Köln, Cologne

Cologne.. Cute Cologne. Kalt Köln. This little city lives on the Rhein and is about 2hrs away from Offenbach. I visited on the 6th of March with Steffen and he's work friend Alex. Originally we were going to go to Hamburg but it got snowy (no surprise there) so we decided on Cologne. When we arrived we walked around for what must of been about 45 minutes in search of food All the bars and restaurants were stacked and it didn't help that there was a major football game later that day. Eventually we found this large traditional Italian restaurant away from the Cathedral area. Well, I have never eaten such a pizza in my life. It had sour cream, bacon, potatoes all sorts of things on it and was HUGE. I'm so proud I ate most of it and Steffen the rest.
After fattening our selves up we trudged back to the Cathedral. It was amazing, I honestly couldn't get over it, or a picture of it, it was so big. The detail was breathtaking and how they did that 100's of years ago I do not know. Around the building was a number of protesters and much more tourists than Berlin. Many people were being hit by large blocks of snow that were falling from the top of the cathedral and it was actually a little scary, if the snow hit the cement it made a huge slamming noise and one was so close to me I jumped so high. We went inside which was a slight disappointment. I must say, St Mary's in Sydney has a much nicer interior. However the stain glass windows were impressive.


After the Cathedral we walked along the Rhein in the freezing wind but for a very good cause. At the end of this walk was The Lindt Chocolate Museum! I am 100% positive that I will never ever have an iced chocolate as good as the one I had there. With Lindt chocolate ice cream at the bottom and all.. omg. They also had a shop there with endless amounts of chocolate and 80€ chocolate Lindt Bunnies. We left without one of those. We just walked around a bit more after this, saw some cute houses and shopped a little. Cologne has a great little shopping district. Its mainly just one street with no cars and a lot of shops and it was unpractical like Frankfurt. Which has 3 large H&M's in the one area, you can actually see all 3 at once. Soon after we left for home again, I was the little child that fell asleep in the car, Steffen got his picture taken, and Alex played beachie songs that reminded me of home. It was a good day.

The cute little houses, they're also a few centuries old.

Frankfurt

Frankfurt isn't near as cool as Berlin, or as big. It does have some things going for it though and the warmer it gets the better Frankfurt gets. Frankfurt is about 10-15minutes scooter drive away from the older-than-my-countries-government-apartment. My first Frankfurter experience was on my first day here in Germany. Steffen and I went there on Scoot and it was about -10°C.. never again. This trip was for the Christmas markets which I ended up going to about 3 or 4 times. First impressions were that it was simply nice, I fell in love with going over the river on the bridges (it felt very European), and incredible old buildings. However this bland bank boriness was felt. The Christmas markets were fun with alot going on. My heiß schokolade went from hot to cold in a matter of minutes which was a bit of a worry. Hence for all of winter I wasn't a Frankfurt fan.

Frankfurt today is a better place. Now Steffen and I go there for walks along the river at night, chase rabbits in the city park, shop shop shop, look at amazing furniture/decor stores where the stock is a few euros too much for us but its all fun anyway. The city also has some very nice resturants and bars. Soon we'll start having dinners along the river on the grass with the many other Frankfurters which I'm very excited for. And I still love going over those bridges..

Offenbach..

Offenbach is where I live with Herr Steffen Kunze in a matchbox size apartment which I've grown to love (though I think it doubles in size when I'm cleaning!). From the green lounge I can see planes coming in to land at frankfurt airport. If you asked anyone in Offenbach about the city they would say it's crap, boring and horrible. Which I suppose if you've lived here for a number years it would be. Offenbach to me though is an easy city to navigate, close to Frankfurt, has all the shopping you need, has great parks and a cool palace. Not that I'm bias, but it is the best one I've seen so far. The Main river also goes through Offenbach which is great for walks, bike rides etc. Offenbach also has tree lined streets and lots of squirrels which I think is really cool.

