The end

These last few days in London involved a lot of winding down, attempting to fit everything in my suitcase, and reflecting on what really has been a fantastic month.

My trip had been 10 months in the making; I was planned, prepared and organized to the letter (I am a stickler, I can't help it!) Then the actual doing - the filling in time between my organised points - was spontaneous and random and great!!!

It was really thanks to the people I came here to see, and is why I adore them so much. There is always things to do with the people you love seeing, even if is just strolling through the city, chatting over a meal or going out for drinks and dancing...

With Emma, it was so great to experience her 'new' life here, visiting the places and people she now has in her day-to-day. And then we still did things together she hadn't done before either, like visit Brighton or dance salsa in Camden.

Introducing Em to my friends and family from Austria and Germany was really wonderful; and I hope they can have a friendship in their own right. It's nice when two parts of your life meet, and get along so well :) Introducing her to, and sharing stories of my life when I lived in Salzburg was so fun. And like Em in London, I did new things And learnt new things about Salzburg that I didn't know while living there... It really was a unique visit and one I won't forget.

And so, as this chapter of my life and travels comes to a timely end, I can only be so thankful for having he opportunity to see these people go really do enrich my life, in places that make me feel happy, rested and rejuvenated.

London, you were exciting.
Rhodes, you were relaxing.
Athens, I still love you...
Vienna, you were magical.
Salzburg, you are special.
Munich, you were delicious!

Auckland, I'm coming home :)

The last days...

Once Em and I awoke from our nap, following the longest return from the airport ever, we got ready to go and watch Chris' band play. Robyn (who works with Chris) picked us up and we drove to Wycombe, to a pub that looked like a house and had bright pink walls inside.

Chris' band were playing later in the evening so we went to forage for some food, and found a Pizza Express. Yummmm!!!! After, we browsed M&S (huge supermarket-come-department store) and I bought some Jaffa Cakes. They may not survive the flight home, but I'll do my best...

Back at the pub, Budweiser in hand, we watched Keiland Ridge rock out. Chris plays the bass, and they have a chick drummer, who has a super intense face and did this awesome trick at the end of the set - she flicked the drumstick up and it spun around, then hit the cymbal, perfectly timed! After the show, I said my goodbyes to Chris, Corinne and James, as I wasn't going to see them again (this trip!) Robyn dropped us home and we spoke about her moving to Melbourne. In excited, am totally going to go visit her!! We crashed out pretty quickly free we got in bed...

Saturday day was a bit of a dud; it took me a good two hours to pack all my stuff into my new pairs of boots. Amaaaazing how much space I managed to save though! (considering I was packing clothes on top of these while in Greece and Austria...) My suitcase is shutting without any strenuous pushing or grunting!! Success :D

We went for one last trip to Reading in the afternoon, had a wrap from Pret, it was oh so good, and a browse through Zara - oh so tempting!!!

Once home, we had a quick turn around and toddled off into London for one last night on the town! We were going to attempt the infamous all-nighter...

We went to visit Nick, a friend of mine from Uni, who lives in Putney. His flat is literally under the rail bridge, and six people live in there (or was it seven?) Em and I had bought tickets earlier to Ministry of Sound, as Basement Jaxx were playing a set... However that was about an hour away from Nick, so we were going to play the night by ear...

So glad we did, because we had a really fun night with Nick and his flat mates! There were two Aussies - Lobo and Emma aka Milky - who were hilarious, and a few kiwi guys from west Auckland - Nico and Tom. We played a drinking game based on a game show on TV, which is basically one guy and a whole bunch of girls who have a light, and if they're not interested in the guy based on info given, they turn the light off! It's totally harsh and trashy, but very funny.

At 'some stage of the evening' we ventured into Putney to go to a bar. This was really fun, good music and nice crowd... Until Em's iPhone and camera got stolen :( that was pretty shit, so we ended up leaving, grabbing some k-fry and walking back to the flat. We crashed out until about 9am when the trains were going past the flat, so Em and I made our long and hungover journey back to Maidenhead (three tubes, the overground, a taxi halfway to Em's house then walked the rest cos the taxi driver was an arse!) we were home at 12pm, and blobbed the rest of the day...

