I was sitting next to the window sipping my almost amazing flat white and just gazing at the theatre across the street. I was pretty darn happy right there. Finally the box office opened so I went and bought a ticket. I spent 20 pounds on a ticket right in the back row of the upper circle. It was either that or a more expensive ticket not that much closer with obscured view. OMG I HAD A TICKET TO LES MISERABLES *epic flail* I walked out of the box office with a massive grin on my face, and then had to somehow fill in the eternity between then and 7:30 that evening.

I decided to go find the British museum. I tell you, it is so easy to find your way around London, because they have these maps at every corner with all the touristy things highlighted in bright yellow.

 AND the maps are turned so that it's facing the direction that you are :D very helpful indeed. I would have been so lost without them :P Eventually I found myself in amongst a mob of tourists and realised I must be near the museum. Admission is free, so I wandered in, but nothing could grab my attention. I was way too excited about the LES MIZ TICKET in my pocket *dies*

I decided to go hunt down more theatre tickets for Tuesday, and went in search of the Lion King theatre. It was ages away, but I eventually found it. I ended up with a standing room ticket for 13.50. Can't argue with that price :P The theatre was just around the corner from the Thames, so I went to look at that. I crossed the bridge and walked along the VERY TOURISTY side. There were screaming children everywhere, it was horrible. There was Madame Tussauds there and some other stuff, but I was tired and annoyed at the children, so I just walked past everything and back across the river. I found some fancy building that looked important, and some parliament buildings. The amazing street maps said I was around the corner from 10 Downing Street, but I didn't end up going to look at it. Instead I took photos of the buildings, and somehow found my way to Hyde Park. By now I was absolutely exhausted, and just wanted to go back to my hostel to nap. I started wandering back towards Leicester Square because I still wanted matinee tickets, but it took ages and I kept coming across important looking buildings and stuff.

I had thought that Billy Elliot had a Tuesday matinee, but it turns out it doesn't :( My options were Jersey Boys, or The Phantom of the Opera, and since I had seen Phantom a few times already so I thought I'd give Jersey Boys a go. When I eventually found the theatre I discovered the box office was closed on Mondays, so I'd have to come back the next morning. I went back to my hostel and fell into bed.

When I woke up it was time to have some quick dinner and make my way back to the theatre for LES MISERABLES *flail* Ohmygoodness it was amazing! I was such a mess by the end. Being already sick and boogery, weeping at all the deaths and the amazingness made me pretty disgusting. I went through two packets of tissues, and let me tell you each and every one of those tissues were well and truly sopping :P I considered stage dooring, but decided that I was too much of a mess and didn't want to make the cast sick, so I just went straight back to the hostel and went to bed.

The next day I went back to the Jersey Boys theatre to buy myself a matinee ticket, then had four hours to fill in before the show. I ended up going to the Tower of London, since there were signs everywhere advertising  an exhibition of five centuries fo royal armour. I thought it might be interesting. WELL, it costs 20 pounds to get into the tower and there was a line a million miles long. I didn't exactly have 20 pounds, so I just walked around it and took photos, and photos of Tower Bridge. Then I hopped on the train and went to King's Cross, because it seemed like a good idea. I found the British Library and remembered Nerissa telling me about some room they had with illuminated scrolls and stuff, so I wandered in there. Then I discovered they had an exhibition thingy all about the English language and it's history and stuff, so I spent a while there. It was really interesting, with videos of guys speaking in Old English and Middle English and stuff, then a whole room about slang and modern accents and stuff.

By the time I'd finished there, it was time to go watch my matinee. I ended up getting obscured seating right in the front row. This was my view

I could mostly see what was going on, unless they walked too far upstage :P It was good, not as good as Les Miz, but it's a bit hard to beat Les Miz :P When I was sitting in my seat waiting for the show to start, I suddenly realised that I just wanted to go home. I was still not feeling 100% even though my cold was a lot better, I was tired and I was tired of doing the obligatory tourist thing. I couldn't bear the idea of packing up my stuff again, checking out of another hostel, finding another train, checking into another hostel, and then being a tourist in another city.

After the show I wandered over to the Lion King and then wandered around trying to find something to eat. Then finally it was time for the show. I think it probably had something to do with my mood and the fact that I was standing up the very back, but I wasn't very impressed. I had high expectations, because so many people had told me how amazing this show was supposed to be. Well, first of all it was like they'd picked up some chav kid off the street, stuck him in a lion's costume and taught him to recite some lines. He literally just said the words like it was some dumb school play, and his accent was so off-putting. Someone teach this kid some diction please. The stupid kid was so distracting that it made the whole first act seem tacky and like a play for children. The second act was better, mainly because there were no children in it and I could do that whole suspend disbelief thing you're supposed to do in the theatre. Seriously, I have seen some amazing children act in professional musicals, one example is Gavroche in Les Miz the night before. His death scene was the one that made me cry the most, it was so heartbreaking. There are so many talented children around, there really isn't any excuse for The Lion King to hire some stupid kid they picked up at a dance school.

