Amsterdam

Coolest guys we could find in Dresden

Lost: Another towel (fortunately I have one of those large, middle-eastern-style scarves though)

Found: Another four kilos (yep, I’m a chubby-chub)

Anyway, what I meant to say (before my bum trip) was that after leaving Berlin, Michael and I rocked around Dresden for a while. We didn’t know where the good places to go out were, so we drank cheap beer on the streets before following the coolest looking people we could find, going to whatever venue they went to. This proved to be very effective.

We went from there to Bonn, which, in comparison to the awesome east of Germany, is rich and dull. Everyone has money and would like everyone else to know that.

And from Bonn, Michael went home to Sydney and I trecked on, alone once more, to Amsterdam.

One of my lovely photos of Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a city of bridges (there are over a thousand) and bikes (there are over a million billion). While it doesn’t boast spectacular panoramic views, it settles instead for everywhere being really interesting. In fact, the most fun thing to do there is just wander round and get lost. I think my record was about six hours during which I had no idea where I was.

I also had a good time with Pat Schneider’s Berkely mate, Emilie, hanging out at a sort of bohemian cafe/pub in one of the richer suburbs of Amsterdam. When she found out I was planning on

View from Emilie and my cafe (and from everywhere else in Amsterdam)

skipping dinner for financial reasons, she determined to take me out somewhere, right up to the point when she realised her wallet had just been nicked. She called her sister, who lived nearby, to borrow some money, but her sister had just had her wallet nicked as well. I bought Emilie dinner and gave her fifty euros to get by on. Not sure if I got done there. Probably should have said my wallet had just got nicked.

 

That's all for now.

Best,

Michael

Bum Trip

Just accosted by a guard on the train from Amsterdam to Gent, Belgium. Gave him my ticket, which he took. Apparently I hadn’t put the date on it yet. I hadn’t put the date on it the last four times I had used the ticket either, but nobody had so much as mentioned it then. I advised him of this. He advised that those trips weren’t on this train. He advised that I must buy a ticket. I advised that he was holding my ticket. He advised that I hadn’t put the date on it. I asked to have the ticket so I could put the date on it. He advised that I must buy a ticket. “To get my ticket?” “To get your ticket.”

I wanted to punch his face.

“I’m not buying my ticket. I’ve already bought my ticket.” “Then you get off at the next stop.” “Fine. Give me my ticket.” “When you pay for a ticket.” “How much is a ticket?” “Fifty-four euros.” “No. Give me my ticket and I’ll get off at the next stop.” “You come find me at the next stop.” He put the ticket into his pocket. I spat in his face and gripped his hair in my fist. I thought about bashing his face into the wall, but, oddly self-conscious, decided against it and released my fist, doing nothing. (Actually I went back to my seat.)

As the train slowed I jumped up, saddled up my pack and set out to find him. Standing on the station I asked for my ticket. “No. When you buy the ticket.” “I’m getting off. Give me my ticket.” “No.” He had got back into the train now and I had no choice but to force my way back on also, huge pack behind me stopping the door from closing. He tried, weakly to shove me back, but immediately moved backwards as I boarded and the train pulled away. “If you have a complaint you can make it at a station,” he ventured. “I can’t make a complaint while you have my ticket.” “You must buy a ticket.” “I have a ticket.” “Not a valid ticket.” 

“How much?” I inquired, suddenly cool. “Sixty-seven euros.” “It used to be fifty-four!” I threw my toothpick on the floor. “That was before the Hague. We have gone past the Hague now.” “Funny how you didn’t mention that before,” I spat, the anger rising in me physically again.

I wanted desperately to hit him but he gave no opportunity. He was passive in every way. He had a fat flabby body (larger than mine) and the fat around his jowls made his weak chin look nonexistent. On one side of his face he carried several moles and on the other a large ugly earring. Punching him would do no good. My fists would sink into his soft flesh maybe three times before his soft eyes would even react and I would be storming back to my seat before his pudgy little hands rose to defend himself. But the adrenalin raced around my head. I could feel it dancing millimetres below the surface of the skin on my face in my temples and jaw. I paid him the ticket, asking if he liked his job and whether he enjoyed the power of his position, but nothing sunk home. No rise at all. I felt smaller even than before. Ridiculous to fight this stupid man. Like hitting a child. Like hitting a girl.

Bum trip.

