Kristian and Frances

So, we're in Germany now, The Fatherland, on our way to the Mother Country, England. We are children of the colonial (I'm tempted to write; colonic) powers.

Prague didn't drag my heart away as I had imagined, but I am a little sad to be leaving. It takes me a while to put roots down in a place, Marrickville took between three and six months, and that was in my home land. It takes months to establish routines, favourite places, rituals, linguistic comforts (we left just as we were becoming competent enough to manage transactions without much fuss, apart from some mangled Ceskry in parts, mainly to do with gender agreement and the like). We were even familiar faces to some (well, at least one) waitress. I think three months is perhaps the worst length of time to stay anywhere, long enough to begin to put roots down, but not short enough to do anything with them - they're ripped out as soon as they begin to dig in.

/End Roots Analogy

On the day we left we packed up and put our things in order. My bag could hardly close now, having acquired more books and things, and Frankie had acquired a new outfit (and pet name, see!) which meant some of her new acquisitions had to come across into my bag and so on. That meant I had to carry my enormous backpackers pack, my knapsack, my camera case and the laptop+bag (which was stuffed with books and other bits). I took the key back to our real estate agent and that was the end of that. It was when I got back to Cafe Nordica, a fine little cafe and language school just around the corner from our apartment, that we realised that our bus was due to arrive in Nuremburg only fifteen minutes before the hotel checkin counter closed. We thought to send an email, but what if that didn't work? And we couldn't receive a reply, since we'd be stuck on a bus for the next five hours. So I collected up our remaining coinage, some Czech Crowns and a few Euro cents and went to the phone booth to call the hotel. It took two calls (one to a junior staff member who asked me to call back, and another one, later, fifteen minutes before the bus left to the owner). Thankfully the owner was ever helpful and arranged to leave the key hidden outside the building in a pot plant. This was to cause some anxiety as we took our trip but in the end it was just like every other potential disaster that had confronted us - it fizzled into nothing as the key was exactly where I understood it to be (Inner courtyard, side door, left hand tree).

At the Czech / German border I had the privilege of having my things randomly searched! It was very exciting. Except the guy didn't search all my luggage, just my laptop case. He didn't check my 20kg bag in the cargo hold, or the two bags I had stuffed in the overhead space. It was kind of ridiculous. It made me think about how people tend to generate randomness... When people choose random numbers (or things) they unintentionally use non-random algorithms (for want of a better word), so a random search on a bus won't be Seats 1,2,3 but seats 5, 15, 30... because we subconsciously try to "force" randomness. 1,2,3 and 5,15,30 are just as likely sequences as each other, but the later seems more random. The conclusions, if you're a bunch of terrorists trying to cross the border; sit close together in one part of the bus. A german (or Austrian) teenage girl had lost her passport, and the sole Vietnamese passanger was called off the bus for a short interview (chance or racism?). Our passports were returned to us by nation, thus I was "Australia!".

Crossing the border was like a moment out of a fairytale story. No sooner had the Czech Republic disappeared behind us than a fog began lifting from the forests and green fields of Germany. It was getting late a little dark and the clouds were low and drizzly, but across the horizon a bright orange sunset strip was visible. And as the bus drove along I looked out the window and saw a castle on a wooded hill surrounded in fog with dark clouds hanging low and stretching in all directions except the western horizon, where there was the strip of sunset and just above that, a silver fang moon. Like Croatia, I knew I would like Germany the moment I saw it.

The bus trip arrived at Nurmemburg at 10:20pm, thirty five minutes late (troubles at the border!). We had no money, so the first task was to lug our stuff across the road and into the main train station, where we were relieved to find an ATM (the alternative was to ask a stranger, which wasn't such a bad prospect since German is the language we both studied at highschool and so we remember enough for directions, introductions and numbers, plus bits and pieces more). I took out some Euros and we headed to the taxi stand. Took a taxi 2.2kms to our hotel (normally we would walk, but we were eager to get inside, fearing every second would make the finding of the key more difficult somehow (but how? It was either there to be found or not!)). I asked the taxi driver (auf deutsch!) if the 50 Euro bill was okay. He thought I meant would it be enough to cover the fare, I meant if it was okay for him to give us change of a 50. He laughs, saying (in german, again) that it was only 2.2km to the hotel. I understand and laugh too. He asks jokingly "Nurnberg, ja?", as if we might have wanted to go to WhateverStrasse in Munich. My brain thinks of some banter (What, this isn't Berlin!?!) but doesn't translate it to german fast enough, and the moment is lost. Cheesy German Folk Music plays on the radio. We see little bits of Nuremburg on our short drive, the walls and bastions of the old town, somewhere in the dark. I wonder what city it is during the day and look forward to seeing it. I remember this feeling from Madrid and Cesky Krumlov (what is this place behind the rain and darkness!). As we approach the hotel I notice graffiti on the walls, and my heart sinks a little, as it is prone to do at the sight of graffiti (I internalise graffiti as meaning a "bad" part of town, as I did in Granada, and was summarily rebuked by the city itself!), but then I see what the white paint spells out "Fight Sexism!". Fantastic! I feel better again. The car stops, and the driver indicates to the price on the meter. 6.90Euro. I gave him the fifty note, it is all I have. He shakes his head and says "Kein Klein?" and I say "Nein" he says "Smaller" and I still shake my head. I understand, but he doesn't realise, and I don't understand enough to fluently express this. I look into my wallet, six fifty Euro notes, a ten dollar Australian note and a two hundred Czech Crown note. I say "Czech Korun? Australian Dollar?" and he gives me the laugh I'm looking for. He searches about his wallet and I ask if it is okay, about to suggest that I go get change from the pizza shop down the street, he relents and I give some ground in appreciation and say "Zehn ist OK", giving him a $3.10 Euro tip, enough to please him it seems. We get out and go to haul our luggage out of the back of the car (on top of my bags, F has her big bag, her little bag, Jan Saudek and Sara Saudkova posters, and a grocery bag of... groceries)... and we find our driver has run off into the dark for a moment, just to check that we've got the right place (3.10Euros buys you a location check!). We load ourselves up like pack horses and stride to the hotel, and without a hiccup I locate the hidden keyring. On it are three keys, none of which fit the front door. A minor moment of anxiety until we realise the front door is infact open. We go inside, not sure whether this entire building is the hotel or shared. I've been told we're on the first floor, which means different things in different countries (ground floor, first floor interchange!). So I go up one flight of stairs and open a big white door, finding on the otherside, an art gallery! I have a peek around and go back downstair to report to Frances. We try the ground floor, which is locked, and open it with one of the keys. Hurrah, and inside that door is the familiar hotel thing, lounge, reception (unattended after 10pm, and it's now 11 or so). And we find our room and settle in. A bit depressed that we need a WLAN password to get the WiFi internet connection. The pillows are big. We chat for a time and then sleep happily.

