Bondi Rescue and a bubble bath for three...

The day was spent recovering, slowly.  The morning was spent with Tucky and Carli discussing what they were going to buy from McDonalds, and how much food was too much food?

We made it to McDonalds thank god, otherwise I would not have heard the end of it.  I also spent half the day filling in the blanks of Tucky and Carli’s memory of the night before. Amusing.  “No! I didn’t... did I?”  Yes Carli, twice. 

We managed to walk down to Anne Frank’s house but the line was enormous. It looked totally different to how I remembered it, it now had a cafe attached to it and they had restructured the outside to include a museum area.  It kind of ruined the vibe for me as I remember it not being so commercialised when I last went.  The girls decided that 3 hours in a line was not worth it and we wandered back to the hotel.

I was feeling a little bit guilty for wasting the day but we decided that the night before had definitely been worth it. 

And then all my dreams came true...

Flicking through the TV channels...Bondi Rescue appeared on the screen... Why is Bondi Rescue showing in Amsterdam, I really don’t care, it is. 

Carli tried to make me jealous by telling me she’d kissed one of them when she was 10 years old and Tucky reminded me of my perhaps one and only chance to throw myself at them (other than discussing with Laura Brown on the shore's of Bondi Beach if pretending to drown is contemptible if it's for a really good cause?).  Lorne Pub, Pier to Pub weekend, ALL of the Bondi Rescue boys were there, and I didn’t try and pick them up, I don't think I even spoke to them. I was too in awe (and aware of that it would be a true exhibit of desperation).  No one really quite understands my infatuation, but I’m ok with that. They make me happy. 

We dragged ourselves off to the supermarket to find ingredients (including bubble bath gel) for yet another picnic, this time in our spa.

We dimmed the lights, put the music on, filled the bath, popped the champagne...

then got into our bathers, apologised to each other for unshaved legs, slipped over, dropped chorizo and cheese in the water. Not the fantasy that some may think of when they picture three girls in a bath, but much more fun for us.

We had an early night in preparation for the morning’s Royal Wedding, the viewing of the wedding had been cemented into the schedule weeks ago and Tucky made sure I did not forget this as she had nearly considered flying back to London to see the real thing. I was excited to see it, especially after having lived in London for a while...but somehow not as excited as the other two.

The Bus with Kevin, Candlelight Cruise gone Aussie, Mr Tom and a Sex Show

Sitting at the bus stop waiting for my ride to Amsterdam, my bus bench neighbour and I began chatting. Kevin is an Argentinean who has been living and studying architecture in America and is now travelling around Europe doing various internships.   After a scuffle to get our bags on the bus and our driver asking for a euro for the effort of lifting the bags half a metre into the luggage hold (dodgy dodgy Dutchman), Kevin and I decided to sit together in order to avoid sitting next to overweight smelly people which really can ruin the joyful experience of overnight bus rides.

We spent the next 14 hours (two of which were frustratingly spent stuck in traffic) getting to know each other, giving history lessons about our respective countries (we decided that if we didn’t know the exact facts then fabricating interesting ‘facts’ were allowed) and generally just having a laugh and giving each other shit. It certainly made the bus ride much more enjoyable, and it got to the stage where we had to tell each other to shut up in order to get some sleep.  

I left Kevin in Amsterdam as he was continuing further north, but we found each other on facebook, so maybe we’ll meet again, besides, you’re not real friends unless your friends on facebook right?

It was 6am and I had to wait an hour for the eurolines office to open.  I spent the time watching a homeless man doing very well for himself by pretending he needed a little bit of change for the bus that was about to leave. He’d stand in front of unprepared tourists and say ‘1 euro’ over and over again while pointing at bus until people paid him to go away, then he’d do a runner, disappear for a while, and continue the scam with some different tourists.  

I got my ticket to Oslo and headed into the centre of Amsterdam.  Tucky and Carli were arriving later that day and had already booked a hotel room and had generously allowed me to take up all their floor space by letting me pay for an extra mattress for the floor.

Our hotel receptionist was a laugh, if by laugh I mean not funny and kind of weird. But he thought he was hilarious.  He kept going on about the three of us having a Jacuzzi and whenever someone said ‘hi’, he’d say, ‘Are you?’  Good joke that one...

It was still early in the morning so I wandered half asleep around the city and sat beside one of the canals for a little while and ate my pear.

