Octoberfest - Munich, Austria; Innsbruck & Switzerland

Munich, Germany - Octoberfest

We awoke early and Bren, Alison and I farewelled Mim and Brian and headed to the airport, boarded a plane and headed to Germany. We landed in Munich and made our way to our lovely hotel. Bren was able to score a room at the Munich Novotel at a discounted rate as part of his staff travel benefits. So amongst the high flying businessmen and wealthy holiday makers, we checked into the Novotel with our backpacks. We spent the afternoon meandering through Munich checking out the city, looking for lederhosen to buy/rent and looking for a suitable spot to buy pork knuckle. Lederhosen were much to dear to buy, and we couldn’t find a rental company, so instead we bought hats (almost as good, surely). We got our pork knuckle and our Bavarian steins and headed to a beer hall in central Munich. The place was huge, several hundred people were drinking beer the way only Germans can. We met up with Helen, Tamara and Diana and drank the night away.

The next morning we made our way to the festival. Octoberfest was like a theme park for grownups. There were many rides, carnival games and food stalls selling the very best of Bavarian cuisine; surrounding tents the size of football fields filled with drunken folk from across the globe. I was in heaven. We moved from tent to tent trying to find space to sit. Most tents filled up fairly quickly, so at lunch time we were struggling to find seats. But we eventually secured a spot that was our home for the afternoon. The girls, Alison, Bren and I drank stein after stein, and made new friends throughout the day. We seemed to be the minority in the tent, as most were locals, and funnily enough, the 4 pretty girls attracted their fair share of attention. At one stage we had a huge group of Italians surrounding our table, a number of Americans, English and of course Germans. Tables usually hold 10, our group was 6, but I think we had at least 25 people (mainly guys) for most of the day. We continued to drink, we ate roast chickens, snorted minty snuff and listened to Bavarian folk bands until the ugly lights came on and they kicked everyone out.

The following day everyone was a little rough, and it took us a bit longer to get organised. We headed to the festival in the afternoon and tested out some funky rides, and inspected various tents trying to find a suitable spot. We gave up after the 8^th consecutive tent was full and went and sat with the girls and a couple of fellas they had befriended the previous day. The day unfolded much the same way as the day before. After an afternoon of sitting outside drinking we migrated inside and squished into an otherwise full table. We met some new people, learnt some German drinking songs, danced and sang until again the “man” kicked us out. We missed the last train home so we ate McDonalds and caught a cab home.

The following morning was Alison’s birthday. I was feeling a bit sickly – and I had been ill for a number of days, if not weeks. The drinking, poor diet, lack of exercise and sleep for the past few months was catching up with me, so I wasn’t much company to Al on her birthday. Bren and the girls went out for a birthday lunch and a few drinks, while I lay in bed like a sack of potatoes. I hadn’t moved when they returned 3 hours later. We had promised Alison a special treat for her birthday, and so in the afternoon we watched ‘Sex and the City 2’ in the hotel room. It was awful. In the evening I was feeling mildly better and we went out for Japanese food.

The following morning we got up, packed our bags, had lunch and headed to the train station. We sadly bid farewell to Bren as he headed north to Frankfurt to fly home, and we headed south to Innsbruck, Austria.

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Innsbruck, Austria

We arrived in Innsbruck in the afternoon and travelled to our hotel where we stayed all night still trying to recover from the previous days of madness.

The following day we met with Diana, Helen and Tam and we ventured up to the top of the Nordkette(??). The snow capped mountain was gorgeous, and the view was amazing. The snow provided entertainment for everyone as we were able to make snow men and throw snow balls. As we weren’t really wearing appropriate cold weather gear/footwear we stayed only a short while before returning to sea level. We bid farewell to the girls, and toured about Innsbruck, a truly beautiful city. Al and I caught the bus to our hotel which was 20min out of town. It was dark when we arrived, and we decided to simply eat at the hotel.

In the morning we awoke to the sound of the church bells ringing only metres from our window. I opened the blinds to reveal a stunning view from our room. The small town of Patsch encircled by bright green fields, leading to the bases’ of the looming snow capped and intimidating Austrian Alps.

We wandered the small town, and although it was blue skies and sunny, it was bitterly cold. So we lazed about, read books, watched TV, caught up on bits and pieces and before we knew it was a again night time.

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Lucerne/Interlaken, Switzerland

We awoke and travelled to the train station and boarded a train to Lucerne, Switzerland. Lucerne was a really picturesque town, and it really felt like a town rather than a city. For 2 days we toured the sights and tried our best to not spend too much money. It was some time during our time in Switzerland – amongst the cold and rain, and ludicrously overpriced goods and services, that we made the decision that we would soon need to end our time in Europe as we simply could no longer afford to stay in places like Switzerland. So we decided that we would start making our way towards to London, and then move onto South East Asia to enjoy some sun shine and cheap living. So whilst we did our best to tour and admire Switzerland, through the rain, my mind couldn’t help but wander to warmer parts of the world.