Berlin

Quote: “I already have an opinion. I don’t need to hear yours.” Michael, on why he doesn’t read the Sydney Morning Herald anymore


I arrived in Berlin to meet Michael, along with all my clothes (joy!), my laptop (oh sweet relief!) and my ipod (oh burning ecstasy!), but Michael was immediately distracted by some bad news:

Berlin's pretty cool (but it also knows it).

I was told by a lot of people that I’d love Berlin. In fact, I can’t think of a single person that said anything bad about it. I arrived, therefore, with  mixed expectations. Universal recommendations don’t sit well with me. (I didn’t really like Smells Like Teen Spirit and, try as I might, I just can’t get into The Wire.)

However, I couldn’t help but be excited by the historical elements of the city. Judith Kaye, a few weeks before I left Sydney and on my request, had given me a list of European highlights. She had prefaced it with the shrewd comment that it was intended for someone “interested in places where power had been wielded”. I’m not sure if I’m exalted or insulted by this insight into my personality, but I do agree with it. Berlin excited me as a place where power has been won and loss, and most specifically by Him, that (indeed, the) great villain of the 20th Century. The details of how reparations would be made for World War I might have been hammered out in Versailles, but convincing a nation that they deserved more and that they could have it happened here. All those speeches in beer halls, all those quiet, backroom conversations, all those hundreds of thousands of machinations - political, economic, social - all culminating in Hindenberg, finally and against his better judgement, handing Hitler the reins of power, not anticipating, even then, the scope of His intentions or the boldness with which He would pursue them, they happened here. This is where Stillenacht had happened and where He had declared World War II open for business (with a lie). And somewhere amongst this sprawling mess of graffiti-covered streets and train lines was a small plaque in a quiet parking lot, noting that this was the place where His body had burned. It was a heady feeling entering Berlin, even after all these years.


I arrived at the hostel at about 11 at night, put on a fresh shirt (for the first time in three weeks) and Michael and I went for a walk to see what we would see and I will admit now, finally, on my first night, that Berlin is, as my sources had universally informed me, a young person’s paradise. We were living in the east and the streets at this late hour on a Thursday night were brimming with young, hip szene-sters, decked out in the clothes that marked them out as belonging to that scene or to this one.

5 minutes walk away from the hostel, I search for the East Side Gallery

We didn’t go out that night, but we did the next three. Rising at midnight from bizarre late-evening siestas we joined the thronging masses on WarschauerStrasse, finding cheap food and cheaper alcohol before stepping onto trains filled with the same buzzing crowds, all on the way to hidden clubs around the city. I remember sitting next to a pretty young girl in a train one night who had a little dog in a handbag (and who I think was smiling at me), when all of a sudden five big lads, dressed in leather and chains and stinking of spirits and old tobacco, and each of their accompanying enormous rotweillers boarded our carriage. The five dogs immediately caught whiff of the petite hand-bag pooch and, as one, made straight for it. They were restrained by the German boys ripping them bodily out of the air using the chains around the dogs’ necks and slamming them against the wall at the end of the carriage where they had just entered. I won’t pretend that I didn’t flinch, but I maintain that when five big sets of fangs launch at you out of the blue, it’s not an irrational move. The girl not only flinched, but got the hell out of there, taking shelter at the other end of the carriage, while the boys started leering at her boisterously from where we sat.

“What are they saying?” I asked Michael, not taking my eyes off the now placid dogs milling about my legs.

“They reckon that their dogs may be suffering from, uh, temptations of the flesh,” responded Michael, laughing.

I leaned back and took a sip of beer, determined not to be phased by the incident, and glanced around at the other commuters who, to a one, happily drank and laughed along with us as we rattled on together.

Well of books at the Berlin Jewish Museum

We arrived home at about eight each morning after dancing the nights away and generally chasing down any shenanigans there were to be chased. Eight in the morning, I felt, was not so bad an effort, but we were outdone every morning by the nude Germans staying in our dorm. Without fail they would saunter in drunkenly at ten or eleven, get nude, smoke cigarettes and then go to bed, waking only if their awful, one-colour-jump-suit-clad girls came round to smoke and drink beer with them. How were they doing it? Where were they going? What clubs pushed that hard? There were always the sex-clubs, which did go well into the morning, but they really didn’t seem the types; huge, young, fresh-faced Aryan lads, with not a stitch of leather or latex between them (though, I realise now, not a stitch of anything else either). We never found out.


After three days and as the weekend wound down, we decided that a break was in order and that seeing Berlin in the daylight may be worthwhile. We visited (amongst other things) the Jewish Museum, in which the stories are told through the architecture and spaces themselves. We saw the Topography of Terror, a great outdoor exhibit, located in the remains of the cellar of what was once the SS Headquarters. We avoided Checkpoint Charlie. And then we got drunk again.

