Catching up

From the leaning tower in Pisa to the leaning town of Ulm, there was a little bit of everything in this beautiful town. They even had a section called little Venice which had water canals weaving between old stone houses just like the real deal. Towering over the city at a height of 161 meters was the Muenster church and as impressive as it was from my stand point, It would have been awesome if I could have climbed up to the top but time didn´t allow it. I spent the whole day sight seeing while my uncle was at work but by 2.00 I was starving so I thought I´d see what the bakerys here had to offer.

You could say I´ve been living under a rock but I´ve never seen a self serve bakery before. You basically grab what you want from the shelves like in the lolly section at woolworths and pay at the counter. I found it so cool that I left my town map on the counter on my way out. I must have looked pretty lost in that bakery because the shop keeper ran about a mile down the road to return it to me.

The night life in Ulm started off pretty slow but I was keen to see what was happening in town and eventually we found a pub which wasn´t completely empty. After a few beers I tried to get my uncle into the karaoke but he just stuck to his I´m too old to have fun story. I met two german girls who worked in a hotel at the train station and after convincing them I couldn´t sing either I tried dragging them up on stage for a duet but I couldn´t get them to take a break from smoking and drinking apple schnapps. I don´t remember everything that went on later but there must have been something other than tobbaco in the cigarettes I was given. Either way it turned out to be a good night.

Having no hang over the next morning I headed into town to check out the baking museum. I had imagined there´d be more machinery and less pictures and display articles but I didn´t leave disappointed. To learn about the evolution of baking, the different methods used by other cultures and to think that the principles for baking bread have remained unchanged for thousands of years was enough to keep me busy until it was time to leave for Konstanz.

I had to meet Isabell during her Uni break so she could let me into her room and we didn´t have much time to lose. My uncle did a great job making every minute count and we made it to Meersburg with plenty of time to spare. The ferry took us across the Bodensee to Konstanz and gave us a spectacular view of the Alps surrounding the southern end of the lake.

It was a bit strange at first meeting up with someone I hadn´t seen in over a year and barely really got to know but Isa hadn´t changed much at all since Australia (that´s not a bad thing). The only thing I noticed is that she spoke german at a supersonic rate. I couldn´t understand a thing and I constantly had to ask her to slow it down a fraction.

On saturday a friend of Isa´s set up camp in Isa´s room and from then on everything was chaos but in a good way. Sandra had met Isa in New Zealand during her travels so there was a lot to catch up on. Everything we planned from saturday on was completely spontaneous.

We paddled along the Bodensee saturday with a bunch of Isa´s Uni friends. The boat I shared with Isa seemed to have more water in it than the entire lake and after letting Isa try her hand at paddling it was like riding an underwater merry-go-round. We made it a couple of k´s before the weather turned ugly so we called it quits and paddled ashore. We were meant to leave our paddle boats on the side of the road so Sandra could pick them up and then at some stage were supposed to meet at the Rhein for a barbeque.

We tried to make a group plan and I didn´t understand any of what was spoken however, I don´t think I was alone. Sandra didn´t know she was meant to pick up the boats and nobody knew where exactly to meet for the barbeque or how we were going to get everything to the river. Stephan and Jessie collected the firewood but didn´t bring it to the river.

This kind of "planning" was the norm for most of the week but through it all we got heaps of things done. I rode around a section of the bodensee with Sandra on Isa´s heavy duty mountain bike, Went to the planetarium, visited my relatives at the Affen Berg, had a look at the Rheinfall in Switzerland, watched top model with four chicks (odd experience), baked my first cake since tafe (hard days yacka) and heaps more. It was a great week and I really have to thank everyone for the big effort especially Isabell! Even though she was stressed out to the max with Uni she spent every spare minute she had on keeping us entertained.