Black Forest

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I'm in Germany!

I'm trying to type this with a weird German keyboard, so bear with me 😊

We got on the ferry to Calais, spent 3 hours wandering around with an Austrian girl called Katrin trying to find somewhere cheap to sleep that was still open, ended up giving back and going to first hotel. Next day got on train, Calais to Amiens, Amiens to Paris Nord. We had to navigate the Metro (French tube) and get on a local train to Monet Veneux des Sablons, which was where our campsite was. We slept there, then went to the Louvre the next day (it is huge, you could spend days there, we only went into one building) and looked at artifacts from ancient Greece and of course Italian paintings. We saw the Mona Lisa (overrated in my opinion), the Venus de Milo and the Crown Jewels of France. I have never seen such a tacky crown, it was completely disordered and asymmetrical, 'King of Bling' style of thing.

Next day we went back to Paris, wandered along the Seine, it was very pleasant, saw the site of the Bastille, went to Notre Dame (which was as ever beautiful) and then to the Eiffel Tower. We went up to the second tier, because it was evening the lights were switched on and we saw Paris by sunset, which was wonderful.

Night train to Germany, we changed at a station in Germany I can't remember the name of but Owen tells me was Karlsruhe, then went on to Freiburg. Which is fantastic. I have never been to Germany before and I have to say the Black Forest area is truly fantastic. The buildings are so different, tall and very much a kind of Germany I thought only existed in fairy tales, nestled in a valley between two ridges of mountains covered in dark forest. There is a beautiful gothic cathedral, every house is tall and graceful (well maybe not all because it is a modern Germany, but most). Mist coats the tops of the hills, and yesterday we were treated to the most beautiful storm I have ever had the grace to see. The heavy weather had been issuing peals of thunder but no rain. We were walking through a clearing in the forest where we could see a fantastic view of the other hill when the rain broke and that was absolutely exhilarating, lashings of rain, then thunder over and over between flashes of lightening that struck the hilltop or earthed themselves between clouds. It was the ultimate storm, a mother of storms. The clouds formed a rolling ball of mist that came down between the hills, we were both utterly soaked, and after having laid down for a while to try to avoid the risk of being struck by lightening (we were in a clearing luckily but surrounded by trees on all sides) we had to make a break for it and run down the hill. Sheet lightening went off around us and there was actual heat to be felt. Luckily we were fairly close to our campsite. The tent had put up a good show and barely leaked at all, but it was still a very cold and wet night!

I think I did suffer culture shock, not so much culture (France is in many ways very similar to England) but language. I thought I was reasonable at French and mostly I did fairly well making myself understood but the continual frustration of having to work at being understood is draining, I reached a point where I almost felt like shaking people and shouting, "Speak English!" Luckily the crazy Englishwoman didn't go quite so mad, and I think I have started to cope with the continued exstence of a language barrier.

Also...German trains are superior to both French and English, and their train magazines are filled with articles on Engineering.

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