Oktoberfest - Munich

Wow what a majorly wicked weekend.  It started with me getting Friday off work for a University re-union.  Technically this is not a lie because I was going to be drinking beer with a lot of people from Otago Uni days. 
One thing I learnt over the weekend is that a university education doesn't necessarily teach you how to behave in some social situations.  Waking up on Saturday morning we soon discovered 3 people had had a beer spew from too much indulgence on Friday.  The 1st person to chuck didn't even make it in to the confines of the camp ground - spewed on themselves and the drive way.  The 2nd person to chuck didn't even make it out of their tent!! Perhaps the least classy of the lot as they then used their other halves t-shirt to mop up some of the mess.  The 3rd person to chuck spent the night on their hands and knees poking their head out of the tent to blow chunks around their tent - in a way marking out their territory.  So all-in-all a good start to Oktoberfest.

Due to some pretty hefty hangovers on Saturday we opted for the free tour of Dachau Concentration Camp and then lunch at a Beer Monastery.  As I was hungover and already feeling miserable I didn't feel too sad to be at Dachau. It was pretty horrific to think what went on there and going through the gas chamber and crematorium gave me an eerie feeling.  To cheer us up we were taken to a Monestary that brew their own beer and is situated on top of a hill in a beautiful country setting.  The only food on the menu was pig - pork knuckle, pork roast, and pork belly.  Served with potato salad or sauerkraut, it was magic for the hangover.  We lay in a grassy meadow soaking up the sun til it was time to head back to camp.  However, on the way we decided to head back to the beer fest and check out all the fun fair rides (but avoid the beer halls).  It looked pretty wicked all lit up at night.

On Sunday we had enough time at beer fest for Nath to drink 4 steins and get drunk before our flight back to London.  When we arrived at Stanstead we faced the biggest queue I have ever seen to get through passport control, needless to say it was a very late night and a struggle to stay awake at work on Monday. 

View from the ferris wheel of the beer tents and crowds of people

Talks are already underway for next years festival.  I will have to come up with a new reason for a day off work and I think we will upgrade accommodation from camping to something with some sound proof walls.  I felt like I was back at Uni when I could hear people vomitting and making groaning noises all night long!

Egypt

I think I have been avoiding writing this blog as I know its going to be a long one!  We arrived in Cairo at 5am and after some difficulty getting cash out of an ATM we manged to purchase our tourists visas and enter the country.  We were looking forward to getting out of the hot stuffy airport and in to the cool air of the city.  Little did we know it was already 30 degrees at 5am!!  So no refreshing breeze to cool us down.  Luckily we were able to check into our hotel at this early hour and crank up the air conditioning and have a sleep.  Later that day we met out tour group, which was just us and a brother & sister travelling together from Columbia, and had dinner in the hotel restuarant from where we could look out and see the Pyramids in the distance.  Our first full day in Cairo and we were off to see the Pyramids.  They were amazing.  So big.  Each individual stone that was used to build the pyramid is much bigger than I had imagined.  What was really cool is we were able to climb up onto the Great Pyramid.  The Pyramids are the oldest of the seven wonders of the ancient world being built in 2560BC! Much older than any ruins in Europe. Of all the Pyramids I liked Saqqara, the step Pyramid, as it is the 1st Pyramid ever built and has its own unique shape.  While we were visiting this Pyramid I took a photo of a camel by the pyramid and then the owner took his opportunity to pick me up and put me on his camal and lead me around, then of course asked for money. 

That night we had a truly Eyptian experience in store - a 13hr night train from Cairo to Aswan.  As luck would have it it was the end of Ramadan  so the trains were packed with city workers travelling home to their families.  The best was yet to come when the air con conked out and we were left to travel 3 hours in an oven.
Upon arrival in Aswan, with little sleep, we checked onto our cruise and our home for the next 3 nights.  Then we went off to explore Aswan Dam and the first of many, many temples Philae.  This was my favourite temple as we got to take a boat ride to reach it.  The temple has been moved as its original site had been flooded for half a century and UNSCO stepped in to save it.

