Blogs from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 72

早上比昨天早上熱 　　昨晚10時左右便忍不住要睡，此時來了一個男人，他像朋友般跟我打招呼，我又胡亂跟他談了幾句，因為我誤以為他就是3號床的Marcus！ 　　Marcus的英文恐怕比我還要差，吃早餐時也只是談了幾句。因為與他一起吃早餐，所以晚一點才上火車。終於夠膽一問，才知Rail Pass只可以乘S-Bahn，而非U-Bahn，大難不死矣。我沒有預訂位子，當我發現坐著的位子上留座的燈著了，找到的只有吸煙區的空位，碰巧左邊另一排的男士在抽煙，一股煙味…… 　　火車終點在多蒙特，很快，但很穩定，沒有太大的震盪。 0906 　　剛停筆稽查員便來，我急忙填上日期（車很快！！）（手震），生怕無端罰款！（剛才經過OPEL的廠房，很舊！）稽查員屬「Peter型」，對每個乘客都彬彬有禮，實在難得。 0937 　　到此時此刻才忘記為DC調校德國時間…… 　　右邊應該便是萊茵河，的確美麗。雖然陽光猛了一點。 1147　Lintgasse 　　幸好還是進入了Köln，這裡漂亮很多，我在Lintgasse的長椅上坐下，後面的屋子裡婦人在學跳舞（原來有男人），音樂響起，「教練」在數拍子。 1244　科隆大教堂 　　現在或者有點後悔沒有「預習」，Discovery只說它是歌德式，高聳向上，其餘的我甚麼也不知道。我現在坐在右側的小禮堂，剛才一對男女像在拍結婚照似的。 1817　萊茵河畔 　　我在等「返回」Köln的遊船Köln-Düsseldorfer（到現在仍未搞清'Köln'的正確讀音……），因為趕時間，我只在Bonn的市集作「閃電戰」，拍了數張「交待相」便趕到碼頭。在Köln走得太遠，有點「中計」的感覺．加上今天「地理感」差了很多，經常走對方向但找錯路。我沒有Bonn的地圖，本來打算在火車站抄下街名便走，但今天狀態太不濟了，從火車站起便走錯方向，結果蕩至information centre, 取了張免費的簡圖，才找到這裡，否則我可以到Beethovenhaus走一趟。現在船雖然遲來（現在右邊剛出現的不知是否該各船），但我不想再走了，反正這裡吹風... read more

PUT YOUR CURSOR ON THE ABOVE MAP, CLICK & HOLD AND YOU CAN MOVE THE MAP AROUND TO BETTER ORIENT YOURSELF. YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT, THEN GO BACK TO THE JOURNAL OR GO THROUGH THE PHOTOS (CLICK ON THE NUMBERS AT THE TOP) IN THAT ENLARGED FORMAT. Again, this is part of my attempt to chronicle our five years of living outside the USA (June 2001 - June 2006). I've already done our final year, which was South Africa (click on "Previous Entries" top left of this blog page and you can see other blog entries). Now I'm going back, looking through old journals and photos to put our adventures, one by one, into blog form. Germany Originally written in 2002 - 2004 We moved to Bochum, Germany from Leiden, The ... read more

Geo: 50.7327, 7.09631We took the train to Bonn, Germany stopping in Koln for a bite.... read more

The Ruhr Area is huge. Cities merge together, to the extent it is impossible to determine which one you're in at the moment. This massive zone attracts lots of people. People in cars. Even though the German Autobahn is an impressive network of roads, traffic jams are inevitable. This is one of those places, where lots of people decided to take their cars out for a ride, all at the same time, resulting in a complete standstill. An indicator on the dashboard is going into red. Smoke is coming out of the engine. A broken radiator and a traffic jam - bad combination. Pulling on to the shoulder and let the car cool down is only a temporary solution. We have to take the first exit to the first town. The town where nobody speaks English. ... read more