This December I started my Christmas holiday with a book. I'd heard so many good things about The Book Thief, and had so thoroughly enjoyed the film, that I decided to bring it with me to Germany. Since it was set in Germany, what could be more perfect? I didn't start reading it until the airport and I finished it on the plane ride home from Munich. I loved it and it's every word worth the read. Actually reading it in Germany was an interesting experience, and my memories of Berlin and Munich are coloured with the titles Leisel stole and sharp barks of 'Saumensch!'
Germany was solid and no-nonsense, much like Rosa Hubermann from the novel. Everyone was friendly and happy to help where they could, but in a very abrupt way. There were no wasted words or gestures. Little hesitation. The sense that everyone was busy with something of enormous importance and there was not a second to be lost. Germany and the German people I met were efficient. Sadly I cannot say the same about their trains. The efficiency of German trains is very well known and I left London with many warnings about being even a minute late ringing in my ears. But my awful luck with trains followed me. I can't seem to shake it. Each train I took (with the exception of the underground) ran with a minimum delay of 15 minutes. Still, I got where I needed to be in the end and I had my book and my music to keep me entertained (current musical favourites include Imagine Dragons, X Ambassadors, and Hozier). In contrast to the brusque German-ness around me, I floated around the country in a bit of an idle fog. I was on holiday. I had nowhere in particular to be and no one to please except myself, which leant a sense of wonderful purposelessness to my time there. I loved Berlin. I spent a morning on museum island, wandering in and out of museums and galleries, spending perhaps 45 minutes in each, before settling down in a café overlooking the cathedral for a very late breakfast. I breathed in some history and a very cold wind at the Reichstag building, and smiled and 'mhmmed' in a friendly way to the elderly German man who didn't understand me when I said I didn't speak German. I have absolutely no idea what anything he said meant, but he seemed to enjoy the conversation all the same. The East Side Gallery was my favourite and I could have happily spent all day wandering up and down the Wall and river, but alas: the scenery started dancing all over the place and the gorgeous sunlight stabbed at my eyes. I fled back to my hostel where I hid under my coat in the common room and slept the worst of the migraine off. (I had checked out by this point and no longer had access to a room or bed, sadly.) The hostel, East Seven, gets three thumbs up from me (I'm borrowing a friend's thumb for the third one). It had incredibly friendly staff, great internet, even in the rooms, it was was clean, comfortable, quiet...I can't say enough good things about it. They even offered me some paracetamol when they realised I had a migraine, and switched the lights off in the common room for me. The location was also great: near plenty of good restaurants and bars, walking distance to museum island, and minutes away from anywhere else via the U-Bahn. I would recommend this place to any travellers in a heartbeat. Berlin was definitely my favourite of the two cities I visited. Not only was there loads of history and art but the Christmas markets were fun too. Lots of beautiful wood and glass ornaments, toys, incense, soaps, and, of course, food. Pancakes, waffles, potatoes, bratwurst, mulled wine, stollen, cheese...there was so much. I liked the cheeses and landjäger (semi-dried sausage, a bit like salami) very much, but found the rest too rich and heavy for my taste. Normally I'd be eating as much as I could, but when I'm travelling I really don't have much of an appetite. I loved wandering the markets, but after the first four or five they did begin to all look the same. I can recommend Alexanderplatz and Gendarmenmarkt as my favourite of the ones I visited in Berlin though.
Now don't get me wrong, Munich was lovely as well: beautiful buildings and much more walkable than Berlin. But all I really cared about in Munich was the tour to Neuschwanstein I had booked. The fairytale king's beautiful palace, and the inspiration for Disney's iconic castle. More than that, it was the chance to get away from the cities for a day and admire the Bavarian countryside. Fields, forests, and mountains, we drove through it all and along the way our guide filled us in on the fairytale king, the two palaces we would see, and the countryside we were driving through.
