Whirlwind tour of summer part 2: Saarbruecken train trip

August: Saarbruecken - of all the dates to have a one day workshop on intonation it had to be my birthday. Really celebrated it in style. No actually I enjoyed the train trip a lot. And it got me out of doing Amsterdam with Richard and Mum BB which I likely as not wasn't up to with all the galavanting I'd already done (see part 1).

Finally got to catch the yellow lego train that I can see from my house (in the winter, when the leaves fall off the trees along the train line). Turns out the reason I never took it before is that it goes to a little place called Venlo of very little significance apart from being on the German border. That took an hour or so and then I changed to a German lego train. Finally after many hours of passing through remarkably underpopulated bits of sunny dutch countryside and some overpopulated parts of Germany I got on a swish German train somewhere on the outskirts of the other side of Cologne.

It was a Saturday, middle of July, nice and hot and I had bought my ticket late so I hadn't got a seat booked and had to keep hopping around when one became free. There seemed to be a Turkish family consisting of two women and millions of children in my carriage (turned out later to be an unrelated couple sitting downstairs having a nice peaceful kid-free trip). The kids were running up and down the aisles upsetting passengers trying to enjoy the view. I found the whole things quite jolly and I got to hear people say in a number of different languages 'What the mother is doing wrong is.... (add your own parenting theory)". The view was quite spectacular. We spent a lot of time going along the banks of the Mosel and the Rhein. There were mountainous banks with small castles and vineyards going up the sides. Small hills get me quite excited after having been in Holland.


At Koblenz the Mosel split off from the Rhein and the little spit of land in the middle has been made into an overly germanic piece of stone with a giant statue involving a man on a horse that's rearing up (called the Deutsches Eck - German corner). Together with the millions of sunbathers on the grassy banks it made an odd picture.

Eventually we arrived in Saarbruecken where I enjoyed giving a paper without having to stand up and talk in front of a whole lot of linguists. There were three of us working on it, so the other two talked and I cheered. Got to see some people from Melbourne which was nice. The workshop was a preparatory event before the international phonetics Olympiad (otherwise known as the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences). So I got to smell the tension and excitement in the air without having to do or die myself.

I don't have too much to say about Saarbruecken. It's there that I first got a taste for fanciful buildings made out of deep red sandstone. But I saw more of that in Strasbourg, which as it happens is only 2 hours from Saarbruecken, but I had to go back to Nijmegen in between for Mum BB's visit. Still I can't complain about that as I enjoyed the trip back to Nijmegen on the train almost as much as the way there.

The exciting part along the river only seemed to take about an hour on the way back. But it was still nice. Can't remember exactly where I changed trains to get on the snazzy fast one but there was a lot of confusion. The sign on the platform mentioned two different destinations (e.g. Berlin and Cologne (can't quite remember). It split half way along the journey and one half of the train went one way and the other half went the other way. I managed to lend a hand to some confused spaniards and a guy from Warnambool.

The guy from Warnambook turned out to be a bit of a character. He had been on the train all the way from Zurich already. He was headed for Holland but had forgotten his passport in Warnambool on the first trip to Tullamarine, so had to go back to get it and get on the next plane, which went to Zurich so he had to get the train to Holland. This bloke whose name I've forgotten, develops milking robots. Surely I knew about this develoment - it had been in the paper (The Age?). Not only Warnambool but Gippsland had some now too. According to him the cows don't have to go into barns to get attached to milking machines anymore, they just walk up to these things in the middle of the field, when they're feeling overly full-uddered. Hard to believe but... he was quite convincing.

Also rather chatty, as country types tend to be. Kept looking out the window to check out the farmland and saying 'How'd you be.. I couldn't live like this'. Meanwhile I was quite happily enjoying the train. We even went to the restaurant car, where he ordered heartily on his company account. The most abject thing for the poor Europeans it seemed to him was having to go away for the weekend. 'How'd ya be ... having to go away for the weekend.' As a man who owned a piece of land near Warnambool and got to sit on his verandah all weekend watching his kid ride his motorbike around, it seemed quite sad that these poor Europeans live in such rotten circumstances they are forced to go away for the weekend to seek a meagre drop of happiness.

And here was I thinking these couples putting their bikes on the train and then trundling off for a little bike riding weekend along the river had it quite good. No loading up the car, traffic jams etc. I had a feeling Holland wasn't going to impress him.

After we parted ways, one of my trains was delayed and I ended up having 45 minutes to spare in an unheard place called Monchengladbach somewhere between Cologne and Venlo. Wandering around quite aimlessly, I began to think he might have a point. Even with the warm sunny weather, which is like a miracle for the few weekends it appears around here, the place had a lot of people and very little to show for them. I traipsed out of the train station through the bus depot to a little shopping street. There were a few shops with cheap clothes, $2 shops. A lot of people who could have been Turkish or Moroccan, looking not particularly pleased with their hand. And the rest looked decidedly dodgy.

I tried to find a photo of Monchengladbach online but couldn't. I found this photo, which has some obsene appeal.


