Guten Tag from Deutschland!

I have been pleasantly surprised by Germany. I did not have very high expectations coming here. I am not exactly sure why, but I have not had much desire to travel through Europe. I suppose one reason might be that it is a place everyone seems to want to go to, I suppose I like to sometimes go off the beaten track. I had it in my head that it is just full of towns and cities without much culture. I know that may shock some as many see Europe as the center of culture. I have wanted to visit Italy and I do really want to get back to Scotland, so I have not been completely against Europe, just not very strongly for it. With that being my opinion I added Europe more to my itinerary to visit a few friends and to visit Italy. Now that I am here in Germany, I just want to see and do more! I can even see myself living here some day. I suppose I might need to learn a bit of German. The German and English language are similar in a lot of ways, so perhaps I could pick it up, haha. Although, if I am not careful I may see myself living in all of the places I visit on this long jump home of mine.

I have been quite tired on this leg of my trip. Weather it is jet-lag, fatigue or who-knows what it has necessitated is a leisurely week through Germany. I have only set out to see a portion of the south-west area of this country, so that is all I have seen. I hear the east is quite a bit different, so we will have to come back and see that sometime in the future. I started in Trier, a town about 3 hours southwest of Frankfurt, visiting my friends Eric & Michelle. I spent the weekend with them & enjoyed a few strolls through their lovely city and through the hillside. After Trier I headed out to explore the southwestern area of Germany. I started from Trier stopped in a few towns and went on through to Neustatdt, Heidelberg, a small little town Moselkern, Kolbenz, Colonge & on to Bonn.

I really enjoyed sitting on the trains between towns and watching the lovely German scenery go by. There is not much distance between the villages as you go along, maybe 10-20kms. Most of the trains followed the river through the green covered hills that spread across the southwest of Germany. Most of the trees change loose their leaves for the winter, I can only imagine the colours of the hills during the autumn. I hear that is looks quite barren and dead during the winter. Many of the steep hillsides have been cleared for vineyards. Most look very hard to access, I wonder how difficult it would be to get to the vines during harvest time.

Unfortunately most of the German food has pork in it. Since I do not eat any pork it makes eating out a bit more tricky, especially since I do not know the language. Although with that being the case it has been nice to see bagels, pretzels & hot dogs all around again. I have missed these being in Austrlia for the past few years. I have not had a pretzel or hot dog since being here, but it is just nice to see them around again. :)

In my travels here I have climbed up a many a hill & seen a number of Schloss' (similar to a castle, just smaller), castles, and churches. I have really enjoyed these trips and the nice walks through the centres of the non-touristy villages along the way. It has been so nice and relaxing!

After visiting some new friends in Bonn, Yako & Claire, I headed back toward Trier with Eric. On our way we stopped into his dad's place for a little while, which is in Belgium. So I have now driven through a portion of Belgium. It was interesting to me that just as we crossed the border I started to see a difference in the appearances of the houses.

Well I am in Italy now, and am loving driving in this country!! I had a couple days of rain and gray skies in Germany and it seems the rain has tried to follow me. Although here in Italy the sun seems to come out soon after the rain, which is nice. I have lots to say about my trip here to Italy already, but I will save Italy for the next blog entry.

Oh, and a while back I was able to upload some photos from my trip around Australia. You can check them out on Facebook if you so desire. With my limited internet encounters I am bit behind on uploads & such.