Michael considers life in a world that just don't make any sense

And I didn’t see Hitler’s plaque. I wanted to. (I still do.) But I agree with the Communists who made the decision not to put anything to speak of there. I agree that it shouldn’t be a shrine. But it still drew my thoughts for much of the time I was there. I want to see it, though I can’t imagine what I’d get out of doing so.

Berlin has historical depth, but at the same time it’s right up to date. It’s edgy and knows that it is. It promotes itself as edgy, like a punk that hasn’t put out an album yet (but it has). But that’s really what I like right now. In ten years, I daresay that I’d rather go have a bit of a lie-down, but right now I could spend a long time in Berlin, going to the same clubs, listening to the same music, getting drunk and scrounging cigarettes from the same girls, waking up at three o’clock the next afternoon to hang around quietly eating super-cheap pizzas and doner kebabs, waiting to do it all again. I’d like to think that maybe I will.

Thanks this week go to Michael for getting my luggage from Budapest to Berlin for me and to Charles and Nichi for some top-notch recommendations for eats and sights in Berlin.

Best to all,

Michael

Geneva

When we last spoke I was at the bottom of a mountain in a town called Mijoux. I had planned to stop to have lunch, but the town’s audacity at being at the bottom of yet another mountain was too much to bear and I deemed the place unworthy of my patronage.

About two hours hard climbing later, I unexpectedly turned a corner and found this:

Mont Blanc from the top of the last tall mountain in France

Perhaps the photo does not do justice to the size of Mont Blanc, but you can at least see that it is very pretty. And to come across one’s first snow-capped peak, sparkling in the sunshine, without (once again) any anticipation is a fun thing to do.

I descended down the other side of the mountain for a lazy hour or so as Lake Geneva and the city itself unfolded below me like a slowly approaching postcard, before arriving in Gex in the early evening.


I arrived in Geneva the next day to find that that it, like a bunch of European cities, is pretty good-looking. The water-front, I (as a born and bred Sydney-sider) will admit, is world-class and this, combined with the background of the Swiss alps, ensures that life in Geneva is a Kodak moment. It’s tourist-friendly and the infrastructure for visitors is very well-developed, from the water-side bike rental to the super-high-quality shopping that Geneva is famous for. It’s so well-developed, in fact, that for a backpacker it’s completely useless, apparently being four or five times more expensive than the French towns about 20 kilometres to the west. However, If you have reached an age where you appreciate quality in all things and have a bit of money, Geneva could just be the city for you.

I found a hostel to stay at, which asked 35 francs for the night without breakfast. That would probably keep me housed, fed and entertained for three or four days on the road through France, so I decided to go meet Charles and Nichi and then find somewhere to camp for the night and bugger the temperature.

I met them, but, as it turned out, I wasn’t the only one. Michael and Yvonne had also arrived to welcome them. They were a German couple who were living in Geneva due to Yvonne’s new position at the WHO and they had been married a week ago in Berlin. After introductions it was decided that luggage should be taken to Michael and Yvonne’s place, where Charles and Nichi were staying, and I announced that I would go work out my own accommodation arrangements and meet up with them afterwards.

Michael immediately suggested that I stay with them also. Having met him and Yvonne mere moments ago, I was rather taken aback at such a generous proposal. I glanced discreetly at Charles seeking his required approval, thinking that, with the alternative being camping by a lake in Geneva, the merest slimmer of consent would be enough for me to accept a bed for the night at least. Charles’ face expressed exactly no emotion and I took this to mean “absolutely not”.

“I couldn’t,” I said to Michael, “but it really is very kind of you.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem,” Michael said.

“Well alright then”, I capitulated, and we all went immediately to their very beautiful loft apartment before heading out for a drink at a bar on the waterfront.

The next few days contrasted starkly with my days of frugality in France. Michael and Yvonne were inimitable hosts and walking tours through the more interesting parts of Geneva interspersed either beautiful spreads at home or meals out, of which they would only grudgingly and at great effort accept any contribution towards (very large) costs, if at all.

The best part of these days however, was simply the company. After weeks of isolation of a sort, traveling alone in a country where my language skills were passable at best, the feeling of being with friends was a relief. Like coming home to relax after a week on holiday, nothing really compares to the comfort of the familiar.