Warnambool looked pretty good from there. Still you can get on the train and be anywhere, if you've got a few bucks. Which some of my co-travellers on the train from Monchengladback to Venlo didn't. The dutch border is mainly of interest to those on the other side because it signals the availability of cheap good quality hash. The young guys sitting opposite me seemed to know this and were trying to make it even more of a bargain. But two conductors caught them out, presenting them with their punishments in a rather motherly way. There was quite a bit of laughing and joking from both sides. Maybe the fines aren't too high in lego world.

Whirlwind tour of summer part 1

June 9th: Celeste visits Nijmegen! Yes, exciting isn't it? Celeste seemed to quite like Nijmegen. She took to her bike despite some complaints about a sore ass. And happily pedalled in to town every day, to eat pancakes and window-shop. Although I'm beginning to think she likes anywhere with broadband and a laptop - myspace junkie that she is! First question when we saw her in Barcelona: "Did you guys bring your laptops?" (alright, not the first, to be fair). Nijmegen is probably ideal for a post-India recovering week. We went to the pancake house in the woods and saw the Italy-Serbia under 21s match. Then we went to Amsterdam for 3 days and had a pretty good time (can't remember anymore what we did except that it involved eating drinking and I think some art). Were the victims of some very heavy summer deluges and the undersupply of hotels that Amsterdam suffers from. After that she went to Venice while I went off to Poland.

Poland with Mum and Dad - hiking in the Biesczkady region (see photo). From the photo you might think that the best thing was the hiking maps which show each route as a straight line and omit any natural features, but actually the food was really good too. Highlights were the soups - which somehow mixed chunky vegetables, watery broth and cream really well. How can I learn to make Polish soups? I don't know. Maybe Esther can teach me. Must eat pickle and potato soup again one more time before I die. Plus the ice cream is very good. Weather was good and whole place gave the impression of verdant farmland - very thick and green.

O.k. all you non-commenters - time to get to work. Is my attempt to write more-spicily than David Byrne making the writing just seem overly enthusiastic? Like that linguist who gives talks as if he's wildly excited about his subject matter, and you end up just wondering why.

After a very enjoyable train ride from Rzeszow to Warsaw, we spend two nights and one day in Warsaw. Didn't see much of Warsaw during the day but the last evening me and Mum went to see Dad give a talk. Just had to write it down so he doesn't forget. See we do care! (oops another exclamation mark, tut tut). Lots of funky young Poles there who care about politics for good reason. I then took a train from Warsaw to Berlin. Another lovely Polish train. Are they the last ones full of cabins? When you order a salad in the cafeteria carriage, the guy behind the counter puts on a little apron and chops the veges to make the salad. Still no supersized chocolate cherry cake like on the Berlin to Amsterdam train (can't have everything, at least not on the same train trip).



Berlin with Richard and Celeste
Richard and Celeste didn't like Berlin! Maybe we're different types of travellers. Are you the type who has to be grabbed and swept away by a place until you finally have to go home? Celeste had just come from Venice, Richard from somewhere in India (I should know where, but....). Berlin was unusually cold and drizzly for July, and we were staying in a rather bleak part of Friedrichshain, looking over the river at some ugly new office buildings with too many mirrors for a post-nineties building. I like to settle in to a place. Slowly go for walks from my place of abode making ever-greater circles. Berlin, I like.. couldn't say why.

Picture above shows Richard and Celeste having a very good time at Claerchen's Ballhaus (Ball-house) in Mitte. We spent our last night there and had a great time watching people dance tango and eating the best chocolate mousse I have ever eaten. With those famous Brandenburg strawberries. They didn't take to Berlin so much as you'd expect for a pair of Melbourners, but being themselves they did manage to have quite a good time. I think the Berliners frightened them to be honest, and they like hustle and bustle, which you don't really find in Berlin so much.

stay tuned for the next installment: Saarbruecken, Mama BB visits Nijmegen, Strasbourg Yiddish course, the big Meditteranean ramble and Paris take-two.

The blog is back!

(photo: Strasbourg Yiddish course)

Yes, the blog is back. And why? Well immediately, because I was just reading David Byrne's 'journal' on his web site and thinking "This is really dull. I could so do better". Alright you can't be talented at everything - but come on David spice it up! (love the radio station though...). Less immediately, the nights are coming earlier, Richard's away, I'm in Nijmegen and that's how it's going to be for at least a month.
Things haven't been very blog-friendly for a fair while. To put it frankly my life has been quite exciting, and even when I've been in Nijmegen there's been nice warm light evenings to go for bike rides and at the very least Rich, who can be very entertaining. So yes, boredom spawns blogging. Bring on the boredom!
Which begs the question - what to blog about? I last blogged on the 30th of May so the blog-drought pretty much corresponds to the four months June-September, which is what they call summer around here. Actually to give the climate credit we did turn the heating off for four months and didn't feel cold. But not all the usual summer vibes were felt - at least not very consistently. Thus the most recent holiday to Marseilles/Barcelona/Girona.
But before we get to the topic of holidays and other excuses for galavanting around, I think it might be worth starting another post. Rather than go into depth on all the various summer happenings and not get around to all of them, I'm going to give you a whirlwind tour of this past summer. After complaining about poor David's blog, I'm going to have to try and make mine snazzy - but then I don't have so many fans to satisfy.