Saverne, France

Staying in a youth hostel inside a castle!! Got here this arvo just before the Karnival was starting. Totally not planned – especially as we have managed to just get the end of Karnival in Trier, Luxemburg City and Beaufort so far! Anyway since we were here on the right day for once we got to watch the parade – lots of gruesome witches, goblins, trolls etc and get a ton of confetti, straw and lollies thrown at us. And i seriously mean a ton! They even had blower machine for the confetti and people running around throwing handfuls down the back of anyone’s (who looked untouched) shirt!

The pic here is the view from our window in the hostel - only bad thing about the hostel was the same pretty church you see here had REALLY loud bells that rang at all hours

Metz, France

Spent 2 nights in Metz getting our first taste of France. My French is so bad that no one understands me even when i read directly out of the phrasebook!! I guess i’ve only been trying for a day tho so i should probably give it time :P Took aaaages to find the tourist office cos i saw on the one map i saw at the train station that it was in Place de Armes but asking people where this was was nigh on impossible! It turns out it isn’t very well known for one thing but more to the point i was pronouncing it totally wrong (and i tried lots of variations with each person we asked!). Eventually found it tho (its pronounced “plez darm” btw) then luckily one hostel was fairly close by. It wasn’t the one we wanted but the other was about ½ km more which was just too far for ve to walk with her pack ... and for me too come to think of it :P Tourist wise we looked around this awesome gothic cathedral (St Etienne) and wandered around town eating lots as always :) – sometimes seems as if we are eating our way around europe lol. Found a U-shaped food hall thing with cheeses and meats etc and boughts some cheeses that looked interesting and some cold meat that i thought was cheese cos we just saw the sign saying the “blah blah” whatever it was, was on special. Turns out it was some sort of smoked meat but it is rather tasty so who cares *grin* Even found a takeaway pasta shop which boils (like a deep fryer) your chosen pasta, then add your sauce and off you go – with soup with croutons as well of course :)

Beaufort, Luxembourg

Next spent 5 days in a little country town called Beaufort. Gotta say the language in Luxembourg is kinda tricky cos they speak Luxembourgish (of which i only know "hello"), then french, german, english, dutch or some variation thereof! I never even knew which language to attempt! Had fun trying tho and everyone is very friendly and helpful.

The pics here are from the beautiful (tho logged) forrest around the town. Also me looking like a cross between a cold, daggy bushwalker and a bankrobber :P

Took a few days to just veg and catch up on our reading, spent another day in a nearby town (on the german border) called Echternach which was nice and generally just hung around, ate lots and spent time at the local park which had an awesome flying fox (pretty sure it would have another name here tho ;)

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Meg: Spent a couple of days in a brand new youth hostel in Luxembourg City. It is a beautiful country filled with huge old city walls and church spires - kind of a fairy land we decided (very LoTR lol)

We explored the Casemates which are a section of the old city wall (which is pretty darn tall when you have to climb steps up it - the YH was at the bottom :P ) The tunnels went right down inside the wall with heaps of cannon holes to look out of. Ve absolutely loved all the dark winding tunnels (you sure wouldn't want to be claustrophobic!) - and we only stopped cos I got too tired!

The pic on the left is of one of the views from the top of the wall.

Trier, Germany

Spent the last 2 days in Trier in Western Germany which was absolutely fantastic! Full of old roman ruins which were just amazing. To give you some idea - Me (who hardly ever takes photos) managed to get over 60 in one day (with veras help). The one i have included here is of the amphitheater which was the tenth largest in the roman empire!! Also saw one lot of roman baths which had a whole labyrinth (sp?) of passages underneath which was very cool (in all senses of the word) to explore. Ve then spent an hour or 2 at the local playground proving you don't need to use language to have fun on the monkey bars with other kids.

Left Trier for Luxembourg this morning where i am really missing not being able to speak german cos we were getting pretty darn good - well relative to a week ago at least :)

last day in Frankfurt

Ulla and John with Vera in the Reine Valley Vera all rugged up in Frankfurt



















Ve:
Yesterday we had some crepes after the Jewish Museum and there were some little crocodiles swimming round in a tank and turtles and fish as well.
We saw some real Roman ruins. I can't believe they're still there. Although there was a silver drain which i'm sure didn't come from the real Roman times.

Meg:
Also went to the Jewish history museum which was interesting in parts, the Natural History museum with John (some very cool full size dinosaur bone exhibits) and lots of figuring out things in German. Had a good laugh when we couldn't work out which toilets to go into so asked some girls with lots of gesturing and "Herren? öder Dammen?" which they thought was hilarious :)

Off to Trier in Western Germany on the train this arvo - provided we can figure out the underground train to get there ;)

Frankfurt, Germany

<- On way to airport in Perth.

Meg:
After spending a nice week in Sydney catching up with the rels we are now finally, officially on our long awaited holiday!! Woohoo!

Am currently at internet cafe in Frankfurt, Germany (on a weird German keyboard) wearing my ski jacket and beanie - tho it is not all that cold to be honest. Only snow seen so far was a pile on the side of the road - which was about 50cm by 30cm. None the less Vera, our friends John and Ulla and I had a brief (cos we ran out of snow) snowball fight :)
We are still a bit jet lagged but after a VERY long day yesterday we are just about on local time.

Our German is improving rapidly and we have discovered a great way to get away from people selling and doing surveys in the street lol. Plus all that practice saying "i don't know how to speak German" comes in handy ;)