The place does have its downsides though. For example, Steffen is the only real German in the group of friends we have that live in Offenbach. Patricia is too but she lives in Bavaria. For some reason this seems to be the Turkish or just plain Eastern European immigrant central of Germany. I don't like them very much as they tend to get in the road alot and they know they are doing it. My students all asked me in the beginning; WHY Offenbach!! All I could answer was that I had some friends here. Which is true, otherwise I'd probably give this town the skip.
However this is where I am and I really do have a soft spot for this second home. Here's just a few pics of the Büsing Palace(the first one), the park and ducks which Marco says are stupid because they live in Offenbach. There will be more pictures of Offenbach later these are just some early shots. And keep in mind I'll only show nice pictures of Offenbach ;) obviously.

Berlin!

Berlin was discovered on the 5th January 2010. Steffen and I packed our bags and food, of course, into our rented silver Ford Focus and set off for a 5hrs northish road trip to the German capital. We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was sunny, clear and the snow in the fields and small towns on the way was "Sehr schön"!

When we arrived in Berlin we went on our own little night tour in the car then walked around. I was so amazed by the Brandenburg Gate. Here was this Gate that I had seen on the History Channel and in books numerous times with and without the Berlin wall and now I'm walking through it and around it. Very impressive. Steffen even constantly drove past the gate to go anywhere in Berlin just because I loved it so much. Like in this video..

With the help of chino's (Marco's dad) Navi we had dinner at an empty but cute Italian restaurant and called it a day after having a walk in the Berlin snow around the highlights ofthe city. The next day was a bit foggy but we had a great time nevertheless and because it was the dead middle of winter there was only a small amount of tourist. We went back to the Gate, to the Bubble tower, Alexander Platz and the German Parliament house where you could walk in this giant dome on top for views of the city. A very sombre part of this day was in the memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. The above ground part resembles a cemetery almost, just different height blocks in rows covered in snow and the museum underneath was almost just as eerie. It was definitly a memorable experience in there, I had never been to anything like it and everyone was so quiet and whispering which only added to the eeriness. The Berlin Wall was another interesting site. It too was so surreal like the gate, to touch it and see really how high it was. Steffen the whole time was a great tour guide, even though the last time he was there was about 10yrs ago, if i remember rightly, he still knew a lot of the history and was able to tell me many stories.

On the last night we had dinner at an Australian restaurant at the Sony Centre. It was designed around Sydney harbour and aboriginal artwork and the food was really good. On the final half day in Berlin we found a bakery and I had to try a 'Berliner' and Steffen had an 'Americana'. They were okay. We then went a little out of town to the Olympic stadium mainly just for a photo then onto the Wannsee. This was a place where Steffen's dad was like a lifeguard, it was full of beautiful houses and a huge frozen lake. It would be beautiful in summer I can imagine but for now absolutely lifeless.

After this we made the long route for home. As if we hadn't had enough Jewish history we drove a little of the highway to find the Jewish camp Buchenwald. I was strangely excited to go here, as I had read about a person who was here in English so I wanted to see it for myself. Unfortunately it was closed by the time we arrived and it was getting dark and sometimes you just don't want to see a mass burial site with only one other person in the dark, in the snow. It freaks me out now just writing about it. Steffen started getting the heeby jeebies so we sped right out after we both really started getting freaked out, especially when the road your driving on use to be the 'blood road' that the Jews made. Great.

Finally we made it home and had dinner at Marco's house where I started vomiting and did so for a few hours. This was a fantastic end to the trip as you can imagine and then being sick for the next few days was even better. But Berlin was and still is the best place in Germany, so far.

The last 3 months (since December 17, 2009, to be exact) have been an extreme mixed bag of experiences. I have to be honest and say that not everything has gone fantastically. In fact, some of my time here has been downright awful but it is all part of finishing school and going out into the world. On the other hand most of the time has been great and fun but I want to write about both times.

