germany

A fairy tale awaits

Jacob Redding — Mon, 14 May 2007 07:22:57 +0000

Lubeck is the ferry tale city of Germany, honestly. The entire town could be (and in some cases is) the set of a fairy tale. The city begins with a two towered gated entrance that leads directly into a town center which holds an elaborate church set next to a bricked courtyard. Every building and streets maintains a fairy tale theme through the town.

Little alleyways spill into courtyards. A moat surrounds the town and food vendors roam the streets.

To make the fairy tale even more real we happen to arrive in town the same day as a renaissance fair. People in full on renaissance period clothing roamed the streets and the foods, beers and other goods were all created and served in a fairly traditional manner (cleaned up of course).

Lubeck is an amazing town, I would definitely recommend people going although I wouldn't visit again. Once you've seen it (which cann be done in a day or very throughly in less than a week) you've seen it.

Denmark.. no wait Germany

Jacob Redding — Mon, 14 May 2007 07:19:33 +0000

We had originally planned to travel from Gothenburg, Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark and then over to Hesinki, Finland. When we went to purchase our tickets to Copenhagen though we decided instead to go to Kiel, Germany. At the time of purchase neither of us knew what was in Kiel. In fact neither of us had even thought of going to German until about 5 minutes before we purchased our tickets.

We decided to go to Germany for a few reasons

Neither of us had been to Germany before
The temperature in Helsinki was going to drop for our visit
The ferry looked nice and was inexpensive

That's about all the criteria we needed.

After purchasing the tickets we kicked around Gothenburg for a bit before heading back up to Damien and Lisa's place. When we told them about our ticket purchase they said, and I quote..."OH, you're going on the Booze Cruise!".

The what.. huh?

So here's the deal. A lot of Swedes take the cruise to Germany to (a) Drink like crazy on board and (b) purchase alcohol on board and in Germany. Once the boat hits international waters, about 10 minutes into the 12 hour journey, alcohol prices drop significantly as the state taxes, V.A.T and other misc. markups don't have to be paid.

When we got on board, the next day, we found out that Damien and Lisa's were 100% correct. Almost the second the boat hit International waters and the on-board liquor store opened for business people were grabbing, purchasing and opening beer bottles and other liquor everywhere.

It was a mad house scene of liquor frenzy

Anyhow so that's how we ended up in Kiel, Germany instead of Copenhagen, Denmark via a booze cruise ferry that was purchased on a whim. We still had no idea what was in Kiel but while still in Gothenburg we ducked into a book store that happened to have an english version of Lonely Planet Germany. There was an entire 3 pages on Kiel, 4 if you count the map. The book essentially said. The great thing about Kiel is that it is close to Lubeck.

During WWII Kiel, Germany was a major manufacturer and port for German U-boats and Britian took it out with a vengenance. Only 20% of the town remained after Britian bombed it and once the war had ended the people decided to not restore the former town but build anew. As a result the city is lacking anything. The town's layout is odd, the buildings are new (although built with traditional style), and emphasis is placed on commerce rather than on recreation or the beauty of a town.

Unfortunately the Lonely planet book was right. Unless we wanted to shop or drink there really wasn't anything to do in Lubeck with the exception of seeing a few German U-boats but those were outside of the town center and would take about an hour by bus to see. After walking around the town for an hour, getting something to eat we decided to catch the first train to Lubeck.

We arrive in Kiel at 9am and left for Lubeck on the first train we could which was at 11:44am.

28 schweet years

Jacob Redding — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:25:33 +0000

It is currently midnight in California and 9am in Sweden (my current location) which makes me offficially 28 years old right now! Wow... 28.

I'm getting old.

aaahh. I have so much more to do with my life and I'm so far behind the curve. I'm not married yet, I don't own a house and I don't have any kids. My life is ruined what am I going to do! Oh wait... that's right I don't care so much for cultural standards!

Ha! I'm not old, I'm just getting started. F* the house, F* the kids and marriage t.... oh wait, I'm engaged. Ok the marriage thing can stay (now we'll just have to decide on a wedding date.. oh some day, some day).

30 is, however, right around the corner and I still can't fluently or conversationaly speak a second language. A while back I blogged about learning spanish with the goal of fluency and/or conversational by the age of 30. Unfortunately I fell into a very typical routine and focused more on work than on my personal development (i.e. learning a language).

No more!

I will be conversational in a second language by the time I'm 30 and if I have to move to a foreign country to do it, so be it! I'm putting Spanish on hold and Diana and I are moving to China. If I can't learn Chinese in China then I'm hopeless. I'll move back to the states, buy a trailer home, park it in an old drive-in movie theater and sell beer can wind chimes until I finally drop dead at the ripe old age of 50.

Ok so now that I'm professed my desire to learn a second language lets move on.

Today for my birthday Diana and I are going to wander the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden where we have been for the past two days. In the evening we're meeting up with Lisa and Damien, whom we've been staying with, for Dinner and then we're off to Kiel, Germany!

We have absolutely zero idea of what is in Kiel, Germany and apparently, according to Wikipedia, after WWII there isn't much left to Kiel (80+% what destroyed in bombings and never rebuilt). The only thing we are doing is tracking down Döner, Kebabs and possibly getting train tickets to Hamburg ;). I think we can find something to do for a day (or two) before we head up to Copenhagen, Denmark.

Every day you travel without having a clue with what to do is a good day.

I'll write again when we're in Germany or Denmark! Pictures in the gallery!