_

After Charles and Nichi left for Italy, I once again struck out alone. There are two stories here. The first is that, as I had decided that Geneva was simply too expensive to be borne, I decided to get back on my bike for one last trip and headed into the mountains to a town recommended by Yvonne and which I knew had a camp-site. I rode most of the day and arrived at about seven at night in the pouring rain. It was about nine degrees and I was advised that it would get down to about two or three during the night. I reflected on the possibility of sleeping under a sheet of plastic in a wet sleeping bag in two degree heat and concluded that it wasn’t for me.

I tried to begin the ride back to Geneva back down the mountain, but the rain was too strong and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I decided that this also, was not for me. I took shelter in the first available building, a pub that offered the cheapest accommodation available in the town, 105 francs for the night, and I decided that this wasn’t for me. However, after chatting to a guy at the bar, I decided that catching a train back to Geneva was a possibility.

I got back to Geneva at about 9 and booked into a hostel that offered a bed and all-you-can-eat breakfast for 32 euros a night. I stayed for three nights and four days and entertained myself inexpensively by hanging out in parks like this, riding around the city and pretending to stay at other hostels so I could watch their movies for free. I also saved money by eating very big breakfasts and nothing else. If you eat a loaf and a half of bread with butter and honey, three bowls of muesli with yoghurt, two cups of orange juice, three cups of coffee and a banana for breakfast, you can easily get by ‘til the next morning.

-

The second story concerns how I sold my bike. I wasn’t ever really sure how this was going to happen and was optimistically hoping to get about half of what I paid in Paris (about the equivalent of 300 Swiss francs) back. However, by my last day in Geneva I didn’t have any good leads.

I did try going to cash converters, who offered me 50 francs if I had the receipt from when I bought it, which I didn’t. So, in frustration I went into a bookstore and explained my predicament to the American girl working there. She suggested I make an ad to put in the shop and maybe someone would call me. I didn’t like my chances, given that my train to Berlin left at 9 the next morning, but it was better than any of my ideas, so I gave it a shot. However, before I had made my placard, her co-worker (another US expat), wandered into the room.

She had run away from her home in New York several years previously, but now her bike wasn’t working so well. Espying an opportunity, we went outside to check out the bike and I offered it to her for 150 francs. She said that she’d like to try it out first and so I agreed to come back when the shop closed at 6:30, which I did.

We the people believe in dental hygiene

She liked the bike, but cried poor and we reduced the price to 130. I don’t know why she cried poor. I was leaving in the morning and the bike was not coming with me. The bike was hers and any money she gave me for it was in charity. After some tense moments she agreed to buy it and I left with 130 francs. Delicious. I walked back to my hostel and thought warm, loving thoughts of the huge breakfast awaiting me in the morning.

Thanks this time go to Michael and Yvonne who really went above and beyond the call of duty, I sincerely hope intentionally.

Best to all,

Michael

The Ride

This isn't actually my bike as it is too big. I found it at the top of a mountain

1.

I had been climbing steadily for the last two and a half hours up a mountain in the Jura region of France, 50 kilometres north-west of Geneva as the crow flies, when my bicycle rounded a bend and the road plateaued for the first time in what seemed an age. It was with some triumph and some relief that I flicked my gears out of the lowest three of the twenty-four settings for the first time since starting out that morning and cast a glance over my right shoulder at the mountainside that I had just conquered. I had had some indication that a change was imminent from the graffiti on the road a kilometre back - Go Lance Go! You are now leaving the American quarter. Have a nice day - but the satisfaction of having overcome yet another of what was surely a very few remaining obstacles on my path to Geneva came suddenly and felt good. I hadn’t done it quickly and I’d said some truly filthy things to the hairpin turns on my way up, but I was done and, for now at least, was sitting on top of the world.

I continued along the ridge for a pleasant while, perhaps twenty minutes, during which I wondered how far it could be to Mijoux - the town I had planned to find some lunch in - and what wonderful local produce could be found there. I had not had a really great cheese lunch for a few days (having recently discovered the delights of crepes) and, seeing the dairy cows filling the passing fields, I began to hanker for something strong. Maybe a blue cheese. Maybe even a small, smoky chevre might be nice with a fresh baguette that would surely be waiting in the boulangeries that would be reopening now, after their apparently mandatory, country-wide, two-hour break in the middle of the day. Perhaps there would be market and I could get fresh fruit. Who knew? I wondered what days they had markets around here, but then, realising that I couldn’t remember what day it was, concluded wryly that an answer to my question wouldn’t have got me far anyway. As ever, my only option was to ride on and find out when I got there.

