Adventures in the land of Döner Kebabs and Cheap Booze

Bulgaria: Booze and Beaches

2006-08-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

After the world cup, I took it easy for a while, owing to the fact that many of my friends had
gone home for the summer, and the fact I had very little cash. I had always planned to spend my last week in Europe somewhere outside of Germany, due to the fact that I only had my dorm until the end of July. After my lovey sister and brother in law had offered me a flight to England for my birthday present, I parlayed this into a trip to the cheaper, and far more unpredictable land of Bulgaria. Home to about half of my student building, I have learnt over the past year from immersion to curse like a sailor in bulgarian, and say a few slightly more civilised sentances as well. Now the only problem I had was that all the return tickets were ridiculously over priced, and in addition it seemed that there were no free places on any planes going back to Germany in the days before I fly back to Australia. On the verge of giving up and going to Milan for a week, I bit the bullet and got a 80euro one way ticket to the black sea coast.

After flying into the black sea city of Varna, I was met at the airport by my Bulgarian mate Jivko, along with his brother, who looked rather similar to Slash from the band guns n roses. We piled into his car and drove rather slowly down the road along the coastline to their hometown of Burgas. At first I was surprised at how slow we were going, until I saw the first of many oncoming cars making wild overtaking manouvres into blind turns, on a poorly lit, potholed single lane road. This 2 hour drive was itself probably the most scary part of my whole stay. Anyway, after arriving, we went straight to the boys' local for a few beers, which cost about 90 aus cents for a half litre. Naturally one folowed the other, and after Jivko's brother went home, we kicked on to a seedy little rock bar called 'Yes'. The place was intriguing. Apparently the building was almost destroyed by fire a few years ago, and the landlord refuses to fix the fire-damaged roof. As such, when it rains, water drips slowly from the ceiling, and only stops about 2 hours after the rain outside has stopped. The manager has attempted to fix this by stringing a tarp from the ceiling, which apparently diverts the water down the window panes, keeping the main area dry and the area between the seats and windows nicely moist. This naturally means that there are more mosquitos in the pub than outside most nights, creating a delightfully on edge environment, where one is contantly swatting and scratching in between drinks.

Aside from this minor inconvenience, the music is rather good, albiet with a typical eastern european emphasis on 70's and early 80's cock rock. The bar this evening was quite empty, and after a while the barman noticed that Jivko and I were talking in german, which caused him to put on some horrible german pop, and give me an enthusiastic thumbs up. After he came over to our table with a greeting of 'meine damen und herren!' I pointed out to him in english that I was actually Australian. He then looked at me in wiide-eyed disbelief, then followed up by bellowing at me 'THEN WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING IN THAT FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!!? I calmly informed him that I was only speaking german because Jivko cannot speak any english. He nodded at this, then went behind the counter and played 1 hour of ACDC hits, followed, bizzarely, by some Angry Anderson and the Angels. Seems australian pub rock travels far.

Anyway, most of our nights were spent at one of these two pubs, or on the foreshore, where a large number of people gather every night and drink alcohol from the 24 hour supermarket nearby. This can be very dangerous, as Mastika, a sort of Bulgarian ouzo, costs 4 Aud for a bottle, and is 57 percent alcohol. These foreshore parties naturally brought about much hilarity, and allowed me to showcase my knowledge of bulgarian obsceneties on many occasions. It also led to many long sleep ins and hangovers over my 9 day stay.

During the days, we went to many different towns along the black sea coast, swimming at a few delightful beaches. I was very glad to finally swim in the ocean, as aside from my little foray into the baltic sea in october, I hadn't been near the sea for what seemed like ages. Dortmund is also unbearable in summer, as it is stinking hot, chokingly humid, and nowhere near a natual water course where one can swim. So the opportunity to lounge around on the beach for a few days and do little else appealed to me greatly. This we did, with the one exception being the day we drove into the countryside to visit Jivko's grandparents. This was quite interesting, having to stomach moonshine rakia (a bulgarian style grappa, which almost everyone seems to distill themselves) at 11am, before talking to the elderly couple over lunch. Naturally both of them could only speak bulgarian and the old man russian, so the whole conversation consisted of me thinking of something, saying it to jivko in german, which he would translate into bulgarian for the olds, and vice versa. Things got really interesting when lunch was brought out, with only myself and grandpa temporarily at the table. After staring at each other for a while with no means to communicate at all, the wizened old man suddenly started baahing like a sheep to me. This I found a little awkward and amusing at the same time, until I realised he was telling me we were eating lamb. Very nice. When the others came back he asked me about australian wool, which aparently sells well in Bulgaria, and I asked him about life under communism, which all the older two generations universally agreed was better than what it is today. There was very little corruption, as opposed to the rampant corruption in Bulgaria today, especially in the police force, and no poverty, as opposed to the now seemingly massive gap between the few rich and powerful and the poor. This was quite an interesting lunch, as was the 'toilet' facility outside. The less I say abut that the better.

On another note, as every day went by without me being able to get a flight back to Germany, my thoughts kept on coming back to the dreaded 44 hour bus ride through eastern europe. After pulling as many strings as possible at the airport, I had reached the point of no return. Either I got a plane on thursday or I had to get the bus, in order to get back to Germany in time for my flight home. At wits end, we eventually went into the airport and sat in front of the check in desk in full view of the LTU clerks. After the last person had checked in, we made our move, and asked the lady if anyone had happened to not check in. As it panned out, some chap in business class didn't show, and I was able to get a 2 hour flight in comfort back to düsseldorf for about 110 euro. Given that the bus itself costs 97 euro, I wasn't complaining. I got back in one piece, and am now giving my liver a little rest for a few days before getting on the plane in Cologne on tuesday evening. I should be arriving in Adelaide on thursday morning at the ungodly hour of 6am. Lovely.

Anyway, that was the last installment in my series of European adventures for now. I will certainly miss the Döner Kebabs when I'm back in Australia. The Gyros in Adelaide just doesn't compare.
Cheers,
Ed

Australia Bows out to Dodgy Penalty - Ed Flees to Budapest

2006-07-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

Going into the round of 16 match with Italy, I was expecting Italy to get an early goal, then defend with 11 behind the ball until the end. The fact that no-one expected Australia to reach the knock out rounds meant that there was little tension and pressure, as everyone expected Italy to win comfortably. I went to Boomerang again with my Roncalli friends and watched Australia play quite well to keep Italy out, while never really threatening the Italian goal. However, early in the second half, an Italian player was rather harshly sent off, meaning that all of a sudden, Austraia were in the box seat. Unfortunately, we had a mountain of posession, but very few chances. At 0-0 and well into injury time, I actually started thinking that we could pull off an upset against a visibly tiring Italian team in extra time. Football has a way of punishing those thoughts, however, as in the 93rd minute, Grosso dribbled into the box, Neill went to ground to block his shot, only to see the Italian calmly change direction and walk into him, drawing contact and falling over theatrically. Naturally, the referee pointed to the spot, Totti scored with the last kick of the game, and Australia were out of the world cup in the most cruel and bitter way possible.

To say I was bitter and angry after this match was a bit of an understatement. However, instead of wallowing in my self pity, I caught up with my English mate Andy after his band practice, then got smashed and went to his favourite seedy bar Spirit. I ended up having a good night, but felt rather down and didn't do much else for the rest of the week. On the 30th, I met my mate Ralf at the Dortmund airport, and we flew to Budapest to stay with a friend of ours for a few days.

