Europe Again

Europe
October 13th 2007

Published: November 22nd 2007

I returned to Europe for a quick hit of fun. Five weeks this time. I couldn't resist a 1 cent flight to Dublin so I made that my first destination. Colin, an old mate from high school lives there now so I had somewhere to stay right in town. Most of my time in Dublin was spent drinking - it's Ireland !
It seems like every second shop is a cool little pub. Even though I'm not a fan of Guinnes I figured I had to try it in Ireland. Better than it is in Australia but still not my cup of tea.
Besides the drinking I walked around the city and viewed the amazing old buildings and beautiful parks. I took a tour of Dublin Castle which was very impressive.
My flight out of Dublin was at 6am but the first bus of the day wasn't untill 9am. This meant I had to go out to the airport the night before. So after watching the opening game of the Rugby World Cup I caught the 11pm bus to the airport where I sat awake untill my flight.

I flew from Dublin to Berlin where I met my Brazilian friend

Dublin

Lara and spent a week and a half in a city which is right up there with my favourite cities. There is a great feel to the place and the city is packed with things to see. We visited the Brandenburg Gate and some of the remains of the Berlin Wall before visting the Reichstag and my favourite sight, The Siegessäule.
Berlin is also a great city by night. We found some greats bars in many different parts of the city.

I decided on Nurnberg as my next stop in Deutschland. It is a beautiful old city. I felt like I was in a movie or computer game as I wandered around the courtyards of the Castle. The whole "Old City" area of Nurnberg is full of amazing historical buildings.
I spent a day at what's called The Documentation Centre. It is a Museum of the Nazi's history in Nurnberg. Nurnberg was an important city for Hitler and the Nazi party. Huge rallies were held here and the incomplete construction of a Congress Hall remains.
I finished off my stay in Nurnberg with a big night out with a bunch of couch surfers. Probably not the best idea as

Dublin

I was heading to Oktoberfest the next day.

I was excited to arrive in Munich as I was meeting up with my mates Matt and Chris there, along with more Shire folk. I arrived on friday and the official start of Oktoberfest wasn't untill saturday. We kicked off our own festivities in town that night. What followed was four days of non stop drinking and no sleep. To get a table on the first day we went into the beer halls around 8am. Drinks weren't served untill midday. The festival was opened with a huge roar as the first keg of the day was cracked and the flow of beer began. The beer is served in 1 litre glasses which makes you pretty happy after a few beers. We were drinking about 10 litres a day. Oktoberfest was an amazing party, but it is extremely hard work on the body and I'm not sure if I could do it again.

Myself, Chris, Matt, Kylie and Leah (who we convinced not to go to her job in London and come with us to France) hired a car in Munich and drove it to Hossegor in south-west France to watch

Dublin

a surfing pro tour event. We took the "she'll be right" approach and started our journey without a map, heading in the general direction of France. When we crossed another border of a country we stopped at a service station and bought a map of that country. After dubious map markings we ended driving over a mountain and halfway over another in blizzard conditions before road closure forced us to backtrack. We stopped in a tiny village (either in Austria or Switzerland - who knows) to decide a new route. We saw one light on in the village so Chris and myself walked through the snow to the house and knocked on the window. A mostly naked man came to the window with a cautious look on his face. After pointing at the map and speaking in english he let us in his home to consult the map with us. We deciphered from what he said that we should take the tunnel through Italy. Upon reaching the tunnel we discovered it to be closed. Our best option now was to take the long way west through Switzerland and start heading south once we crossed into France. We made two person

Dublin

teams, a driver and a navigator and drove in shifts non stop through the night. After a huge 26 hour adventure it was a great feeling when we finally arrived early afternoon to Hossegor.

Hossegor is cool little surf town. It was quite cold when we were there but it was still great to be at the beach once again. We didn't do too much in the nights as we were all exhausted from Oktoberfest and the drive. We were able to catch two days of the pro tour event before we left town. It was a new experience for me and a welcome one. Unlike other sporting events it's easy to get close to the action.

From Hossegor we headed north to Bordeaux where we had tickets to the Rugby World Cup match between Australia and Canada. It was a great spectacle and of course Australia won. 5 minutes into the game it started to rain which made us happy we had seats under cover. From Bordeaux the others went home and Chris and I stayed on to continue the Euro trip. We settled in the following day to a cosy spot in a pub and watched

Berlin

the 3 games of the day over several pints.

We were now without the hire car so from Bordeaux Chris and I caught the train north to Paris. I was more than happy to visit Paris again. We took in all the familiar sites of the city. This time round I was able to spend more time inside The Louvre and also take the elevator up to the top of The Eiffel Tower. It is a fantastic way to view the city at sunset.

We were in two minds about our next location, Amsterdam or Brussels. We eventually decided on Amsterdam because my friend Ben was staying there at the time. The three of us decided to just have a few quiet beers and save ourselves for the big rugby match between Australia and England the next day. But after a few we were feeling happy and ended up kicking on. The next afternoon we went to an Aussie pub to watch the rugby. It was here that I had the worst asthma attack of my life and felt like I was going to die. This severley disrupted my viewing of the game and subsequently it was agreed

Berlin

that this was the reason our nation lost.

It was a long overnight train ride from Amsterdam, through Germany to the last city I would visit in Europe, Prague. The second part of our train ride was in a sleeping carriage. Six beds jammed tightly into a small room. We were awoken in the middle of the night by the border control police to check our passports. Our second rude awakening was by another Australian guy in our carriage saying the train was now stopped at Prague station and if our destination was Prague we better hurry and get off as the train was about to depart. We quickly grabbed our things and the three of us ran half dressed down the corridor of the train. Before we could get off the attendant yelled to us that this was not our stop. It then became obvious to me that it couldn't have been our stop as the train was terminating in Prague. But when you are half asleep and someone tells you this is your stop and to hurry and get off the train, you just do it. Embarrassed, we put the rest of our clothes on and went

Berlin

The Siegessäule

back to the carriage to get some of our items such as Chris' phone and my Ipod which would have been left behind.

I was stoked that I had finally made it to Prague as I was dissapointed I didn't make it there last time I was in Europe. It was cold and grey for most of our time there but it didn't rain so we were able to do plenty of sightseeing. We covered a lot of the city including Prague Castle, the largest medieval castle complex in Europe. Within the castle walls sits the beautiul St. Vitus Cathedral.
We also managed to try some Czech beer at the oldest pub in Prague, around since 1475.

It was a sad and strange feeling to leave Prague and once again be travelling on my own after 5 weeks with friends.

In a space of 4 days i flew from Prague to London, to New York, To Lima. While in New York I squeezed in a sunday afternoon matinee of the Broadway show "Wicked". It was a fantastic experience and filled me with musical spirit I needed to start on my next continent - South America.

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