We had to wake up at 6:30 am; a difficult task after a few hours sleep and many beers. We got up and packed our stuff, got ready and walked to the local train station. We used a ticket machine for the first time (rather than a ticket office in main stations) and got the train to the airport. i was feelign pretty seedy at this point, especially with no food or drink yet. We got to the airport about 2 hours early; we were afraid of missing a plane after the KLM incident.We checked in and went through security in efficient German style and then had some breakfast in the terminal. Jess and I both got muesli with yoghurt and fruit; it agreed to be the most tasteless thing either of us had ever eaten. We got on our Air Berlin flight, fearing a crappy flight, but actually had quite a nice 50 minute flight, during which we got some salt & pepper chips and a coke; this was unexpected on such a cheap flight. We got off at Berlin and got our bags (thankfully) and caught the bus then train to our hotel, the Adina Hotel at Checkpoint Charlie, which is apparently an Australian hotel. We checked in and found that our room was a giant 3 roomed apartment. It has a kitchen/ lounge room, bedroom and bathroom. The hotel also has a pool, spa, sauna and gym, though we don't have the appropriate clothing and all the shops are shut. After checking in and chilling for a bit, we walked to teh train station and went to Alexanderplatz, home of the Berlin tower. Everything had shut at 2pm, as it was xmas eve, but we managed to find a currywurst place that we got into just in time; currywurst is amazing. We then caught the train back near our hotel, only to find a Christmas market just outside the Berlin concert house. We had to pay to get in 1 euro, but then had some gluhwein and it was all okay. We were just about to get some food and a wooden xmas decoration, but the clock sounded 6pm and everyone shut up shop. We then walked back to our hotel and got the Xmas menu consisting of potato soup with croutons, duck, and a gingerbread confit. I thought the soup and dessert were average but the duck was amazing. I also had a 500ml (or 50cl as they say here) of Erdinger Hell, which was amazing. We then went back to our room where I fell asleep watching Dylan Moran's 2011 comedy DVD, for the second time.
Friday 23/12/11
After a great night out we woke up, a bit too late really, and headed towards the BMW Welt. We wandered the giant complex, looking at all the current model BMW cars and bikes, with Jess gettign a ride in a classic Isetta BMW. We then walked across the road to the BMW museum and spent hours walking through the history if the famous carmaker, with some absolutely beautiful cars.
We then caught the train back to Marienplatz and wandered the Christmas market before wandering around to look for the Hoffbrau house. We found it amongst some other disneyland-esque buildings just outside Marienplatz, but went for a walk around, as it was still only 4:30 in the afternoon, despite it being completely dark; it was the winter solstace the night before.
During this wander we went into a traditional Bavarian dress store where Jess tried on the dress, blouse and apron that makes up the traditional garb. She tried on many but she eventaully picked one and I said I'd buy it for her for Christmas. Now we must have a bavarian xmas in july or some junk.
After this we found a big shopping street, the one with all the really expensive brands on it; Bvlgari, Louis Vitton, D&G, Tiffany's etc. We perused their wares for a while then headed back to the Hofbrauhaus. I was kinda iffy about the Hofbrauhaus to begin with; it didn't seem as authentic or cool as the Augustiner the previous night. We were indecisive about getting a table, so we decided to pick an empty table to start our own party. First a middle aged man and his son, from Sydney, sat down, but they kept to themselves. At this point i figured, I'd order one beer and if it was average, or crap, we'd leave after that. Half way through my first beer I mentioned to Jess that Hofbrau was a bit average (compared to Augustiner) and that we'd go after our food. Then some Americans, who I think worked with the Americans still occupying Munich, joined our table. At the same time my pork knuckle was served and the whole night suddenly got amazing. The pork was one of the best pig meals I've ever had. We talked politics, marrigage, geography and Australian ways over several 1L glassed of beer. I think the final count was Andrew 2L, Robbie the American 3L, Millie and Elise 1.5L each (when we left). This night was just as fun as the previous one, despite my initial reservations and how great the Augustiner was. Definitely go to the Hofbrauhaus if you're in Munich.
Thursday 24/12/2011
This post was mainly written by Jess Hill.