After getting recognised by a student of mine at Budapest airport (small world), we got a taxi into the city, where my mate Mark's apartment was. I always am amazed driving through old eastern European cities. The outer suburbs are universally dull, depressing, and blatantly soviet. However, as you get closer to the city centre, you start to notice amazingly beautiful old buildings, hundreds of years older than anything we have in Australia. The centre of Budapest was incredibly beautiful, with many grand old style buildings on both the Buda and Pest sides of the Danube. Our first afternoon was spent playing football on a large island in the middle of the Danube. Following this, we got ready for the Germany Argentina quarter final. Given that Mark and all his friends from Budapest uni are Germans, everyone was quite pumped up for the match. We went down to a live site with big screen, and watched the match with a surprising amount of expats. It seems that Hungarians really had no interest in the World Cup, as they didn't manage to even qualify. Anyway, with 80 cent beers and Germany winning in a penatly shootout, everyone was pretty keen to party afterwards.

After a few preliminaries, we caught a ridiculously over-crowded night bus down to the river, where many very cool nightclubs are located. In summer months, two of the better clubs are giant open air discotheques situated on either side of a bridge spanning the Danube. With cheap central European alcohol, and a great river side setting, we made a night of it, getting home about 8am. Saturday was more of a rest day. After a sleep in, we played Texas Hold 'em all afternoon while watching the other quarter finals on Hungarian TV. Afterwards we went out to another club, this time a dark underground affair with cheap drinks and badly performed Hungarian Karaoke. On the Sunday we went for a walk through the old town. Walking along the river, the sheer history and culture of the city blows you away. After taking in the sights for a few hours, we went home with some beers and played poker until the early hours.

The next day we got up early and went to the central markets. There we bought a huge amount of food and cooked up a massive dinner of steak and roast potatoes. Afterwards everyone wanted to have a quiet night, as the Germany Italy semi final was the next evening. The morning of the match we bought a sports bag full of cheap Hungarian beer and went to the island to lounge around in the sun for a few hours. At about 6 we got ready and went over to the fan site for the game. The atmosphere there was amazing. However, I couldn't help thinking about how crazy it must have been in Dortmund, as the semi was being played at the Westfalenstadion, literally 10 minutes walk from my dorm. After an entertaining game, deep into extra time and with penalties looming, Italy scored two quick goals in the last minute. The celebratory atmosphere was popped like a balloon. All my german friends were absolutley shocked and speechless for hours after the game. We walked home, then decided to go to a club and drown our sorrows.

After staying out quite late and getting an early taxi to the airport, Ralf and I were shocked to discover that Easyjet had cancelled our plane back to Dortmund for no apparent reason. Naturally this pissed us off no end, and as I had no money left, and Ralf had to be back in Germany for a business meeting the next morning, the rescheduled flight the next morning was out of the question. After freaking out for a little while, we got a bus to the other terminal and booked two tickets on a very expensive Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt on Ralf's credit card. Running like sleep deprived, hungover madmen through the airport and immigration, we boarded the flight with 2 minutes to spare. After landing in Frankfurt, we wrote a letter to Easyjet claiming the EU regulated 250-400 Euro compensation for such monumental cock-ups. It remains to be seen how quickly they respond. Knowing Easyjet, they will fight tooth and nail not to pay, then probably offer us a drink coupon. I may have to get my travel insurance company involved.

Anyway, after getting back to Dortmund, I watched the cheating Italians win a totally undeserved World Cup, with the highlight of the match being Zinedine Zidane's red mist induced headbutt in extra time, which sent an Italian flying to the ground writhing around in 'agony'. At least consolation can be brought from the fact that Australia went out of the tournament to the eventual world champions, who needed a dubious last minute penalty to overcome us.

Australia Makes Second Round

2006-06-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

Well, after the late comeback against Japan I was quietly confident ahead of the match against Brazil. I went to Friedensplatz with some friends of mine and took in the atmosphere. There were heaps of Brazilian fans there, and also plenty of Germans with Brazilian shirts. While there were not that many Australians, there were thousands of swiss fans in town for the match against Togo, with many of them supporting the underdog against Brazil. Realistically, I was hoping we wouldn't get humiliated, but as the match wore on, and Australia kept Brazil scoreless, I began thinking more and more about getting an unlikely draw to send us through. The biggest cheer of the day came when Ronaldinho did about 3 stepovers in the box before treading on the ball and falling over. However, as soon as I started thinking we might get something out of the match, Brazil scored. As Australia pressed for an equaliser, Kewell hit the ball over the open goal from 5 metres out, and Viduka lobbed the ball onto the roof of the net. However, right at the end, we got sucker punched to leave it at 2-0. While I was a bit disappointed, Croatia's draw with Japan meant that we needed a draw in our last match to progress.

On the day of the match with Croatia, I was horrified to find out that every place in town would be showing the Brazil Japan game, even though it was a dead rubber. Luckily, the Australian Pub 'Boomerang' was showing the game, so I had some vodka with Jonathan and Louis to calm the nerves, before heading in to the pub with a motley crew of Bulgarians, Cameroonians, et al, hoping for a result. Unfortunately Croatia scored in the second minute from a free kick, and it looked very bad for Australia. Luckily, Croatia seemed to go into their shell after the early goal, and Australia pressed forward. Viduka was thrown to the ground in the box, with no penalty being given. Minutes later, a Croatian defender handled and the ref pointed to the spot. Moore stepped up and scored from the penalty, and we were back in the game. The second half began much like the first, after only a few minutes, Croatia scored again, this time from a horrible error by the keeper Kalac. This was followed by another blatant handball in the box by the Croatians, which was missed by the ref. Just as I thought we were going to be sent home, Kewell took a cross on his chest, and slotted home from close range. This triggered amazing scenes in Boomerang. The sight and sound of a pub full of drunken fans singing 'Harry, Harry Kewell' to the tune of Boney M's Daddy Cool was quite the highlight.

As if to prove that he was the worst match official ever, the ref then proceeded to give a Croatian player 3 yellow cards before sending him off, and blew the full time whistle as what would have been the Australian winner was rolling over he line. But it didn't matter, Australia was through to the second round for the first time, setting up a knockout tie with Italy. Needless to say, we got quite boistrous that night, knocking back a few celebratory beers and attracting a few strange looks in the U-Bahn on the way home with our singing.

World Cup Kicks Off

2006-06-19T04:29:00.000-07:00

Hello all.
I thought I'd take time out of my football watching marathon to give you a run down of what's been happening lately in the land of the Currywurst. I finished my contract at my school on the 31st of May, a date which seemed to come aroud rather quickly in my mind. The week before the year 13's had their 'Chaostag', basically an organised muck up day, where they have a massive party in the Gym and drink from 10am till the wee hours of the morning. This had a mexican theme, and they forced various teachers to perform a chilli eat-off, a pinata bash-off, and a tango dance-off. Naturally they chose the the most stuffy old geezers for the dance off, with hilarious results. The latter part of the day the teachers went away, and the kids boozed on till midnight, with the school's permission. A bit different from my muck up day...

Anyway, at the time the Sedz and his girlfriend Lucy came to stay with me for a week or so, before heading to Greece for the summer. After a week of bulgarian drunkenness in Roncalli house, they decided to get engaged.... I guess if you can stay in this Bulgarian/German rat's nest together for a week with no problems you'll be fine anywhere. My congrats go out to the couple.

