G´day all! Sorry for the prolonged radio silence, but as you´re about the see I´ve been a rather busy...
I´m just finishing a week in Hamburg, Germany, having travelled through Denmark and Sweden over the last three weeks since leaving Switzerland. In that time I have battled a Danish shower curtain, made a narrow escape from a Swedish farm, and confronted the awesome challenge of the spare tire. If things keep up like this I may have to come home early due to sheer exhaustion...
How can I keep this email under a short novel I hear you ask? I don´t know, so let me say up front that I miss you all (yes, you specifically), hope you are well and would love to hear from you. And now, here are the highlights so far, in chronological order:
Gordon vs. The Danish Shower
You all remember I stayed with Sonja, a Danish friend I met at Kandersteg? When I wrote the last Episode on her computer, little did I know that I was merely 22 hours away from making a complete dick of myself.
It seems that having showers in bathtubs is all the rage in Europe. This isn´t all that common for Australia so I´m not used to it. And no one tell you the rules, such as "moving around in the tub is not recommended", or "If you do move in the tub, be careful of the steep and slippery sides", and nor did anyone mention that "should you slip on the edge of the tub, the shower curtain is not your friend".
So, after doing the cartoon-esque running on the spot on the side of the tub, I found myself on the flore, naked, wet and covered in the shower curtain I´d managed to tear out of the ceiling. ´Graceful´ and ´dignified´ are not words that come to mind.
I got my revenge though. While I was lying there on the floor, contemplating the patheticness of it all, I started to notice a rather pungent smell...seems I´d taken out my toiletries on the way down, and smashed the bottle of tea tree oil I had for antiseptic. I´ve since been informed that the smell has gone. Two weeks later.
Apart from this, Demark was a lovely place, and I´m having trouble with the idea these guys were once Vikings. Way too polite. The only thing that could convince me otherwise is the weather - if I had to sit through so much greyness I think I might go visiting other countries too, even if this required foaming at the mouth while swinging an axe.
Pretty much everyone speaks english, often better than I do, and there is a whole lot of history out there, including the Viking museums and the Han Christian Anderson house where you can find out just how sad, depressed and lonely the poor bastard really was.
Battle of the bulge
It was sometime during the stay with Sonja that I made a horrific discivery. Far from leaving Kandersteg a tanned, ripped and extremely fit ski guiding type, I HAVE PUT ON WEIGHT.
This was upsetting. Frankly put, I´ve never had this problem before. Damn you Tim and your delicious, filling cooking!
So now I have a problem. Gordon Young with a spare tire (even a small one) is like Ghandi with a machine gun. It just ain´t right. Fortunately, expensive food, a piss-poor exchange rate (can you guys start working a bit harder please?), and a lack of a fridge are presenting my with some catering challenges that look likely to sort out the problem pretty damn fast.
The hardcore hippies of Copenhagen
Sadly, I turned up at Copenhagen, capital of Denmark on a Sunday to find a whole lot of bugger-all was happening. It´s definitely a beautiful city, despite keeping up the Danish tradition for grey weather, but the lack of activity was somewhat dispiriting. Then I found Chrisitiania.
I´m a greenie - I know hippies. Not a very hard core hippy myself, but I know a few I´d consider pretty damn serious about not being serious if you follow me. But never in my life have I seen hippies like this.
Christiania is a ´free-town´ on old unusued military land. This is a nice way of saying the land was occupied by squatters in the 1970s who refuse to acknowledge city authority and above all, refuse to leave. Sounds like a ghetto right? Wrong. This place had evolved into an incredibly strong community which in all seriousness, I consider to be an excellent and functioning model of communal living.
It´s the liberal anarchist dream - community is strong and all decisions are made by consensus, services for minorities, the poor, children and the elderly are strongly supported by a communal purse, rent is reasonable, and vegetarianism and eco friendlyness are embraced. Oh and hash is easily obtained (though hard drugs are totally forbidden).
But the most impressive thing to me is that on several occasions where the rules of the community were broken, such as when a biker gang attempted to muscle in or when hard drug dealers turned up, the entire community is rallied through a phone relay system and 10 minutes later the entire community shows these people the door. Compare this to people being beaten up on a crowded train in Melbourne and no one lifting a finger. I really liked this place. I reckon I´ll be back...
Sweden high-school adventures
So next on the agenda: Sweden. Here I have three friends, the same ones behind most of my more drunken moments at Kandersteg. It also happens that there guys are 18 to 19. And still in high school.
This later fact only really sunk in when having arrived at Helsignborg, Sweden, and was greated by Josefine who´s place I was staying at, she informed me that I had an appointment at 8.15am the next morning to help her and Linn to make a class presentation on Scouting.