Our second day here in Munich was absolutely incredible. We had an early start to meet our tour bus at 8am for our much anticipated day trip to Neuschwanstein in the Bavarian Alps. Our guide, Ana, made a hearty attempt at humour throughout the day and provided us with some background history of King Ludwig (aka The Mad King) on our two hour trip through the mountains. We were really lucky as a huge amount of snow had fallen in the last couple of days so as we left the Autobahn and wound up the mountain roads everywhere we looked was a picture postcard of beautiful, snow covered forests and picturesque villages. Our first stop was Ludwig's little castle of Lindenhoff, a miniature Versailles that he created as a result of his love of the various French kings, whom he greatly admired. To get to the castle we had a short stroll up a little mountain, past a frozen lake where two swans were preening themselves amidst the snow blanketed forest. We couldn't help but have a snowball fight - it was like scooping up cold powder. The castle itself was a small-ish building that was elaborately decorated in all of the six interior rooms. The room of mirrors was especially incredible - modelled on the one in Versailles, everywhere you looked it appeared that the room continued to infinity.
From Linderhoff we boarded the bus again and went to visit a tiny Alpine village of less than 3000 people for a coffee stop and chance to buy some souvenirs. We were very tempted by the cuckoo clocks, however they were a bit too pricey, if beautifully crafted. We settled on a little christmas carving with lights inside as our souvenir item.
Then it was off to Neushwanstein. The bus ride to the town surrounding the base of the castle was lovely, and as the castle itself is situated atop a mountain, we were able to get some photos of the castle from a fair distance. Unfortunately there is repair work going on, so half of the exterior is covered in scaffolding. Once in the town we had lunch at a local restaurant - best mashed potato ever! Then we began the very long walk up the mountain to get to the castle. Here the snow, while stunningly beautiful, also became somewhat problematic as the mountain road was very, very slippery. The scenery as we ascended was spectacular and as we walked we fell into conversation with an Australian girl, Lea, who is currently studying in England and is over here for a short holiday. We trekked up together and stopped halfway for some deep fried batter balls smothered in powdered sugar and some mulled wine. We finally reached the castle and were blown away by the splendour of both the castle itself and also the scenery around it.
Neushcwansein was an amazing castle, rivalled only by it's greed in making you walk through TWO gift shops. Honestly it was amazing. We then spent about 10 minutes walking around the outside of the castle taking photos before scurrying down the hill, grabbing some fried doughnut balls on the way, back to the bus, making the meeting time by 30 seconds. Believe me, the Germans would have left without us if we weren't there on time.
(Andrew Hill)
We then organised to meet up with Lea after getting changed out of our soaking wet clothes, at the Augustiner Brauhaus on the corner of the street where out hotel is. I (Andrew) drank 1,5L of beer, but Lea out-did me with 2,5L.... crazy. We also met two Aussie guys there, Matt and Shane I believe, who we had some interesting conversations about relationships with, before retiring to the hotel.
Europost 2
So, our bags were lost by KLM so I've avoided using the laptop ans I could not charge it.
REWIND.
On Tuesday we were still in Amsterdam and decided to just walk around looking at things for the day. We walked down the shopping malls as Jess looked for new boots. Man, this city is beautiful. I want to live in a good city...
The next day we woke up early, scoffed some breakfast and trained it out to the airport. We got stuck behind a large family at check-in and were waiting for 1/2 an hour. By this point our plane had started boarding. We asked to cut in line and a guy let us, so we checked in in about 10 seconds (KLM people are glacially slow) then hurriedly walked to the right gate, only to be confronted with another massive queue for the security screen. We told a security person how late we were for our flight so he shoved us to the front of the metal detector, only to have them decide to search my bag for about 5 minutes to confirm that, yes, cameras do have wires in them. By this point our plane should have been taxiing, so we ran the 1 or more kilometers to the correct gate, thinking we were never going to make it, but they still let us on, luckily.
Then we had to sit on the plane for about 30 minutes as it was snowing in Munich, so they wouldn't take off until they had a landing window. So stressful.
The plane ride itself was pretty good; we had exit row seats so extra leg room.
Then it got worse. When we arrived in Munich we waited for our bags but they never arrived. We had to go fill out some paper work but they assured us that as they were only in Amsterdam, they'd be on the next flight and we'd have them later that day. (spoiler - we didn't).
We caught a train to Munich Central, walked to our hotel, after getting directions from some locals in Gamestop, and decided to go check out the Christmas markets in Marienplatz. This resulted in drinking hot spiced wine (Gleuwein) and eating tasty sausage in buns and Nutella crepes. We wandered around for a few hours taking in the beautiful buildings before returning to our hotel to find that bags still weren't there. Livid, we called KLM and asked WTF was going on, to which they replied, "you should have them tomorrow." Thanks guys...
Jess can type the next post...
Euro trip
It's been a while. Lol.
Jess and I are currently on a whirlwind tour of Europe, starting in Amsterdam, then Munich, Berlin (for xmas), Bern, Venice (For new year), Florence, Rome, and finally, Paris.
We left Adelaide on Saturday, after waiting in the airport for way too long.