My last day at school was quite nice. One of my year 8 classes threw a little cocktail sausage and apple soda party, and wrote some nice messages on the blackboard for me. I thought the picture of the broken heart with 'Eddie' on one side and '8d' on the other was a bit melodramatic though... In the staff room I was given a send off by the headmistress, before I realised I would be expected to get up and give a little speech myself. Naturally I hadn't prepared anything, so I stood up and prattled on in German for a few minutes about nothing in particular, basically saying that after marking a heap of year 12 english exams, I had newfound sympathy for teachers and perhaps understand why they go a little crazy sometimes.

The world Cup kicked off last week, and the crappy German weather changed around amazingly. All of a sudden it was 35 degrees and humid as all hell, naturally neccessitating the drinking of frosty refreshments from the afternoon till the wee hours. I watched the opening game in the city square, with about 50 000 other people in a party atmosphere. Thankfully Germany won, so the rioting and general mayhem was kept to a minimum. Because Sweden was playing Trinidad and Tobago in Dortmund over the opening weekend, the city was overrun by Swedes, with one of the funnier moments coming when a few walked past a group of German fans. Instead of violence, bigoted chants or anything nasty, the Germans belted out IKEA woooaaaoh IKEA wooooaaaoh to the tune of that Dean Martin classic. Hilarious. The next day their team
drew nill nill with Trinidad and tobago, the biggest shock of the world cup so far.

However the fun had just begun as far as I was concerned. Monday afternoon the Aussies had their first game against Japan, and I went into the city with Ralf (the only other Aussie I know within 500km) and some mates from Roncalli house. After a dubious early goal from the Japanese, we suffered through 80 minutes of agony, watching the socceroos creep all over the
opposition like a french rash, but with no success, until the Jedi master Hiddink threw the dice and came up with 3 goals in the last five minutes. This sparked unprecenented scenes of jubilation on my part. I even hugged a Frenchman. The Bulgarians were with were also pretty happy, as they had bet on the Aussies in an accumulator bet and cashed in at the bookies.

I had to cut my celebrations short, as the next day a Croatian mate of mine was driving to Berlin to go to the Brazil Croatia game, and he and his brother were taking Ralf and me along for the ride. So we got up nice and early and got into Berlin at about lunch time. Now I thought Dortmund was going nuts for the world cup. Berlin was absolutely packed with all sorts of football fans. We wandered around for a while, soaking up the atmosphere until the Croats had to go to the Stadium. Ralf and I then went into the city centre, where we were told that they already had 200 000 people in front of the Brandenburg Gate watching the match on big screen, and they weren't letting anyone else in. We found a beer garden not too far away though, and sat down with about 200 Swedes to watch the match. Seriously, the Swedes are massive football fans, like to follow their team around, and are always friendly and up for a chat. I think the fact that alcohol is about 20% of the price it is in Sweden may also have some impact on their
numbers swarming Germany this summer. Anyway after finally getting into the fan area on the street that holds the Love Parade, we partied with a shitload of other fans from all over the world, until meeting up with the boys, who drove us home at 2am.

Getting home yesterday at 730am I was naturally a bit tired and emotional, and slept all day. Unfortunately there was no rest to be had, as that evening Germany was playing Poland in Dortmund, and the city was going mental. Basically about a third of the population of the Ruhr valley is polish, so the match was sort of like the Australia Greece match in Melbourne a few weeks back, but with a little more at stake, and a little more history adding to the antagonism. There were so many people in the city it was crazy. We couldn't get into either the main square or the viewing area next to the stadium, so we went home in disgust and watched the second
half on TV. After Germany scored a last minute winner you could hear the whole city going mental for about an hour. The commentator on telly said that over 300 people in the city centre had been arrested before the game had even finished. Naturally the riot police were kept busy well into the night dealing with the aftermath.

Well, that was a rather long winded account of my adventures over the past 3 or 4 weeks. I have now lost my voice and think I will sleep for a few days until the Aussies play Brazil on Sunday night.
Wish you all the best.
Ed

Seedy Easter Holidays

2006-05-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

Well, my Easter holidays are now over, and I have to say I am rather relieved. These holidays were more like a 2 week bender, with very little quiet time for R&R. The first weekend of the holidays was spent in Amsterdam, the fine city 3 hours west of here. I got on a ICE train with my english mates Sam and Pete, while a Syrian friend of mine Adnan decided to travel by regional trains to avoid border guards, due to the fact that his passport had expired, and he didn't feel like getting locked up as a suspicious Arab with no papers in Europe. Anyway, we arrived in Amsterdam on the Friday afternoon with absolutely no idea where we would be staying. We looked around for a few places, but absolutely everything was booked for the whole weekend. I guess we could have been a little better organised and actually booked something in advance, but that would have been boring, right?

After almost giving up hope and preparing to pull an all-nighter, we went to the hostel we stayed at in October, which predictably, was also full. However, as we were standing around outside debating what we should do, a bloke came out of the Kebab shop under the hostel and told us that a booking hadn't arrived yet, and if they didn't come by 10pm, we could have the room. Naturally we were pretty happy with this development when they didn't show and we got a place to sleep.

After dumping all our stuff we went to an Aussie bar and proceeded to knock back a few Coopers Sparkling Ales, a beer that I hadn't drunk in almost a year. These went down a treat, and after Pete's brother and a couple of his friends arrived in town and met us, we went to the Doors Cafe, a cool Jim Morrision themed Bar/Coffee Shop. We then settled in for the night enjoying ourselves immensely. Floating home at about 4 in the morning, I had a good night's sleep before a rather blurry day spent in various establishments around the city, culminating in a brit rock club in the wee hours of the morning, followed by a pint of Guinness on the way home.

The Sunday was very similar to the previous day, but we spent a few hours drinking in the park before Sam and I went to a fruit and veg shop and purchased some foodstuffs from mexico that the guy behind the counter assured us were quality. After having a sample, we went back to the Doors and chilled out there for a few hours staring at a large portrait of Jim Morrision in wonder, before the fun started. At this stage the others came and met us, just before the Doors closed at 1am. At this stage we had no idea what to do. As far as we knew, everything in the city was closed (Being a Sunday) except for a place called San Francisco. After a rather panic filled and complex argument about what to do, we eventually got a few cabs to said place. Now I don't know what I was expecting here, but it sort of reminded me of the bar in Star Wars on the rogue trading planet. Full of the dregs from all walks of life, including a a guy who looked like Blade, and assorted other scary individuals. The other thing that struck me as strange was the fact that every third song would either be 'I like to move it' or 'Ring of Fire'. This started to cause us great distress after while. After flipping out at the table for what was probably about 3 hours, we stumbled outside at closing time, to be greeted by a street covered in vomit and what we were hoping was dog shit. After wandering home I had a rather weird night's sleep, before we had to get up at 10am to vacate the hostel.

We wandered around town a little dazed for a while, before finding a coffee shop called 'Lost' where you could sit around on beanbags all day, relaxing. This is what we did, until we got our train home at about 7pm.