All in all, it was a pretty funny night out, drama and all. As we dawdled our way down to River Road in last nights clothes and make up, me busting to go to the loo and laughing to ourselves, Em made the point - 'I would love to just watch us right now'

Oh, what a night!!

Early riser

This is not ideal!!

We had to be up at 6am today, to get on the 7:09am train to the airport....

*pause for big yawn!*

Surprisingly both Em and I managed to survive this ungodly hour, said goodbye to Helge and the kiddies, an I basically slid my 25.7kg suitcase down the three flights of stairs and into Petra's car... We made it to the train, airport, gate and plane successfully; landed in Gatwick and caught three trains (went past maidenhead on the second and had to go back from Slough) eventually made it back home at 2.25pm, and I am having a nap...

So this is the end of Em & Zo's Bavarian Adventure!

And might I just say, it has been bloody brilliant, even if a little sleep deprived...!

Dinner in Ratskeller

Ok, so Ratskeller doesn't sound awfully appealing! but this translates to the cellar of the Rathaus, which is where it is!

The Ratskeller is a huge restaurant (or numerous restaurants?) in the basement of the town hall. It has been here for a number of years, it has a unique decor (our table number was a monkey) and a lot of frescos on the walls...

I got to meet Petra's boyfriend, a lovely guy called Helge (this is a scandinavian name, I had to ask how it was spelt). We had a traditional dinner together after getting the English menu, which came with pictures!

Em had a selection of würst, I had meat which was close to corned beef (but wasn't) with kartofelknödel (potato dumplings) which was yum yum yummy! Both Petra and Helge had a variation of meat mit nudeln... So, now I can't wait to return and try some more Bavarian food, it's fantastic!!

It was so nice to have some time with Petra, and meet Helge, and just enjoy the company; especially as we didn't have as much time as originally planned (our trip was shortened as they moved our flight).

As well, unfortunately the babies (who are no longer babies, they're 7!!!) couldn't make it or dinner. Thankfully, they woke up early the next morning and I got cuddles and a little conversation in English, Greek and German with Felix! And I got to listen to Melina being 'müde' (tired) after her alarm clock kept going off :P I don't blame her...

Ahh, what a wonderful German family I have!

People of Hofbrau

After our big day out in Munich, we had some time before Petra and the kids came home. So we made a short trip down to the Hofbrauhaus, home of Hitler's Munich Putsch and a very nice brewery... Inside, it's got big wooden tables and benches, painted roof and women selling pretzel. Half the fun of this place is the beer, the other half is the people you see!

Firstly, we saw a man with a full All Blacks track suit on, strutting through the hall. The difference with this guy was he had a Louis Vuitton man bag on... In Em's words, you either have the track suit or the man bag. Definitely not both - "Take one off!"

We met a couple who asked "ist das noch frei?" to which I responded, "ja, bitte!" ('Is this seat free?''Yes!' Proud moment of understanding). They were from Cologne and I took their photo; the lady borrowed my beer for the photo as she was drinking water!!

The traditional band started, which has trumpets, tubas, clarinets and everyone's wearing traditional lederhosen. We moved to get a better view of the band, and ordered ein maß. Very exciting!

One guy started dancing with anyone he could (he accosted both of us on our way back from the loo!) and it was very funny, he had what looked like a massive shaving brush on top of his hat! It looked very silly indeed, as he danced around!

I pointed out to Em that we should be sitting at the next table over, to get a better view of the band playing. This table was currently fully occupied by older men and three guys our age. As I pointed, two of the young guys thought I was talking about them, and with the Dutch courage that comes from drinking beer, they came over and introduced themselves to us and invited us to sit with them...

Which we happily did; here I met an old, rotund German man called Caspar, dressed in lederhosen. He was jolly, drunk and only spoke German. Surprisingly, I remembered a lot more German than I thought, and had quite a lot of conversation with him!

Also, there was a sleazy old guy who resembled Colonel Mustard/the KFC guy, who kept giving me shoulder rubs if I turned away from him... Geuhhh!

