And to the Nazi Capital... Nürnberg

This weekend we planned to go to Nürnberg.
Before my trip I had no ideas about Nürnberg except that it had a race track :)

We hit the road on Saturday at 9am. My travel companions for this journey were Guillaume Michel and Janath Kumar. Guilleume is a French-man from the Dorm, nobody can pronounce his first name correctly, so we call him either: Michel, William or Le Fourgue (Fourgue is something given to you that is useless or unwanted... lovely nickname huh).

("Le Fourgue", Janath and me.)

The journey there was all along the autobahn, so lots of rolling German country-side trees, hills grass, the odd wind powered generator. We also had a DVD going for the trip, Harry Potter (the first one). But there was too much light and the sound wasn't very loud... so we read the subtitles and watched the brighter scenes. Kind of like reading a book.

We arrived in Nürnberg and you could immediately see the history of the city with the age of the buildings around the place.
We headed straight for the hostel to check in and park the car. After talking to the hostel person, we found directions to the old city. She recommended to walk around here and see the sites. The hostel was located just inside the walls of the old city, so it was a brilliant location.

Here is a view from the room in our hostel:


We wandered around the city to find about 3 or 4 cathedrals/churches, 5 or 6 watch towers (in the huge wall surrounding the city), a massive castle and many other buildings. You'll have to check out my photo gallery to see everything, because there was a lot to see. The best sight was probably from the top of the castle, where you could see the entire old city. Here's a picture below.



After our walk, we were all a bit shattered. So we headed back to the hostel. We were going to have a nana-nap, but ended up going into the common room. I had a sleep on the couch while the others played on the internet.

After an hour or so, others started turning up into the common room. This is where we met our going out group for the night. We met Ben from Perth, Ramsy from Detroit, and Dima + Ilnan from the USA (but were both born in Russia).

The two Russian-Americans were probably the most interesting (because I meet Aussies and Americans everywhere), they lived in Russia until they were 7, then their family moved to the states. The culture they explained was a little different. Apparently, Russians stick to their own communities when in other countries. Also, they both spoke English with no accent (well an American one) and Russian with no accent. When they travelled they both spoke Russian, and slagged off American tourists... which I found quite amusing.

We had several hours of chatting and sharing stories about where we'd been and where to next, while drinking the local beer. Now the beer at the hostel was amasing! Probably the best beer I have ever drunk. The hostel attendant said... "don't ask for a beer... ask for 'THE' beer". Which I may have to agree with. It was bottled and brewed locally, and you could only get it in very few places... one being the hostel.

After this, we headed out to see the nightlife. There was a big Romainian festival going on, but they were singing English songs. We walked to a pub near the castle and stopped in there. Had quite a few beers, talked more, had a few more beers, stumbled home.

All in all... it was a fantastic day.

Rijeka to Stuttgart

I had to get up at 5:30am to go get my plane. I caught the bus to the main bus station to get my bus (where I was dropped off). Only to find it was not where the bus departed from, go figure. There was only 1 bus per flight, and I had 5 minutes to get to the other bus station (which was a 10 minute walk). Luckily I managed to flag a taxi and get there just in time... a nice bit of excitement for the day, but the best was to follow :-)

The flight to Stuttgart was ok, I slept most of the way, only an hour but still some sleep. Now coming into Stuttgart, there was MAJOR turbulence. The plane was tilting about 45 degrees either way and shuddering quite badly. It was very exciting! Coming into landing I don't know how the pilot did it, but he managed to steady the plane long enough to get it on the ground... of course, it wasn't the most pleasant landing in the world, but we were still in one piece. The entire cabin again applouded and cheered for the pilot. Once the plane had come to a stop, one of the passengers got on the intercom and thanked the pilot for getting us safely back to Stuttgart (in German of course). Again he got a well deserved round of applause.

Stepping off the plane into 15 degree Germany was a very major change. I had to chuck on a jersey straight away. I got through boarder control and got on a train... straight for work. Nothing like starting work at 11am after catching a plane from 620km away :)

Onward to more adventures... you can see my new feature on the right hand panel now. It's a travel map which shows where I'm going and where I've been. Pretty cool huh.

Back to Rijeka

Note: for those that don't know, in every European language I have encountered, except English, "j" is pronounced like a "y". Also, the vowels are pronounced: "uh", "aye", "ee", "au", "uu", very similar to the Maori vowels. So the city is pronounced "Ray-yee-ka". Croatian seemed to be a mix of German (I recognised some words), Italian and Russian.