The next morning we were up and gone by 3:30am for the three hour drive to Abu Simbil temple in army convoy.  The temples were carved out of the mountainside in 13th century BC.  However, in 1968 the temple was relocated to avoid being submerged by the formation of Lake Nasser (which is a reservoir for Aswan Dam).  This temple is one of Egypts top attractions.  It is literally in the middle of the desert so there is no escaping the sun and even though it was 8am it was baking hot. 

We had a couple of hours to look around before being driven back to Aswan and the cruise boat that was getting ready to sail up the Nile.  It was lovely when the boat started sailing as it created a breeze which made it ideal for sunbathing and just chilling out as we were tired from our early morning trip. 
We docked at Edfu and spent the night not going anywhere.  In the morning we took a horse and carriage to visit Edfu temple before boarding the boat and sailing to Luxor.  We were sunbathing by 9:27am and had our 1st beer before lunch time.  Great way to spend the day.

Again we were up early this time at 4:15am as we were taking a hot airballoon over the Valley of the Kings.  We got an aerial view of Al-Deir Al-Bahari temple and saw lots of sugar cane and date trees. 

From there we went to check out the temple then the Valley of the Kings.  The Valley of the Kings houses 63 tombs and chambers and was the principle burial place of major royal figures of the new Egyptian Kingdom.  Unfortunately we were not able to take photographs of the tombs.  Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered here and its entire contents are now displayed in the Cairo Museum.  After this visit we checked into our hotel in Luxor which had a swimming pool so the rest of the day was spent lounging in and by the pool.  That evening we went to an Irish pub where we caught up with other tour groups that we had met on the cruise.
Our last temple visit was the biggest - we saved the biggest til last.  Karnak temple was huge.  It was started by Ramses II.  Again we went back to the hotel and relaxed by the pool until it was time to board the night train back to Cairo.  Randomly the air conditioning wasn't working again so I am sceptical if it ever works at all.

Upon arrival in Cairo we visited the Egyptian Museum and saw Tutankhamuns burial mask.  Our last visit was to a Mosque where I had to pay to wear a Klu Klux Clan type robe to cover myself up. 
Overall, Egypt was amazing.  We have never been in such intense heat before and it made exploring really difficult.  We returned home with many souvenirs and even had a trip to Ikea today to buy a bookshelf to put them on.

Luxor temple

Our next trip is to Munich for Oktoberfest, we bought some traditional costumes and there is a group of 12 of us going.  It's going to be great.
          

Egypt so far

Loving Egypt except for our night train.  As it was towards the end of Ramadan the trains were packed with city  workers leaving Cairo to head home to their families to begin Ede celebrations.
I am borrowing my tour leaders laptop while Nath kicks his butt at cards.  Taking a break from the sun bathing.  We are currently on a cruise from Aswan to Luxor.  Each day the boat has docked so we can see some temples so its neat to get out and about.  Another kiwi couple on the cruise we have met and become friends with - they even gave us two jars of marmite!
Here are just a few samples of the many photos we have taken.  Loving the hot weather, it is almost too hot in the afternoon to be in the sun, even the shade is not overly refreshing! But I am remembering that when I return to London it will be cold and grey so Im making the most of the sun.

Up early tomorrow for a hot air balloon ride over The Valley of the Kings.  We have one last overnight train to endure but this trip is only 10hrs so it should be a breeze.  Lets hope the air con doesn't conk out.

Amsterdam

Anna, Borrie, Nath and myself just had a wicked weekend in Amsterdam.  The weekend got off to an early start with the alarm set for 3:10am!!  A bit early but shows how hard core travellers we are.  Needless to say I was actually looking forward to getting on the plane so I could sleep, but with only a 40min flight to Amsterdam, I did not catch up on much of my missed sleep. 

We hit the ground running - firstly we dropped our bags at the hotel then found some breakfast before we literally went non-stop for the next 3 days.  We started with a canal cruise along the many hundreds of canals in Amsterdam.  Along the way we stopped at the Van Gough Museum - it holds the largest collection of Van Goughs's works.  We then decided we were thirsty so off to the Heineken Brewery we traipsed to quench our thirst.  It is the best brewery tour I have done - very interactive and funky.  They had a bar set up pumping sounds and room where you could DJ and make your own bottle labels. 

