Kristian and Frances

Day Three

We woke up early on the third day of our roadtrip. It was a wonderful night, the quilts and pillows made for an incredibly comfortable sleep. We had stayed up late, mostly because we had spooked each other out with talk of the "Australian Gothic", and our experiences of it in art (books, films... Picnic at Hanging Rock, Jindabyne, The Proposition, Voss) and through personal experience (as children and as adults). In a quiet moment Frankie let out a minor shriek and spasmed, causing me to do the same. This just freaked us out more, and so we had to turn the light on and talk about something else until we had calmed down.

In the town we stayed in there are two castles, as already mentioned, and a great big cable car thing that is terrifying to behold (for someone like me atleast). We went to the castle first, got our tickets and took a bus up the mountain. It was a pretty impressive castle, and we got a guided tour in a group of five (us plus a family of three). The internals of the castle weren't particularly inspiring, nor was the fact the castle was only 120 years old! The European nobility has a very bland sense of style, and just goes to show that money don't buy cool. After we took the tour we headed back down the mountain, this time via a wonderful walk that starts beneath a waterfall and follows the creek down to the town. The pictures do it a little justice. The walk took us about 40 minutes and was a wonderful fresh start to do the day. We then drove up to the cable car site and I noticed that the people inside the cars were squished in like saradines, so that if you weren't being pressed against the window, you would have no opportunity to experience the 1000metre ascent, and so much of your hard earned 16Euros would have been wasted. Considering this factor, we decided against the whole thing (32Euros ($55AU or so) for the both of us, to be squished in a cable car with a chance at taking in the vistas - no thanks!).

Anyway, given it was a bit late in the day and we had a long drive to Freiburg, on the otherside of the country, we thought we might do the sensible thing and book a hotel from Fussen. So we went to an internet cafe and found a hotel, but the stupid internet computers were set to 2004, so when we tried to book a room, it'd only allow us to book rooms in 2004. And there was no chance we'd get across Germany fast enough to arrive in time. So we took the phone number of two places and went to the phone boot. h. I got lumbered with the German hotel, on the understanding that if that didn't work out, F would call the French hotel (Freiburg is relatively close to the French border city of Colmar, which I was also interested in visiting). Anyway, I spoke to the German hotel and arranged for a room that night, and, for some reason, came away with the belief that we had to be there by 7pm to check-in. What we suspect happened was that because of language difficulties, the person I spoke to meant that we had to be there by 7pm to check-in... otherwise we'd lose our booking. I thought it meant that they closed off reception at 7pm, which meant we couldn't ever get in! So we grabbed some good bad pizza (bad pizza that is good!) and set off for Freiburg... and a few minutes later found ourselves at the Austrian border. So we turned around and set off again for Freiburg and drove through some lovely alpine country until we reached the city of Lindau, which I thought was in Germany, and then in Austria, and then perhaps in Switzerland (our map was unclear, and the borders of all through intersected nearby). Fortunately it was in fact in Germany (Austria would have been okay, just in the wrong direction, Switzerland not so good (Visa, Passports, Border Police, Lost tourists etc). It had taken a little longer than expected to get this far, owing to the slow going through the Deutsche Alps (also kown as the Austrian and Swiss Alps). We were a little nervous, but confident that we'd get there in time, Lindau marked the end of the alpine region and the map seemed to indicate that it was just a straight line from here to Freiburg. This was more or less true. What the map didn't indicate to us was; that it was the start and/or end of the holiday season, that the road which followed a massive lake was heavily populated, that there was a billiion mile traffic jam along the length of the lake. So suddenly our arrive time was approaching faster than we were approaching Freiburg, which is always a bad thing. We got stuck in numerous traffic jams, but it still seemed like we'd make it. There is about 50kms of Autobahn along the way, and we managed to make up some time with that (at 150kph on the autobahn you still get overtaken by plenty of cars). We took an exit only to discover another traffic jam, did a quick turn about and F navigated us down another road, saving valuable minutes!

