Flying over fog covered London
Saturday 20th September 2014 – London, Munich & Kaufbeuren
My adventure to Germany started with one of my less than pleasant experiences in England. At 2am I left the house to walk to the bus stop only to realise it was raining and cold. Luckily I have become accustom to always travelling with an umbrella and the light rain stopped while I was waiting for the bus. I then had to transfer from one bus to another and had forgotten that it was early Saturday morning and I had to walk through all of the Oxford club strips. This is certainly a different side of Oxford as being a university town there are many young people out on the town and because it is legal to drink alcohol on the streets in the United Kingdom (and most of Europe) seeing young people dressed in clubbing attire stumbling down the street often with a bottle in hand is just a normal Friday night. Walking quickly through the chaos I got my bus on time and was going to be well and truly early for my flight. Having checked in and dropped off my bag I ate the food my wonderful housemate packed for me at one in the morning after work, and waited for the time the gate would be revealed.
Flying over Munich
At the time when the gate was supposed to be revealed it had changed the time to delay it an hour. Two hours later we finally had some answers from the pilot that the routine overnight maintenance that was being carried out was going overtime and we just had to be patient and wait. At least the pilot was honest about the maintenance engineers and keeping us updated and they offered us all a free hot drink or soft drink for our delay. Svenja and Steve waiting in Germany luckily got my message about the first delay, however didn’t get my message about the second and I also didn’t realise the landing time was London’s time and not Munich’s so it was also another hour adding to their wait (it is a good thing they like each other’s company – well I hope so!).
I realised I had a window seat and it was a nice morning so would probably get a good photo or two of London but of course as you can see from above there was a thick fog when we left and by the time you could see through it we were well and truly out of London. However I did manage to get a photo or two of the beautifully green Bavarian countryside when landing. Walking through customs and border patrol in Germany was even easier than in England and I think Australia must have one of the strictest border controls in the world. Then as soon as I walked out of the gate there was Svenja and Steve to meet me – bonus I didn’t even have to try and work out the German signs by myself!
Flying over Bavarian Countryside
I felt like I was home getting to see, hug and speak to Svenja again and found it hard to believe that we were both living in Australia together only six months before and now meeting in Germany for the first time. It was also great to finally meet her boyfriend Steve and even better when he offered to carry my bag and they had already bought my train ticket – I certainly could get used to travel companions!
Before we went off to the shop we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s and I was grateful to have Svenja speak German and order food as it dawned on me how very, very little German I actually know! In England even the same food and drinks you get in Australia taste different and I am not sure why but perhaps it is to do with local ingredients used and I did wonder if I just missed the taste of the Australia products or if English food was actually the worst of the two. Well I have found the German food and drink (for example even Coca-Cola) tastes different to both Australian and English products but it is a nice different, one that I can like without saying it is better or worse than Australia’s food however definitely better than England’s.
Once fed it was off to the medieval shop to hopefully pick up a fighting sword that Steve uses in battle for the medieval fighting re-enactments. Sadly for Steve the sword still wasn’t fixed and so we had to leave without the sword and axe handle that he had ordered. However not before I got to have a good look around and having an excellent first experience in a Munich store looking at and playing with swords, daggers, costumes and drinking my first German Met ([pronounced Mead] or honey beer as it translates) which was actually like a sweet port and quite nice. Due to my first time in Germany the lady allowed us to try the three different Mets for free (I tried the cherry and Svenja’s cinnamon and Steve had the almond) due to Steve having to wait longer for his sword the owner of the shop gave a full bottle of Met to Steve which he graciously gave to me as a present to take back to England.
Daggers in medieval shop
German Met – Almond, Cherry and Cinnamon in different shot glasses
Back on another train and into the car to drive on the wrong side of the road home to Steve & Svenja’s apartment – which as you can see below has quite a view! Sadly the plan to go to an Irish Pub was changed due to me feeling unwell which may have been due to not enough water and then being in a closed-up apartment. However our night of eating Thai food that we ordered in and chatting and catching up was well spent before heading to bed ready for a new adventure tomorrow.
View from Steve and Svenja’s apartment
Coll's Travels 