I found a cafe with wifi and booked a return ticket from Oslo to Trondheim, which is where I’ll be staying with a friend in Norway.  Only problem was that the entire website was in Norwegian, so I really hope that is what I booked.

At 11am I went to the train station to meet the girls who had just come on a smelly overnight train from Brussels.  Still not being able to check in (with another Jacuzzi joke from the receptionist) we walked around the city some more, Carli and I had to break it to Tuck that our hotel was in fact in the Red Light District.  The girls told me about their time in Copenhagen, Brussels, Antwerp and Bruges, but most importantly informed me of a new spaghetti.... tangled spaghetti.  Get it? When you’re tangled in your bag straps/jacket etc. So that’s good news.

Finally checking in, we took the lift to the top floor. The tiniest lift in the world, by the way. Tuck and I squeezed in with our bags and could not actually move a centimetre in any direction. Due to tiredness this brought on the giggles which made the space situation even more difficult, which in turn ignited more giggles, repeat.  It took a really long time to get to the fourth floor. 

We made it to the top though. Opening the door to our room, we climbed up the ladder to our loft and lost our shit. We were tired and perhaps the weed wafting through the streets had got to us, or maybe we generally laugh until we can’t breathe about things that really aren’t that funny.

It was the honeymoon suite with a double bed, mood lighting, an open bathroom and...a Jacuzzi.  Reception man apparently wasn’t being dirty; he was just informing us of the huge spa that took up half the room.   There and then we made a promise to ourselves that we would have a champagne spa bath before our time in Amsterdam was up.

There was a fair in the city and I decided that I wanted to try and go on a ride.  I hate rides, I am scared of them, I think the scariest ride I’ve been on is the Pirate Ship, I’ve never been on a roller coaster, you get the point. So we chose the one with the chairs that go around and around but it also goes up quite high.

Tuck and Carli wouldn’t buy a ticket until I did in case I chickened out and I felt even more ridiculous as we waited behind some eight year olds who were looking extremely blasé about the whole thing.

I made Tucky sit next to me and hold my hand.  Carli got to sit next to the child in front of us, this helped to distract me from the nerves as we noticed that Carli’s legs at the age of 28, are shorter than an 8 year olds. (We do love you Carli, we only took a couple of photos... and one later on when you were on your tippy toes trying to use the ATM).

Well I completed the ride, probably broke Tucky’s hand, gave myself leg and stomach cramps from tensing so much and realised that scaring yourself out of your fear of heights does not work, but I’m glad I did it, I had a new love for the sturdiness of the ground.

We stopped for a bottle of wine and some soup and bread at an Argentinean restaurant who didn’t appreciate our lack of ordering main meals.  I swear, in every restaurant in every place the three of us go to, they hate us even before we’ve sat down.  I’m starting to think it might be us? Or that Europeans generally hate serving foreigners.

We made our way to the canal near the central station for our candlelight canal cruise which included cheese and wine.  A romantic start to the evening...

Before...

still before...

Shame shame shame.  I’m not sure what happened or how...but we were ‘those Australians’. The annoying Australians who don’t behave appropriately according to the activity and who ruin the experience for other people due to alcohol consumption and our overly loud and twangy articulation of jokes and personal revelations that nobody else thinks is funny because it’s not. We are sorry. But it was hilarious for us, and so much fun.

later on...

The tour was in German and English, it took Carli and I some time to figure out that we were unknowingly talking through the English part and then when we stopped to listen, he was speaking in German, so we’d continue talking and the cycle would continue.  We pretty much talked through most of it.  And the bits we did hear were really interesting, we did want to listen to him, unfortunately we couldn’t reconcile what we wanted to do and what we were actually doing, like when I tipped my red wine all over the white table cloth.

and after

my great job on the white table cloth

It was very nice to see the canals and streets at night, and it reminded me of my Dad as he had taken me on the same cruise for my 18^th birthday.

The houses in Amsterdam used to be taxed according to their width and that is why they are all so tall and skinny.  We saw the smallest house in Amsterdam which was only about a metre wide. We passed under the bridges where you’re supposed to give a kiss away to the one you love even if they’re not there and we were impressed by our captain’s ability to take the long boat around some very tight corners.

The cheese was so yummy and they accidently gave us two plates of it and continued to top up the wine for two hours.  

Our next plan was to see one of Amsterdam’s sex shows. We decided that it had to be done even though we had heard from friends about how graphic and tacky it was and it’s not something that we would usually do. But Tuck said that after a few drinks she may be able to sit through it, and we had had more than a few.