After taking a few days to recover back in Dortmund, and having a couple of regulation nights out on the piss the following weekend, the weather started getting warmer, and I was invited to a barbeque of a friend of a friend. What made this different was the fact that it was in a 'Strebergarten', in a ghetto-like block of tiny gardens on the outskirts of town, where flat-dwelling Germans buy blocks so they can grow vegies and such and such. Usually you only see these tiny gardens with their tiny houses out of train windows, so this was my first time in one. It actually was pretty cool, as you can make as much noise as you like because no one lives in the area, and the gardens are usually immaculately maintained. So after a rather pleasant bbq, with equally pleasant beer and vodka, we went into the city to Bakuda, before getting a train home very early in the morning. The next day I forced myself up early and went with a mate of mine to Westfalenstadion for the match between BVB and Nürnberg. Naturally we got stuck into the bratwurst and beers, and thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere with 70 000 other fans at Dortmund's second last home game of the year. Afterwards we went to Westpark for another barbeque, followed by another night at the seedy metal club 'Spirit'. After stumbling home at 7am, I passed out and woke up almost 20 hours later. I think my body was trying to tell me something. Anyway, after one day's rest, I went back to school, not feeling refreshed in the slightest after a rather seedy two week holiday.

St. Patrick's Day, Benders, and Ugly Duckling

2006-04-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

Things here in Dortmund have developed into a rather predictable routine. Generally, after working at my school during the week, I head out on the weekend and try to see the inside of as many different pubs and clubs in the Ruhr Valley as possible. What a noble ambition. Anyway, one of these nights was St. Patrick's Day, the celebration of all things Irish (ie drinking). St. Patrick's Day was a good laugh. The day before I had drunk rather a lot of Vodka at a Uni party, so I didn't feel in the best shape when I started the day with a theatre workshop which I had previously agreed to take part in without thoroughly understanding what would be involved. Basically I thought I had agreed to watch a play, but found out later that I had actually agreed to take part in a 3 hour workshop with one of my year 10 classes, followed up by watching a play in the State Theatre. I guess that serves me right for nodding and smiling when I don't understand someone in German... So basically, after this rather long afternoon and evening, I got a train to Düsseldorf, where there are perhaps 10 different Irish Pubs in the Alststadt alone. I then proceded to knock back as much Guinness as possible with a few Irish and English friends, before getting a train home in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Now while out on St. Patrick's day the ladies came up with the wonderful idea of going out Saturday evening at 3001, a rather trendy house club in Düsseldorf. This sounded good to me, so on saturday evening, after rather a lot of very cheap rum, I got a train with my housemates Louis and Jonathan to Düsseldorf, and we proceded to move through the gears. Now I'm not sure where this night went wrong, but I remember having quite alot of fun at this club until rather late, then I decided to get a train home. Once at the Hauptahnhof, I realised that I had lost my digital camera, and so grumpily got on my train. The next memory I have is waking up in a weird town at 8am with no idea where I was. I found out that I was in Hamm, about 100km north of Dortmund, the same city that my mate Sam woke up in a few weeks earlier! As you can probably imagine, it was a pretty dishelved and annoyed man who stumbled into bed at 930 in the morning after that night.

After losing my camera I laid low for a few weeks, as had a mild case of bird flu, and also was a bit short on cash. However, one night I met up with a mate who used to work at my school, and we went out for a few quiet beers. Naturally this quickly descended into drunken revelry when the barstaff at Rock Cafe started giving us free shooters. Now the Rock Cafe is well known as a bit of a Bikie hang out, and after a few more shooters, I started up a conversation with a leathery old school biker type at the bar. We chatted about the Bikie scene in Adelaide, in particular how the various clubs control the security at most of the nightclubs in the city. He seemed pretty interested in this, then he started talking English, which made me crack up laughing. This guy, who was a very wild, dishelved old school bikie, with a long goatee beard and tattoos, spoke English with the most posh, upper class accent I've ever heard from a German. Sure it was limited, but every word he did utter sounded like it was taught to him by the Queen herself. I think I composed myself enough not to cause offence, and within an hour or so had organised to teach English to the Bikies' waitress girlfriends before the world cup. (I wonder if they'll call...) After this moment my memories get a bit blurred, but I do remember going along to the other bikie venue in Dortmund, the metal club 'Spirit'. I then recall drinking coronas in a mexican bar and going somewhere else before stumbling home at 7 in the morning. I woke up late in the afternoon on my bed, fully clothed, hungover, with a rather large dominican cigar in my jacket pocket. What an interesting evening.

At the begining of April the Hip-Hop group Ugly Duckling played a gig in Dortmund. These guys are one of my favorite groups, and I've already seen them twice in Adelaide. This time, however, they were playing in a really intimate room in a club literally across the road from my apartment. Basically, we organised a few people to come to our student house, and had a few drinks before walking over to the club. The concert itself was amazing, we were so close to the stage, and the relatively small crowd of about 200 people were really receptive and enthusiastic. After the show, the guys from Ugly Duckling and Giant Panda were standing around selling merchandise at the bar, and we started chatting with the DJ Young Einstein. It's really cool seeing foreign bands in Germany, as it's so much easier to chat to them, and they're usually happy to be able to speak English with someone. I talked to Einstein about the Australian and German Hip-Hop scenes, as well as how popular they were in the US compared to overseas. Basically he said that the UK is where they get their biggest crowds, followed by Japan, Australia and the US. He seemed pretty laid back and friendly, even telling us that their famous gold chain only cost them 100 pounds in the UK a few years back. It also sounds very tacky and plastic when he 'jingles' it... Anyway, after the concert, I stumbled over the road to bed, as I had to work the next morning. Needless to say, I looked and sounded a little under the weather during my classes that day. However, I had the next weekend in Amsterdam to look forward to...

Karneval Time

2006-03-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

Hello there, I was just sitting in my dorm doing nothing in particular, so decided to regale you all with another wordy, incoherent rant about my current adventures here in Germany. Basically, since I last wrote a month or so ago, there have not been many noteworthy events to speak of, in fact, little at all. That was until Karnival time hit the Rheinland, and everything got a little weird. For those who don't know, every year in the week leading up to Ash Wednesday, the normally respectable and sensible citizens of the Rheinland go absolutely batty for 7 days, and everything grinds to a screeching, drunken stop. While Dortmund itself is not reknown for its embracing of the Karneval spirit, the nearby cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf go all out every year to out do each other in the drunken, debauched, costumed party stakes. So naturally, given that I had a long weekend with not many other plans, I decided to get into the spirit of things. After spending Friday night in Bochum for a friend's farewell party, and Saturday in my cellar for yet another Bulgarian party (seriously, my building has twice as many Bulgarians as Germans), I caught the train to Düsseldorf for what I thought would be a few quiet beers before the main event of Rosenmontag the next day in Cologne. Now the Old Town of Düsseldorf is usually a delighfully well maintained, beautiful place to go for a tipple, but last Sunday the cobble stone streets were absolutely packed with crazily dressed, incredibly drunk, jovial sounding people drinking themselves into oblivion blissfully unaware of (or choosing to ignore) the piles upon piles of broken glass, wild punch ups and general anarchy. Naturally this sort of behaviour greatly interests me, and I found myself sticking around the city for more than a few hours to observe the locals in action. I ended up getting a train back to Dortmund at a rather late hour, having to explain (once again) to a bunch of disbelieving drunken Germans at the platform that I actually didn't come from Holland, I just sound like a Dutchman when I speak German. Seriously, the first time this happened I thought it was quite funny, but nowadays not a single weekend goes by without someone asking what I, as a 'Sheißholländer' am doing in Germany. I guess there aren't many Aussies in Germany, so when they hear my accent, they recognise that it's not British, it's not American, so it must be..... DUTCH! Very weird, and a little disconcerting at the same time. Anyway, I woke up bright and early on Monday morning, and put on my 'costume', which consisted of a huge black novelty wig, a rather large, yellow, gaudy ring, a giant metal bat on a necklace around my neck, and a borrowed leather jacket, I wandered down to the budget supermarket with some english mates of mine to stock up on supplies (read a 5euro bottle of vodka and some cans of imitation red bull), before getting a tube to the Hauptbahnhof for our train to Cologne. As the 90 minute trip through the Ruhr Valley progressed, more and more drunken Germans piled into the train (it was still 11 am mind you), and by half way, the train was resembling one of those trains you see on the telly in India, but with more alcohol and slightly more Elvis impersonators. When we finallly arrived in Cologne, we found a nice spot by the side of the parade and watched a few floats pass us by. It sort of reminded me of a twisted parody of the Christmas Pageant in Adelaide, with quite normal looking floats being followed by quite scary ones, all of which also involved a lot of assorted chocolate being thrown into the audience to the back up music of cheesy german disco hits. (think: heeey baby.....ooh..... ahh.. I wanna know.....) You know the song. There are many more even more irritating songs just like it over here. Well, after an hour or so of this, we wandered down a side street and started chatting with many different characters, all well inebriated and dressed in Darth Vader, Storm Trooper (the star wars kind, not the other somewhat 'tainted' ones from 60 years ago...), Gladiator and all sorts of other costumes. We ended up talking to some drunken schoolkids dressed as scottish Braveheart warriors and the Grim Reaper, as well many assorted other people, some more memorable than others. Anyway, after a few hours drinking in the sub zero temperatures, my memories of monday evening have dimmed slightly, although I do remember flailing my arms wildly in what could loosely be described as 'dancing' with some japanese tourist in a wedding dress, before going to McDonalds, where all of the people behind the counter were the guys who usually work on the grill in the back of shop. Now not only was that a bit different, but all of these blokey blokes were all dressed immaculaltely in drag, and seeming to be enjoying the whole experience. I somehow don't think you'll ever see that at the West Tce Maccas anytime soon. Anyway, since I actually had to be at school the next morning teaching some German kids the wonders of adverbs and the conditional tense, I got a train home at about 9, getting home at about 11, before falling into a deep sleep having nightmares of an army of punks whose heads were bigger than their bodies. I can only guess that after this week of drunken hilarity and spontaneous fun and openness, the Germans will pack all their enthusiasm and Lebenslust into storage for another year. What a funny folk they are.

