Arrival

A couple of things stick out in my mind when arriving into Europe from Australia. First of all, it’s pretty green over here. Not that a lot of Australia, particularly the East coast, is exactly a desert wasteland, but Europe has the sort of green that reminds you it rains a lot. Which it seems to be doing now.

Secondly, old stuff. There is lots and lots of old stuff here, just the train ride from Frankfurt to Cologne (in this awesome train where you get your own cabin type thing) along the Rhine we passed bundles of castles, like the one in the photo. Oz definitely failed on the castle front, looking forward to seeing more and taking pictures that perhaps don’t involve dangling my camera out of train windows.

The village we are living in is pretty cool too, the house is about the oldest in the village and is built in that black wooden beams and white plaster style that was popular probably around four hundred years ago. The interior would best be described as a sort of hippie bohemian look. It’s funky, and is home to the two fattest cats I’ve ever met. We couldn’t actually get in to the house for a while due to not having the keys, but a neighbour took us in and fed us scrambled eggs on bread until a key was procured, so all was good. My German will be rapidly improving in the next weeks I suspect…

ps – there are less land cruisers on the roads and you can buy beer in the supermarkets too. I know that last part won’t come as a surprise to the UK folks, but the Ozzie system of separate bottle shops was a bit odd ;)