Germany

After Prague we spent two nights in Munich and had a ball sampling the local beers at the various beer gardens - our favourites Augustinerkeller and Hofbrauhaus, the latter was also a popular hang out of Adolf Hitler's. After the war the owners had to paint the ceiling twice to cover the swastikas that had adorned the place (after the first coat they were still obvious). The beer hall also had a big vomit trough in the men's bathroom. Vomiting is an acceptable way to keep the party going, just not in the beer house as it will cost you a cool fifty Euros. Another idea which seemed very civilised to me but not so much to Emily was that in the old days there were drains running under tables for those who felt the need for relief. Very medieval.

We did learn a bit about May Poles though. Apparently they are everywhere in Bavaria (we saw heaps on our next train ride) and if one gets stolen from a village then in order to get it back the village has to throw a big party for the thieves and it will be returned.
This tradition caused bit of a furore not so long ago as the Munich Airport's May pole went missing (yes the airport at Munich is also a brewery). Rightfully so they were a little concerned that a 10 meter tall pole could go missing from a "secure" airport and so approached the police in confidence to see if the matter could be sorted out quietly to avoid media scrutiny. The police flat rejected this proposal as they were the thieves! They promptly informed the airport that the only way to get it back was to throw a party and the media would help ensure it happened. So the May pole was returned and the police got their booze up. I'm not sure if the story is true but we also heard that the May poles are also Bavarian "pick up" poles, if a young lad fancies a local lass then he would head out to the forest and cut down the biggest straightest tree, remove its branches and then stick it in the front lawn of the object of his affection's house in the middle of the night. In the morning if she likes the cut of his pole she'll come out and dance around it. Then you can take her on a first date! Too bad if it the wrong sister!

We also did a walking tour of the city that basically consisted of Churches and Beer halls/Beer gardens with the odd unremarkable memorial to those that suffered in the war. It was an expensive and strangely prosperous place with all that beer drinking and leather short wearing going on. We left early in the morning to avoid blowing our budget on beer again :P

Juilet statue, put a flower in her arms to be lucky in love

The Germans are so neat and tidy, this is a market stall

A May Pole

Emily excited as me to be in Hofbrauhaus

Mmmmm leather pants...

We left Helsinki on an early morning flight and were farewelled by Timo at the airport after clearing customs we headed to our departure gate - our European backpacking adventure was about to begin.

We arrived in Berlin clueless as to how to get from the airport to our hostel so we queued up to speak to a transit information employee to get some advice, on what bus we should catch and where it departed from and any other tips that were going - sounds logical right? We'll after waiting for 20 minutes to speak to someone we got the most obnoxious and rude German on the planet; as soon as I opened my mouth he started off on a angry rampage in German - he looked like Helmut Kohol's little brother - I kept trying to repeat the suburb I wanted to go to "Alexanderplatz" each time trying to do it in a more German accent. Obviously I was unsuccessful as this made Helmut's little brother angrier and angrier, in the end we walked away, more confused and a little bewildered then when we started.

Anyway, we ventured outside where there were some bus stops and another transit employee who must have seen the exchange - called out to see whether we needed help - of course we did and we were soon on our way to our hostel.

We arrived at our hostel in one piece and were looking forward to a shower - we went to our room and met one of our room mates - a Canadian who couldn't speak English? Yes, she was from Montreal, and proclaimed that she could not speak English. At the time I thought this slightly bizarre – am I the only one?

We discussed her Francophile inspired travel itinerary as she preferred to travel to french speaking countries and our conversation abruptly ended with her declaring that she was getting tired of concentrating on English and so with that I (gratefully) bid my adieu and went to have a shower.

We also met a bloke named Raphael from Brazil who had been living in Dublin. He had been deported from Brittan and was in trouble in Ireland for working on a student visa. Although he was a little depressing telling this story over a beer on our first night in Berlin we told him he should try to get into Australia and gave him the name of a contact (Kevin Rudd ). It made me realise how lucky we really are to be able to travel around with relative ease, Raphael was deported before even stepping foot outside the airport in London!

The next day Jez and I did a fabulous walking tour and got to see all the major sights in Berlin, checkpoint Charlie, the remains of the Berlin wall, the new parliament ( we went up in the dome thing the day before) the holocaust memorial and Hitler's last bunker (well were it was and is now a car park). One thing that struck me about the old East Germany was that the architecture was so depressing - this was made even more evident when we caught the train to Warsaw, you go from clean, modern minimalist design to grey concrete blocks. For an ideology claiming to create the worker's utopia its design and creativity didn't reflect it.

Anyway it was a great tour but a long day so we headed home to have a shower before heading out for dinner at a traditional German restaurant. We headed to our rooms only to discover that someone ( a new roomie) had taken my bed! Yep, she removed my towel which indicated that the bed was taken and had put new sheets on and left her books on the bed. I was a bit annoyed but as there was a vacant bed in the room figured I would just sleep there for our last night. As I made up the vacant bed the new roomie walked in - she had beady eyes and weasel like features so of course I thought she was French but Jez thought she was German. I wanted to say something but as soon as she walked into the room she gave Jez and I a harsh look and jumped into bed, covering her head with her sheets (or were they still mine?). Oh, well I bit my tongue, packed up my bags and thought about the international incident that could have been.

Jez and I then headed out for dinner and had the biggest pama's we had ever seen and some nice locally brewed beer as well. The next day we headed to the Pergamon Museum which houses art from the ancient worlds. I was surprised to find that the Museum had some really great pieces and wondered how they had managed to maintain such vast collections especially with WWII and the German partition. Well, according to my guide book its seems that Hitler was a bit of an art buff and like a good Fuhrer liked to pillage the art collections of nations he conquered. He also requested or should I say ordered that that all German museums safeguard their collections by storing them in underground bunkers - this was before the outbreak of WWII. He also instructed that the Jewish cemetery in Prague be left untouched as he planned to turn it into an exhibit for a new German Museum that of "an extinct race"..................................................

arty farty

some wall

Parliament- its always exciting

Chilling with locals (Jeremy if he keeps eating those kebabs!)