Anyway, on that note I went back to my hostel and fell into bed again. I needed to be up at 5am to collect my things and check out so I could get to King's Cross in time to check in for the Eurostar to Paris. Yuck.

Holy Crap, a CASTLE!

Eeeeeergh. I'm in Dubai. I've been here for two and a half hours. I HAVE EIGHT MORE HOURS TO WAIT. The worst thing about this situation is that there is a flight leaving for Perth right now. RIGHT NOW. I find this extremely unfair. If I was on that flight I'd be home by 5pm Friday evening local time, instead of closer to 2am. Gah. In other news, I had ten euros left on my visa card. When I got here I was super thirsty and lacking a water bottle, since you're not allowed them :( Anyway, I went and bought one for 7 of whatever the local currency is. Then when I finally got the internet working, I checked the conversion and 10 euros is about 50 of the local currency. I'm rich! Actually, not really, but I have enough to buy myself some foodthings.

I'm gonna stop talking about Dubai and start recapping my castle weekend now :) I went to a real life castle! In fact, it was THIS castle:

Yep, that's the TARDIS. The End Of Time was filmed there or something, so I'm gonna have to watch it again when I get home :P We got there late on Friday night and it was raining. I fell asleep in the car, but apparently just as we crossed the border into Wales the rain started. Since we had arrived so late, all the crashing space in the room upstairs with the wooden floor had been claimed. I had to bunk down on the stone floor of the great hall, which was just a little cold. Christine had lent me a blow up mattress, a sleeping bag, a cloak and some feasting gear. There were heaters, but the heat just rose straight up, so I pretty much froze. I had expected to be able to just pass out, but apparently not.

Anyway, we had to have our stuff cleared out of the hall by 9am, when the castle is open to tourists. I tell you, this is the best way to do an SCA demo. We just did our thing just like a normal camping event (IN A FREAKING CASTLE) and the tourists just sort of wandered through, and some of them chatted to us and wanted to know who we were and what we were doing. Having mundanes there didn't exactly spoil the atmosphere, because we were in a CASTLE! I never got over the whole real life castle thing. I wandered around and took tons of photos, which I will put up on facebook.

First thing in the morning after breakfast we had court. The game is a little different here, there seem to be people in pointy hats everywhere, but none of the usual reverence like in Lochac. No one bows, except when the royals process in, then everyone bows down and stays there for aaaaaages. Anyway, here's the outgoing Prince and Princess on Saturday morning

They were behind a table for some reason. Anyway, all the entrants for the coronet tourney were introduced and there was lots of grand entrances and stuff like that, and then court was ended and the fighters went to armour up. I spent the morning chatting to people, looking wistfully at their warm looking woollen garb and wandering around the castle taking photos.

Here's me in front of the castle! Actually, it was the back entrance, the tournament was happening on the lawn out the back here. I'm holding a cup of tea, which I pretty much spent the whole day doing. There was a hot water urn set up all day and I just kept refilling my cup with tea and honey, because it was something warm to hold and drink, and probably a good thing for my cold :P

 

 

Here's the people watching the tournament. The fighting was happening to the right. IN FRONT OF A CASTLE. Well, there was a winner declared and we all went inside for lunch. After lunch there was archery happening within the castle walls. I went out to see if I could borrow a bow, and oh man I'm rusty. I started with a 30 pound horse bow and just couldn't get it to full draw. I was also having issues with the stupid arrow staying on my finger, because there was no arrow rest. If I got anywehere near to standing straight it would just wander off to the left, it was very frustrating. Later one of the girls got out her take down recurve, and it was a whole lot better, although by then I was tired and felt like an iceblock. I at least started shooting a bit straighter, but I couldn't get anywhere near full draw. Eventually I called it a day. Next week's IKAC is going to be interesting. Waaaah.

Yeah, a lot of arrows got splintered in the walls :P I really wanted to shoot out of the battlements, but they wouldn't let me because of the road and the people walking around :( That evening was the changeover court and a feast. I was a bit surprised that there was no seperate coronation, but I suppose things are different for a principality. I learnt that in this part of the Known World, they don't shout "Huzzah!", they shout "Vivat!" which I thought was rather odd.

I was super tired, and eventually people started clearing out of the hall. The majority of the people at the event just day tripped, or had booked accomodation in town, so there weren't actually many of us left by 10pm when they lock the gates. It was a pretty quiet event. This time I was prepared for the cold! I spread the cloak out over the mattress and slept on top of it, and wore more layers under my jammies, also, I met this wonderful couple from St Florians that a few Anealans may know, Nerissa and Alaric. Nerissa lent me her hot water bottle :D I filled it up and put it in my sleeping bag before I went to bed and it was pretty amazing when I climbed in :D

They had also offered me a lift back to London, which was really awesome. We left early on Sunday morning to beat the traffic. Apparently usually events like this are pretty much just Saturday stuff and packup on Sunday. This event was the first time they were trying to put stuff on Sunday. It was mostly fighty stuff, and I had had my fill of being cold so I was quite happy to go back to London. On the way we stopped at all these touristy places, like Silbury Hill and the Avebury stone circle and Alaric told me all sorts of stories about Gabs and Stanzi :P. We had lunch in a pub in Avebury.