Ludwig II is nicknamed the fairytale king because his favourite hobby was building elaborate palaces that the country couldn't actually afford. He was also obsessed with the King Louis XIV of France and Linderhof palace is like an enormous shrine to the Sun King and everything French. People now think that Ludwig II was also homosexual, as he never married and also broke off a promising engagement early on in his reign for no particular reason. But all three of these personality traits combined meant that in his day everyone just thought he was crazy. So the government declared him insane and had him deposed and arrested. A few weeks later though he was found drowned by the lake near his favourite palace, Linderhof. His doctor (also dead) was found with him, and they never figured out whether he was murdered or if he committed suicide. Whatever the truth of it, his family immediately ceased all work on Neuschwanstein, the only palace that had not yet been completed, and gave three of his palaces (Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee) over to the state where they were turned into museums and tourist attractions. No one lived in these palaces after Ludwig II died, and Linderhof is the only palace where even he lived, it being the only one fully completed in his lifetime. As our guide told us all this, I couldn't help but notice she had the loveliest voice. It was mellow and very gentle, and her long, flat 'a's and short 'is' combined in a hypnotic way. This effect was then immediately cancelled out by her abrupt way of turning off the microphone. She'd finish a thought or a sentence, but because of the rolling way she spoke you expected her to say something more. Instead there would be a sudden and immediate 'click' as the microphone was replaced split seconds after her last word. It was like she was constantly cutting herself off. Despite that jarring feature of the narrator, the story struck me as very sad and I felt deeply sorry for this eccentric man who really didn't seem to want to be king in the first place. That sympathy coloured my mood for the rest of the afternoon and I was seeing fairytales and ghosts from another lifetime everywhere. It was like I'd taken half a step into the past (once I managed to ignore the mass tourism of it all) and it was an absolutely stunning day out. I'd have loved to spend longer in the forest around Neuschwanstein or Linderhof, enjoying the trees and imagining overweight kings wandering the grounds barefoot under skies heavy with stars, but no tour is complete without a shopping stop. Unfortunately. But then I'm not a fan of souvenirs or shopping for the sake of shopping either, so I'm quite biased there, and much happier in the forests and mountains.
By the time we made it back to Munich there wasn't much more for me to do but return to the hostel, pack, sleep, and fly home.
On a brief side note, I stayed at hotel Meninger while in Munich but I wouldn't recommend it. It wasn't bad, but I found the staff rather unpleasant and unhelpful and the rooms weren't particularly well-cleaned. It was also a bit annoying that even after waiting to check in at 3pm my room actually wasn't ready for another hour after that. The cleaners had only started changing the bed linen and cleaning by the time I got upstairs. So I also know first-hand how poor a job they actually did. The beds were comfortable and the sheets clean though, so it wasn't a completely uncomfortable stay. All in all Germany before Christmas was the perfect antidote to my 'humbug!' attitude to the holiday this season, but I don't think it's a country I'd be in a hurry to revisit, despite my intention to learn German this coming year. (You'd think I'd choose a more practical language for myself. Like French.) It was a great experience, but there are plenty of new ones I'm putting higher on my list now. Tags
0 Comments
I had no sooner set foot on English soil again after visiting the Emerald Isle then I was planning my next trip. I mentioned that while I was in Ireland William asked me to meet him in Amsterdam, and after a second of hesitation, I agreed. As long as he planned his trip for a weekend, I could meet him there on a Friday night. Which is how I found myself running through Gatwick Airport at twenty to six in the evening on a Friday, panicking because I thought I would miss my six-fifteen flight. I really need to learn to say, 'No, this unscheduled meeting is not convenient for me, I have to run to catch a plane, can we meet on Monday instead, please?' when my subject leads ask if I have a second to talk. Because it's never a second, it's always at least fifteen minutes.
I didn't miss my flight, thankfully, and arrived in Amsterdam around half-eight. Though delayed and cancelled trains seem to be an annoyance that follows me everywhere: I had ages to wait in the airport station because train after train kept getting cancelled. Eventually though, I made my way to the train station in the city where Will had said to meet him. It was well after nine, dark, cold, and I was exhausted. But as we made our way up to the Airbnb apartment we'd found for the weekend, the fact that I was in Amsterdam for a weekend actually started to sink in and I felt a hundred times lighter; walking hand-in-hand with Will up the apartment block bled away tension too - especially his simple action of asking for my hand. It's amazing how such a small piece of physical contact can relax a person so much. The week leading up to Amsterdam I had made so many plans for what we were going to do. I had an itinerary in my head that crammed in as much sightseeing as possible in the short time we were there. To make the flight affordable, we had chosen to leave Sunday morning. The later the flight on Sunday, the more exponentially expensive it became. But that meant we really only had Saturday in the city. My plan had involved me dropping off my bag Friday night and then the two of us heading out right away to visit the Red Light District and generally see the city lit up for the night. But I made the mistake of sitting down when we got into the apartment, and that was game over. I needed sleep. So we stayed in. Amsterdam was incredible. I had a half-smile on my face all Saturday and felt more relaxed than I have done since I went to Bath in February. I'm not sure it can all be credited to the city alone though; a combination of things lined up to form perfect conditions. First, I was far away from London, work, and all the guilt and pressure. Second, that unscheduled meeting that almost made me miss my flight had been to tell me that the school was very happy with my work, didn't want to lose me next year, and were prepared to sponsor me to stay in England! I was ecstatic, relieved, and very, very pleased with myself. In terms of the city itself, it was a gorgeously clear morning, the likes of which London hasn't seen in a good long while. The skies were a perfect blue and the sunlight sharp, sparking off the canals and windows around us. Sunshine always makes me smile. Some of the trees that lined the canals still had their bright yellow autumn leaves and the city was incredibly quiet. No cars meant no noise. I didn't have to raise my voice so Will could hear me as we walked along the streets, and I loved the rows and rows of bikes lined up haphazardly along the canals.
