jeremy.id.au

On Monday, despite having things to do, the weather was so great so I took the train to Straubing. It involved taking a train one stop from Ergoldsbach to Neufahrn then changing to a two-carriage diesel rail motor vehicle. The connection was fairly smooth, though there was a bit of a delay at Niederlindhart. However, leaving in a hurry for the train, I forgot my backpack which I had packed only moments before that. So unfortunately I didn’t have a pen, nor camera (though only a loaner as my existing one decided to go kaput at the last minute just as I was leaving Melboure), etc. Though I did have my GPSr and some money. Though not a real tourist destination, Straubing turned out to be another charming little European town.

When I found the first geocache I didn’t have a pen so I had to go buy one. I spent ages on a multi though didn’t find it, again due to language difficulties. Though it did take me down some more medieval laneways.

Later I did a geocache at a Kleingärten., which is a community garden, though unlike the ones in Australia which often only consist of multiple veggie patches, ornamental gardens were a major focus here. The owner of the cache was so pleased to have an Australian stop by that he has invited me back for Bayerischer Brotzeit (a Bavaria meal consisting of bread and cold cuts/cheese, etc). So that’s something to look forward to when I return to Bavaria in November.

Saturday (Samstag), myself, Daniel and Iris did some geocaching in Regensburg, another great city in Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern). On the way we stopped at a former castle, which is now a Musikakadamie. The grounds were very beautifully forested with trees and there was a nice rather contemporary/minimalist garden closer to the building. It was certainly one of those great locations that we may never have visited if it wasn’t for geocaching. Unfortunately we didn’t find the cache as we needed some pictures, which I was able to load onto my phone with the free wifi at McDonald’s. Though it was certainly no disappointment having to return there later!. We also visited some great parks in Regensburg and some beautiful buildings, as well as the typical medieval style city streets and laneways.

Sunday was a rather quiet day, though my host family treated me to some very nice roast duck for lunch. As it is traditional to eat duck in the autumn time in Bavaria. In Germany it is more traditional to eat the main meal for the day in the middle of the day then have a lighter meal of cold cuts and cheese for dinner. Though after that roast duck, it’s not as though I needed to eat muchor the rest of the day. I also tried some knödel, which is some potato cooked up with some additional starch. I wasn’t sure about it at first, though served up the next day with some sauce had me convinced it is quite a good dish.

On Friday (okay, Freitag) I went back to the school to talk to an English class (of ~16 year olds) about Australia and myself. They asked me questions, such as “do you go surfing?” which seems to be the stereotypical image in Germany of what young people do in Australia. Of course the answer was no, which surprised them all a little. Someone also asked if a snake had ever bitten me.

On the way home from school with Daniel’s sister Lisa, we visited a Bäckerei (bakery) at a monastery. That was also quite interesting.

In the afternoon we left for Munich to do some geocaching. We ran into some other geocahers at one of the first caches we did. Then of course we went off to Oktoberfest. I had heard that Australians weren’t too welcome there due to roudy drunken behaviour, though even if the police man checking my bag (there had been heightened security alerts this year) was pleased to be talking to an Australian. We had a large mug of beer and had a bit of conversation with other people at our table, mostly germans. We were even given a free chicken (from a voucher) from some other people at our table). Later on I tried out some rides, though not cheap, they were probably than any ride I’ve done in Australia. By that time we were running short on time and I had just about blown my budget for the night!

Later on I decided to buy a tshirt. Though first of all we stopped at a dodgy unofficial merchandise stand. The woman told me that the tshirt on display was the last one they had of that style. When I offered her half the price tag amount. She just about had a fit and told us she’d go find some others. We walked away because she had obviously been lying to us. I was able to get an official tshirt anyway.

Thursday morning (Donnerstag morgen), I got to sleep in a bit, though was surprised to wake up to cake for breakfast (frühstuck). It turns it was out Scharzwälder Kirschtorte known as Black Forest cake in English, named of course after the region in Germany. The occasion was Hans’ (the father of Daniel) birthday. It certainly went down well with some coffee. I also had the chance to speak some German with the cleaning lady, who is from Russia and speaks German but no English. Daniel finished school early that day and we did some geocaching in Landshut, where we discovered some more greayt places in this cit. Later in that evening there were also some birthday celebrations for Hans.