First few days in Germany...

A little intro...

This trip revolves around a winter semester in Stuttgart. This consists of 6 weeks of 2 classes - german language and european art history - while staying with a host family nearby. After this, and during studying, I plan on travelling wherever I can for a few weeks; France, England and maybe Switzerland - who knows!

The First Day - 30th December 2009
Melbourne-Doha-Frankfurt

The flight out from Melbourne was a solid 14hrs at midnight of the 30th. I was looking forward to getting some sleep so I could arrive on the 31st and then go straight out that night as I had no time to sleep that day. My plans were clearly met with two flaws; 1. I was on a plane and 2. I was seated next to babies. So needless to say my attempts were met with much fail.


Anyways I managed a few hours sleep and shortly landed in Doha. I'm not sure what words I could use to describe Doha other than it could possiblly translate from arabic to "not much" because that would be a fairly apt description of the airport at least. Luckily enough they were unlike the stingy bastards of Melbourne and provided actually free wireless net (fu telstra 'free' wireless). After a 'non-stop' 2hrs I boarded the next trip which would take me to Frankfurt.



This flight was an improvement by far as it was only 1/3rd full and hence I was able to stretch out and actually get some 'sleep'. Though I was troubled at one point by the projected path of our flight which travelled directly over Baghdad,but maybe we jus climbed outside rocket-reach for that section.


So; arriving in Frankfurt...interesting scene to outside from the plane. Nothing special so far, just shit weather...



but I would soon be reminded of how awesome snow can be and the lovely scenes it can produce. We landed at 1:15pm and I needed to catch the 2:32pm to Paderborn where I would be staying with Jan, so this was pushing it but I had hope. After some mucking around trying to you know...speak English to non-English-speaking Germans I got to the right platform and discovered I had apparently brought more than luggage with me - Melbournes public transport system had followed - the train was 20mins late and Con..Deustchbahn apologised greatly for the delay. However the train arrived only after 10 so I cant really complain because It meant I could take a breath for 5 seconds - and as I did I was able to take in my surroundings for the first time...




I cant really say much about catching the train because really, it was over so quickly thanks to travelling at about 260km/h - I guess not something I'm used to at home on the shotty metro system. But here is a photo of the first snowfall I experienced where I had to change at Kassel.




So, After 26.5hrs of travelling I arrived in Paderborn at 6:10pm and was met by Jan and his father. Getting back to his I was finally able to have an SSS (shit, shave and shower for those less enlightened) and got ready to welcome in the new year, German-style!

As can be seen from the video, this basically involved blowing up a whole lot of fireworks and firecrackers! On only a small amount of pizza and lollies however, I didnt last long and eventually passed out around 3am and got taken home.

Waking up the next day, I looked outside and saw this:



So far this journey had been very surreal but this image easily welcomed in a very different new year and said "Welcome to Germany!"