Isn't it cute! the food was pretty good too, and reasonably priced. We got back to London at about 3pm, and I was dropped along with the other two passengers at a train station. They helped me figure out where I was going and I found my hostel pretty easily. Then I had a shower and it was glorious, despite the teeny weeny pod-like bathroom. The water was hot and I was clean :)

So that was my awesome castle weekend :) I had a nap after my shower and then hung out in the evening for a little bit in the hostel before going back to bed. London adventures were to start first thing Monday morning!

Stuff

Here I am in Paris! I am staying at the crappiest of all crappy hostels with the crappiest of all crappy internet connection. Laaaaaame. I had intended to spend the evening in the hostel with the internets and some noodles and have a wonderful shower, the very last shower until I get home. WELL I took one look at the shower and no. Just no. Besides, I have to pay one euro for a towel, and looking at the state of this place, I think I’d rather not take my chances with one of their towels. I was going to make an epic picture update of my castle adventure, then another one with my London adventures, but there’s no way this internet can handle uploading photos. It’s struggling to load facebook.

Well, this shall give me something to do during my ten hour stopover in Dubai. I’m assuming free wireless exists at all major airports yes? I hope so. Oh man I’m so tired, and I am so ready to be home already. I hit the wall yesterday afternoon in London. I had had enough and I wanted out. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to check out of my hostel, drag luggage around, catch a train, drag luggage around trying to find a hostel, then doing the obligatory Paris tourist stuff, then checking out of the hostel.... Yeah, it’s hard work. I nearly died dragging my one little bag of luggage from the train to my hostel this morning, then tomorrow I have to do it all in reverse, and then pick up the other 30kg. Oh maaaaan. I hope I make another friend like John. Or at least someone to help me drag my luggage onto the train. I’m so glad the train goes straight to the airport in Amsterdam, or I would die trying to find my way there. My neck and shoulders are so unbelievably sore.

So I’ve been doing the touristy things. It is pretty cool, even though I’ve been feeling pretty miserable. It’s really cold here in Paris, and raining. It’s worse than London, which really doesn’t help my mood. I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun L In other, more happier news, I’m not as sick anymore! I’m still a bit sniffly, but my cough seems to have gone and I don’t feel so groggy. The only problem is that I’ve run out of tissues, but I still need them. There’s a supermarket down the street that sells tissues, but they only come in packets of massive, which is rather inconvenient. I don’t need THAT many tissues, and I really don’t have space to carry them around. Gah.

Anyway, I'm gonna go to the Thai place across the road and try and decipher the French names and hopefully end up with some noodles :P

Journeying

Righto, so Thursday night was the farewell dinner for uni. I had decided earlier to catch a taxi with my luggage to the hauptbahnhof, leave it in a locker, then go to the party. Somehow I’ve managed to collect 20 kilos of stuff, so even with my 30 kilos of Emirates checked baggage allowance, I have a feeling I’m a couple of kilos over. Oops. I couldn’t believe how much crap I have, I had to go out and buy an extra duffel bag, which is what I’m living out of for the next week and will be my hand luggage. The party was nice, there was food and we all got our grades and a little booklet. I passed! Huzzah! I got two B’s, which get translated to ungraded passes back home :(. The party ended quite early, at about 8:30pm, so I still had five hours to hang out until my train. A few of us went to Starbucks for hot drinks, and I discovered a love for black tea and honey. Supposedly it’s good for my cold, although it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference. Most of the group had gone out the night before to party in Stuttgart for the last time. There’s no night buses on weeknights, so most of them had stayed out until 5am, when the buses start in the morning. As a result, most people were exhausted and didn’t want to stay out with me. I ended up passing the time by going to Natania’s room, which was relatively close, and keeping her company while she packed.

Night trains are not comfortable. At least not in second class, which has carriages of six seats, with the seats facing each other so you can’t stretch out your legs, and the seats don’t recline at all. The train was one of those weird ones that splits at some point during the journey, so I had to drag my 40 kilos of stuff along the platform, past all these carriages that said they were going to Amsterdam, to get to the ones that were going to Paris. A nice lady helped me by carrying my duffel bag which kept falling off the top of my suitcase, then another girl helped me drag my luggage onto the train and into my carriage. There was already a guy in my carriage, and then we were joined by a young couple that kept being all gross and kissing and stuff. The first guy was British and we hit it off straight away. His name was John, and I spent a good hour or so chatting away to him telling him all sorts of stories. Mister Nathan has some idea of the delirious overtired chatty me :P It was just like the drive to balingup all over again, except it was a train in Europe and I was baring my soul to a perfect stranger :P After a while we decided it was time to sleep, and John pointed out that I had two free seats next to me. The gross couple were next to him so he had to sit up, but I got to lie down! It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was better than sitting. Also, I had some very attractive nose blowing moments. We all dozed sporadically, me and John started chatting again at some time around 4am, then we went back to sleep until about 8am. My stories paid off, because John felt that I had entertained him so much during the long tedious train journey that he decided to help me drag my stuff to Paris Nord and find the mysterious lockers I had heard about on the internet :D He was also catching the Eurostar to London, just at a later time to me.