Ruhr Valley Madness

2006-02-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sitting at my computer after quite an interesting weekend. Thursday night started out with a few cheap cocktails at Collins Bar with my housemate Louis and a few of his visiting French mates. We were joined by a couple of other friends, and after a few long island iced teas, our once civilised group quickly descended into a drunken rabble. Once happy hour ended, we stumbled through the streets to the student club Keller. After a few hours of flailing limbs and sweating that can be loosely described as 'dancing', we found ourselves at the City Grill, devouring yet another Döner Kabab. As far as the City Grill goes, they put out quite respectable Kebabs, with the added bonus of a loyalty coupon not unlike the ones seen at Subway restaurants. The only problem is that one is usually so drunk that keeping hold of these coupons until the next visit is quite a challenge.

Anyway, after Thursday's fun I decided to go to Düsseldorf on Friday night for a friend's 21st birthday. My mate Sam came around, and after watching the African Cup final, we downed a bottle of cheap vodka before getting the train to Düsseldorf. For some reason we were quite drunk and didn't even make it to the club where Laura was going, so we wandered around the Altstadt, going to a few different places, including the quite groovy 'Stone'. At some stage I lost Sam, and called him to find out that he was eating at a Chinese restaurant with some randoms he'd met at the bar. After finally catching up with him again, and refuelling with a few 1Euro burgers from McDonalds, we kicked on to another club, where I have a vague recollection of throwing myself around the dancefloor to Blur's Parklife. I love that song. So after a few more bevvies in this place, we packed it in and got a train back to Dortmund. After both falling asleep, I woke up just before Dortmund, nudged Sam and got him up. He yawned, put his jacket on and we got off. Only on the platform when the train left the station did I realise that Sam actually hadn't gotten off at all. Since I had no credit left on my phone, I figured he's a big boy and he'd make it home alright. About an hour after I stumbled into bed, I got a text from Sam saying 'where are you? where am I? I'm so confused' Ha ha ha. Apparently he woke up in Hamm, which is quite a long way from Dortmund, and finally got home at 8 in the morning. The leading photo here gives a nice impression of what Düsseldorf looked like to me in the early hours of Saturday morning.

After the general messiness of Friday evening, I wasn't too keen on going out Saturday night, but Katja, a German friend of mine, is going to Australia for 7 weeks tomorrow and I wanted to catch up for a few drinks. We met at Louisiana bar for a few cocktails, then headed to Bakuda, one of my favourite clubs in Dortmund. There was some indy band from the USA playing there, and we caught the last few songs, before the DJ started playing a few nice indy hits. After a few beers I struck up a conversation with one of the guys from the band, and asked him what he thought of Germany. Basically he said it was great, before giving me an in depth report of all of the 'young' and 'easy' german girls who had been throwing themselves at him and his bandmates during their recent tour. An interesting chap, makes me want to form a indie band and tour obscure central European cities. Anyway, after a few hours at Bakuda, we headed off to the Anadoulu Grill for a Döner. Now Anadoulu is one of my favourite Kebab places in Dortmund. Not only are the Kebabs quite reasonably priced at E2.50, but it is also centrally located, right next to the Reinoldikirche subway station. The cheery Turkish chap behind the counter's eyes lit up when he saw me approach. 'Hey!!! Australia!' You know you eat too many Kebabs when you don't even have to tell the guys behind the counter what you want. The other day I was offered a job at the Kaiser Grill during the world cup. That would be an interesting thing to add to my C.V. : 2 months as a 'Döner Man'. Ha.. unlikely.

Anyway, that's my latest ramble. I hope it gave you a nice idea of my most recent adventures in the Ruhr valley. Now I go back to teaching German kids such exciting things as the conditional tense for a week before next weekend's fun begins.

Central European New Year's Hilarity

2006-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Hello there.
For those who are interested, here is a run down of my recent adventures. Having two weeks off during Christmas allowed me to plan all sorts of interesting things, mostly involving getting quite drunk. I spent Christmas with my former exchange family in Menden, which was quite nice, given that I also stayed with them during the Christmas of 98/99. It was quite fun catching up with people whom I hadn't seen in 7 years, and seeing how they had changed. Nothing quite like a once committed German punk who now studies economics and professes a new found love of cricket.

After the obligatory pre-Christmas, Christmas, and post-Christmas parties were over, I got on a train on the 30th to Berlin to meet up with Jonno and some English mates of mine, one of whom has a place in Prenzlauerberg, a very trendy part of the old East Berlin which has been redeveloped since the fall of the wall. Basically, as well as being home to a multitude of groovy bars and clubs, Berlin is also the third largest Turkish city after Istanbul and Ankara. Naturally this leads to fierce competition in the Döner Kebab market, meaning one is spoilt for choice, and can find Döners as low as 1 Euro that, due to the Berlin Döner Purity Law, still are more than fit for human consumption. Delightful. Anyway, we spent the 30th at a variety of bars, where the highlight was undoubtably a giant, cape clad South American Indian who would roll a metre-long spliff and walk around the club encouraging people to toke, before performing elaborate tai-chi style dance moves on the dance floor for hours on end. A fascinating man.