Anyway, today I woke up at 7am and it was HOT! I tried to keep sleeping for a bit, but ended up getting out of bed. I went and had breakfast with Scott, Roy and Steven (Aussie, and Scotts respectively... pretty ironic really... Scott hanging with the Scotts). After breakie I went for a swim as the day was already heating up.

At 10:30 the boys decided they were going to head to Rijeka, so I scored a lift with them. The journey we went was not the same route as when I came to Pula. It was further inland and along the motorways. The scenery was not as nice, still pretty cool though.


We arrived at Rijeka and checked into the hostel. It was stupidly hot at this stage, 38 degrees! We had a little siesta because it was just too damn hot to do anything. After 2 hours we decided to get up and venture out into the world. Roy found someone had broken into their car (smashed the window) and stolen a bunch of stuff out of their car. They stole 3 bags of clothes, and a receipt which had their credit card details. I felt so sorry for them because it is such a crap thing to happen. They had to get the police down (who didn't speak English) and get fingerprinted etc. I just left them to it and said I would catch up later (a bit stink... but oh well).

At the bus stop I met a bunch of Kiwi's who were travelling. They were obviously kiwi, donning all black t-shirts, hats, greenstone, the works... good on em! One was a newly graduated doctor who was taking her boyfriend and younger sister + brother on a European trip and bankrolling the entire thing. They had been quite a few cool countries and were seeing a lot of Eastern Europe. I thought that was really cool. I tagged along with them while they wandered around Rijeka, finding some interesting sites in the city. It was 5pm now and still 30 degrees!


We went back to the hostel and the Kiwis headed off to catch the bus on their way to Dubrovnik via Split (both in Croatia). The beach was calling me, so I got in my togs and walked down there. Scott was just coming back, but decided to go for another swim. The little beach was packed, but the water was so refreshing and nice. We stayed for just over an hour then went back to the hostel.

We caught up with Roy and Steven who had just got back from town (getting drinks and stuff). We all decided to go out, get something to eat and grab a pint. We hadn't eaten since breakie, but we weren't that hungry. The heat just killed our apatites. A pizza and a beer later, we were shattered. So we went back to the hostel, swapped contact details and went off to bed.

Onto Pula.. and Roman ruins

Up at 8am... well 9am, pack, catch the bus to Rijeka city centre.
Straight onto another bus, heading to Pula (I was told I should go there by Wayne, I took his advice).

I was going to have a sleep on the bus... but again the scenery was too spectacular to sleep through. I was taking photos half the time (I took over 400 photos in my trip to Croatia). I also got chatting to this older British couple. They were telling me some things about England that were interesting (politics, economy, etc... so probably boring to most of you). The main person I was talking to was Sheila and she was telling me about how her daughter is travelling the world as well. They offered me a bed to stay in just out of London if I need it which is cool. I offered my place in NZ (when I get back) if their daughter ever travels over those ways.

View from the bus.

Once I arrived at Pula, I jumped on a bus. Now the people of Croatia are extremely friendly and welcoming. Just about every time I was at a bus stop they would ask where I needed to go and let me know which bus to get on (in broken English usually). It's hard to imagine that as little as 15 years ago they were at war.

I headed straight for my hostel to check in. Now this hostel is the most amasing accommodation I have ever stayed in, as well as the cheapest. It was 10 metres from the water, and it had it's own bar 10 metres the other direction. The photo's explain all. I checked in, but there was nobody in my room. So I went down to the beach for a swim and a little sleep on the beach. I enjoyed my swim, but it was 30 degree and I wasn't wearing sunscreen (naughty boy). So I got extremely sunburnt in the process (well only my stomach, chest and underarms).


Oh did I mention all the topless sunbathing? Young, old, fat, skinny, about quarter of the girls were topless. I felt like a pervert for just being at the beach.... hey I wasn't complaining though.

After a couple of hours, I decided to head into town and do the tourist thing.

There are a lot of Roman ruins around the area, the main one being the Roman Amphitheatre, the largest Roman ruin still around today. It was pretty spectacular to think how old it is, we just don't have anything of that scale in little ol' NZ. I wandered around the city for several hours and took heaps of photos, check them out in my gallery if you want to see them all.