By the time we got to the famous Black Forest (which Freiburg is in the middle of) we had about an hour to cover 45 kms. That isn't usually a problem, the speed limit was 80, and so all the math added up. And then there were the traffic jams. More and more of them! Everywhere! When we finally made our way into the heart of Freiburg we had fifteen minutes to get to the hotel... which was on the edge of the city in an industrial estate... and no map! We stopped into a service station and I grabbed whatever map I could find, thinking nothing of the $10 I just spent on the damn thing (now I think often of it!). Jumped back in the car and then tried to unravel the damn thing. It was folded and cut in some insane fashion so that it was 10cm square folded and about three square kilometres when opened. Time was ticking by, and the streets were full of traffic (which we later found to be a freak event!). We sped across the city, me screeching the tires and weaving and yelling like a madman, Frankie with one eye on map, one on the passing street signs, and one preventing me from driving onto the tram lines, the wrong side of the road, pedestrians, cyclists, and the like. Tyres screeched, Germans honked and holler'd, the clock ticked down. Frankie guided us across the city in ten minutes, together we didn't miss a turn off, or make a wrong turn. We're like rally champions (this was to prove handy for today when she directed me onto a bicycle path - Why are they all looking at us strange!). With four minutes to spare I swung the car into the parking lot and jumped out of the car and raced into reception - passing the 24hour check-in machine - to give Grunter or whoever the chap was a hearty (F says it was Klaus! - but she then says she wasn't there! - but she says "He looked likDaye a Klaus though" - but how would she know, if she wasn't there!, Strange girl, can follow a map, but little else!) Guten tag! He gave me a Guten Abends! His was better, because it was evening, just as he said. Anyway, with my address where I don't live noted down on a piece of paper, and a sweaty signature, we were checked in. When we went for dinner, some time late, at about 8pmr, more people were checking in. The whole 7pm thing had been a wonderful misunderstanding, but we had enjoyed our across town dash and apologise to the Freiburg Council and hope the church can be rebuilt with as little fuss as possible!

We had McDonalds for dinner. It was pretty terrible, especially for a increasingly inappropriately self titled Vegetarian (the truth is, I'm doing pretty darn well to stick to the diet in the land of Meat and Wurst, and without any access to cooking facilities).

We watched some bad American TV (CNBC is undoubtly the most hilariously American thing ever broadcast - people angrily shouting bizarre things at each other, often in agreement, 24hours a day, the except to the hilarity is Conan O'Brien, because while he is funny, he's not actually that funny).

Day Four

Got up at about 8:30am and went to McDonalds for a McDonalds coffee and breakfast. Went to Aldi afterwards to buy some groceries for lunch (what I'd give for a Woolworths or a Banana Joes! - variety!) I'll note here that I actually typed "Coles" instead of "Woolworths", but then F reminded me that we never shopped at Coles, it was Woolworths, and that I always called it Coles, no matter how many times we went there, for, and I quote "some bizarre reason". There is a plenty plain reason, and that is I'm a stupid moron with an ugly face who likes to sniff his own butt.
But, putting that aside...

We drove off into the Black Forest, through the wonderful suburbs of Freiburg. I'll note here that the Germans in general are apparetly fanatical about bicycles. There are no old people on foot, they all ride bikes! Freiburg is even more bike dominant than the rest of Germany that we've seen. There seems to be able an even split between cars and bikes. All around the city are racks and racks of bikes, people on bikes, and doing bike things! I'll also mention the wonderful public transport system. I haven't USED it, so maybe it sucks. But from a coverage perspective! It seems to go everywhere in the city, and last night, while we were searching for dinner (no, McDonalds wasn't our first or last choice, it was our only choice!) we found this suburb under construction, several blocks of colourful apartment buildings. If this was built in Australia there would be no additional public transport built, they might widen a road. Here though, in the very centre of the new suburb, a (new?) tram line had been built, and there was also a visible bus presence, plus of course the park and ride option (and here it means park your bike, not your car). Anyway, we drove into the beautiful forest, up winding mountains, through dark woods, here and there! We had lunch on park bench, randomly placed on the side of the road, somewhere on top of a hill somewhere where we don't know where it was. The lunch itself was awful, but the sitting there looking over the mountains and trees and mist was lovely. I did a pee, and we both threw the rest of our poor meals into the thickets.