New year's Eve was also an interesting affair, as we managed to get an invite to a party in an old bookshop. Apparently the owner was shutting it down, so he decided to go out with a bang and throw a magnificent party, where we stayed until the wee hours. Our last night was the 1st, and on this evening we went to another variety of bars, with the most interesting being Dr. Pong. Now Dr Pong I believe was a world reknown American table tennis player who, at the peak of his powers and height of his career, decided to give it all away and open a ping pong bar in Berlin. It started out as just a place to have a hit, but quickly developed a reputation as a very hip place to hang out. It was quite a sight seeing 60 or so people sitting around drinking beers with many also twirling their bats waiting for their next game. A place like that probably could never make any money in Australia, but due to the incredibly cheap cost of buildings in some parts of Berlin, he can make a tidy profit. After getting about 2 hours' sleep, Jonno and I managed to find our way to the station at 9 in the morning for our train to Krakow. Krakow is a beautiful city in the south east of Poland, where the wartime population was brutally persecuted by the Nazis, with the Auschwitz camp located only 40 km outside the city. In spite of that, however, the city itself remained unscathed through the war, and is full of many very old and beautiful buildings, as well as the largest City square in Europe. It is also home to an array of bohemian bars, many located in old stone cellars deep underground.

Naturally Jonno and I took to the vibrant nighlife like proverbial ducks to water and immediately found a bar which was charging the about Aud1.20 for a half litre beer, and the same for a shot of incredibly strong polish vodka. The interesting thing was, it seemed that the bar staff were drinking more than the two of us combined, and towards the end everything got quite amusing. The next evening we met up with some swedish guys who were staying at our hostel and went on a marathon pub crawl throughout the city, with my favourite bar requiring one to walk through a deserted alley, then past a book seller, up a flight of unmarked stairs, before choosing the correct of three very non descript doors. Sort of reminded me of the Frasier episode where they want to open a restaurant that is so exclusive it has an unlisted number, no sign etc... I thought it was very amusing. Anyway, after another two nights of revelry with a group of Italians from our Hostel, which included seeing an authentic polish broken-bottle glass fight, and assorted other interesting characters, we decided that our livers and pockets could no longer take the carnage, and opted to find a way back to dortmund. Naturally this was not as simple as it seemed. We went to the station only to be told that there were no direct trains back to berlin, so we would have to change trains in the middle of the night in some weird town in the middle of western Poland. Given that was the only option, we got on the train at 8pm and arrived at 3am in said town, only to find out that our connecting train will be 40 minutes late. Naturally we didn't want to stay the whole time inside the station, for fear of missing the connection, so after 20 minutes we went up to the platform to wait. Now that would have been bad enough had it not been for the fact that it was minus 15 degrees, we were both sleep deprived and hungover, and the connecting train didn't end up coming til 4.30. So after waiting for nearly an hour in the freezing cold, we were delighted when the most decrepit, soviet era train finally arrived to give us shelter. After finally nodding off to sleep, we were then woken first by a Polish, then 30 minutes later, a rather angry German border guard who seemed to want to delay the train as long as possible at Frankfurt on the Oder. This meant that we eventually got into Berlin at 8.20 in the morning, giving us 40 minutes to find our way accross town to Alexanderplatz, where we were meeting some people who were giving us a lift back to Dortmund. We managed to find them, and got in to Dortmund at 2.30pm, thoroughly sleep deprived, seedy looking, and sick from drinking beer for breakfast for most of 10 days. Oh well, you're only young once, right?

Well, we finally did get back, and I never thought I'd be glad to experience the warmth of a sunny 4 degree day... I am now taking it very easy for a few days, and mercifully also have tuesday off, so can get two solid nights' sleep in before I have to back to school. I want to conclude this untidy ramble by wishing you all a Happy New Year, and all the best for 2006. Please feel free to fill me in with your recent adventures. All news is very much appreciated over here. Cheers.

Adventures in the Freezing North 9/11/05

2005-12-05T04:05:00.000-08:00

Hello there to everybody,
For those who are interested, I thought I might fill you in on a few things that I've been getting up to lately. 2 weekends ago I went up to the north of the country with a couple of my housemates. One of them is a german, who has a house in Kiel, and the other is a particularly french frenchman. It is only about 500 km from Dortmund to Kiel, so I was looking forward to flying up the Autobahn and getting there in 3 hours. Unfortunately, we chose a time to leave when it seemed that every man and his dog in the whole Ruhr Valley also was wanting to head up north. This meant that it took us over an hour to get just 20 km out of Dortmund. Honestly, what's the point of having these wonderful Autobahns with no speed limits, when you're lucky to reach 25kmh? Anyway, after a torturous hour or so stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, we finally escaped the congestion and cruised up north at the leisurely pace of 190kmh, arriving in Kiel just after nightfall on Friday evening.

Kiel is an interesting place, about the size of Canberra, and is also a very important maritime city on the Baltic sea. It has immense strategic importance, as there is a canal that runs between the fiord of Kiel on thebaltic sea and the north sea. This allows ships to cut straight through the Jutland Peninsula, and I believe it was built by the Kaiser prior to WW1 so that Britain couldn't blockade the German Navy. The German U Boat fleet wasbased there during the 2 world wars, and still is. In fact, there is a fully intact WW2 era U Boat on one of the main beaches, which I got a few nice snaps of.

In addition to having a fine naval tradition, Kiel also has a sizeable student population, meaning that there are some very fine nightclubs in the city centre. Naturally we endeavoured to visit as many of them as possible, and wound up at 5 in the morning walking through the red light district, where I happened to find the greatest Döner Kebab I have ever eaten. I had heard rumours about the quality of the Kiel Kebabs, but nothing had prepared me for this. If you can think of the Kebab that I described in my previous email, but longer, with a deeper pouch, more succulent meat and the hottest chilli sauce you can imagine, then you would have a good idea of why I loved it so... This really was a Döner worth writing home about.

Anyway, after sleeping for most of the following day, we stocked up on alcohol then psyched ourselved up for our little excursion to Hamburg. After knocking back a few preliminaries in Kiel, then a few more on the bus to the train station, we got our 1 hour train to St Pauli, the seedy downtown partof Hamburg, home of the famous Reeperbahn. This place was crazy, teeming with thousands of people, all there to either visit the many nightclubs, sexcinemas, or ladies of the night. So we wandered around the place for acouple of hours, seeing the sights and stopping occasionally at a nightclub to wet our whistles. Eventually we got a train back to Kiel at about 7 in the morning, and slept through most of the next day. We did however get up in time to catch a few sun rays, and went down to the beach at about 4 in the afternoon. Now I couldn't travel all the way to Kiel and not go for aswim, so ignoring the fact that it was only about 15 degrees, and the water temperature was maybe half that, I pulled on my boardies and went for a dip. Now I've swum at Robe in the winter, so I thought I could handle the Baltic sea, but after 5 minutes in the water, I could feel some mild hypothermiacoming on, so I wisely pulled up stumps and got the hell out of there. After towelling myself down and attracting some perculiar looks from passers by,we all went up to the beach front cafe, where I had a nice hot glass of grog to warm me up. What a pleasant experience that was... quite character building I thought. There's a happy snap of me after my swim attached to this post. Take note of the crazy looking, hypothermia affected eyes!

Anyway, after driving back down to Dortmund on Monday, I managed a bit of shut eye before heading out in Dortmund for Halloween. The day after halloween is a public holiday in Germany, so on monday night all of thenighclubs were absolutely packed. While it was a fun night out, it didn't quite reach the dizzying heights of Kiel and Hamburg, and all it really did was make the cold I caught after swimming even worse. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed going back to school on the wednesday. So, that is a little synopsis of what I've been doing lately. This weekend I'm heading down to Frankfurt to catch up with Ralf Eckey, a mate of mine who has a nice little apartment in the city with a fridge full of beer. Should be fun....I hope this post was interesting, and I would love it if any of you felt like filling me in on what is happening in your worlds right now. All news is good news when you're living in a crazy share house full of bulgarians.
Cheers to all, Ed.