I arrived back at the hostel at 10pm, I straight away heard an Aussie, saw him wearing Rusty shorts and a Billabong hat + t-shirt. I walked straight up to him and said, "so... you from Sydney?" I got it right as well :-P
He was with 2 Scottish lads that were extremely burnt from the day (much worse than me) so we decided to have a few drinks.
We ended up sitting down at a table with a Swedish and a Norwegian girl. Ended up talking about all the places we have visited and traded war stories. Stayed up until around 1am chatting and drinking before we decided to all head off to bed.

Off to the Mediteranian

Well after the night out... I had to catch a plane to Rijeka, Croatia. Luckily it was at 4pm, so I didn't need to get up until lunch time.
I arrived at the airport 90 minutes before my flight was to depart. There was a massive queue and only one person checking-in people! After an 80 minutes, they called all people flying to Rijeka to the front of the queue. I rushed through security checks and hurried to my gate, only to find that the plane was going to be delayed an hour. So I wondered around the airport for a while then sat down and waited. After an hour and 15 minutes, we got to go through the gate and onto the bus that goes to our plane. When the bus arrived at the plane, they were still refuelling and packing luggage! Another 15 minutes later, they let us on the plane... I guess this is what happens sometimes with budget airlines!

The flight over was the second worse flight I have had in my life (the worse one was on my return trip, which will come later). There was quite a lot of turbulence throughout the flight, especially coming into the Rijeka airport. The landing was pretty hair-raising, the plane was tipping side-to-side only about 20 metres off the ground. Then the landing was HARD! As soon as the plane came to a reasonable speed the passengers all clapped and cheered for the pilot. Was the first time I have seen that!

I stepped off the plane to a hot Croatian day, 27 degrees (which was the coolest day I experienced while in Croatia). I got on an air-conditioned bus for the half hour trip to Rijeka city. The journey followed the coastline, and let me just say the view was fantastic. Beautiful coastal scenery with rolling mountains in the background and greenery everywhere. It was stunning to say the least. You can see some photos in my gallery (pictures paint 1000 words alright!)


I arrived at the city centre and had a look around the city. It was now 8pm and the sun was still hot. I headed to my hostel, which was very nice. The reception could speak very good English and the insides were new and clean. I checked into my room and straight away got talking with my room-mates: two Mexicans and a Yank. They were heading down for a swim and I tagged along with them.
The beach we went to was very different from what I am used to. It was a huge cliff with steps going down to the beach and instead of sand they had rocks, decent sized rocks. The water was warm too, but cool enough to cool you down. The swim was just what we needed.


After getting back to the hostel, the guys said they were going to head off to bed because they had a 5am train to catch. I used my powers of persuasion (and a little help with my friend Mr. Jäger) to encourage 2 of them to join me for drink then head into town. We went to an open bar to have a drink, I struck up a conversation with some locals. Their English was very good (again, it comes down to English TV). At about 2am the guys went home and I went to another bar. At about 4am I walked home, I passed them while they were walking toward the train station :-)


I got home and crashed, I was heading to Pula the next day and needed to be up at 8.

Night Life in Stuttgart

I went out on Friday night with Janath, Rui and Wayne (from the dorm I stay in). We were joking because we had an Indian, an Asian, a Yugoslavian (respectively) and a Kiwi heading out to town, all we needed was a black guy to complete the race mix.
It was quite a good night, we ended up going to several clubs and having a great time. I met a group of Germans (who could speak English) and ended up hanging out with them for a couple of hours. They had to catch a bus at 3, so got their contact details and left them to it.
After that we continued on the town until 6am when we came home. I'm starting to learn the better clubs to go to now, but they all have cover charges.

Latest Blog Feature - Calendars

Hello,

I have just created 2 public calendars which you can get to by clicking the links in the right pane.
One is my tentative schedule; it contains no firm bookings but my plans.
The other is my firm schedule; the trip is already booked or planned.

This part is mainly for the European folk, if you guys wanna come travel, look at my bookings and free weekends.
If you wanna join me for any tentative booking, let me know. Even with the firm bookings, I'm usually staying in a youth hostel which is easy to get a bed for.
Also, if you wanna go somewhere different, let me know and I'll join ya.

Tschuess,
Tobi

Mum's Test results... gulp

I thought I would let everyone know that mum has had her surgery and it was successful.
They removed all the lump from her breast and it doesn't need any further surgery... woohoo!

