So, the next place I stayed at in Germany was my great aunt Monika’s house in Bielefeld, which is wear my mum was born. Her house it quite big, three floors and I had the third floor all to myself. This included a bedroom, another room that I didn’t really use and a bathroom. It was ace! I was left to my own devices at night and could basically get up whenever I liked, and there was breakfast waiting for me when I finally decided to trudge downstairs. Monika is my Oma’s late brother’s wife. He died in 2006 from a sudden heart attack and I don’t think Monika is over it, which is understandable. I'm really sad I didn't get to meet Alfred.
My room, all neat and tidy! Just wait...
Monika, her son-in-law Thomas and his daughter Judith met me at the train station. Judith, who is 12, was so cute; she liked to try to impress me. In my first two days of being in Bielefeld she’d shown me how she does flips, how flexible she is (she does gymnastics), her swimming, painting and the fact that she is learning Latin. Adorable. Her brother, Lucas is 15 and a little hermit. He sits on his computer and plays video games or has his ipod constantly in his ears.
Monika’s sister Renata went out with us quite a lot, which was appreciated as she is the most fluent in English and made any language problems that much easier to deal with. She lived for three years in Namibia and the Canary Islands and that’s how she learned English. How random. I saw different parts of Bielefeld and outside Bielefeld; a place called Münster, which is where Renata lives with her husband. Went to the markets there and I bought a ring. I love it. I bought a ring last time I was in Europe from Edinburgh so I was looking for one for this trip. I keep looking at it; you’d think I’d received an engagement ring or something! I’m not really into earrings or necklaces; I do rings. And now it can replace the cheap Diva ring I had, which was leaving green marks on my finger.
Some building in Münster. Very pretty town.
So I’ve discovered this awesome drink called Malz Bier – or malt beer for you none German folk. Betchya couldn’t work that one out. Tomorrow we’re having Reibekuchen, which is basically potato pancakes. My Oma in Australia makes them and I said I love them so Monika is making them tomorrow for Judith, Lucas, the family and myself. Yay! They’re awesome.
Germans are big on lunch and then have a small dinner, so lunch is like your biggest meal of the day. Second day in Bielefeld we had dumplings with blueberries. This is what it looks like and it was delish!
Yum!
Monika and Renata were showing me albums of my mum and auntie Monika (mum’s twin) and boy, do I look like mum when I was little, but then as I got older my face changed and now I look so much like Monika… and apparently sound like her which is terrible because auntie Monika has a bit of a squeaky voice. I think I’ll need to work on making my voice a few tones lower. Oh well… The French girl I met at my last hostel said my Australian accent is very beautiful. How funny. Maybe she mixed up the word ‘beautiful’ with ‘ocker’? But I have to agree with Monika; I do look much more like my aunt than my mum, much to my mother’s dismay. So the album goes on to show their wedding photos, which I have already seen obviously, then there are pictures of my brother when he was a baby… and none of me! Pictures of me when I was a baby are still in a pile, as Monika hasn’t got around to putting them in the album. What a joke.
There were also pictures of my mum, her sister and Oma and Opa living in barracks when they first came to Australia. When Europeaners moved to Australia they lived in a sort of detention centre for, I have no idea how long for but I remember mum mentioning it.
I met Monika’s daughter Claudia who is my cousin. She speaks quite good English but sometimes her choices of words are a bit off which is really funny. I really like her. She’s going to be in Berlin when I’m there and we’re going to meet up. She’s in her forties but really cool, not old and boring at all. Her sister Dagmar is really lovely, but very quiet and not very exciting, while Claudia has more spunk. And she loves Harry Potter, which is all you really need for me to like you. She is a social worker and works in a hospital with the elderly and young people who are very ill and dying. She says she loves social work, but hates where she is working now. She said she would like to work with kids and teenagers but thinks she is too old, which is ridiculous. Who else is going to work with them? You need people who aren’t total stiffs to interact with kids and teens; otherwise it just doesn’t work. I remember the school counsellor at Seven Hills High was so uptight and just not a very nice person; I would never have dreamed of going to her about my problems.
So Sarah arrives tomorrow and stays with me at my tante Monika’s house for the night. I’m super excited! Finally, I get to speak English at normal speed! I was talking to Lucas today about music and I lost him for a little bit because I started speaking too fast. I was telling him about how when I was 15 I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts so I would lie to my parents and say my friend’s older brother was taking so I could go. Hrmm, perhaps I shouldn’t be passing these stories on to the young and impressionable…
Me trying to pack. Decided to take the suitcase and leave behind the backpack at my aunt's. It is SO hard trying to cull clothes! I look so overwhelmed.
