Dortmans take over Oktoberfest!

Beer. That's mainly what this blog is going to be about; German beer and lots of it. But before we get to that, I better talk about Berlin, as that is where I first flew into. Berlin is a strange city and Berliners are even stranger. But I guess that's not such a surprise when you look at the history of the city. It has an alternative/artsy feel about it, everywhere you turn there is technicolour graffiti adorning the grey Soviet-style buildings or some sort of art installation. The first day I got there the sun was disarmingly shining (this tricked me into thinking the weather was always going to be like this...) so I went for a stroll down to the East Side Gallery, which is part of the old Berlin wall and has some of the best "graffiti" in the town, getting political, hippie and abstract all over the place. I also checked out Checkpoint Charlie, which had an exhibition on the history of the Berlin wall. A lot of it was news to me, considering I was 4 years old when the Berlin wall came down. You hear a lot about WWII when you're growing up, but not so much about the aftermath and what happened to Germany and the rest of Europe as a result of everything that went down. I learned even more about this history in the Topography of Terror, an exhibition about how Hitler came to power.

My last few days in Berlin were rainy and grey, and all the depressing history was kinda getting to me, so I caught a bus to rainy Prague instead and spent a few days kicking around this beautiful old city. I met a funny group of Aussie guys and a couple of girls, and we all decided to hit the town and see what Prague nightlife had to offer. The hostel took us to a weird club which was full of weird robotic lights and everything was decorated with scrap metal. It looked kinda cool, but the music was reggae/dub which is okay for a few songs, then it just gets a bit boring. So we legged it to another club called Mecca. This place had girls in leopard skin underwear dancing on podiums and crappy trance music, so us girls went downstairs to where they were playing 80s and 90s music and we totally got the dancefloor going. Then we went back to the hostel and played Uno for a while before sleep got the better of us. The next day the sun finally decided to make an appearance and we went for an adventure to the Prague Castle, which was basically a huge fortress... we were wandering around asking "Where is the castle?" only to be told "Uh, you're in it". Oh. Fantastic views were our reward as we reclined on a grassy patch in a vineyard and took in our bearings. That night Olivia and I went to see Norwegian singer Hanne Hukkelberg, which was a really cool experience, as I have missed seeing good live music. It was one of those surreal experiences where you walk outside after the 2 hour show and go "Oh, I'm in Prague... I kinda forgot for a while there."

So after Prague I caught a bus and train to Munich to meet up with the Dortmans crew for an epic Oktoberfest. Nothing can describe my excitement at arriving at the camping grounds to be greeted by Dan, Kate, Ana, Laura and Kate's friend Coxy. It was great to see some familiar faces again. So in true Dortmans style we had a few beers, which were needed to help us sleep in the arctic overnight temperatures in Munich. I didn't even have a proper sleeping bag, so I curled up in a little ball in layers of thermals, pants and jumpers and had a pretty unrestful night's sleep actually. But it didn't matter. Next morning we all got up at some ungodly hour, had breakfast and put on our most German drindles (actually Sam tells me they are called dirndls... we were calling them drindles the whole time!) and lederhosen for the opening day of the 200th Oktoberfest 2010.

Queues for the showers were phenomonal, so most of us decided to keep our shower tokens (yes, you had to pay one euro for the privelege of 5 minutes of hot water) and go dirty. Then Ana and Kate unveiled a surprise for us all... some yellow and green plastic kazoos. I repeat, some yellow and green plastic kazoos. These were to be our pride and joy for the rest of Oktoberfest, as we played "Guess the tune" and pretty much annoyed anyone else that didn't have a kazoo. After a few steins, we even resorted to communicating only via kazoo ("Uh, sorry Megan could you please kazoo that again, I didn't quite understand..." from Ana).

