Deutschland Über Alles

So here we are again, yet another update and such a short time after my last one as well. I really do spoil you!

As you no doubt will have deduced from the heading, I've just been to Germany, which, once again, is a slightly bizarre place, mainly because of the people I have encountered along the way. The first stop in Germany was Cologne, or Köln as the locals call it, where we alighted the train to be immediatly confronted by the Dom, a more than impressive gothic cathedral that had taken 600 years to build. The question was later raised by an American of "why is it called a Dom? It's not dome shaped at all!" Because of laughing so much I was unable to explain to him that the German for Cathedral was Dom, however, that pearl of wisdom was not the only thing to fall from his lips. The question of "What is Scandanavia?" was particularly good as his next destination was Sweeden. Amazingly he was the most sane person I met in Cologne, the people in my dorm were really freaky people, not just a bit simple.

The first night there, a bloke in his mid 40's ambled into the room, stared at his bed for literally 10 minutes before letting out the must lung busting cough I have ever heard. He then wandered over to my bed and stared at that for a couple of minutes and, yes, I was lying in it at the time. He went away for a while and came back in and just switched the lights on and off for a few minutes before leaving again, coming back and repeating the procedure, which was punctuated by yet more death defying coughing. I awoke the next morning, which was surprising enough as it is, to see the guy putting his coat and iI thought `thank God he's about to leave´, but instead he got back into bed, shoes and all. What with the other person in the room who was out all night and then spent all day in bed they really were a cracking bunch. As for Cologne it was okay, there was not a lot to see but alright all the same.

After Cologne we moved on to Frankfurt, which it has to be said, is very, very nice. There was a marked improvement in the weather which may have helped my opinion of it but still I like it. Frankfurt was the first place that it was noticable that the World Cup was taking place and like a complete muppet I got sucked into buying a beer in the official fan zone. However, this was no ordinary beer. For a start it was 1 litre of pure German lager, it also cost me €10, which when you are on a daily food, drink, accomodation and tourism budget of €35 it was a significant blow to the back pocket. Still, it got me so tipsy that I ended up debating the merits of the monarchy for 3 hours!

The World Cup of course also brings together many people from around the world and when you´re sat in a bar listening to 3 Brazilians playing a bit of samba music it is pretty damn cool. What is not so good is when some knobhead from England wearing tracksuit bottoms, Reebok Classics, an England shirt and €3.99 Next sunglasses walks in with his own amp and mic and starts beatboxing `Drop It Like It´s Hot' by Snoop Dogg. The phrase "absolutly, completely and utterly gut wrenchingly, pain inducingly, put burning nails in your eyes fucking awful" does not do justice as to how bad the guy was. Whatever happened to our great nation eh? In addition to that there are also a completely disproportionate of Mexicans around.

After Frankfurt followed Munich which is an amazing place. World Cup fever has really exploded here and it would be churlish of me not to say I am loving it, the other night was spent drinking steins in beer halls with Germans which was great fun and all very good natured I may add. I did get a little carried away and insist we were going to win the World Cup, but what the hell, we are!!!! I must give a special mention to Jan and David for the fact that they supported England during our game against Paraguay, I guess that's hard for a German to do, but thanks guys!

Amongst doing the normal toursit crap in Munich, we also went to the Dachau Nazi Concentration Camp, which was a very sobering and memorable experience to say the least but I can't really go into much detail on that, i guess it's something you have to experience for yourself to get the full impact.

So that's Germany almost done with, we do visit the old East Germany in a week or so but not before I've been to Vienna, Budapest and Prague. 4 countries in 1 week. Bring it on!!!

Overall, I must say I have really liked Germany and that is why it takes the lead in the country leader board with a spectacular 9.2/10. It would have scored full marks except their language is complicated, the`y´key on the keyboard is in the wrong place and they also have ö ä ü letters on the keyboard which makes typing a pain, and they booed Bobby Charlton when he came on TV the other day.