After this it was time to complete the canal cruise then explore China Town for some dinner.  We had a quick walk around the red light district but we were all zonked out from the early start so we headed to our hotel for much needed sleep.
Day two was planned out to perfection.  We started with an early start at the Anne Frank house to avoid the queues.  We did well getting there before it was even open, and they were letting people in early so we didn't even have to wait.  Later in the day we notived the queue snaking around the block!  It was very interesting inside the Frank hideout - it was bigger than I had imagined and they had a good set up.  Having read Anne Franks diary it was neat to be able to see the hideout for myself.  It was very sad being there as the story didn't have a happy ending and Im struggling to understand why one population of people think they are superior to another.  Of course this occurs around the world, Nazi Germany is just one horrific example of unfortunately many cases of genocide.

 To lift our moods we then indulged in some frites (hot chips with mayo) and waffles.  We were feeling much happier after our food stop.  The previous day we had booked ourselves onto a half day trip out to the 'country' where we were to see windmills, clog and cheese making.  This trip was excellent value for money, only €35 for a 5 hour outing.  We went to the Zaan district to see windmills listed by UNESCO as a world heritage site.  After this it was time to taste cheese and shield our eyes from wood shavings during the clog making demo. We headed back to Amsterdam very content with our country outing.

 The last big adventure on our list for today was a visit to the Ice Bar.  It was FREEZING, naturally as you would expect being at -10C!  I was definitely ready leave after 20min of being locked in a freezer.  Unfortunately we weren't able to take photos inside, but don't worry staff took photos for us to buy at €9 per photo.  Yeah right.  Needless to say we didn't buy any. 

By now it was 10:00pm and feeling much more awake than the previous night we headed to the red light district.  We found a pub playing the Real Madrid v Barcelona game which was awesome to watch - even though the pub stank of weed.  The smell was everywhere around the streets of the red light district.  Anna was worried sniffer dogs at the airport may smell weed on our clothing and get us locked in jail.  After the footy we had a good look through the red light district, I was disappointed at how tame it was as I thought it may have been more risque. The most shocking thing was the pitcures on the numerous DVD covers!

 

 Monday and today is Nath's birthday.  We had not planned anything for today other than a nice canal side lunch before heading to the airport.  Turns out we managed to fit in a 3 hour city walking tour before our lunch and departure from Amsterdam.  Our tour guide delighted in telling us that NZ has the highest rate of weed users in the world - 27% compared to only 5% in The Netherlands.  Anna and I are very sceptical of this information as we don't think a quarter of NZers use weed.  

We were totally impressed with ourselves amd how much we had managed to do in 3 days in Amsterdam.  My lasting observation is all the bicycles around the city.  I loved how bicycles ruled the road over cars and pedestrians!  Also noticed the lack of an obesity problem as the population is so active.  Maybe Texas should invest in some bicycles!



Looking forward to more travel later in the month with our trip to Egypt only a couple of weeks away. 

An example of all the bikes - they even have special bike parks

Birthday Lunch

The narrowest home in Amsterdam 1.8m wide!



Cambridge

Mum and Dad left London early, like 4:30am early, yesterday morning, so to cheer me up Nath took me to Cambridge for the day so I wasn't sitting around the flat moping.  Of course we did the usual Punt along the river Cam and had a laugh at the Asian tourists who couldn't steer their boats.  The river was packed and it was a bit like dodgem boats bouncing off each other all the way down.  We did see a few wet punters but actually missed the moments they fell in, gutted.  Our punter was very good at giving us a history lesson as we cruised past university colleges and under numerous bridges.  One bridge we passed was the Mathematical bridge which is self supporting due to its tangent and radial trussing, the original bridge built in 1749.

 

Mathematical bridge

After our romantic cruise shared with 6 other people in our boat, we visited Kings College Chapel.  This is the Church where King Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in 1533. In 1536 Henry had her beheaded at the Tower of London.  The Chapel was amazing with the most fascinating fan vault ceiling - the largest in the world.  Building of the Chapel began in 1446 and was finally completed over a century later.  At the East end of the Chapel hangs 'the Adoration of the Magi' painted by Rubens in 1634.  Such amazing history in one small place.  After our cruise and religious experience it was time to hit the pub for a refreshing pint and a bite to eat.

Kings College Chapel - the organ was a gift to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn for their wedding



Trinity College