So we got a shuttle bus into the fest, to be greeted by a fairground complete with ferris wheel and 14 MASSIVE tents. Calling these thing tents is like calling Uluru a pebble. We picked a table outside the biggest tent, the Hofbrau and then waited until midday for the opening of the festival and the tapping of the kegs. We entertained ourselves in true Dortmans style by buying HUGE pretzels (everything is oversized at Oktoberfest) and playing "How many things can you do with a pretzel?" We were getting very creative and cracking ourselves up, and this was before even having any beers. Then at midday a procession of floats holding kegs and lots of people in traditional dress came through the crowd, even little kids were being weened early on as they hung off the floats with fake steins of beer. Parades of brass bands came through playing German songs and some of those German boys looked very cute in their lederhosen. Finally the kegs were ushered into their tents and the man kicked off the festival by tapping the keg, and fountains of golden beer poured into the steins. Beer wenches crowded around the kegs to fill up the dozen steins they held in their Herculean hands (I still have no idea how they hold so many of these... each stein holds one litre of beer!). And the race was on... each table tried to get the attention of any beer wench that came through the door, and I have never seen anyone get so excited over the arrival of beer. The energy was contagious. Many shenanigans ensued until... the big toilet disaster. Unfortunately, the downside of drinking so many beers is that you and every other beer drinker need to go to the toilet a lot. So, silly me, I left it quite late and got to the toilets only to find they were CLOSED. So Ana and I hurried to another tent where the line was majorly long. I viewed the situation and estimated roughly a 30 minute wait... I knew I didn't have that long, I needed to go NOW. So I farewelled Ana who again laughed at my misfortune (she got her comeuppance when she had to squat under a truck later on...mwa haha) and I ran across the road to where I found a Chinese restaurant. These wily entrepeneurs were charging one euro for the use of their toilets, but I swear it was the best euro I ever spent. No line, clean toilet, plenty of toilet paper. Ahhh. You can sometimes take these necessities of life for granted. I heard later there were many girls squatting under trucks and in parks because the toilet situation was so dire, and a few boys at our table even filled a few steins... eeeewwwWWWW!

Day two of Oktoberfest, we were up at 8am ready to do it all again. This time we scored a table inside at the Lowenbrau tent with a couple of other people we met. Our beer wench was a character, always pushing us to buy more beer and showing us how to eat a German sausage. We were seated next to a table of Marios and Luigis with cool handlebar moustaches. This time the drinks started flowing from 10am onwards, and the first one went down like nails. We ordered a German platter to accompany our beer, and this ended up being much more entertaining than it was delicious. Apart from ham, we weren't able to identify anything on the platter, so it became a fun game of "Guess what we're putting in your mouth?" There were some things that resembled dog food (I'm pretty sure they were) some black sausages and other weird looking things. The looks on their faces say it all.

Soon enough, everyone was dancing on tables, shouting "Prost!" and singing along to the German songs, despite not knowing a word of German (cheers being the exception). Beer was everywhere and things were gettin' loose (as Dan would say). Laura was falling asleep on her beer stein, Ana was falling asleep between a guy's crotch and I was ready to never drink another drop of beer in my life. It seems after seven litres in the one weekend I had reached my beer threshold. So we retired after another day of hard work. We had to get some sleep before the DORTMANS ROAD TRIP OF 2010.

We had a bit of trouble with car hire, but after some negotiation, we got two little cars for quite a good price. These were the honourable vestibules which would be carrying us forth to visit more Dortmanses in Holland. For some of us, this was the last stop in a Euro trip of a lifetime. So we piled into the cars and hit the Autobahn, Dan getting our little Ford Focus up to a cool 190 km/h. We made a pitstop where Laura found some fascinating self-cleaning toilets, which she claims were the highlight of her whole trip. Our fantastic navigation skills got us to Dinther in one piece (who needs GPS?) only my navigational skills were pretty dodgy, as I directed us to the wrong house. And Dan only drove on the wrong side of the road once, which is pretty good.

