Germany

Tan had to go for training in Germany this week, which is good, as I didn't really have time to see very much of Germany last year.

So we started with a road trip to Cologne, very fun driving on the Autobahn, I just wish we had a faster car, Tan gets to use a company car, but she had to turn over her Mini which would have been great fun to drive, a while back. Her new ride is a SEAT Altera, nice enough car, except it doesn't have one of the better engines, so it is a little slow. A good cruising speed for that car is 150km/h, I did have it up to 180km/h but it's a tad scary and redlined at that speed. You are probably thinking what the hell is he driving so fast for! Well 150km/h puts me in the slow lane on the Autobahn, the only thing slower is mostly trucks, and trailers. Cars go whizzing by easily in the 200's! However it is not all fun, as traffic is bad in sections and your forced to go slow, but in the open areas it sure would be nice to have a nice car! Driving at 150km/h really kills the gas mileage though! The EU wants to impose speed limits on the autobahns for the environment, I can't see that happening here though!

Back to Cologne, nice city, clean, and some great sites, the big Cathedral, which was pretty much the only thing to survive the WW2 bombings. Chocolate Museum was nice as well. Then we were off to a town called Bad Mergentheim, close to where Tan's office is. Very nice typical German town, a little small, but the landscape around the town is great, made for a nice drive. Rolling hills, huge forests, quite nice. I made a day trip to Stuttgart, the famous city where Mercedes and Porsche are headquartered. I heard the Mercedes Museum was quite impressive so I went to check that out, and I was indeed quite impressed, very modern, and lots to see and learn. I also tried to locate the Porsche Museum, but that area is under heavy construction and all I could find was the home of the new museum, which is not finished, and a nice big Porsche Showroom, just walking through the showroom was good enough for me, as honestly I much prefer the new cars to the old ones... I really wanted to hijack one for a quick jaunt on the Autobahn, but I don't think the German Police would be too keen on that!

This weekend we are going to spend in Frankfurt, then Tan has to spend some time at the office in France, which is in Caen, northern France, which she tells me is very nice, I just hope the weather is nice as well!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I quite enjoyed my time in Dresden, the weather was great, nice fall weather in a cool little German city, can't beat that!

Even though Dresden was pretty much completley destroyed in WW2 by bombings, they have rebuilt it, and are continuing to rebuild the old part of town. Dresden was first mentioned as a city in the year 1200, so it has quite a bit of history! Even though the old city is all reconstruction, it is really quite lovely, huge old buildings, and cobblestone streets. Then you have the people, very friendly, and a large punk/goth community, makes for an exciting place!

I think it is also one of the cheapest places I have been to in Europe. I also learnt something, the Donair is very German. Berlin sells more Donairs than Istanbul Turkey, and the actual concept of the Donair as we know it now, with the meat in the pita with salad was invented in Germany! So I ate a few of those, some of the best donairs I have had! That along with some nice german sausages made for good eating. Thankfully there was a shop where I could buy a big fruit salad, or a big mixed salad for 1 Euro! So got some healthy stuff as well!

I am writing this at a internet cafe, as the place I am staying at, even though it has wireless, my MacBook can't connect to it. Some known problem with MacBooks, and D-Link wireless routers. Quite a pain in the ass. But at least my PDA can connect, so I can write short messages with that.

Other than that not too much to report. I am now in Prague. going to stay here until monday. My friend Robert from Slovakia is coming tomorrow, so we will have another hopefully fun weekend here. I can tell already just from my few hours here that it is not as busy here, so should be a different vibe, but that could change as it gets closer to the weekend.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I am rather impressed with Berlin I must say. Lots of history happened
here. Went on a pretty good walking tour and learnt a bit about the history,
and what happened during the war. Not too many buildings survived, so it is
rather impressive to think that this whole big city was practically rebuilt
in 60 or so years!

It is a strange feeling however to walk past an old building that would have
housed Nazi's and too see where bullets hit the building, and left scars. To
see where Hitler's bunker was, and just imagine the chaos in the city, is
quite eerie.

The weather here has been rather chilly, it's unusually cold here, hopefully
it warms up soon!

Another thing that has surprised me about Berlin is the nightlife, I had no
idea it was such a party city. Wednesday night I went on a pub crawl which
was quite fun, got to see a few bars, and then went to a club at 1am. It
didn't close until 6am! It was packed, and had 4 floors, all this on a
Wednesday night! I'm almost afraid to see what a Friday night has in store.
Although I will take it pretty easy as I a taking a train to a smaller city
called Dresden on Saturday, even though it's not far I am not too keen on
traveling when in rough shape!

It has also been nice to play some Foosball, pretty much every pub has a
Foosball table, as does the hostel. Certainly a fun game to play!

Posted by Jason Willock