See if you can picture this scene: Me, a 23 year old Australia, dreadlocked, sitting in the middle of a Swedish high school cafeteria, surrounded by a gaggle of students. This is what I like to call a ´how the hell did this happen again?´ moment. I seem to have a lot of these...When you find yourself blowing up balloons underneath the local sports stadium to decorate the big competition between the 5 local Helsingborg schools, I feel it can be rewarding to stop and take stock.
Yes, the attention was nice. Awesome in fact. But there´s a certain feeling you get hanging around a high school with people 5 years younger than you, and that feeling is dirty old bastard. Nevertheless, I got over it and I reckon the Swedish, or at least the ones I know, rival Australians for friendliness and just good old enthusiasm for life.
The school system in Sweden is pretty interesting; at 15-16 you finish at a general high school and move on to a specialist school. This reminds me a lot of the end of year 12 when we schoose a uni or tafe course, but this starts much younger and is compulsory. Types of school include hospitality and cooking, math/science, and adventurous and outdoor activities. Some of these guys learn hunting in high school. Full on.
Swedish partying and The Farm Incident
For friday night, my Swedish friends had organised to go out, show me the town. We started at a house party, pretty good fun. Turns out the host´s Mum was a belly dancer so naturally all the guys ended up in costume and shaking the money maker - hilarious, yes, but nothing really out of the ordinary.
Next we push into town and hit The Tivoli, a big nightclub by the Helsingborg docks. Here things get interesting. Some of the guys can´t get in and head elsewhere, but I stick with Kris, of Kander-Crawl fame, and head in. Much dancing ensues, along with what I´ll admit was some god-awful singing by me.
One high point saw the DJ play some Rage Against the Machine. I got a little er, enthusiastic, and found myself jumping around with some guys much, much, much, much larger than me. We´re talking big here. If it hadn´t been for the all the Swedish culture (read: beer) I had sampled I wouldn´t have gone near these guys, but God looks after fools and drunks, and since I was both I pinballed off these guys happily for 3.5 minutes, realised what I was doing after the song finished and made myself scarce.
But this pales in comparison to the next morning, when I woke up on a farm. What we have been able to reconstruct of the story goes like this:
We left the club about 3am. I am invited to an after party with people I have just met. Kris talks to these guys and gives me the ok, but heads home himself. After being loaded into a car, I begin to get slightly worried when we leave Helsingborg. I get quite a bit more worried when we keep driving for 40 minutes.
Anxiety peaks when we stop in a dark field with no obvious signs of civilisation nearby and I am told "this is it". I reply "What is it? Dirt is it?". We walk for 15 minutes down a mud road and turn up at a farmhouse - I fully expect it to have a farmer armed with shotgun on the front porch. More drinking ensures inside.
The next morning I wake up, look at the people there are can´t remember any names. I then look out the window and realise I don´t know where I am. Added to the whopping hangover and so far, this is not a good morning.
Eventually everyone gets up, and me having figured out one name by ransacking the room until I found a medicine bottle, I ask where the hell I am. Turns out I´m in a joint called Swallow and the nearest train station is 40 minutes away. Joy.
I phone Kris and once he stops laughing at me, tells me which buses to catch. How do I get to the bus station though? Easy! Just ride the farms buggered old bike with a flat rear tire there, but don´t forget your helpful local guide sitting on the back, smoking and giving useful advice like "you´ll never get us up this hill".
I decided a break from alcohol might be in order. This was foolish, because I then headed for...
Hamburg and the Red Light Marathon
Jana is a German friend of mine I met while she was holidaying in Australia and she kindly put me up for a few days in lovely Hamburg. While my German revolves mainly around ordering one large beer, it´s nice to have enough language to get by again. And Hamburg is worth getting by in.
The trip here was pretty uneventful, excepting when the train drove into a ferry and I found myself floating for 30 minutes, which was pretty cool.
Hamburg itself is a city of merchants, meaning it´s quite rich. The place is nice, the people quite helpful, the prices pretty expensive, and air pretty smokey. The Town Hall here has to be seen to be believed and rivals most of the churches I´ve seen so far for detailed work and sheer oppulance, and the english-speaking guide was excellent.
Jana and friends entertained me well with a night wandering around town, a visit to the Dom or fair, and last night, pub hopping through the local red light district.
Why the best legit nightlife is in the middle of the red light district, I don´t know, but when the music is good, the places are cool and the drinks are $1 each, count me in. You can count me in so far in fact that when everyone else decided it was time to leave, I wanted to stay. Then I looked at my watch.
What is it about traveling that gives you superhuman stamina? We left the bar at 5.30am! I can´t remember having stayed out that long for years in Australia. So after a bit of stumbling, one attempted street fight regarding public urination (not me), and a short train trip, we made it to bed at 6am. And I am still recovering from this.
Which brings us to now. Tomorrow I head off for Berlin to meet some Scout friends - more updates to come!
Photos and film
I´m yet to get the last set of photos uploaded, but they´ll be there very soon. In the meantime there´s a few new videos on You Tube so check out the links below.
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