But... the biopsy results on her lymph nodes were not good news. 6 out of 16 lymph nodes removed were cancerous. So, the radiation treatment is on hold, and mum needs to have 9 months of chemo-therapy! I session every 3 weeks. She will lose her hair, and may get quite sick after a session. Then after that she will have her weekly radiation treatment for 6 weeks. Not the best news in the world, it's a lot to go through.

She does have Brenda looking after her playing the role of in house nurse, which is great (funny how roles reverse isn't it). Also Oma and Che are being very supportive while mum is going through all of this.

I have been given strict instructions from mum that I need to enjoy myself over here and not to worry... especially don't think about heading home. So that's what I am going to do, plan my trips and enjoy my time. She will still be going through it all when I get back.

If anyone wants to pass on their thoughts, her email is helen.heuvel@clear.net.nz

Little update

I just realised I didn't have many pictures around my dorm.
I went for a walk last night and took a few pics. Check em out at my gallery.


Only other new news... off to Croatia this weekend. This one is planning to be a very touristy, relaxing weekend.

On the way back... via Frankfurt (why not?)

We had to check out of the hotel at noon... I was still shattered/hungover/probably still drunk. But managed to get up have a shower and get in the car.

We had a final walk around Köln, had some lunch on down at the waterfront (by the Rhine). Then we started our road mish to Frankfurt. The guys (Thom, K1 and Johnny) had never seen sky-scrapers before, so it was exciting times for them :-)

I slept all the way there (2 hours) and woke up to the awesome skyline. We went for a wander, and eventually went to the top of the Henninger Turm, which is the tallest building you can go up to view the city. The view from here was pretty cool if you wanted to see the city. We stayed up there for an hour just checking out different parts of the city. For full views click on the picture and head to my gallery.


After this we headed down to the streets and got something to eat. And then took off for our trip back to Stuttgart. The stupid sat nav lead us around in circles for about 20 minutes for some reason or another. After "negotiating" with the damn thing, we got it working. And we took off from Frankfurt. I got a final photo on our way out. Pretty nice skyline. But I don't think I'll go back to Frankfurt. It's just a commercial city, not really a party or scenery town.


It was a bit grid-locked coming back... but I didn't mind because I wasn't driving (therefore I slept). We made it back to Stuttgart 5 minutes after we were supposed to return the car, luckily the attendant was still there.
Took the S-Bahn home and crashed... was a pretty fun and busy weekend all in all.

Weekend Trip to Köln

First point, you can go to my gallery which has got photo's updated here. They all have captions and are in chronological order, so tell the story in more detail.

Thomas (workmate) and I planned a trip to Köln this weekend, with his flatmates tagging along. We were going to visit Alex (another workmate).
Well this trip started early Saturday morning (well 7:30am on a Sat is early). We got into the car that we hired from the airport the night before and set off for Köln. Turned on the sat nav. to point us to our destination, thank goodness for this piece of technology. I don't know how we would have made it without it. Google Maps is good... but not that good.
This was my first time driving on the autobahn... and man I can tell you it is fun. Even in our piece of crap, I still got it up to 190km/h... but the Mercs and Porches made us look like we were standing still :-)

We arrived after just under 4 hours. We parked up and had a wander around the city. Saw a really cool church called the Dom. It was massive! Take a look below.


After we had a bit of a walk and something to eat, we drove and checked into our hotel. It was quite a nice place, it cost 30 Euro each (which is not bad around these parts). Straight away we hopped on the S-Bahn (i.e. Stadt-Bahn or city-rail) into the city. We met up with Alex and a couple of his mates. Also we met up with Steph, who was one of Thomas' mates. A quick stop at a dairy to pick up a Kölsch (beer from Köln) and we were on our adventure.We started at the Sky Beach which was a cool little bar on top of a parking building (see below).


After that we walked around the city, picking up beers from all over the show: dairies, ice-cream parlours, sweet shops... you gotta love Germany! hehe.
Now just so you guys know, in Germany, they consider 4.8% a "lite" beer. That's what we were drinking... but still... a lite beer?

It was a lovely day until we started walking to the brewery. Right outside it started to piss down so we ran in to one of the many breweries of Köln. The beers they serve there are only 200mL, but they keep them coming like they are water. If you are drinking too slowly, the waiter will come along and drink a beer, then put it on your tab :-) Which in Köln, the tab is simply a coaster on your table with pencil marks on it. It was a really interesting experience.


After leaving here we were all rather smashed... at 6pm, so we headed to get some food. Jumped on the S-Bahn and headed for the student part of town. There we met up with Alex's girlfriend plus some other mates of his. I ended up having a conversation with the table next to us, they were trying to teach me more German. I think it worked.

