Es könnte alles so einfach sein
Ist es aber nicht!
- ´Einfach sein` by Die Fantastischen Vier

As alluded to last time, we've made our way from Split in the centre of Croatia all the way up to Northern Germany for our friend Peter's 30th birthday.

So to fill you in on the last 12 or so days...

We caught a night bus from Split to Trieste, which passed through Slovenia for half an hour (and earnt us another stamp in our passports). We arrived back in Italy around 8am and got in a full day of exploring the city, despite Trieste's best attempt to muster a storm (see photo).

From Trieste we caught the train to Vienna which took about 7 hours. We shared our 6-seater compartment with an elderly couple from Italy and their handbag-dog (you know, a dog that fits in a handbag), Chicco. Chicco's mama turned out to be an retired Czech acrobat who had travelled the world and could speak Italian, English, Czech, German and probably a few more languages. She was, however, slightly deranged, as after about three hours she asked Marisa and I if Darren (my 21 year old brother) was our son!?! We were all flabbergasted, and insulted (How old do we look? How young does he look?) but managed to straighten her out. And if your wondering if it was just a language slip up, she'd just been talking about her son, so she clearly new what she was saying.

We had two nights in Vienna, and it rained pretty much the whole time. As a result I didn't take a lot of photos, and we spent a lot of time inside. Luckily Vienna is like the Museum/Gallery capital of the world. We spent a lot of time in MoMuK (Museum of Modern Art), and I got to see a lot of artists I studied back in my Art History days (Warhol, Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Brancusi, Leger…). The real highlight of Vienna, though, was the food. The first night we ate in a pub right next to our hostel.I had a "half portion" of spare ribs which I only just finished, Marisa had seven sausages and sauerkraut, and Darren had roast beef (and sauerkraut, of course). The next night we went to a restaurant called Centimeter where you can order food (bread, sausages, even spaghetti) by the centimetre (or metre in the case of sausages). We had our eyes on a sword skewering a whole of schnitzels, chops etc, but the menu (and price) suggested this was meant for 6 people, so we settled for a wheelbarrow full of meat, pasta, dumplings and a bit of salad to garnish.

Another train ride brought us to Prague, and mercifully, two days without rain. First impressions of Prague: dirty and scary (compared to other places in Europe). But this was just the train station which was a ways out of town. Once we made it to our hostel, which was two tube stops from the town centre, things looked up. Every block had at least one photo-worthy building and we managed to stumble across a fireworks display on the river with the castle in the background on our first night. Reading up on Prague and the CzechRepublic there's a lot about the beer, that it's the home of beer and how good it is and so on, but we were not impressed. Firstly, each pub only has two beers on tap (if they even have taps), and secondly, they aren't that nice. Gimme a Kuche Kuche (Malawian beer) any day!

To get from Prague to Berlin we took, that's right, another train. Perhaps now is a good time to reflect on train travel through Europe. It's definitely very easy to do, especially when you're flying by the seat of your pants planning-wise as we are. We normally buy our tickets for the next leg when we arrive in a city (i.e. 2 days before the journey). A couple of times we've needed to change our tickets due to dates being wrong or not taking the train at all, and as far as this goes, Germany is definitely the place to do it (100% refund, hardly any questions asked). Italy on the other hand has trouble refunding anything if you pay by credit card and will only give you 90% back. As for the trains themselves, don't count on sleeping much if there's more than 3 people on your compartment. During the day, we've seen some amazing scenery, but to be honest, the best en-route viewing was had on the bus from Zadar to Split.

Anyway: Berlin. We were in a celebratory mood on our first night in Berlin and decided to do a pub crawl (our hostel was covered in leaflets for various companies offering pub crawls). The one we chose gave us free beer at the start, with free shots between bars (German-y things like jagermeister and schnapps), and drink specials at each of the 5 bars/clubs we went to. The highlight for me was a bar at the top of a building which has been a squat since WWII and an artist commune most of that time. The walls were covered in graffiti and there was strange music coming from behind some of the doors, but on the top floor was a laid back bar with couches and cheap beer (though you had to pay a deposit for your plastic cups). The next day we did a free walking tour of central Berlin. The tour is free because the tout guides rely on tips at the end of the tour, which means they have a reason to try their hardest every tour. Our particular guide definitely tried hard, and was informative, and I guess that's all you can ask. We saw the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, several memorials to various victimised groups in Germany's history, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and lots more… all the touristy things but with some good background information which really made the things we saw make sense. Of all the places we've been so far, Berlin is the one place that felt like History was happening now. I mean, the wall was still standing in 1989, and Berlin city has been bankrupt every year since then, yet they are spending millions to rebuild the Imperial Palace and things like the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is only a few years old, can all at once be affecting monuments, a reference back to historical events and a message for the future (what not to do, etc). Anyway, I really liked Berlin and will definitely go back.

Next we caught a bus (that's right, a bus) to Hamburg because it was about 40% of the cost of a train fare. Since then we've been staying with Peter and Sina, our old flatmates from back in Brisbane. On Friday, Sina had to work and Darren went back to London for a concert, so Peter, Marisa and I went on a walk to an island. It was a 2.5 hour drive from Hamburg to get to this place on the coast of the North Sea where, at low tide, you can walk across the mudflats to an island called Oland. It was freezing, windy, rained occasionally, and we had to walk in bare feet for 5.5 km to get to the island, but it was strangely fun (and hilarious). It felt the most German thing to do. After the 3 hour walk to the island, we had about 5 hours to kill while the tide rose so we could catch the ferry back. Our guide took us around the island, explaining the history (the church was built in the 1300s), but only in German, so a lot was lost on us, though Peter did a good job of translating the important parts.

Yesterday we drove up to Peter's parents place in Gross Wittensee for his birthday party. Apparently, there's a German tradition if you're unmarried on your 30th birthday you have to clean up the steps of townhouses until a virgin kisses you. Due to a lack of townhouses in the village (and perhaps, virgins), Peter's friends arranged for something more elaborate. He was dressed in a jumpsuit and harnessed into a cane chair made to look like a helicopter, then hoisted by a crane and made to: pop balloons filled with various substances using a dildo; get a golf ball into a bucket using a remote controlled car whilst being swing around by the crane; play memory whilst being spun around… and being given lots of shots in between each game. To link back with the tradition, he had to clean up the mess left on the street.

Peter is the worse for wear today, understandably, but the rest of us are going on a walk to the lake. Darren was supposed to arrive back in Germany today in time to join us on a three day stint in Denmark, but he has missed his flight from London-Stansted and may or may not be getting a later flight (he almost missed his flight TO London as well coz he booked his flight from Hamburg-Lübeck, which is actually 70kms from Hamburg, but he made it thanks to a wonderful thing called the autobahn). Anyway, he's a big boy. I guess you'll find out in our next installment.

Oh, and the rough translation of the song at the beginning (Peter's favourite song at the moment so we heard it about forty times last night) is: Life could be so easy, but it isn´t. I think maybe this should be Darren's theme song...

Craig