We were greeted by that famous Dortmans hospitality to a fantastic 3 course meal of soup, meat and veg and custard. We were beaming afterwards, after living on a diet of pretzels, beer and German sausages for two days. For once we went to bed without having any beer. We had a great night's sleep before sightseeing around Dinther and Den Bosch the next day. The Dortmans girls, Ilse, Noreen (sorry if I spelt it totally wrong!) and Marlies fed us some Dutch delicacies and then we ran around town before going back to the house for delcious pancakes and a party full of Dortmans. Which meant more beer. The next day Laura and I stuck around to catch up with some rellies on Oma's side. To our amusement, we found one of them riding a bike along the main street of Dinther. His name was Fritz and he was 84. After door knocking all around Dinther to try and find out where he lived, watching him cruise past on a bicycle was the highlight of my day. He had a cheeky grin and gave us a wave while doing a u-turn and nearly getting hit by a car in the process. He looked exactly like Oma and just as healthy.

We also met Oma's younger brother Wim, all of them lived within 5 minutes walking distance in the same town. We probably could have knocked on any door in the cute little town and they could tell us where they lived. Which is pretty much what we did!
Phew! What a long blog. I will have to tell you about New York and Central America another time. Hey, guess what? I will be home in about 5 weeks! Can't wait chicas!
xxoo Megan

The Trouble With Paris...

Have you ever had that feeling that even though you might be miles away from home, you still feel like you're competely at home? Well I was starting to feel that way after two weeks in Vorstenbosch. The sun had shined his smiling face on my visit so the Spring weather was beautiful for exploring (and maybe sometimes getting lost in...) the area by bike. My relatives are also possibly the most hospitable people in the world and they made sure my days were filled with plenty of things to do and people to meet. I stayed around long enough to see my cousin Eefje's beautiful baby girl, meet an old guy at a farmhouse museum who knew my Opa, celebrate Queen's Day and I think meet almost everyone in the neighbourhood. I certainly met nearly all the Dortmans in the area, including the guy who owned "Dortmans Music Store" who claimed we all came from a French soldier during the time of Napoleon.

Now, I have been quoted in the past as saying "I would rather have a hernia than have a baby" but I have to admit when I saw Eefje and her husband Tom smiling down at the cute little baby girl they had created, I may have found just a little hint of maternal feeling stir deep down inside. Only a little. Don't get too excited mum, I still find them a little scary (my mum is totally jealous of the new Opa and Oma).

Another party worth sticking around for was Queen's Day or Koningendag as they call it. Basically, it's the Queen of Holland's birthday, but no one really gives a hoot about that because it's a day off which here means let's chuck some big stages in all the cities in Holland with DJs and just let everyone drink on the street for a day. All while wearing as much orange as possible (it's like their version of green and gold). It was crazy. I went to Eindhoven, a relatively big city where there was just a sea of orange people drinking and dancing in the city centre and every street was full too. Every trip to the toilet was an adventure... you needed to allow at least 45 minutes, because the queues were so long. At least guys could use the he pees which were located right in the middle of the street. I'm not sure if underage drinking is a problem here, I mean kids can drink at 16 years old anyway, but I'm sure I saw younger cruising the streets with cans of beer. I tried out some local cuisine such as oliebollen (a familiar favourite from home), krokette (also same as home) and the Frickendel Speciaal, but I've been assured that I don't want to know what's in it (sorta like our sausages I guess...). In Amsterdam some of the street cleaners were going on strike the day after Queen's Day. After seeing the mess on the streets, I can undertstand why. I have never seen so much rubbish in my life, just piles of it everywhere.

Now, my relatives Jan and Ine are so hospitable, they even organised a ride for me to Belgium, tour guide included. Who needs Lonely Planet? It was actually the son of the people who live across the road who was selling a house he owned in Gent, Belgium. He is also the brother of my brother's ex-girlfriend. And he offered me a lift to Gent, accommodation at his apartment there where four students live and to show me around the city the next day. So we hopped in his car and drove the one and a half hours to oh, another country. Crazy. There I stayed at his house where I met the four uni students and they were the loveliest girls and helped me to find my way around Gent. It is a really old city with big cathedrals and old buildings and a big medieval castle smack bang in the middle of the city. It was nicer even than Bruges I think, because the next day I went to Bruges and it was a tourist circus, which kind of took away the charm of it all. But I bought some delicious Belgian chocolate and cruised the cobblestone streets anyway. The girls also introduced me to a game called 'Molkee'. All you Dortmans at home would love this game, it reminds me a little of Kubb. I will have to get my hands on a set. So we were in the park eating frites and drinking red wine and playing Molkee and it was fun. So that was Belgium.