After we were fed on pizza (and more Kölsch), we headed to a club. The first club we went to was a Karaoke club. We drank a few drinks here... and I even had a bit of a sing. I was absolutely terrible, but had a blast!

After this we headed to a German rock club, which was good. Trying to get in, one of Alex's mates got stopped for wearing sandals... but one of the other people with us (a 14 year old sister of one of the guys) convinced the bouncer to let us in.

I didn't get back to the hotel until 10am the next day... but woke up with a very sore knee, so I must have injured myself somehow... hmmm. Anyway. Had a fantastic time and will probably go back again for a weekend.

Update on things

Howdy,

I have uploaded a bunch of photos from Sweden... not all because I took about 400. I have also gone through my photos and updated them all with captions. Click the link on the side of my page, or just click here. For those of you with a slow internet connection (dial-up peoples) it may take a while to view the pictures. Probably the best think to do is view the "thumbnails" then choose what photos you want. Also, if any of you want high-resolution for any photo, let me know.

Note: I do have a cell phone number... but my cell phone is broken (read the post about me crashing off my bike... hehe) I don't expect people to contact it, because email is just as effective. It is: +49 176 68037214.

My last day in Stockholm was simple: get up, have some food, pack, chat to some people, go off to the airport and catch the plane. I practised my German with the air hostesses, asking for my drinks plus sandwich in Deutsch. It worked... hopefully I will not be limited to that in 5 months time!

I got back to the train station at Hulb (my stop) and somebody had played a trick on my bike. They had closed this latch thingy, which I didn't know I had, which locked my spokes. I didn't have a key for it so I walked into work, but there were no tools for me to use. So I walked home, unpacked, did some washing, went to bed (all exciting stuff hehe)

Wednesday I walked to work and one of the guys walked in carrying the bolt to the latch that was locking my bike. He told me that he told his landlord the story, so his landlord went for a 1 hour walk with some bolt cutters, and cut the lock for me. Very nice... but a little weird :)

Nothing else this week really. Played badminton, went for 3 beers afterwards (which is 1.5 litres in Germany!), so had a good sleep that night. I have been working long hours now that I have some motivation... the break to Sweden was what I needed.

I'm off to Köln (Cologne in English) this weekend. We are hiring a car and driving there... I think it's about 5 hours. I am one of the drivers... so autobahn here we come!

Archipelago Tour

Today I got up early and headed out for a boat tour to the archipelagos.

It was a whole day trip from 9:30 till 5:30. Very good if you like nature, but I was tired so fighting to stay awake the whole time.

You go through some very narrow and shallow canals to get there. And the further you get from Stockholm the colder it got. I had to wear my polar fleece on the boat because the wind was very cold.
If you want to see more picture click on the picture below and you can go see my entire album.



In the afternoon I arrived back and started chatting with a Brazilian named Bruno. He was very friendly, so we swapped details for when he heads over to NZ.

I was shattered so spent the evening chatting with people and couldn't be bothered going out.

Chilling out in Stockholm

I had arranged to catch up with the Norwegians at the Vasapark again.
So after taking a quick walk around the city, I headed to Vasapark.

Again we just sat around chatting. In the afternoon, we decided to take a big walk. They hadn't had much of a chance to see the city (because they were all here on a 2 week training course for massage). I had seen a lot so I knew where to go and what to tell them. It was quite strange being a tour guide to them.

At about 9:30pm, they decided to go home because they had their course the next day. They all hopped on various subways, I decided to keep on walking about.
After about 20 minutes of walking... I saw the first cloud that I have seen in Sweden. Then there was a thunderstorm... it was strange going from 26 degrees to rain. The rain was not warm either... it was very cold, I guess that's what happens when you're so close to a polar ice cap.

I got home eventually ducking under various street covers.
Was a pretty casual day... but I enjoyed it.

Sun Bathing and Theme Parks

Today I woke up around 9 or 10. So got ready and went out into the world.

Today was extremely hot... 31 degrees. I walked up to a local park called Vasapark. There is a big Astroturf where people play football (soccer), a pa-tonk area and lots of people lying in the sun.

I was walking around for a bit and spotted the Norwegian girls from the night before. There names are Siri, Sara and Kathrine (And none are pronounced how they are spelled, well in English anyways) So we started chatting again and after a few hours we decided to go to the them park "Gröna Lund".