Thankfully our new young friends helped us with these guys. Our new friends were Craig and Aaron (brothers) and Gregory, who was Russian but now lived in the UK and had a very weird accent; occasionally he sounded like Borat, others he sounded like Ali G! This made me question the authenticity of his Russianness, but when he spoke in Russian, it seemed pretty legit...

We had so much fun laughing, drinking beer vom fass and people watching; it was a great way to pass the time before dinner!

Our day in Munich!

This morning, Petra had made us breakfast and bought some fresh pretzels and pain-au-chocolat from the bakery downstairs. We had fresh berries, yoghurt and boiled eggs too, along with strong coffee. How fantastic is my German Aunty!!

She took us on a walk about the city before she had to go work; this was fantastic and really helped me get orientated with this beautiful city. It was such a sunny day, and the first touches of spring were on the trees, and the river that flows through the city was full and blue.

We walked down Maximilianstraße , then right into the Hofgarden, which is right in front of the opera house and other grand municipal buildings. We walked down past a monument and church, towards the city centre. We visited an amazing delicatessen where Petra had come since she was a kid; it had the most delicious looking everything on display!!!! We walked through Alter Hof, which is the oldest building in Munich - built in 1261 (or near abouts)!!

This lead us through to Marienplatz, where the Neues Rathaus is (a very impressive Gothic building) and also the Viktualienmarkt; potentially one of my favourite places in Munich!

We went to Martine and Petra's favourite place, that's sits overlooking the markets. Here in the sunlight, we had a glass of Prosecco and discussed what else to do in this great city!

Once we finished our Prosecco and farewelled Petra, we spent the next hour or so strolling the markets, which sells fresh fruit and veges, dips, sauces, the widest selection of olives I've ever seen, breads, dips, cheese (oh the cheese!!!!) and chocolate-covered fruit... As well as other inedible knick-knacks, but being inedible they were not of much interest!

We couldnt resist; the buying began. We got two different kinds of cheese, then chocolate covered strawberries on a stick (om nom nom!!). Then we found the deli section and got some peppers, olives, mozzarella, a Mediterranean dip, loaf of turkish bread, and a basil dip that was made by this company.... Then we sat beneath a statue, in the sun, and ate our impromptu lunch :D

After gorging ourselves, we decide to walk up the St Stephan's church tower. I'm glad we did this, as the view was spectacular! Unfortunately I wish we'd waited a little longer to digest our lunch, because it was 304 steps up = Angry tummy!

Upon our decent, we walked back through the city to Hofgarten and on to the English Gardens. This place is like a nicer version of the Auckland Domain but with a river and more trees... There were lots of people playing frisbee and football, waking dogs, we even saw three guys practicing walking a tightrope!! Like you do...

We strolled around and sat for a while on a park bench, for a spot of people-watching...

As it got a bit cooler, we strolled back down to Maximilianstraße, past all the super expensive shops like Chloé, Dior, Jimmy Choo... And went for a beer at the famous Hofbrauhaus, to celebrate a great day around this beautiful city!

Salzburg - Munich

We finished the Sound of Music tour at 5.50pm, and ran straight from the bus in Mirabellplatz to the Hauptbahnhof. We jumped on a bus to save some time, collected our bags from the locker and power walked through to the platform... We ended up having a lot of time left over (10 minutes!!) so got some decent seats on the train :)

On train, we saw a beautiful sunset over the farmlands, and as we sped out of Austria and into Germany it got darker and the countryside less descript.

Two hours later, we arrived at Ostbahnhof. I hadn't asked Petra where exactly we should get off, but something lurking in my memory told me it was here. A last minute dash to gather our stuff, collect our suitcases and then jump off the train was a little crazy, but we made it and didn't forget anything (I don't think so, at least!)

We caught a cab to Petra's, I was disorientated by the dark and also think we came out the wrong exit...

Once at Preysingerstraße, I hauled my 20+ kg bag up three flights of stairs and we met Petra, my German Aunty!

It was so awesomely fantastic to see her; she is one of my favorite Germans and also a little Greek - a great mix for me :) we had a deliciously fresh chicken salad for dinner, with some red wine and a good catch up. About 11:30, Em and I hit a wall and went to bed... And were out like a light!!