That was yesterday, today we left Nuremburg, collecting our car from the extraordinarily camp Avis office. Curiously, while dealing with a telephone customer who is asking about an apparently non-existent city, one of the clerks puts his hand to the phone and says "What the fuck is fjekddijowdjburg". This is something we've picked up - 1. Germans aren't afraid to swear in the workplace ad 2. Germans swear (at least on occasion) in English, but perhaps only in the context of the English swearing being a universal PHRASE. That is, "What the fuck" isn't a set of words, but a memetic phrase, the other one we've heard is "Oh Shit!". We drove along the autobahn, between 100 and 140kph, having little idea of what the speed limit is. It seems it's a process of elimination (there are more signs telling you that a certain speed limit doesn't apply anymore than there are telling you what it is, and everyone seems to ignore them anyway). After some autobahning west from Nuremburg we hopped on the Romantic Road which takes us south through Castle Country. It was a nice drive, but a little stressful, being a new car on the wrong side of the road again and not having exact understanding of signs/directions.

We passed through some astonishingly pretty little towns, through great walled Altstadt (old towns) with twisty cobblestoned roads and bright big/little houses (I don't know how they do it, but the german buildings are regular size, but seem like cute miniatures of themselves... it's a bizarre thing!). We had to take a detour into unknown territory, but eventually found our way. Looked at only one castle, which was a bit of a disappointment. Castle needs to be refined. When I think of castle I think of stone battelements, towers and walls and keeps. Many of the things called Castles here (and also in Czech Republic; witness Prague Castle and the one at Cesky Krumlov) are just big chateau like things. So from tomorrow we've got the rule of visiting only RUINS. That'll ensure interest.

Tonight we're staying in Augsburg, which is wonderful german city, it's rather small, barely a city at all, perhaps just a very large town. It has trams. Everything is clean and bright. The town is green, with trees and cyclists and public transport everywhere. Lots of old people on bikes having a merry time. Only Dubrovnik has felt so unthreatening! We had planned on staying at the local youth hostel, but having no map of the town, nor directions to the hostel (and in short, being completely lost!), we took to the local chain hotel (Ibis, in this case) and got a room with about the sameprice as a private room in the hostel. We didn't manage to get Wifi here either, though some rooms have it enabled for 8Euro (too much!). There's an unsecure network just outside, but the connection isn't stable or strong enough to complete. (In our Prague apartment there was a secure connection available, with a good signal, but it came from the Pension next door, and so we weren't privvy to the password)

We went for a stroll earlier, and had some dinner in one of the town squares (there seem to be so many places that are the "centre" of this town!). We shared a pizza and pasta meal, with reasonable coffee, and a delicious german beer (better than Czech beer, perhaps!) when clearing up the waitress knocked the (empty) beer glass over, and it shattered on the table! And during the meal, a terrifying bee buzzed around me, causing me no end of spasms of fright... later, as Frankie is enjoying (well, not really enjoying) a coffee at the hotel bar, the waitress there drops a glass on herself, and it shatters on the floor. A sign of things to come!? After dinner we go to "Norma" discount supermarket and buy some yogurt and bread. It begins to rain softly and we find our way home. I am suitably impressed and comforted by the number of Kebab places here, a density of such Turkish places arguably higher than in Sydney. In the morning, before we leave to travel further south, we plan to have a breakfast at the closest. We have left most of our luggage in the car, will wear the same clothes again tomorrow. Why drag those bags up and down!

And so that was the first day in Germany.