The final element was, of course, the company. If I'd done nothing that day but wander the city talking idly with Will, my hand in his, then I think I still would have counted the weekend a good one. As it is, that wasn't far from what actually happened. We stumbled onto the Flower Market almost by accident and spent a few minutes browsing the bulbs and seeds. There was only one stall with fresh flowers in it, but I suppose being November there wouldn't be much of those anywhere. And it was still filled nearly to overflowing. After the flower market we made our way past the Rijksmuseum and paused to take a few photos by the I amsterdam sculpture. We were going to the Van Gogh museum on the other side, because I enjoy his art and was looking forward to admiring it. Then we saw the queue. It was an hour wait, minimum. We started to join it, then decided that we would rather do something else than wait an hour to get into a museum. So we went back to the Rijksmuseum instead.
We never found the Monet the signs in the museum kept pointing us toward, though we did find a painting of a massive baby and two creepy looking children that made us pause for comment. It's called Group Portrait of Three Brothers by Thomas de Keyser. Either proportion was not his strong suit or the children were abnormally small. They were also rather creepy, and we wondered at the mafia-style chain and mob-boss-like all-knowing stare the baby had. After the Rijksmuseum we went ice skating on the rink they'd put up in the park just in front of it. I'd not been on skates in five years, so I was a little wobbly at first. It didn't help that the skates weren't at all sharp and the ice was terrible. Will found it hilarious to skate in circles round me and push me round the rink, but I got my own back when his antics sent him flat on his back on the ice. I laughed, particularly since I had by then found my balance and was much more comfortable skating around.
After that we slowly began making our way towards the Red Light District, passing the queue for Anne Frank's house, which wrapped around the block, and stopping regularly to window shop and take photos. We visited a sex shop on the way as well because it's Amsterdam and how could you not? After that we wandered into a bakery. The pastry was alright but the hot chocolate was fantastic. The Dutch really know how to make hot chocolate - all rich, frothy milk and actual chocolate pieces that you stir into it. I kept ordering it all the rest of the weekend and at every new café it got steadily better. The best hot chocolate I've had was actually from a café in Amsterdam Airport though. Seems fitting since that was the last café I ordered it from as well. So a word of advice: if you're ever in Amsterdam and you like hot chocolate, order it. All the time.
What else did we do? Mostly just wandering. We finally made our way to the Red Light District as the afternoon grew late and we wandered through the whole of it, which took surprisingly little time. It was all pink and black and red paint, serious bouncers in black suits and surly expressions, and over-excited groups of men and women who were clearly tipsy and on a bachelor or bachelorette weekend. It would have been better to see at night, perhaps less seedy or gimmicky, and we did intend to go back when it grew dark but it just didn't happen. We went to Café Kloss for a late lunch/early dinner (it was four o clock by this point) but there was an hour long wait just for a seat at the bar. The food looked and smelled amazing so we were going to wait. But the longer we waited, the more we decided that perhaps we'd just go back to the apartment and cook our own dinner, have a hot shower, then go out again afterwards. (This decision came after a nauseatingly sweet conversation. To use Will's phrasing, 'if I wasn't us, I'd have wanted to kill us'.) Again, another mistake. You guessed it: once we got in, cooked dinner, showered, and got dressed again, we really didn't feel like going out. So we put on pajamas instead, I read and Will watched TV, and I was asleep by ten. I'd strongly recommend Airbnb to anyone traveling with a friend. Our studio apartment was £100 for the two nights, significantly cheaper than the hostels we'd found. It was fantastic being able to cook our own food, and to have the peace and privacy of our own space as well. The place was very clean and Will said the man he dealt with to get the key and whatnot was friendly and very helpful when it came to organising transit passes and giving advice about the city. For solo traveling I still maintain that hostels are the cheaper option, but I'd definitely recommend Airbnb to friends traveling together. The next morning it was back to London. I thought I'd be getting worked up about going back to work, but Will was coming back with me, and it was very hard to feel stressed about work when he'd be around anyway. By this point I think we'd both figured that it was a bit more than an infatuation and, having accepted that, were just very comfortable in each other's company. Tags
As you may have inferred from the title, I am back from a crazy six days in Paris: the city of love, the city that never sleeps. The city of impossible-to-find metro stations and fabulous buildings. As I enjoy the first cup of green tea I've had all week, let me tell you a bit about my vacation.
