München

Okay, so I´ve since thought the better of my tasteless reference to concentration camps in my last post but I leave my folly published so that you might see an improvement in my character. Or not.
I will just say on living conditions, that I am disappointed by the caravan parks in Germany since Köln. The one we have here in München (Munich) is another piece of it: the "shower" in a shipping container is just a tap coming out of the ceiling at full bore and cost 1.20 Euro for seven minutes (that´s about 2 dollars Aus). Coming as it does on top of 24 Euro for the night, it was around 30 Euro to stay and clean, around $50 Oz which is right up there in what we have paid so far. Again the electricity box was locked and the meter read before we were plugged in - I wonder if the price of electricity in Germany is very high, they just seem to make a fuss over it. Mind you, they didn´t in Köln so... I´m heartily sick of having to pay up to 1 Euro to go to the toilet just about everywhere, all the highway roadhouses, a number of restaurants and cafes in France and Germany. Not in Amsterdam that I recall.
I turn now to more pleasant goings on; forgive my bitch but a decent shower, toilet and cup of coffee are absent today which makes Sidgirl a VERY dull girl.
After the disappointment of Osnabrück, we drove down to Linden, around 60km north of Frankfurt. Here we caught up with Anya and her kids Nicholas and Evelyn. (Anya was married to Michael Nelson and lived in Adelaide for around three or four years). It was lovely to catch up and Anya took us for a picnic to a tower on a hill up above the village. We all rode pushbikes and the kids (4 and 2 1/2) rode in the "chariot", a contraption that Anya joined to the back of her bike. There were great views and it was picturesque to the extreme and a lovely contrast with Osnabrück. There were farmlands all around and harvest was very near of the wheat, possibly barley. We started off again on the bikes for a Roman fort which used to be the line between the Roman and erm, another empire, when Jason´s bike broke down such that the back wheel was completely stuck. So Alex rode on ahead to get back to the van so we could get tools and/or be picked up and he got lost, ending up in the next village. We set him to rights and now it was almost dark. At the little fort though was a little campfire surround, so we gathered wood from the nearby trees and, using an A4 piece of paper (indeed an invitation of Nicholas´s to a birthday party!) made an extremely agreeable fire while we waited. As we had plenty of food and drink with us, there was no drama and in the end we parked the motorhome alongside and stayed the night. Apart from the interruption of a combine harvester which, had a rather large trench not been between us, we were in danger of being harvested ourselves (and this at midnight!) it was a peaceful time. Much more peaceful than the next morning when the kids awoke at 6am and played with the stereo. And came at me with a lit torch to wake me up. I will not pretend to be a morning person, indeed there are those among you who will attest heartily to the fact that I am the complete opposite, but the kids were so sweet that I was soon able to forgive them their boisterousness (is that a word?) and give them whizzies and hugs. I did learn a couple of german words from little Evelyn like Ungfung (which is begin, especially within the context of food!). Nicholas still speaks very good English as well as German.
After much cake and showers, we hit the road again and drove for around five hours, heading for München. I´ve no idea of the town where we eventually stopped down the end of a dead end street, drew up all the blinds and expected an official knock on the door at any moment to move us on from the non parking zone. This was after our unsuccesful attempt to stay in the clearing of a forest - a gameskeeper moved us on from the hunting ground. Well I guess a parking inspector is better than a 12 gauge!
No such calamity befell us however and moved on very early for München. We stopped at Dachau and walked through the former concentration camp (now do you see why I am grown humble?). It was not unusual to find people wiping their eyes as they moved through the camp and museum and unfortunately it was not usual to see people smilingly posing in front of memorials and the famous gates but I leave their feelings and actions to their own reflections. Suffice to say it was moving and mostly devoid of hysterical emotion in its presentation.
On to München, a short drive from Dachau and last night we went into town. Having armed ourselves with some lonely planet eateries, eventually found our way to the Fraunhofer, a restaurant come beer hall which was loud, pleasant and smoky. Ordering food was made a little easier by a one page dictionary they supplied with the menu and though a number of things on the menu had no definition, we were able to stay away from the ox face and unnecessary parts of swine. I ordered something that I sort of expected to be like a gnochi cabonara but was more like a spanish omlette with dumplings. It was tasty though. And Jason had the best steak we´ve seen. I say this in the light too of Köln where Arna and I´s medium rare steaks came without a trace of pink.
We are off exploring München in our own ways today, meeting back at the Marienplatz in time to hopefully see the town hall play the glökenspiel and spin around the little scene of happy dancing Germans, a bit like a giant cuckoo clock or musical box. There´s some fab gothic architecture around. Most of the shops are closed today (it being Sunday) though no one is laughing. We´re sure the shopping hours lobby said we´d be the laughing stock of the world if we didn´t allow the big shops to open on Sundays. Well they don´t open on Sundays and sometimes even Mondays in the countries we´ve been in. And still the tourists come.
We´ve not quite worked out the rest of our intinerary, though perhaps Vienna is next on the cards. We will then make our way back to the UK and probably meet up with Caroline and Nick in Scotland where the Edinburgh Fringe should give us plenty of distraction.
Till next time, folks.
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