24/10/05 German Boredom

2005-12-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the man who loves rain so much he follows the winter around the world. I trust everybody is doing well, I am also doing well, but do not have nearly as many tall tales and humorous anecdotes to regale you with as in previous emails. Basically I have got my timetable set in concrete, with every monday being free. This is particulaly useful, as it means that I can travel on the weekends and not have to worry about getting beck to school by monday morning. Speaking of which, this coming weekend I will be going up to Kiel with one of my German housemates, to see the northern part of the country. Kiel is a port on the baltic sea, which also happens to be one of the only places in Germany where I hear the waves are big enough to surf. While I am looking forward to seeing the ocean again, I'm not sure if I will be brave enough to get in the water up there, with the water being about 8 degrees and all... Basically our plan is to drive up to Kiel, and catch up with a few of his mates, before heading down to Hamburg, which is only a few hours away. From all accounts Hamburg is a pretty cool place to go, with heaps of groovy clubs on offer along the Reeperbahn. This strip is actually the place where the beatles played some of their first gigs before they got big.
As far as my job is concerned, it seems that I have got a pretty sweet deal. Most of my time is spent taking small conversation courses in a seminar room, with about 4 or 5 students in years 12 and 13. Since these students are all 18 or 19, most of these sessions are spent talking in English about the merits of the various clubs and discos in Dortmund. So I find out where to spend my German tax payers' money on the weekend, and they practice their conversational english. It's a win-win situation, really. Having spoken to other people in my situation, I know of one person who is being forced to take an entire year 5 class for the rest of the year, because their teacher is sick. This is a person with no teaching experience, and only 2 years of an arts degree in the UK.. Oh well, at least it's not me...
The thing that's starting to get to me is the fact that I come home from school at about lunch time and have absolutely nothing to do. German TV is shocking, there's only so much time you can spend watching Steve Urkel talking in German before you start going insane. Since most of the people in my WG are at uni during the day, it's sort of like cabin fever until nightfall. However, once the sun goes down, the bulgarians start drinking, and all sorts of hilarity ensues. You can often have a pretty good night without even having to venture outside the building. This snap was taken on a random sunday evening.
The good thing about being in the Ruhr Valley, however, is that there are heaps of cities, all within about 20 minutes by train. In each of these cities there are about 5 or 6 english assistant teachers, so it is very easy to organise messy pub crawls on the weekend. So this is what we do every weekend. We pick a city then endeavor to drink it dry and eat all of the döner kebabs within a 5 mile radius, before getting the red eye train home. That is my life in Germany.... Anyway, I must conclude this untidy ramble, and wander around the streets aimlessly for a while until the bulgarians are ready to crack open their first bottle of vodka.
All the best Ed

Amsterdam 04/10/05

2005-12-05T03:41:00.000-08:00

Hello once again from the land of acid washed jeans and bad 80's metal...
The past week or so has been quite an eventful one. Last thursday Jonno Worthley arrived on my doorstep for our weekender to Amsterdam. Before setting off, however, we had to warm up the engine, so to speak, by having a few big nights out in Dortmund. The thursday was rather uneventful, but the friday quickly decended into a night of drunken revelry after the bulgarians from our building decided to join us on our pub crawl. The thing is about bulgarians is that they like to drink, and drink well. We went to various places and I found myself at 530 in the morning in a filthy, twisted parody of a punk club, full of acid-washed denim clad, safety pin wearing, german style punks, all rocking out to the dead kennedys. I think I may have stood out a little, with my white shoes and polo shirt... anyway, we managed to get on the train the next morning for the 2.5 hour trip to amsterdam, which was spent drinking coffee and being interrogated by funny sounding dutch border guards.

Once in Amsterdam, after meeting up with the 8 or so other people we were going to be staying with, we got a tip from a random person on the street that there was a legendary nightclub hidden in the eleventh floor of the decrepit old Amsterdam central post building. So after a few preliminaries, we wandered about the middle of the city until we found what looked like the building. It was quite strange, walking into a seemingly deserted building, and being told by seemingly the only person around that there was a 10 euro cover charge. We decided to bite the bullet and caught the 1960's style warehouse lift up to the eleventh floor to be greeted by what can only be described as a magnificant nightclub. With perhaps 1000 people on the 11th floor, with a massive dancefloor, a chillout room with very luxurious beanbags, and a stunning view over the city lights, this was a club that put anything we have in adelaide to shame. Anyway, as the night wore on, and we were finally kicked out of 'Elf' at about 5 o' clock, jonno and I managed to lose everybody in the winding back streets, before asking a kindly chap if he knew where another nighclub we had heard of was. He cheerily offered to help us for the cost of 5 euro, and we cheerily told him to g.f before walking over the street to pull up stumps and get a tram home. Before leaving he told us that he was also going home, and waved at us with a cheeky smile before dissappearing into the ether.

Just a few moments later I patted my pants and jacket only to realise that the filthy street urchin had relieved me of my wallet. By this time he had melted into the shadows, and to make matters worse, in true cartoon style fashion, the heavens opened up and we were caught in an absolute downpour, with one missing wallet and no idea how to get home. Well, we did eventually get home, and I didn't let that little lesson in life's school of hard knocks to ruin my weekend. I borrowed some money from my friend Idle Pete, and we carried on. The strange thing was, on a canal cruise on our last day there, we saw a very flash looking street urchin with a cheeky smile and quite new looking threads waving at us from the water's edge.... At least he didn't have a brand new hat with a long peacock feather in it... That may have been too much.

Anyway, after quite an eventful weekend we arrived back in dortmund just in time for the traditional tuesday night piss up in our cellar bar. After the expenses of Amsterdam, there's nothing quite like half litre beers all night long for 1 euro. I managed to get dad to wire some of my money from aus into my dortmund account, and now I have another week in which I have little to do except sit around my student house, drinking 1 litre beer cans from the servo and 1.5 litre bottles of sangria, which both cost the equivalent of about a buck fifty australian. The only interesting thing is that I am not exactly sure when I will actually get my first pay cheque, all I know is that it could be as early as this week, or as late as the end of the month. If it is anything less than two weeks, I can live like a king, anything more, and I will be eating pumpernickel and boiled dumplings until my german taxpayer funded goose lays its golden egg in my account...