Our train arrived at Paris Est, and the Eurostar leaves from Paris Nord, as does my train to Amsterdam. The two stations are about ten minutes walking distance, which is massive when you have 40 kilos of luggage. I would’ve caught a taxi, but John told me not to waste my money. The walk was still pretty uncomfortable, but we made it there in the end. We wandered around a bit looking for lockers without much success, before deciding to ask at information. John left me there with my stuff and said he’d go have a look around, and I kinda thought that would be the last I saw of him, because I would’ve had enough of dragging around some strange girl’s luggage by now. But he came back with a huge grin on his face because he had found the lockers! I had to go through an epic security check, but it was worth every cent it cost to leave behind 30 kilos of stuff. It ends up being 27.50 euros, which is very reasonable for a week :)

Once we’d done that, John took me to the Eurostar ticket place where I printed out my tickets and filled in my little emigration form, then we went through customs. Apparently the UK isn’t part of whatever EU agreement Germany and France and Austria are part of, and they actually check your passport and have customs and stuff. The first checkpoint is the French customs, where they look at you in their rude French way and stamp your passport, then because clearly the French can’t do it right, directly behind is the British customs point. The guy at the desk asked in his very serious customs official voice how long I’d be in England, and what I intended to do during my stay. I told him I’d be dressed up in medieval clothes flouncing around in a castle all weekend, and he seemed quite interested in the whole affair, asking me questions about the SCA and stuff, but all in his very serious customs official voice. It was rather bizarre.

By this time I only had about half an hour to go until the train left, so John and I had coffee. It was crap. He seemed absolutely baffled by the idea that it’s possible to make coffee sweet and not bitter, just in the way you extract the shot and texture the milk. He very much enjoyed his bitter coffee, but I was not happy with mine at all. The guy that made it didn’t even tamp the grinds down. I am disappoint, Paris.

Then it was time to say goodbye to John, who really was a godsend. There’s no way I would have been able to find my way to the train station and found the lockers, or known to check in for the Eurostar at least 45 minutes early. The train was pretty uneventful. I think I’ve somehow trained my body to fall asleep in moving vehicles. It’s actually relatively comfortable now as well, I’ve figured out how to put my head so there’s the least amount of pain in my neck and stuff like that.

When we got to London I found my way across the road to King’s Cross and bought myself a ticket to Ely, where I was being picked up for the SCA event in the castle. King’s Cross is a dumb place. You get your ticket, then you have to stand in front of the huge board that displays the trains and times, and wait until they announce which platform your train is on. They generally do this just before the train leaves, so you have to rush to the platform. Once again, I managed to be on the train with the furtherest away platform. But I made it and found a seat, promptly dozing off as soon as the train moved.

I had an awful time in Ely, I arrived at 2:45pm, and my lift finished work at 3pm. She said it would take at least half an hour for her to get to the train station, and I could wait in the Tesco. She would call me when she got there and I could come outside. Well, I saw a sausage roll in the train station, and nearly died because all I’ve felt like since I got here was some warm pastry like a sausage roll or meat pie, and they don’t have either in Germany. Anyway, I ate the sausage roll, then wandered over to the Tesco to stock up on tissues for my epic boogers. Around then I checked my phone and realised I had no reception. I’d had reception in London, just not out here in Ely. I thought to be safe I’d sit outside the Tesco and wait for my lift. I sat there until 4pm, nearly an hour in the cold, and I felt awful. I was convinced that somehow she had missed me, and finding me out of contact had gone on to the event without me. I tried calling from a payphone in the Tesco, but even though I could hear her, she couldn’t hear me. Eventually I went back across to the train station and tried the payphone there, and I found her. Thank goodness. Then came our epic six hour drive of doom. We had to pick up someone else, then drive to Wales. I think, and the other person we gave a lift to thinks we went the long way around to everywhere. We were following a really old TomTom with a Yoda voice, which got very irritating after a while. I think I dozed most of the way, because I was tired and couldn’t stay awake in the comfy moving vehicle. Eventually we got to Wales, and it started drizzling just as we crossed the border. Then we arrived at the castle! Holy crap a real life castle! It was all lit up with lights and stuff, and looked very cool. It was the weirdest experience driving into a castle, across the drawbridge and stuff. The gate was just wide enough for a van, which is very nice of the medieval people to build it that way :P

I shall update about the event in detail in my next post :)

Greetings From London!

Hey everyone! I'm in London! I spent the most amazing weekend at a castle, a REAL LIFE CASTLE! Holy crap it was amazing :D I took a million photos, but I probably won't upload them into a gigantic recap post until later. For one thing the sockets here are different, so I can't charge anything, and for another there's no free wireless at my hostel. It's the same chain as every other hostel I've stayed in, it just charges more for stuff which is kinda crap. But ohmygoodness a real bed. The last time I slept in a real bed was last Wednesday night. At least at the castle (holy crap, a CASTLE) I had a mattress and was lying down, but cold stone floor in drafty castle is not exactly the most comfortable.