Well moving on because I want to write about Greece!
So the plane ride to Athens was interesting. I was seated next to Kristi and I freaked out a little... okay I freaked out a lot. I was clutching her hand when we were landing and saying a silent prayer in my own atheist way. I hate flying. I do it, but I hate it. I usually just put my ipod on and try and block out the engines, occasionally taking them out to make sure they're still running. You know what I blame? Air Crash Investigators! I love the show, it's so addictive, but I really shouldn't watch it because all I can think about is how that one little strip of metal brought the Concord down. I tried my breathing exercises I'd been taught but all they did was make me light-headed due to the lack of fresh air, so I opted for some red wine instead... and it worked. Red wine 1. Planes crashing zero.
So Athens... Acropolis beautiful; Athens not so much. It's pretty ugly to be honest. The area near our hostel was incredibly touristy but filled with many different people from many different countries. We went through the Acropolis which was quite the hike, but amazing to say the least.
Yep, we climbed all the way up to the top!
Best. Photo. Ever
After being almost blown off the top of the Acropolis and getting lost coming down, we then went back to the hostel, showered and then headed out for a lovely Greek meal next to our favourite new friend, the Acropolis. But something we noticed is that in Greece, it's really hard to get the bill! We sat for close to an hour waiting to get our bill. Not that I minded. It was such a gorgeous night and we had some really cute cats sitting near us. Cats are everywhere in Greece by the way, well everywhere we went. Not that I mind, I love cats. I still miss Meggsie. As soon as I settle down (and who the hell knows when that will be), I'm getting a cat when I have my own place! A cute little ginger kitten.
Dinner with our friend, the Acropolis
Love this photo of Kristi. Too cute.
Our little feline friends. Just chillaxing.
So the next morning we had a few dramas in that we thought we were getting picked up to go to the port to catch our ferry at 6am when in fact they were coming at 12pm. Apparently the reception staff at our hostel were meant to give us our ferry tickets which had the times on them when we arrived... but they didn't. So we woke up 6 hours earlier than necessary. Much to my surprise I actually wasn’t the cranky, morning bitch that I usually am. Perhaps because I was so worried we weren’t ever going to make it to the Greek Islands and I was ready to sit on the beach, drink cocktails and burn my pasty skin to a crisp. But European sun doesn’t count. It has an ozone layer!
OH, and the day before there was the most obnoxious Australian girl at the hostel. We were sitting in the courtyard and all we could hear was this girl going on about how she isn't a conformist and she was wearing what Avril Lavigne wears way before she became famous, and how Goths are kidding themselves if they think they’re individualists when they all dress the same. Err, it's called a sub-culture. Then she was saying things like, "Oh, I just love travelling. Just being free and moving from city to city and meeting people you never usually would." Which is all well and good and I actually agree, but coming from her it just sounded so wanky. Ugh. I walked away and went on the net because I couldn't stand listening to her anymore, and yet, because her voice is so loud, I could still hear her!
So fast-forward, we get on the ferry and it takes about 6-7 hours to get to our first island Paros. It's really peaceful on the ferry with nothing surrounding you but the Mediterranean and the distant outlines of islands. By nighttime it was pretty chilly and we were bored. Kristi and I resorted to playing clapping games and trying to teach Lauren how to play, ‘Sor macca dora’ (no idea what the real spelling is) but she wasn't really into it. Then Kristi and I tried to perfect our, ‘Down by the banks (of the hanky panky, where the blue frogs jump from bank to banksy... and so on...) and what else, singing songs we sang as a child, quoting Disney movies. It was good fun!
Waiting patiently on the ferry.
When we FINALLY reached Paros we were greeted by a legion of fans! Actually it was just a huge foray of people trying to get our business. "Camping anyone?" Err... no. Though actually would like to go camping while here in Europe. Whilst in the taxi on the way to our hotel we couldn’t see anything as it was so dark and we were also pretty beat by the time we got there so we didn’t feel like having a look around. We were given two rooms for the night and then the next night we were to move to another room with an extra bed. So Lauren took one room to herself, while Kristi and I shared a room and we all slept soundly from a long, long day.
Next morning I wake up, head for a shower and then hear Kristi sing out and say to come and look at the view! Thinking she is being sarcastic, that we actually have a lovely view of a brick wall, I slowly retreat from the bathroom only to find the view from our balcony looks a little bit like this:
I could live like this. I really could.
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