We found the address and there was a very large man standing in front of a very small door. He told us the rules and the price and we gave him the money. His name was Tom, so for no reason except maybe that he was big and we were drunk, we started to call him Mr Tom.

Mr Tom led us further down the street and the three of us were demanding he tell us where he was taking us, we also told him that we thought he looked dodgy and if he tried anything like running away with our money, we’d be sure to tackle him into the canal.  Mr Tom just laughed at us, from fear obviously.

Well, we spent the evening drinking our free drinks and commentating on how crap the sex show was, and how it just reminded of us of a really bad nude exercise video, Jane Fonda style. 

I don’t know what we were expecting, we weren’t expecting to enjoy it, but whatever we were expecting, it wasn’t that, and although laughable it was pretty crass.

But we did catch the fancy of a Russian man who kept giving us knowing looks and then tried to squeeze passed Tuck and Carli in order to try and sit next to me.  Luckily Tucky and Carli were obliviously rude to him due to their charming drunken states and perhaps managed to also spill a drink on him, I think he got the picture and left.

I went outside for a minute and told the girls I would meet them back at our seats.  As I was standing outside I heard this knocking behind me, turning around there was a naked woman in a window wildly gesturing for me to move over.  I’d accidently blocked her from the view of potential clients and she was not a happy camper.  

Going back inside, of course the girls were not where I’d left them, luckily the waiter had been keeping an eye on them and said they were upstairs.  Passing the Russian and Mr Tom, I barrelled into the bathroom nearly wiping out Carli who was laughing on the floor for no apparent reason.

This particular part is a bit of a blur, but we decided it was time to go home.  With Tuck and I hitching Carli up in between us, we escaped outside with Carli yelling back her adieu’s to Mr Tom.

Outside it was storming, we ran, sang, possibly fell over all the way home and looked like drowned rats when we arrived.

The rest of the night was spent mostly in the bathroom and in the morning we swore that our drinks had been spiked because as Carli put it, surely we're all too intelligent to have possibly done that to ourselves...funny times though.

Bye Bye Berlin

After a much needed nights (and the day before) sleep I headed to Rosa-Luxembourg Platz to meet Lucy and Kent for some Korean that they had recommended. 

 

Walking there only took an hour and as I remembered general directions from the last time I was in Berlin, I didn’t get too lost and enjoyed the sunshine. 

Berlin looks so different without the snow and the cover of winter’s darkness, like so many cities in Europe, the arrival of spring seems to rejuvenate not only the place but the people too.

To be honest, I do think Berlin is an ugly city, but I think that is what makes it uniquely beautiful.  It doesn’t try too hard to be anything than what it is and what its history has created for it.  You can still feel a separation and strange distance hanging in the air of the city even though there are no longer any physical barriers. 

Spotting Lucy and Kent (not too difficult with Lucy’s jumping wave) we went to lunch.  As it was Easter Monday, the streets were quiet and many of the shops closed.

I later met Cristin and Co. at Gunnenbrennen with the intention of having a tour of some of the bunkers and tunnels below the city.   Unfortunately they were booked out and so we instead made our own tour through the city.  

  

You peddle and drink beer. Not sure who's steering.

The boys and their new wheels

Later that evening we went to Alexanderplatz and had a drink at a hideously tacky ‘beer hall’ which had been set up for the tourists complete with a soundtrack featuring Kylie Minogue and the worst of the 80’s.  We went further afield to look for some dinner and as Cristin sniffed the air and told us it was going to rain, a few drops did fall. Unfortunately Cristin was trying to be ‘extra Australian’ and do a rendition of the ‘Dundee sun/time trick’, but had forgotten that she’d already told me earlier that she’d been watching the weather channel.  

Every restaurant told us their kitchen was closed although we think they just didn’t want to serve us.  One place let us sit outside, but after being scoffed at for asking for more than one menu between 5 of us, we returned to the beer hall for another half a litre of beer each and some sort of meat dish (not really sure what it was, probably for the best).

The next morning I checked out of my hostel and spent the morning organising a travel plan for after Amsterdam and getting ready for the next bus trip.

Around lunch time I met Cristin and Valdes at the Reichstag Parliament building although once again couldn’t get in to see it, instead we had a drink and a chat. I was meant to be meeting Lucy to say goodbye, unfortunately a storm passed through when I was meant to leave and the rain pissed down. Unprepared in my jumpsuit (without appropriate underwear on) we had to wait it out. A soakage like that really would have left nothing to anybody’s imagination; I thought I’d leave nudity in the parks to the Germans.