Cullinary Delights 29/09/05

2005-12-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

All is well in the land of big beers and sausages. I'm just finishing my second week at the school here in dortmund, and am about to have 2 weeks' holiday. The thing that has struck me most about the food here is the quality of the kebabs. Let me talk you through the German Döner Kebab...
First of all one takes a rather large chunk of turkish pide bread, which is then toasted gently and sliced in half. Your choice of succulent tender pieces of spit-roasted beef or chicken is then lovingly laid in generous proportions inside. Here is where the magic happens... Garlic and chilli sauce of the highest middle-eastern quality is ladled on top of the meat, followed by your rudimentry kebab vegetables of onion and lettuce. In addition to this, the cheery turkish chap will then stack sweet corn, finely chopped cucumber and tomato on top of this creation, then top it off with fetta cheese and a jalapeno pepper to boot. The result, my friends, is a veritable flavour sensation, that leaves you with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside... all for only 3 euro. As you can imagine, I have become somewhat of a fixture at the local turkish grill. The food aside, I have been enjoying myself by spending as much time as possible outside of my seedy student house.
Last week I went to the soccer with one of the teachers at my school, and thoroughly enjoyed myself, I don't know whether it was the quality of the play and atmosphere inside the 85000 seater stadium or the 1 litre beers that most appealed to me... The important thing is, Dortmund won, and I got drunk... Everyone's a winner! So I've now got 2 weeks off, during which I had originally planned to go to the oktoberfest. However, the 200euro train tickets to Munich and back didn't quite appeal to me. Instead I've taken the cheaper option, and am going to Amsterdam for a couple of days, with a few crazy English assistant teachers, and Jonno Worthley. That should be fun. Aside from that, I am taking it as it comes, with the world being my oyster for the next two weeks. Anyway, I'm off to lunch now, I'm thinking I need somethig warm and hearty... maybe another kebab... I hope everyone is doing well, and hope to hear from you soon.

Week 2 19/09/05

2005-12-02T04:47:00.000-08:00

Hello to everybody out there who cares.
Everything is starting to settle down over here. I moved into my Studentenwohnheim on Friday, which is a seven storey sharehouse with about 180 people living there. There are people from all over the world on my level, with the majority coming from syria and bulgaria. There really is not much difference between these people, as the syrians smoke apple tobacco through their crazy arabic water pipe, and the bulgarians smoke apricot tobacco through their crazy arab water pipe. Following this, they sit around and have animated conversations in their native tongues, to which all I can do is nod and smile..Anyway, this building is in a very cool part of Dortmund, where loads of young people live. It is close to various shops, and a short walk from some very groovy pubs. Every tuesday they have a party in the cellar, where there is a fully stocked bar. They charge 1 euro for a half litre beer, which I think could be quite dangerous... Good thing my free day looks like it will be wednesday.

I made quite a lot of friends at my orientation course, most of whom are english people doing the same job as me as part of their language degrees. This weekend we are all meeting up in Düsseldorf for a a bit of a pub crawl. There are so many cities in the Ruhr valley that are so close to one another, it's like a giant metropolis of about 10 million people, but with each city having it's own unique character and breweries. The teachers at the school are also very nice, one of them has organised to take me to the soccer tonight to watch Borussia Dortmund play. This team is absolutely masssive and is the heart and soul of the city. Every single homegame they pack over 80 000 people into their Westfalenstadion, even when the team is not doing too well like they are this year. It should be a blast, they pack even more people into the German league games, because unlike for European and International games, where stadiums must be all seaters, terraces are still allowed to be used at Bundesliga games. I'm hoping that I'll be in the seething mass of drunken Germans for tonight's game...

My first week at school has been going quite well. I basically spend most of my time standing in front of english classes talking about Australia, and answering questions from the kids. Most of the questions so far have been the predictable shark/kangaroo/poisonous reptile ones. By the end of the week I think I'll be able to draw a map of Australia with all of the towns and inlets with my eyes closed. Every now and then, however, you get a curve ball like 'what is the situation regarding the relationship and integration of the Aborigines?', which generally is the sort of question that you could devote hours to, and it is quite hard to give a simple 2 sentance answer in simple english so that the students can understand.

Week One 11/09/05

2005-12-02T03:42:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am, the first day of a 10 month stint as an English language assistant teacher in Germany. I just spent 28 hours in transit, managing to squeeze 3 hour's sleep mashed between a big fat tatooed dane and a perculiar smelling indonesian... at least when i landed in Amsterdam I found out that adelaide had beaten port handsomely on sat night in the AFL semi. Unfortunately there are very few port supporters here to goad about the result...

It is surprisingly humid here in Cologne, very much like the weather in Sydney in April. So, after meeting my former student exchange partner Hannah at the airport, we set out for a walk around town, sampling a few Kölsch beers here and there. Kölsch is a type of beer unique to the city that is full strength, but so sweet is almost tastes like lemonade. Anyway, after knocking back a few of these I spent my first night in Germany in a youth hostel, with my roomie being a funny japanese guy who spoke about as much english as i do japanese, he was pretty cool, though, and taught me a few cheeky pick up lines in japanese. Our conversation over breakfast was sort of like pushing shit up hill until we started talking about soccer. I think it went along the lines of: Me: Nakata, he is a good player. Roomie: Yes, very good. Roomie: Harry Kewell. Me: Yes, also a very good player, but is always injured. Ahh the world game...

This afternoon I'm off to boot camp at Stalag 13, or something like that. Should be interesting.... at least i'll be able to meet some other english speakers there. Basically this week long camp is used to tell everybody what is expected of them at their schools and what they can and can not do etc. I'm looking forward to getting up to Dortmund on Friday, apparently my room has been furnished and is ready to move into. This weekend I'm going to see Hannah's little brother play a gig at some pub near Dortmund. When I was last here he, although being just 15, could play all of One by metallica including the solos, so his band may be worth listening to.

So, after lugging all of my crap for my 10 month stay across the Rhine to the Hauptbahnhof, I saw a seething mass of about 180 people, mostly from the UK but with a few Irish and Canadians milling around the foyer area. After waiting for a while, we were all bundled into busses and driven to an old monastry in the sticks somewhere outside of Cologne. Of course, with my first day at this camp coinciding with the first time in 20 years the English have actually beaten us at Cricket, the poms couldn't resist having a dig at me whenever possible. All I could come up with was something along the lines of 'One swallow doesn't make a spring.' Naturally I spent the first few days there mostly in the company of the Irish and Canadians.

Anyway, the week went by quite smoothly, with the best part being the fact that they ran a bar every evening with half litre beers for 1 Euro. Naturally, I was quite keen to take part in the night time proceedings, and managed to get to know quite a few people, mostly from the Universities of Nottingham and Leeds. The most interesting evening of the week was definitely the last, when everyone got incredibly drunk, with some of us pulling all nighters due to the 2 hour rule. For those not familiar with this rule, it is a policy used when one is very drunk and must get up very early. Generally if you have to get up in less than 2 hours, you will feel worse the next day if you get less than 2 hours' sleep than you would if you stay up all night. So basically, breakfast at 6 in the morning was quite an interesting affair, with quite a lot of bleary eyes and stumbling drunks trying to force down coffee before travelling various distances to different cities in Germany.

I myself had to travel 1 hour north to Dortmund, and I caught a train with a Northern Irish girl by the name of Laura who was going to be working in Bochum, a town about 10 minutes from Dortmund. Basically, the whole day was a bit of a blur, with me desperately trying to stay awake on the train so I didn't wake up 2 hours later somewhere in Holland, with a crazy eyed Dutchman smoking a ciggarette, leering at me from the seat opposite. Luckily I stayed awake, and got off at Dortmund, to be picked up by Kathrin, the head of English at my school. Kathrin took me on a brief drive around the city before taking me to my student apartment building, where I unloaded all of my stuff before heading out to lunch with her. How I managed to hold up a conversation with her in German for over an hour while not falling asleep in my curried rice is beyond me.

Anyway, my first evening in my student flat was spent talking to a bunch of Syrians, who were the only people to be found on my floor, due to the fact the uni semester hadn't yet started. They were quite welcoming to me, sharing their meal with me before smoking shisha for the rest of the night out on the landing. While this was all very nice, I had to excuse myself at about 9 o clock to go to bed, due to the fact I hadn't slept in over 36 hours.