We left Lucerne and headed to Interlaken. Interlaken had a really cool vibe. It is supposedly the adventure capital of Europe, and seemed to be a popular stop off for backpackers and thrill seekers alike. We would have loved to partake in all but a few of the activities on offer; skydiving, bungy jumping, rafting, canyoning, parasailing, the list goes on. Unfortunately for us, everything was more than a little overpriced. Everything was 2 or 3 times more expensive than back home – we decided we weren’t that desperate to part with our money. So again we wandered the town and tried our best to spend as little as possible. It was time to leave Switzerland. This presented us with our next hurdle. For the life of us we couldn’t figure out how to get out of Switzerland and into Germany cheaply. A train from Interlaken to Frankfurt was around €220, flying was not much different. Buses didn’t exist, and we looked at every possibility. Finally we discovered a ridesharing program that matches up travellers with drivers, and we were able to nab a lift from Bern (Switzerland’s capital only an hour from Interlaken by train) to Frankfurt for only €15. So we were chauffeur driven to our hotel door by a cool German fella named Markus.

Malta

Unfortunately this is where Nick and I said farewell to everyone but lucky for us we were on our way to Malta to meet mum, dad and Brendan. Although it was a huge 2 day journey with no sleep and an 11 hour stop-over in Barcelona; where we went back to our favourite places to eat and re-bought some lost jewellery.

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After 5 buses, 3 flights, numerous train rides and 2 cabs we made it to Malta and got to see Mum, Dad and Bren for the first time in 9 months. We had 10 days to catch up and it flew by. We had a three bedroom apartment so it was nice to finally unpack our bags and spread out.

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Our time in Malta was action packed and there wasn’t a minute wasted. We took a day trip out to the blue lagoon and paddled about, through caves of beautifully crystal clear water and “sandy bottoms” (Nick’s joke). We climbed aboard the ancient buses and made our way into the capital Valetta where we visited the war museum and went exploring through the old town. We also did a day trip to one of the other islands Gozo which was equally beautiful. On this island is the famous blue grotto (which has been featured in some James Bond type movies) and we took a little boat ride through the grottos. Absolutely picture perfect.

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We spent a day or two lazing around on the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean sea, numerous afternoons enjoying the sunset with a bottle or two of chisk (the local beer that dad loved). A couple of the nights Nick, Bren and I headed in to Paceville for a night out on the town only to be confronted by 14 year olds with awful haircuts and tight and skimpy clothes trying their best to make it inside clubs without the bouncer noticing. We had a great laugh, a great couple of night and woke up with headaches in the mornings.

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Mum, having lived in Malta, had family still living there, some she hadn’t seen since she was 8. So we did the rounds and made sure to meet them all and exchange stories about when mum was growing up. The majority of conversations were spoken in Maltese so Nick and Dad sat there drinking beers not knowing what was going on half the time. Mum wanted to visit where she used to live so we ventured out to Malsa on one of the days and saw her street and house that was still standing (just). Unfortunately the area was more than a little run down after all these years which was a little heartbreaking for her to see.

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We had some great meals and mum even cooked some of my favourites. We lived on pastizzis and couldn’t get enough of them – 25cents each and 3 times the size of the ones at home.

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Because we were so close we did a very long day trip to Sicily which was amazing and something mum and dad really wanted to do. We started out at 4 in morning to catch the ferry over there and didn’t return till after 12 that night. We jumped on a bus and stopped at some beautiful Sicilian towns and villages. We also drove to the top of the devastating volcano Mt Etna.

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We had an amazing time in Malta and it was so nice to see my family after all this time. I didn’t realise how much I missed them till I actually saw them. Unfortunately we had to say good bye but for not as long this time.

Turkey

After convincing Tim to pop into Turkey on his way to Egypt; Sarah, Tim and I made our way to Istanbul and landed two days earlier than everyone else, including Nick. Those two days were filled with walking around the sultanahmet (old city), Bazaar shopping, indulging in the Turkish cuisine and flavoured tea. The girls; Michelle, Katie, Tam, Diana and Monique arrived a few hours before Nick and a great deal of time was spent on the roof top bar of our hostel drinking beers and smoking shisha’s. This is where we met Henry and Piotr joined our gang.

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As a big group we explored Istanbul together and visited some of Turkey’s most famous sites ie, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Aya Sofia, Istanbul’s contemporary Art Museum and the underground Basilica Cistern. We ended up in Taksim one night and experienced Istanbul’s club scene which was cool.

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From Istanbul we ventured South and caught a flight to Cappadocia. Cappadocia is such an amazingly bizarre and beautiful region due to the volcanic layers and tufa erosion that has taken place over the centuries resulting in a landscape that portrays various unusual shapes and figures formed from rock. The locals call them “fairy chimneys” due to their tuberous house like shape but to us they somewhat resembled male genitalia. Centuries ago Christians found shelter in the fairy chimneys and carved houses out from the rock. Today these caves still exist and it’s quite amazing to see that hotels etc now occupy these dwellings.

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We heard the best way to explore the fairy chimney region was to hire quad bikes to get around the rough terrain and dirt tracks. Of course Nick and Tim went a little crazy and by the end of the four hours the girls looked like they had been swimming in a pool of dirt and dust. Check out the photos no words can really describe how surreal this place actually is.

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Once again we indulged in the amazing Turkish cuisine and treated ourselves to a night of food, loads of beverages and traditional skirt dances and belly dances.

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From Cappadocia we boarded an unending overnight bus to Olympus where we stayed in tree houses close to the beach. This was our chance to relax in Turkey and finally get to the sea. The tree houses felt like they were situated in the middle of nowhere, but there was plenty to keep us busy. We did have the most epic day when we hired a boat and a driver for the day and he took us to some beautiful secluded spots, uncharted territory, natural beauties and mountains. We had a very cheeky day filled with booze and excitement. Let’s just say it would have been the best day of Nick and Tim’s life. Most of the photos from this day probably won’t be posted.