I'm still sick. I think I'm worse. It's moved on to a horrible dry cough which is very irritating. I'm going to be that horrible person in the dorm that coughs all night and keeps everyone else up. Also, I still seem to be producing an absolutely staggering amount of boogers. It's rather gross, and my nose is all crusty and it hurts *whine*

I will probably be a bit absent in the next couple of days due to the battery situation, as well as the whole needing to find a cafe that has wireless. I'm rather pleased with this one actually, it sells sandwiches in boxes, and I was really expecting it to be gross, but it was actually rather nice. I might come back for breakfast tomorrow before I go adventuring :)

You guys should expect a gigantic recap post in the near future, because I had a pretty epic weekend :P

Ich bin Krank :(

I'm siiiiiiiiick *woe* I woke up with a stupid cold, I've been feeling groggy and cranky all day, I have no appetite and my nose is leaking. It hurts too, from all the tissues :( Great way to spend my last day in Germany.

I had to go out and buy another bag. There was a short window of time this morning in which I thought everything would fit into my two suitcase, but no. It doesn't. It barely fits now, even with an extra duffel bag. I also have a suspicion that I might be overweight :( How did that even happen? I must have somehow collected 20 kilos of stuff. I've also decided that it might be a good idea to catch a taxi to the train station tonight. And I'm going to find a long term locker at the train station in Paris and dump my suitcases until I leave for Amsterdam. I've managed to squish everything I'll need for the next week into the duffel bag.

I'm really looking forward to arriving home. This week is my most epic adventure week, and it should fly by, and then I'll be home next weekend! Yay! I've had a real good time in Germany, and I intend to come back someday, but for now I just wanna go home and see all my friends and family.

The next time I update will probably be after the weekend, since I'll be in a castle in South Wales with better things to do than internetting :P

MOAR STUFF!

Ok, I think I'm done with the spending money thing. At least in Germany. I got all my last minute gifts and stuff today, and boy did I have a pile of heavy bags to drag around. I wanna get presents for everyone, but I just can't afford it, or fit them in my suitcases :( I've stocked up on chocolate though, which may or may not survive the next week :P

In other news, I dragged my heavy shopping bags all the way back out to the theatre, and this time the shop was open! Huzzah! So I bought this:

Not the best photo, but ABSOLUT UWE! Ohmygoodness it was worth the 26.90 I paid for it. I put it on when I got home and sat there squealing with delight. It was probably a good thing Marina wasn't home :P IT IS SO AWESOME! I can't even describe the awesome that is Uwe, and he had an ensemble. LOLOLOL. Lamest dance routines ever, the girls are seriously lame, and the boys all wish they were as cool as Uwe. SO MUCH AWESOME. I shall kidnap Aly and Spoh the day I get back and we shall have a special viewing yesyes? :D

I called home on skype yesterday. Skype is on my parent's desktop, and is signed in pretty much all day, for as long as the computer is actually on. So when I call there may or may not actually be someone at the other end. The first time I called neither of my parents had used skype before, so nothing was set up. Dad was playing solitaire when I rang, and a lot of panic and kerfuffle ensued. This time dad was playing solitaire again, but he actually answered the phone call. He sounded pretty chuffed, but after I gave him instructions to turn on the video and he actually figured it out the look on his face was priceless. He was so proud of himself he ran to tell mum that he answered the phone :P Naaaaaw, I'm certain my dad is reverting back to his childhood as he gets older.

In other news, ich packe meine Koffer! Or at least attempting to. My stuff has somehow spread itself out all over the floor, I dunno where it all came from. I'm gonna try and pack my big suitcase as full as possible, then judge if I need to go out and buy another bag. Hopefully I won't, because that would be inconvenient and it means more money spent and another bag to drag around with me. I'm trying to remember exactly how full my suitcases were on the way over, but that seemed like such a long time ago, even though the time has gone so fast.

I can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow! Only a week and a half until I'm home, and I'm so excited to see everyone! But first I have my most epic adventures in London and Paris :D

FREEDOM!

Our final exams were this morning, and I handed in my film/lit paper lat night, so now I'm finished! I was sitting in the exam thinking holy crap, the time went so quickly! Tomorrow is our last day of classes, in which we have a little Deutsch class party in the morning, then have a final discussion about the film/lit course in the afternoon. Thursday is my designated packing day before the big farewell party in the evening, then I am off to London at 1:30am Friday morning, and that means I have to say goodbye to Germany, because I won't be coming back before I leave europe :(

Yesterday Marina came into my room and pondered my growing pile of stuff. Then she expressed her concern that I would not be able to fit it all back into my suitcases. I'm thinking the same thing. My suitcases were pretty full, though not bursting, on my way over. Together they didn't even weigh 20kg, and since I am flying Emirates home and they are awesome, I get a 30kg checked baggage allowance, plus my 7kg hand luggage. I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near over, the problem is the sheer volume of stuff I have to try and squeeze in :P 