We flew on Malaysian Airlines, which was pretty good.
Watched Crazy, stupid, Love with Steve Carrell and an excellent bollywood film, Singham!
After 7 odd hours in that flying coffin, we arrived in KL airport, tired and weary, numb bums and desperate for some Wifi.
We had some satay and Mango juice during the 3 hour wait, then relaxed in some sofas in the samsung lounge, watching Unstoppable and attempting to make a post on facebook for about an hour (turns out I sent it 3 times).
Then after the crazy long wait, we got on a KLM Boeing 777 to Amsterdam.
This flight took 12.5 hours... I can't recommend this to anyone.
Gladly I slept for most of the journey, but constant crying babies did not help here.
I ended up watching The Hangover 2 just before we landed; that shit's stupid.
We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:50am local time, and quickly left the airport; security and customs were pretty much non existant. We caught the train to Amsterdam Centraal station and found our hotel was within eyeshot of the station. Convenient.
As it was about 6:30 am when we arrived, we stowed our bags and waited in the warm hotel until about 10 am in the lobby, as all the shops are shut on a Sunday until then.
We organised a hop-on-hop-off tour from the front desk of our hotel, got tickets for the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, and a canal cruise. We caught the bus from a few streets over to the museum district and went through the Rijks museum first. This was mainly full of Rembrandt's work and old dutch royal navy art. It was pretty great. The Night Watch was frakking huge and the detail was amazing, especially for a philistine like me.
We then walked over to the Van Gogh museum next door. Van Gogh is not my favourite artist, but there were some amazing pieces there. I bought a t-shirt of the smoking skeleton, because it's cool.
From here we went and had some lunch at a cafe. I had Profierjes and hot chocolate and Jess had Kwark with fruit and musli and hot chocolate.
We then went to a diamond museum and factory, where they show you how they cut diamonds. Pretty cool, but they just want you to buy stuff.
As we had now been up for around 30 hours (apart from a brief kip on the plane) we were almost passing out with tiredness. We then jumped on the bus again and took the rest of the route back to our hotel. We grabbed some fries with mayonaisse from a local shop and went back to our hotel room.
We pretty much got ready for bed, put on a Louis CK show and fell asleep before it even began.
The next day we got up at about 8:30, after 12 hours sleep, and tucked into the awesome breakfast at the hotel.
We organised some tickets for the Heineken Experience, booked some push bikes and rode off towards the Anne Frank Haus. The ride was great. Cold, but great. We waited for about 15 minutes to get into the house, but damn, it's a sad place. The cunning of those who attempted to escape the Nazis is amazing.
We then rode all the way over town to the Heineken Experience, a tour of their old factory, with beer tasting and an interactive display. It was pretty interesting, though Jess not being a beer drinker, meant I had to drink her share too.
We then jumped on our bikes, rode around for a bit, before deciding to take the bikes back and head out for some dinner.
First we headed over to The Grasshopper for an aperitif, and then wandered the Red Light District. The hookers advertising themselves in windows is really bizarre.
We then ended up at an Argentinian restaurant, I had hot ribs, Jess had Schnitzel, and then perambulated back to our hotel to attempt to watch Louis CK again. I think I made 45 mins before I fell asleep.
Aside from this, Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful. The only issues we've had so far are a lack of functioning Wifi at our hotel (hence this is being typed in an internet cafe), and falling off our bikes (Jess caught a bike wheel in the tram tracks and I stacked it right outside the bike shop).
Hopefully I'll keep updating daily but if the wifi here is anything to go by, it could be dicey.
Jess and I are currently on a whirlwind tour of Europe, starting in Amsterdam, then Munich, Berlin (for xmas), Bern, Venice (For new year), Florence, Rome, and finally, Paris.
We left Adelaide on Saturday, after waiting in the airport for way too long.
We flew on Malaysian Airlines, which was pretty good.
Watched Crazy, stupid, Love with Steve Carrell and an excellent bollywood film, Singham!
After 7 odd hours in that flying coffin, we arrived in KL airport, tired and weary, numb bums and desperate for some Wifi.
We had some satay and Mango juice during the 3 hour wait, then relaxed in some sofas in the samsung lounge, watching Unstoppable and attempting to make a post on facebook for about an hour (turns out I sent it 3 times).
Then after the crazy long wait, we got on a KLM Boeing 777 to Amsterdam.
This flight took 12.5 hours... I can't recommend this to anyone.
Gladly I slept for most of the journey, but constant crying babies did not help here.
I ended up watching The Hangover 2 just before we landed; that shit's stupid.