I left what I now realise to be an extremely easy, comfy and little decision making life behind on the 16th December to spend 11 months in Europe with Offenbach, Germany being my base. My memories of my first few days are; being as cold as I've ever been in my life. Kempsey doesn't have a habit of being -13°C, thankgod. The people in Germany aren't happy campers, I remember saying to Steffen that everybody looks like they have the shits. The only happy ones were the kids, probably because it was Weihnachten (Christmas). And finally, wearing 5 layers of clothing just to go outside is, quite frankly, a huge inconvenient pain. But all this was put aside as I had finally got my first real Christmas tree which was awesome and I could spend days in snow.

Christmas itself was so different. I don't think I'll be spending a Christmas away from my family again for awhile. I celebrated a German and Italian Christmas and both were fun and great but, of course, nothing beats a hot Aussie Christmas with your own family and mum cooking the Pav after my annual gingerbread failure.

After Christmas Steffen had two weeks off, in which we went to Berlin ( I'll do a separate post for Berlin) and just spent some nice time together. I also got to make good friends with Marco and Patricia and we'd do things like ice-skating outside and just general hanging out. All this time I was still excited to be in a new place, snow, and that I have no school or work. Then Steffen returned to work at the hotel meaning I was left alone pretty much everyday. At the start this was fine but then it got worse and worse. I rarely went outside because the snow was constantly there and it was too cold to even bother. I had done everything possible to do inside the apartment and all I really did was sleep till ridiculous hours in the day, talk to everyone back home on msn and facebook and eat. If I had lost any weight due to the HSC, well, it's returned and brought a few extra fat cells with it. A diet of 30cent Ja! Schokolade and coke with alota pasta in between does do great things.
This all hit a low in about mid feb. My German wasn't coming along fast enough to work at the Waitz hotel and England was being considered. I had gone from a person being extremely self sufficient. I had a car, could drive anywhere and mostly at anytime, I had everything to keep me busy, work, school, friends. Here I was dependant on Steffen for almost everything. It was one afternoon when Steffen had gone to work and I went to the attic to hang the clothes up that I found myself in uncontrollable tears and just sitting on the dirty floor. This continued down to the bottom floor where the apartment is and then for a long time after. I was convinced that my Gap year was a fail and I was extremely lost.

It was this same night that Steffen came up with an idea that would be the turning point of this miserable state. It should be noted that for the weeks that this state was occurring he was constantly trying to make things better, he never just let me be this way. Steffen was always thinking of something for me to do and I know I was sometimes being a cause of stress for him being the way I was. Anyway so on this night he came up with the idea that I could work at the orphanage at which he lived for a few years. I thought it was fantastic, so Steffen made all the arrangements and we went for an interview, practising my bio in German the whole trip there and then another change of plans. The boss of the orphanage decided that I could work at the conjoining school for high intelligence yet socially impaired students. I just said yes to everything and that is now where i am today as an assistant English teacher.

Through the last 3 months I've now come a long way to how I was. I have no problem doing the food shopping by myself (though Steffen comes most the time as it's just a thing we do together). I know my way around the city of Offenbach, I walk to the city centre or ride my borrowed from Marco bike into nearby towns. I spend alot of time at the park, which i love. I clean this house, I do the clothes washing which i never done at home. If I want something from a shop eg clothes or food I just ride to the shops either in the city centre or at the nearby food stores whether Steffen is home or not. This independence has taken alot of stress out of the relationship which is definantly a positive and I'm no longer miserable. I'm so glad I never went to England and that I stayed and worked through all of this...

The beginning

So, after browsing through countless blogs I have decided to create my own.

Based upon my travels and life here in Europe. Unfortunatly I've decided to create this blog 3 months into my adventure so I think I'll just do a few update entries of what has happened in the last months. I hope you all enjoy and that this blog becomes a successful recount of my journeys to reflect on in time to come. Welcome!