I must be falling to pieces, because I keep epic failing all over the place :P After the exam I trecked back to the theatre where we saw Tanz der Vampire, because I wanted to buy some merch from the awesome souvenir stand that was there. It's just a little out of the way from school and where I live, but I thought it would be worth it. Well, it was closed. Turns out it only opens in the evenings between 6 and 8pm, which kinda makes sense because that's when the theatre crowd is there. Well, I was a bit annoyed because it meant I'd have to go back later, and caught the trains back to the city centre to do some shopping. I managed to spend nearly 80 euros in the epic bookstore, on some presents and some books for me in German, to help me learn my words and stuff :P I got the first Harry Potter book and a Famous Five book. I loved Enid Blyton growing up, and these books were in the 10-12 years section so I thought it might be easier for me to read :P I also got this:

 

Sissi the Vampire Slayer. WHAT EVEN? I walked past it, did a double take, walked back and just stared at it for a while before deciding that I just had to have it. Even if I can never read it, everything I need to know is right there on the cover Sissi the Vampire Slayer. LOLOLOLOLOL.

I had intended to finish off all my gift shopping today, but that kinda didn't happen, and went home. I hung out until it that shop opened for the evening, and made the treck all the way back out there. WELL, moar epic fail! I read the stupid times wrong. The shop opened between 4 and 6pm, not 6 and 8pm. They use the 24 hour clock here, and I have never ever ever had any problems with the 24 hour clock. Some people in my German course back home spent the couple of weeks we did on telling the time in a state of utter confusion and panic, which I just couldn't understand at all. Just subtract 12. It's so simple. I think this is the first time ever I have misread the 24 hour clock. FAIL. So now I have to go back again tomorrow *huff*

I just turned back around and went back to the train station. Then I had another fail when I caught the bus in the wrong direction. I realised after two stops, got off, and had a nice walk in the cold back to the station, where I gave up on the bus idea and caught a train. Essentially I had a two and a half hour adventure on public transport, with nothing to show for it except this awesome chocolate pudding thing I found in the supermarket for 29 cents :D

Alrighty, I'm off to bed. Guten Nacht!

Faaaaaaaail :P

Epic faaaaaaail. I missed my train to Stuttgart, so now I am sitting in the Wien Westbahnhof, with an hour and forty-five minutes to go until the next one. Ugh. I’m not going to arrive back in Stuttgart until 11pm, then I have to get home, and I have school tomorrow. How annoying. In other news, SCHNEE! It’s snowing outside and I have a lovely view out the window of some fancy cathedral type building and snow :) Since I have some time to spare, I shall take this opportunity to recap my weekend in Vienna.

So it turns out that I didn’t steal someone’s bed in the dorm, which I am quite happy about. My first experience of an eight bed dorm was not really the best experience. I came back to the room at about 10pm to find one girl sleeping, and her friend reading in bed. There was one guy sprawled fully clothed on another bed, also sleeping. I changed into my jammies and got comfortable in bed with a book before turning out the light to go to sleep. By then the other girl had turned out the light in the main room, so the whole dorm was dark. Soon after I heard the sleeping guy get up and leave. About an hour or so later the two guys in the bunk in my corner arrived. They made an awful lot of noise sorting themselves out, turned the light back on, but eventually settled into bed. You could tell they were at least trying not to disturb people, but failing miserably. I fell asleep properly after this, and was only partly aware that there were more guys in the other corner of the room and they were having a little party or something, chatting away with no regard for sleeping people. Annoying. Anyway, it was really hot in the room, and I tossed and turned all night, and so did the guy on the top bunk, making his bed squeak like crazy. Around 7:30am I gave up on sleep, got dressed and ventured outside to hunt down some breakfast and wait for Nicola. I wandered around the vicinity of the hotel and train station and got a coffee from the cheap bakery vending machine identical to my usual one in Stuttgart. Oh god it was awful coffee, and twice the size. Yuuuuck. I decided to wait for Nicola at the train station and show her where the hotel was, rather than just letting her figure it out for herself. Once she’d dumped her stuff, we hung out in the lobby until it was time to meet Sonja.

Sonja was really awesome and picked up two random girls off the street that she’d never met before, and drove us to Mayerling. I have some morbid fascination about the place where Crown Prince Rudolf topped himself and his mistress :P It was really close to Vienna, but there was pretty much nothing there, just some nice picturesque countryside and a monastery building thing.

The monastery was originally a monastery, then the Hapsburgs changed it into a hunting lodge, then it got changed back to a monastery. Now it’s open to the public for 2.50 euros :P We wandered through and read all the information about Rudolph and his life and death and stuff. It was all in German, so Nicola would just stare blankly, I’d attempt to translate bits, then Sonja would actually translate it for us.

I have some sort of morbid fascination with Rudolf's death, he's me in front of the alter where he topped himself :DThe building was really small, so we made it through in less than half an hour, then decided to drive back to Vienna so Sonja could show us the sites.

Vienna is really awesome in that all it’s important touristy buildings are all in close proximity, so it only takes about half an hour to stroll along and see everything. We parked the car and I bought some cheap headphones since mine went kaput the other day. Then we started walking. It was the most gorgeous sunny day, though still cold it made everything look even more pretty. First there was an awesome cathedral that we went into and took photos of.