Paris was stunning. She has no qualms flaunting the fact that for centuries this city has been the centre for fashion, style, and art. The home of monarchs who built some of the most beautiful and impressive palaces in the Western world. Paris knows she's beautiful, and just deigns to allow us, as foreigners, to admire her. And admire we did: I, together with some of my fellow Canadian expats (are we expats? I think most of us intend to go back eventually...) hit up just about every main attraction in Paris we could. We visited the Eiffel Tower (three times, actually) and ate our Subway sandwiches on the park in front of the exposition centrepiece, watching the Nigerian men alternate between harassing tourists about buying their cheap trinkets and running (very fast, I might add) away from the patrolling police. We were amused when two enterprising little boys whose parents refused to buy them miniature Eiffel Towers and key rings pocketed the dropped merchandise and returned, happy as clams, to their own picnic. We wandered up and down the Seine, enjoying the russet and yellow autumn colours, contrasting nicely with the clear blue skies we had most of the week. Notre Dame lounged comfortably on her island in the middle of the river, much the way an elderly French aristocrat would lounge in the centre of her salon, secure in her place and watching everyone around her with equal parts disdain and amusement. We hiked all the way up to Sacre Couer for the breathtaking view and then down to the Moulin Rouge where we briefly considered dinner and a show there. I say briefly, because the 200 euro price tag attached quickly encouraged us to move on. At Disneyland Paris I learned why everyone is always warning you about pickpockets in Europe as I had my phone lifted off me while standing in line for lunch at a restaurant. That is also why I have no photos of my trip to show - what ones I had taken were all on my phone. I also learned that roller coasters are not for those with neck problems, and had to spend the next day in bed with an awful tension migraine. Versailles was suitably impressive and the Hall of Mirrors in particular was incredible to see. The Louvre, too, was beautiful. I can't imagine actually living somewhere as grand as those palaces. The artistic highlights of the Louvre were the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo (of course) as well as the Easter Island head and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The entertaining highlight of the Louvre was the Selfie Statue. I don't think I even checked what the statue was actually called, but this marble figure in armour and standing over a conquered dragon (or snake, or Medusa, or something like that), held in his hand a rectangular block of marble roughly the size and shape of a smartphone. And he held it in such a way that it really did look like he was taking a selfie after his victory against the dragon-snake-medusa. #slayedthedragon #awesome We wrapped up our last afternoon in Paris with a stop at a Jewish patisserie by our hostel where I ordered a lemon tart and something called brick. Not exactly sure what was in brick, but both were delicious. Chocolate croissants and a coffee creme puff were also ordered and thoroughly enjoyed. I honestly wish there was a bakery like that here in Croydon. I would spend a happy evening every week just ordering a new treat from the counter. So Paris was a wonderful experience (apart from the migraine and the theft) but I will also say that I don't think I will go back. Certainly not any time soon, and possibly not for a good many years. It was beautiful, but it was also very dirty. The metro lines, the streets, and the public spaces were all filthy with litter, cigarettes, and food scraps. Homelessness and begging is a big problem there, and everywhere smelled of pee. I think the only three places we went that didn't smell noticeably of urine was Disneyland, Versailles, and the Louvre. I also found that, for the most part, Parisians are rather unpleasant people. They were regularly rude and rarely willing to help us with anything, though part of that was likely because most of our party had little to no French. I was probably the one with the least. "Merci, s'il vous plait, and excusé-moi" are the sum total of my French, and the locals didn't have much patience for me at all. All the same, it was a fantastic holiday and I am ready to get back to work. Though I have rather a lot of marking to catch up on this weekend now in order to survive the next seven weeks. Bring on the trial exams! Tags |
Follow me on Instagram for frequent peeks at what I'm up to.
top Tripsdestination
|