Rushing to try and get to Lucy in time, I didn’t get a chance to say a proper goodbye to Cristin and Valdes as we were running down the platform untangling bags and picking up my belongings that kept falling out, but it was a fitting goodbye for us and I’m sure I’ll see her again either in the UK or back in Australia.

Unfortunately the timing was too tight and I wasn’t able to see Lucy and Kent for a final goodbye, but it was so nice to catch up with them and I’m glad that I was able to get to Berlin before they headed back home.

Es ist gut, ja?

Half asleep, trying to get blood flow back into my legs, I stumbled off the bus into the morning sunshine of Berlin.  

After organising my next bus ticket to Amsterdam I found the U-bahn to Weberweise and my hostel for the next 3 days. 

For 12 euro a night, I wasn’t expecting much, so to my surprise the hostel was really nice. A big courtyard at the front, spacious rooms, restaurant, bar, internet.  There was scaffolding; I’m convinced that Europeans love their scaffolding.  I didn’t see anyone actually doing any work until I had my shower on the 4^th floor and realised I was flashing one of the workers. Awkward. 

 

In the afternoon I met up with Lucy for a drink, having spent the last two months here in Berlin, she is an expert on where to find a good coffee and a good cocktail. 

It was great to catch up, we hadn’t seen each other for over a year, but with 10 years of memories under our belts it was just like old times (except now she is a Mrs!).

We grabbed some drinks and headed back to her apartment to see Kent and I spent some time snooping in their wonderful artistically influenced apartment.  They will probably disagree with me, but everything they do is creative, even when they are not trying. They have decided that they may open a gallery when they return home and I’m so excited for them, if anyone can do it, they can.

Back at the hostel, Cristin Skinner (unrelated we think...), her boyfriend and some friends arrived to begin our Saturday night.  Coincidentally, we had ended up in Berlin at the same time.  

So we spent the evening in the hostel courtyard, and I think (no, I know) I drank waaay too much jagermeister.  At about midnight we headed to a famous club beginning with B....(told you, jagermeister).  The line was enormous and when Galya and Nick tried to join it they were curtly told that perhaps “this was not the place for them”.  It was then that we saw that a lot of the people were wearing military pants, big boots, and had skinheads.  We decided to move on.

Ending up at a club called Matrix, we danced into the morning, passing around vodka and Nick’s sunglasses like they were going out of fashion, which they probably were. 

Such a fun night, although I must admit the next day was spent mostly in bed.

Time and Distance?

The girls left this morning and I slowly repacked my bag (hell) and made my way on the metro to Montmartre and my new hostel.   

I still have my scallop shell on my bag from the Camino and a woman wished me a ‘buen camino’.  It was too early in the morning to search my brain for the right words in Spanish or French to explain that this time I was only going to Montmartre, so I just thanked her instead.  It did make me miss the Camino a little bit though.

I spent the day reading my book so I could get rid of it, as it was becoming inconveniently heavy.  I also just felt like mooching around.  So after a quick trip to the supermarket for fruit and bread I sat out in the sun for the day.  

The hostel receptionist asked me out for a drink that night and as I had nothing else to do, I accepted. Reggie was a forty something year old American who had been living in France for eight years.  I spent the evening listening to his life story (half of which I think he invented) but it was an interesting evening and better than hanging around by myself.  A couple of beers later, I think he’d convinced himself we were on a date and so I made my getaway back to the hostel.  It was awkward in an amusing way, especially when I saw him the next day at the hostel, he was a little sheepish.

After researching the next part of my trip and the cheapest possible ways of getting from Amsterdam to Norway (all very long bus rides) it was time to grab my things and head to the bus for my trip to Berlin.

Leaving at 7.30pm, I fell asleep and 2 hours later was passing through Brussels, then Antwerp, then somewhere else, I still find it strange that everything in Europe is so close together.

It was a full bus and I hardly slept.

Night time, alone on a bus to Berlin with too much time to think...Not great. 

Distance can't change how you feel or who you are and I don't think time does either, unless you want it to. Does time make things go away or is it just the fact that eventually you build up enough distractions and other memories that it covers up your feelings until you think you’ve forgotten what it felt like in the first place? 

Does everyone put on a brave face in front of other people when they are in pain, and then wait for the night to come to cry tears that no one else will see? How do you move on from something when you don’t want to? You can’t run away from yourself.