This theme park is pretty cool, about half the size of Rainbows end... but with better rides. It's got a Fear Fall type ride that when you get to the top, the carriage tips front ways a bit, then you are slightly facing the ground when you drop. Also a reverse Fear Fall type thing that shoots you up first then you bounce around for a bit. The roller-coasters are fun too... pretty smooth but you don't go upside down. The final ride we went on is hard to explain, it is sort of like the Disney tea-cups but faster... and it is inside with disco lights going off and RnB pumping through the sound system. It was a really cool ride, perhaps the most fun ride I've been on... on par with the Scooby Doo ride!



We left the theme park around 10:30pm and went back to the hostel. Met up with another Norwegian named Fredrick. We decided to hit the booze.

We drank until about 2:30, then Sara and Siri decided that they wanted to go out... we tried to talk them out of it because the clubs were shutting soon. After walking around for an hour trying to find somewhere, we decided to head home. I walked Kathrine home and the others headed back to Fredrick's place to keep drinking.

All in all it was a fun day!

Day 3 in Stockholm

Today was just a relaxing walking around day doing not much.
I saw the changing of the guard at noon... and that was pretty average. However... the brass band did play a Tom Jones medley: "It's Not Unusual", "Sex Bomb" and "Delilah". Kind of random for a royal guard to be playing don't ya think?
Then I met one of the people from the hostel there (Ruth) and we went off to the Nobel museum.



For those of you that don't know, a Nobel prize is the most prestigious prize you can receive in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and of course peace keeping.
Alfred Nobel was the man who invented dynamite, and when he died he left his inheritance to the Nobel Prize pool that is still active today. Of course, he was Swedish from Stockholm (that I didn't know)

After the museum, Ruth had to go to catch her train to the airport. I continued walking around the city taking more photos.

I got back to the hostel and started chatting with Andreas and Natalia (Argentinian and an Alaskan). They were very friendly and we decided to hit the town. We had a few drinks first and a group of Norwegian girls joined us. In the end the girls stayed behind and just Andreas and myself hit the town.

We were looking for a place to go and everywhere had a line... so we waited in one line for an hour. They kept letting people in front of us as well. I asked the bouncer what was going on, he said that the owners policy is to let regulars in before anyone else. After talking with a few people they said that Stockholm is very snobbish... and I am getting that impression.

We eventually got into the club after an hour... and then it closed after an hour. So was a bit of a let down.

So tomorrows a new day!

Another Beautiful Swedish Day

Woke up at 11am this morning. And got up to see the world.
By the time I had got ready it was after 12... so I missed the changing of the guards (at the Royal Palace) I will see it another day.

Again... it was 26 degrees. Oh from the previous whole day in the sun, no sunscreen,
my pathetic skin (as you guys know) I did not get burnt! I love the European sun... they have an Ozone layer! Its the greatest thing EVER!

Anyway back to the story. Walked down to the waterline and asked about boat tours around Stockholm (its very much a harbour town). They were running 2 hour boat cruises around the city at pretty regular intervals... so I decided I would take an afternoon one.

To kill some time I decided to walk to one of the museums (Stockholm has heaps of them). The one I went to was called the Vasa Museum. This is a funny piece of history for you. The Vasa was a warship which was build to be the pride of the Swedish navy. It boasted the most firepower out of any ship of its class in the known world. It was the kings pride and joy and he wanted to make a very bold statement about Sweden with this ship. On its maiden voyage, they went into the harbour, fired some gun solutes then headed out the channel. A light wind caught the boats sails, it tipped and sunk. About 50 people died on board. It was an engineering design fault that caused it. They used round stones as ballasts... which rolled to the side when the boat started tipping, which made it tip more and eventually water was coming in the gun ports, which made it sink. After 333 years it was excavated and preserved. Its the only ship from the 1600s that is on display. If you wanna know more just click here.
It was a very interesting thing to see.

After that I took my boat cruise. It was very pleasant. They had a running commentary as you went, so I learned a lot about the city. I feel so educated about Sweden's history now. I took a squillion photos... don't think I will upload them all because there are just too many.



Very beautiful city though, in summer at least. In winter it is exactly the opposite. Sun from 11am to 3pm and the lakes freeze over. Probably still looks awesome though.

Got back to the hostel and caught up with some of the people I met from the night before. Exchanged details with a German girl who lives in Berlin (Ruth is her name, she is a fictional writer by profession). She offered herself as a tour guide if I decide to go to Berlin, which is what I was planning to do anyways... so sweet :-)

I have also got a map of Europe now, so I will start planning my trips on my wall planner.