We then drove some more, and then a little more, and then found ourselves at the bottom of one of many ski lifts. This one we decided to take, even though it'd blow our budget. Here I'll have another aside, thank you very much. The price of petrol here is ridiculous expensive, and I love it. I hate it, but I love it. It's about 1.30-1.50Euros, which is almost double the price in Australia, and therefore (I'm making vauge approximations here) about four times the price of petrol in the USA. This might account for the prevelance of cycling, but it is'nt so simple! The whole trip we've seen, from one side of germany to the other, a constant stream of outdoor adventure parks. Not disney lands and crap. But places where you go to hike, to bike, to swim, to climb etc. And they were all heavily patroned! Germans undoubtedly have a culture of the outdoors, and not just visiting the outdoors, but hiking through the outdoors! When people get out of their RV's (or just as often, off their bikes!) they go hiking (no matter their age!)... in America you get out of your RV (well, if you do that much!) and sit in the Krispy Kreme on the designated sight-seeing-spot and then go off again. (Of course, there are exceptions!). And as a result, every single little german village, has at least one family home with the words "Zimmer Frei" outside, even in the smallest town we saw, which was only two houses! Anyway, we paid the 15Euros for the trip up the slope into the misty heights. It was well worth it, and when you're in a place like this, far from home, it might be a while before you get the chance to return, so better spend the money and have the fun, money will work itself out later! (within reason!).

Biking is so culturally norm here that we feel like morons (or as F says; Schelps!) for driving a car. We rarely drove our car in Sydney, maybe once a week at the very most. After three months in Prague, and seeing the cycling in Germany it's abundantly clear that the only reason we'd ever need a car would be that the Australian culture is such that governments are allowed to not build public transport infrastructure. I think it was my LJ friend RonaldRayGun who said that roads and transport systems aren't about moving CARS they're about moving PEOPLE (he was speaking of Brisbane, but the principle applies all over Australia). It is such a simple and trivial truth that it's impossible to imagine how it ever came about that the planning authorities don't seem to be able to grasp it.

So why it hurts financially, A LOT (our fuel expense is about 3x as much as we had imagined, so far), I feel happy to pay that much because it reflects a more accurate estimate of the cost of carbon fuel use.

We finished our couple of our drive through the black forest by having a look around Freiburg itself, parking deep underground! The old town is lovely and tight and bright and happy and all the good things one can expect of an old town. In fact, the whole city is just wonderfully inviting. It is a university city, so it has a good sense of youth and all the trappings that entails. It is clean, easy to navigate, bike and pedestrian friendly, green - physically and culturally (the surrounding hills have wind turbines, lots of solar panels on homes, public transport, cycling etc), it snows. I could quite easily imagine living here for a year or so (also Augsburg, and probably a number of other german cities). The one thing I didn't like was this (and it's a good example of everything I've been complaining about in Europe) In a lot of german old towns there is a big old building at each end with a big old archway which is where the main road goes in and out. they are always fun to look at and walk and drive through (and watch the trams go through). Big gatehouses or whatever. Anyway, the one in the old town of Freiburg is probably one of the nicest I've seen so far, until I noticed the words "McDonalds" on the top of the arch. And then the Mcdonalds, which was built into the arch. Now, I don't mind that there is a Mcdonalds in Freiburg (there's at least two others!) but I do mind that they sold out the entryway to their famous old town to McDonalds of all places. It just puts a strange blah to the whole entrancey thing.

And that is the end of the report for day 4.