Mountainous regions in the Parc du Jura near Switzerland

After a few short kilometres though, I was brought back to the present moment as a sharp left turn hugging a cliff-face signaled the beginning of a steep decline in the road. I rolled down the incline with a furrowed brow and after a few minutes concluded that the decline was not going to cease any time soon and began, once again, cursing the road in the foulest language, taking time to articulate in detail the depraved intentions I held for each of its family members. I knew there were at least 45 kilometres of road between myself and my destination for the day, the village of Gex, which would be a sizable, but manageable, task on good flat road, but to climb that distance was a different thing altogether. I squeezed on my breaks to complete the first of many hairpin turns with a heavy heart and sagging shoulders, reflecting that, on a bike in the mountains, what goes down must surely come up.



2.

I had seen on my travels maybe half a dozen castles, the odd cathedral and abbey, some really super natural spectacles - waterfalls, mountains and cliff formations - not even to mention the beautiful and elegant towns and countryside, when I began to feel the need to unwind a little and spend some time really relaxing, or did I?

Chateaux de Sully

Not that life was difficult in any way, mind you. I would wake at maybe 9:30 or 10 each morning and, after taking down my tent and loading my pack, I would find a boulangerie to have some breakfast. My day would then consist of perhaps five hours of leisurely riding, interspersed around a couple of hours of exploring the landmark or two I had chosen for the day, before seeking out a place to sleep.

Fontenay Abbey stands out (Or Does It?). I remembered it vividly from my childhood memories, though I had called it Redwall Abbey back then and it was inhabited by woodland animals wearing clothes and having adventures. It was all as I had imagined - the grand chapel, the serene gardens. Even the pond harvesting hundreds of big, fat trout was there.

And the Chateaux de Sully was great. The family living in it had been there for some hundreds of years, at least since the the French Revolution, they claimed. Apparently an ancestor, the Duchess living in the castle at the time, had died at an inopportune moment. However, a clever servant preserved her corpse in whiskey and propped her up in bed whenever the revolutionaries came by, thereby managing somehow to stop them sacking the castle of its owner and possessions and keeping the family’s fortunes intact. (Or Something. It’s All A Bit Hazy!)

But after a week or two of this I wished simply to relax and unwind. To speak English for once. So I decided to see a movie (AT LEAST I THINK I DID). But the only English movie showing was Inception, which I’d already seen (PERHAPS!) And it was only showing in French. So I had to see it in French. Which was ok and I could follow it, but really only because I’d seen it before (OR WAS IT ALL A DREAM AND I ONLY THOUGHT THAT I HAD SEEN IT BEFORE!!!???!!!)

This is a maze I actually got lost in

3.

Finally, the people were lovely. I remember only one occasion when someone pretended not to understand my French. I had asked where a boulangerie was. He explained that he couldn’t understand me, but before I could repeat myself, the woman standing next to him (presumably his wife) smiled and told me that it was just around the next corner.

Everyone I spoke to in cafes and bars along the way took great interest in the whole trip and went out of their way to tell me nice places to visit and give me directions to get there; the couple of farmers that I asked had no problem with me camping on their farms; and even the waiter who served me  a lump of raw mince, accompanied by a raw egg-yolk and some raw onion (also known as ‘tartare traditional’) was faultlessly graceful in his explanation of how the dish worked. (Basically, you mix it all together and eat it. It’s actually really good.)

Yet another great looking French town

But one act of kindness stands out. I had arrived in the town I was hoping to camp in late for some reason and had hoped to get some bread to go with the cheese I had bought for dinner. The boulangerie was already closed and the patisserie was out of bread, so I rode on. I came upon a creperie, and, while the door was half-shut and the place was clearly closed, there was someone still cleaning up. I asked the girl there if she had any bread I could buy and she came out a moment later with three quarters of an old baguette, which she gave me for free. We had a chat for twenty minutes or so (in English) at the end of which she opined that it was really too cold for camping (which it was) and that, seeing as her brother was away anyway, I should stay at her place, which I did. Had a great time and being inside and in a bed after those couple of weeks of being on the road was just marvelous.

Very, very generous.


Best to all,

Michael



Post-script: For those that would prefer a more direct approach, click this link for a map of the route.

(It looks much nicer if you click on the tab on the top-right of the map called 'More...' and then select 'Terrain'.)

I would have liked to have posted up photos taken along the way, but the task is apparently beyond me.

Distance traveled was somewhere close to 747 kilometres over 15 days, which comes to a pretty casual 50 kilometre per day average.