But another day, another country and Paris was calling. Paris is not the dreamy city everyone thinks it is though. It has some great history and the Notre Dame Cathedral and The Louvre were amazing, but it's not like a scene from Amelie. Actually it is just another big dirty city with not so friendly people and lots of tourists. But still a lot to see. I hired a bike and rode around town only once riding on the wrong side of the road and once getting burped right in my face as I rode past. If I wasn't so disgusted with how filthy the city was already I might have laughed. The Louvre was too much to take in, so overwhelming. The Mona Lisa wasn't even the best; she was surrounded by people and you couldn't even get close. I liked the sculptures the best. The Arc de Triomphe was cool, but walking back along the Champs Elysees alone at night was a mistake... I kept getting hassled by Africans asking me to go to a discotecque. I had to get brutal to shake one of them off who followed me for ten minutes. The Notre Dame was beautiful and the view from the tower (which I queued for like two hours for) was great, especially as the sun was setting. I saw the Eiffel Tower but I couldn't be bothered climbing it after waiting in the queues at the Notre Dame towers.

Now I am catching a train tomorrow to Nice along the French Riviera where I hope to do some star spotting at the Cannes Film Festival. Hello paparazzi!

Megan xo

I Amsterdam

I missed my first flight. And hopefully it will be the last. After waving goodbye to Jacqui and Sam at the border of Malaysia and Singapore, I thought the 3 hours I had allowed myself to get to Changi Airport in Singapore was a pretty generous margin. Turns out I was wrong. The bus took an eon to get there, and then about ten eons to get to the train station. I then had to catch a train, fretting all the way only to arrive at the airport at 10:15pm (my flight was at 10:55) at which time I had to catch a shuttle bus to another terminal. Running through the airport with 18kg on my back and probably about 6kg on my front I arrived breathless at the desk only to be told "Sorry, that flight closed about 30 minutes ago". Major bummer. But the ladies at the desk nicely arranged for me to get on the midnight flight to Heathrow (no extra charge) and after a 5 hour layover I arrived in Amsterdam, city of canals, coffee shops and one other thing starting with c...

I was set to have an early night, I really was. After roughly a 13 hour flight (not including the layover) and not so much sleep and another case of cankles (why does this always happen to me on long flights...) I thought it inevitable I would have an early night. But then I met these friendly Texans who insisted on buying me Jagerbombs and beers all night and of course who can refuse a friendly Texan (they probably have a gun...) so I had a massive night discovering Amsterdam. Yes, I went to a "coffee shop". No I didn't have any coffee. Yes, I walked through the red light district. No, I did not particularly enjoy seeing beautiful, young girls standing in red-lit windows with nothing but underwear on. There was something a little unsettling about girls being put on display in shop windows like merchandise. Not cool.

So after my big night out, I was wrecked for the next two. So I hired a bike and did my own little tour of Amsterdam's cobblestone streets, canals and museums. All the buildings are so old and quaint, tall skinny brick things poised on the edge of canals crossed by arched bridges, it's everything I imagined a European city to be. I have had more art education since I arrived in Holland than in all my years at school and university. I have seen paintings from the best that Holland has to offer, from Vermeer (yes, I saw the Girl with the Pearl Earring and she was more beautiful than Scarlett Johanssen) to Van Gogh to Rembrandt. And I've already had a taste of the European male attention... just walking down the street, guys will call out to you on their scooters or just strike up random conversations with you outside shops, hoping it will lead to you spending the whole night at a bar with them... this doesn't happen to me in Australia. Well, apart from wolf whistling from construction workers... I think guys here are just a little too confident. It's an expensive place though, I think I spent more in a few days in Amsterdam than in two weeks in Malaysia.

So after exploring every nook and cranny of Amsterdam I hopped on a train down to Rotterdam, which is the modern sister of Amsterdam. The whole place was bombed flat in the war, so now they have gone crazy with all sorts of weird architecture. I stayed in these "cube Houses" which were basically big Rubiks Cube looking buildings poised diagonally in the air. I did a day trip to Den Haag (The Hague) which was also a nice quaint old city with the palace where Queen Beatrix lives and some more art museums. Everyone was outside drinking al fresco, as it was a beautiful Spring day. How very European.