We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:50am local time, and quickly left the airport; security and customs were pretty much non existant. We caught the train to Amsterdam Centraal station and found our hotel was within eyeshot of the station. Convenient.
As it was about 6:30 am when we arrived, we stowed our bags and waited in the warm hotel until about 10 am in the lobby, as all the shops are shut on a Sunday until then.
We organised a hop-on-hop-off tour from the front desk of our hotel, got tickets for the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum, and a canal cruise. We caught the bus from a few streets over to the museum district and went through the Rijks museum first. This was mainly full of Rembrandt's work and old dutch royal navy art. It was pretty great. The Night Watch was frakking huge and the detail was amazing, especially for a philistine like me.
We then walked over to the Van Gogh museum next door. Van Gogh is not my favourite artist, but there were some amazing pieces there. I bought a t-shirt of the smoking skeleton, because it's cool.
From here we went and had some lunch at a cafe. I had Profierjes and hot chocolate and Jess had Kwark with fruit and musli and hot chocolate.
We then went to a diamond museum and factory, where they show you how they cut diamonds. Pretty cool, but they just want you to buy stuff.
As we had now been up for around 30 hours (apart from a brief kip on the plane) we were almost passing out with tiredness. We then jumped on the bus again and took the rest of the route back to our hotel. We grabbed some fries with mayonaisse from a local shop and went back to our hotel room.
We pretty much got ready for bed, put on a Louis CK show and fell asleep before it even began.
The next day we got up at about 8:30, after 12 hours sleep, and tucked into the awesome breakfast at the hotel.
We organised some tickets for the Heineken Experience, booked some push bikes and rode off towards the Anne Frank Haus. The ride was great. Cold, but great. We waited for about 15 minutes to get into the house, but damn, it's a sad place. The cunning of those who attempted to escape the Nazis is amazing.
We then rode all the way over town to the Heineken Experience, a tour of their old factory, with beer tasting and an interactive display. It was pretty interesting, though Jess not being a beer drinker, meant I had to drink her share too.
We then jumped on our bikes, rode around for a bit, before deciding to take the bikes back and head out for some dinner.
First we headed over to The Grasshopper for an aperitif, and then wandered the Red Light District. The hookers advertising themselves in windows is really bizarre.
We then ended up at an Argentinian restaurant, I had hot ribs, Jess had Schnitzel, and then perambulated back to our hotel to attempt to watch Louis CK again. I think I made 45 mins before I fell asleep.
Aside from this, Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful. The only issues we've had so far are a lack of functioning Wifi at our hotel (hence this is being typed in an internet cafe), and falling off our bikes (Jess caught a bike wheel in the tram tracks and I stacked it right outside the bike shop).
Hopefully I'll keep updating daily but if the wifi here is anything to go by, it could be dicey.
It's been a long time
I need to write something, even if it's just brain farts.
Firstly, on the job hunt, I am sucking. Admittedly I'm not putting in nearly enough job applications and I'm not stretching myself enough to apply for jobs in fields that I actually want to work in. I've been spending all of my time trying to get a job at Flinders or in Govt. and not on getting the 'dream job'. Why the fuck shouldn't I deserve my dream job? What is my dream job? This is not a question I ask purely to give an answer, I genuinely don't know.
I've at least got an interview at Flinders next week, though which job exactly, I'm unsure. This is problematic. Apparently it's a 2 hour interview, with a panel judging me first, then a test on my Word and Excel skills.
I used to be pro at Excel but I haven't used it in years so I may need to bone up.
Graduating this week has really set it in my mind that I need to get a god damned job. It's been about five months since I finished uni and I've been job searching since January. It's getting more and more depressing, not only with the passing of time, but also with every rejection letter I get. I've only had two other interviews and I thought they went well. Yeah... depressing.
Tasks for the next week:
Apply for jobs at production companies
Apply at temping agencies for the interim
Measure, buy wood and build a new wall for the shed.
On a different note, I'm really enjoying my televisual watching experience as of late.
I've watched all three seasons of The Big Bang Theory in the last two weeks and have found it a thoroughly intoxicating experience. I'm sad that I now have to wait a week for one 20 minute morsel.
I've also started watching Star Trek: TOS. I guess TBBT has tickled my inner nerd and this geeky fare satisfies that. For reals yo.
I really put too much time into downloading and watching television. As much as I love it, I really think I could, and should, be doing something more constructive with my time. Not that watching TV isn't constructive, but I need to use my TV education in the 'real' world. Like to play more video games.
I don't know how to end this.
Bullet time
I made this Bullet Time thingo for uni. I just figured I should upload it somewhere.
Just drag the slider back and forth to get the effect.
Blogger's video system doesn't handle the .mov properly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)