Oh man, if we had churches like that back home I’d go to church every Sunday just because they look so awesome. I got some awesome photos of the stained glass windows, since the sun was shining through them nice and brightly and making rainbows :D

After that we wandered past Sonja’s university, which was really pretty, and to the Rathaus, which is the town hall. Out the front was an ice skating rink, and we decided to come back the next day and have a skate. There were two museums identical to each other on either side of this garden, and a singing Mozart statue.

I thought this was a really awesome photo with the sun rays and stuff. Oh boy does Vienna whore out Mozart, there is Mozart merchandise EVERYWHERE. This singing Mozart dude was pretty good, he just stood on his pedestal and alternating between singing, whistling and being all statue-like. Nicola put some coins in his little collecting tin and he blew her a kiss.

Across the road was the old Hapsburg Palace, so we took some photos there and went all girly over the ponies. There are horse drawn carriages all over Vienna. By then it was 1pm, so we decided to have lunch. Sonja took us to this modern little reasonable priced restaurant and I had lamb curry.

Om nom nom nom. It was a really awesome lunch, I keep thinking about how awesomely satisfying it was. After lunch Sonja had to go, so Nicola and I caught a train back to Stephansplatz, the main shopping area, to try and hunt down the theatre. We totally failed, and got distracted by all the awesome souvenir shops, and the chocolate shops, and the chocolate-souvenir shops. Oh my goodness the expensive crap they sell to tourists! One of Nicola’s favourite things to do is to buy a packet of expensive chocolates and just eat them in the street like they’re just common cheap ones. She bought these mystery heart chocolates, and they were incredibly sweet. It was like an assault of sweet every time you bit into one, it was gross but after a while you wanted another one :P

We found a smurf! We eventually gave up on the theatre search, especially since we didn’t even know the name of the street. We decided to go back to the hostel, check Nicola in, and look up the theatre on the internet. We had an epic fail moment when we thought our pass keys weren’t working, before realising that we were only on the first floor and our room was on the second. Faaaaail. Anyway, we looked up the theatre and I had a shower and spent ages trying to dry my hair with this fail of a hairdryer. Nicola described it as like a child blowing on your hair to dry it. Seriously, it was pathetic.

We had a bit of a fail trying to find the theatre, because I realised as we were leaving the hotel that I’d forgotten to buy a sharpie for autographs. We were so distracted trying to find any sort of shop that sold any sort of stationary, that we weren’t looking at the street names. Seriously, Vienna needs some sort of convenience store chain like a 7/11. All you can buy there is useless Mozart merchandise. Anyway, we got  a bit lost and tried to retrace our steps, and somehow stumbled upon the theatre’s stage door. It took us ages to figure out that we’d found the theatre, because we thought we were somewhere in the opposite direction, and the building was covered in scaffolding.

Yay! Then we realised we hadn’t eaten anything yet, and we were hungry, so we doubled back on ourselves and found some food. I got the most awesome fish and chips, they were hot and exactly what I felt like right then. We were a bit short of time, so we ate and walked and made it into our seats just in time for the show to start.
 

I love how chips and stuff here always come in a little paper cone that's made to look like newspaper :PTanz der Vampire was awesome! There were lots of little differences, especially in the set since this show is a permanent production and the one in Stuttgart is a scaled down touring version. I was pretty much flailing the whole way through, Drew Sarich was amazing even though his voice is lighter than what I think von Krolock should be. The rest of the cast was just amazing as well. I was a little distracted by the theatre itself, there was like a corridor around the stalls, and bright exit lights shining along it all the way around. Nicola and I were sitting on the edge, so it was really distracting for us. Also, the stupid couple in front of us kept being all gross and kissing through the entire show. Not only was it distracting and annoying, but every time they moved their heads we couldn’t see anymore and had to lean around them. The show was really awesome though, and seeing it from the stalls is a whole different ball game, with the amount of times the cast run around the auditorium. The end number was different to any other time I’ve seen it, Sarah and Alfred change into vampire clothes and join in the dance, and von Krolock is there as well. I thought it was always just the chorus doing the awesome dancing in the final number.

After it had finished I raced around to the stage door whilst Nicola collected her coat. I made friends with one of those crazy stage door fanatics, who hadn’t even seen the show that night but thinks she’s on best friend terms with the cast because she stalks the stage door every night. Anyway, she had a texta and was quite willing to share the love :P Drew Sarich was the first of the leads to come out, and I was ready to pounce when all the others came out all at once. Drew was the most important, so I let the others escape. Seriously, they were gone within two minutes, I don’t know if I’d have even gotten a chance anyway. The point is, I MET DREW SARICH! He’s so awesome, I introduced myself and told him I was from Australia and he said “Hi Erin from Australia, I’m Drew from America.” He was so nice and signed my program and it was kinda weird hearing him speak in his native American :P *dazzled* Here it is again:

:D :D :D I pretty much flailed all the way back to the hostel and right up until we finally went to bed, I’m sure Nicola was so sick of hearing about it. When we got up to the room there was only one other person there, and he was asleep. I thought we were really awesome in our quietly creeping around and getting ready for bed. Way better than the night before. No one else turned up, and the guy left at some point really early, so by the time we got up we had the room to ourselves. We fluffed around for ages, and ended up checking out and leaving the hotel at 10am. We went back to Stephansplatz and found a little pastry cafe for breakfast.