So the plan after Rotterdam was to head down to Vorstenbosch where my relatives live. Then I get this email from my crazy cousin Paul saying he was in Amsterdam; I didn't even realise was in Europe, let alone Amsterdam. Naturally I couldn't let this opportunity slide, so I went back to Amsterdam for another crazy night. The place was packed with people catching international trains after the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Nature wins again.

Saturday, I catch a train to Den Bosch to see my relatives. One hour on the train is all it takes (to pretty much go from one end of Holland to the other, haha... well almost) and I am met at the station by my very pregnant cousin Eefje. Her baby is due in just over a week. I arrived to a warm welcome from my relatives Jan and Ine, with the assurance that I really will only be staying for a week or two, and had my first delicious home cooked meal in a while. So now I have been doing a round robin of dinners and outings with relatives and various other people in the neighbourhood. What a hard life! The countryside here is very picturesque and green, but it's not like Australia where you can drive for 2 hours and not see a town, there is a town every 2 minutes. The people here are so lovely, everyone knows everyone and they are so welcoming.

Yesterday Jan took me on a tour of Dinther, the place where my Oma lived and where my dad was born. The old farmhouse they lived in is still there, albeit a little changed (it's all renovated inside and the stable is now a car dealer). For those of you who don't know, a quick rundown on family history: my Opa and his wife lived in Dinther with seven children. During World War II, a bomb meant for the Germans exploded in the farmhouse and killed his wife and 3 of their children. My Opa then married my Oma and they lived there for another few years (during which time they had my dad) and then when he was 4, they migrated to Australia for a better life.

So we knocked on the door and the nice people who live there let us come inside and look around. The spookiest part was going under the house into the cellar... you can just imagine the family huddling under there while bombs exploded above ground. They then made a fatal decision to run to the bomb shelter in the backyward, which was when the bomb hit. The bomb shelter is filled in now, but it was surreal being there in the very spot. We then went to the church where my Oma got married and next door was a cemetery where the grave of my Opa's first wife and three kids were buried.

The Catholic church just made me sad. People used to put so much value in religion, as you can see from the massive amount of time and money they have put into their places of worship. I'm not saying the size of the church is a measure of your faith, but it was obviously a big part of their daily lives back in the day. You can't go anywhere here without hearing the church bells ring or where you don't have a view of the church steeple. It was the centre of every town. But every day in the paper here there is talk about the demise of the Catholic church. Not many people actually attend church here, especially not young people and a lot of the churches are closing down. I guess religion isn't so relevant to people any more. I don't find the Catholic church all that relevant either, but man they built some fantastic buildings and funded some amazing artwork. I almost feel like we're coming to the end of an era. I just hope that God doesn't get lost in the confusion.

I visited my first Dutch school on Monday, as I went to Jan's class (10-12 year olds) to talk about Australia. They bombarded me with questions for one hour, which was fun, especially ones like "Do you have a boyfriend?" and "Do people eat cactuses in Australia?" and "Do kangaroos really box?" Haha. Tomorrow I go to another school where they are learning about Australia and want me to talk about it. I'm like a touring circus act.

Today my cousins Ilse and Mieke took me on a tour of Den Bosch, an old 17th century town near here. We did a boat tour of the canals that go underneath the city, did a historical tour and I got to eat the famous Bosche Bolle that everyone keeps talking about. It was a delicious combination of chocolate, cream, custard and pastry. Lekker! Then I went to the windmill in Dinther and got some obligatory photos of a windmill in Holland. Come on, it's like getting a photo of a koala in Australia - it has to be done!

Trying (very hard) to learn some Dutch while I'm here, but every time I try to make a g sound (you know, the sound like you have some phlegm stuck in the back of your throat) I sound ridiculous. But I will persist!

Groetjes! (YOU try pronouncing it - it's easy, [phlegm sound ]+[rolllling rrr sound] + oot + yez)
Megan