Anyway. Off to bed now, going to try and fight off this cold.

Hej då

Let the Swedish Flags Fly

I arrived in Stockholm at noon after 4 hours of travel from Germany.
I flew via Berlin, which wasn't too bad. I quite like flying places.
Arrived in beautiful 26 degree perfect sunny weather.

Wow... what a site to see on my first visit to Sweden. It was Sweden's National Day, which is a public holiday dedicated to Sweden. Everyone had Swedish flags and was in a really good mood. The bridges were lined with flags, so were all the buildings.
There were sooooo many people as well. The streets were just packed. I didn't even know I was arriving on such an important day, so it was a nice surprise.
I took heaps of photo's which I will publish when I get back to Germany.

After the initial wandering around aimlessly I found myself at the Royal Palace (Sweden is a Monarchy... which I didn't know until now). Because it was National Day, it was cheap to go around and check out all the sights. I couldn't take many photos because it was a "camera free" zone. I took some sneaky ones though.

After my tour around the palace I walked through the main park in Stockholm. It was packed with heaps of people and food tents. I just walked through back to the hostel.

When I arrived back I sat down and started chatting to some randoms. Ended up going out to dinner with Hillary (American Jew that was teaching English in Russia) and Linus (a Swedish-born Korean raised an Australian... what a mix). Went to an Indian place which was quite nice. Then came back about 11pm... and it was still light!

We got back and the other two went to bed... I wasn't tired so decided to head to town (all on my lonesome). I found this a club that looked ok, so went in. I wasn't drinking because I had a cold and was dehydrated from the day in the sun. The bar had 2 parts... one dance/hip-hop and the other part karaoke. It was interesting.
I sat down for a while just listening to the music in the dance room, then I spotted some people from the hostel... random. So ended up spending the night with them. We also sat down beside these really drunk Swedes who were really friendly and talkative. They kept buying us drinks (I only had one though... it would be rude to say no). Ended up going up for karaoke with with poms... sang "Living on Prayer" which completely killed my throat.

After all that we left the club around 3... and it was light... I totally missed night. Sure I have done that in NZ... but you usually need to go out until 6 or 7. Very strange only having about 2 to 3 hours of darkness here.

Got back to the hostel and crashed... was a fun first day though.

Off to Sweden

It hasn't been a good start to the week for me.
Yesterday I woke up with a cold. Wasn't going to go into work but decided I would because there is nothing to do at home anyway. On my way to work I crashed off my bike. Grazed up my knee, thigh, elbow, wrist, knuckles and shoulder. Also ripped my jeans and smashed my cell phone. Didn't hit my head though so I was quite lucky. Turned up at work looking a bit of a mess, so cleaned myself up and continued on the day.
Anyway, this weekend is a long weekend, so tomorrow I am off to Sweden until Tuesday. I'm going to Stockholm and perhaps checking out some other parts. Will let ya know once I get back.
Chugs was supposed to be joining me over there (tentatively) but now he can't make it. So I'll be travelling around on my lonesome... Let's see what sort of trouble I get myself in to ;-)

Stuttgart

This weekend I went to Stuttgart again.
I caught up with Thom (a work colleague) and his flatmates. They were all Poms and we drank quite a bit. Then hit the town.
Met quite a few randoms and hung out with some random Germans for half the night.

Was a real fun night. Click on the picture below if you wanna see some photos of Stuttgart

Bread Bread Everywhere

Well after just over a week, there I have found out some really cool stuff in Germany.
1. You can get bread everywhere! Bread rolls and all sorts of different varieties... mum you would love it :)
2. You can buy beer ANYWHERE!!! Even McDonalds and Burger King! It's almost the greatest thing EVER. (I'm sure Cam will agree)

I have tried quite a few of the local drops now. They are quite nice beers. I'm hoping my palate is not going to be ruined by the fine German bier :-P

Thoughts going out to Mum

I have told some people already, but I want everyone to know so they can all put their thoughts out to mum.
Mum has been diagnosed with grade 2 breast cancer. She is going in for surgery in about a week and will need chemo therapy for 6 weeks.
It was very shocking news for all of us and I'm hoping that everything turns out ok.

I thank the people that have sent their kind words and I'm sure mum appreciates them to.

Love ya mum... wish I could be there.