We had Apfel Strudel, because it’s so Viennese :P You always get a glass of water when you order coffee in Vienna, which I think is very nice of them :)

So, next fail! There was a big cathedral in Stephansplatz, St Stephan's Cathedral, and we were somehow convinced that it was the cathedral we had visited the day before, so behind it must be the street with the skating rink. Well, we walked around the whole cathedral before realising that actually it must be a different cathedral to the one we saw the day before. Being Sunday morning, we decided to go in and check out the mass. There’s a fence at the back of the hall bit for tourists to stand behind and take photos and stuff, and the serious congregation and mass goes on in front of it.

So pretty! Cathedrals are so amazing! Mass is also kinda cool too with the singing and the pretty. We stayed for a little while before deciding to hunt down the skating rink. We wandered off aimlessly, and looked in lots of little shops that took our fancy. I found the perfect present for Lana, but there's no way it would have survived the trip home, then the couple of months until Lana got home. So I jus took a picture!

Little chocolate roses! Aren't they gorgeous! So there you are Lana, I would have gotten one for you if it could possible have survived the trip. Eventually found the back of the buildings we were looking at the day before.

There were some fierce Greek statues on the back of the Rathaus, I've got more pictures up on facebook :) By the time we found the skating rink I was pretty much frozen, it was after noon and we decided to head back to Stephansplatz for Schnitzel. We were very indecisive, walking into one restaurant, deciding they were too expensive, and going next door. Awkward.

Beer and schnitzel! Om nom nom. Somehow the time got away from us and we were halfway through our meals before we realised we were running out of time, and we left the restaurant with only half an hour to spare before the train left. We walked out and it was snowing!

I took this photo of Nicola as we were running back to our hotel to pick up our luggage before heading over to the train station. We didn’t make it :( Nicola was going to Salzburg, and there was a train leaving in ten minutes so she caught that one, rather than waiting two hours to share my train. So here I am, and now there’s only fifteen minutes to go until my next train. Oh wow it’s snowing so much outside, so pretty!

Anyway, I’m going to buy myself a muffin for the journey and go catch my train!

LATER

So I had another fail of epic proportions. The train to München was pretty uneventful, the train wasn't very full, so I had two seats to myself. I quite comfortably got out my laptop and watched my dvd of Rudolf with Drew Sarich and basked in the memory of the stage door :D When I got to München I had six minutes between trains, so I ducked quickly to the sushi shop for another awesome sushi roll. I'm glad I did, because after I paid I realised I wasn't holding my rail pass. I had put it on the train seat with my handbag so I would have easy access to it when I was looking for my seat on the next train. I was like HOLY SHIT but luckily the train was still chilling in the platform, so I ran over to it and stopped the first conductor looking person I saw. My German entirely failed me and I just sort of babbled out something in my panicked state, and he asked "Stuttgart?" and pointed to another train. I was like yes... BUT NO MY TICKET IS ON THIS TRAIN and I think I threw in some completely random German words, like the word for "work" and some numbers. I dunno. Eventually he said "Oh, vergessen?" and I was like YES YES I VERGESSEN MY TICKET ON THE TRAIN AAAAAAH. And he was really calm about it and just told me to go get it. I ran down the platform to the carriage, flailed in front of the door until he caught up because I didn't remember that I needed to press the door open button to open the door. He did it for me and I ran on and found the ticket, thanked him and jumped on the train that he said went to Stuttgart. I was wondering how he knew I had to go to Stuttgart, but then I realised my handbag is one of those touristy ones with STUTTGART written all over it :P

Anyway, this time I was in a little carriage, and I found my seat and nearly died when I finally sat down with my ticket safe in my hand. I couldn't believe I'd done something so stupid that could have ended in total disaster. Then the train took off and there was an announcement that this train was going to Hamburg over Frankfurt. I was pretty sure that the München to Frankfurt route generally goes over Stuttgart, but I had this niggling worry the whole way there that I'd end up in Frankfurt some time after midnight and have to find a train back to Stuttgart. But I didn't need to worry because the train went to Stuttgart :P

This time I managed to get to my bus stop just before the bus was due, so I didn't have to walk up the hill with my suitcase :D I got home just before midnight and just fell into bed, and slept really soundly until my alarm went off way too early. I didn't even hear Marina leave in the morning, I was that out of it. It was very hard to wake up, but I managed to make it to school. I had to have a nap this afternoon, so now I'm all ready to write my final film and lit paper and study for my final Deutsch exam tomorrow.

I can't believe how fast the weeks have gone, and now we're at the end of the course. Only two more days to go.

So yeah, I had a weekend filled with fail moments, but you know what totally compensates for all the fail and redeems the whole weekend and makes it just totally awesome? THIS

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! *runs around in circles*