Some name thing

I saw this from Emily’s blog… as I’m bored waiting for photos to load, I thought I’d give it a go!

 

1. YOUR SPY NAME (middle name and current street name):

Thomas Franz-Hitze

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME (grandfather/mother on your mother's side and your favourite candy):
Dennis Pastille

3. YOUR RAP NAME (first initial of first name and first three or four letters of your last name):
A-Jon

4. YOUR GAMER TAG (a favourite colour, a favourite animal):
Red Bird

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, and city you were born in):
Thomas Neath

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (first three letters of your last name, last three letters of mother's maiden name, and then the first three letters of your pet's name):
Jondey Sau

7. JEDI NAME (middle name spelled backwards, your mother's maiden name spelled backwards):
Samoht Yedda

8. PORN STAR NAME (first pet's name, the street you grew up on):
Archie Ael-Y-Fro (maybe the career should be Welsh based, then… but even they’d have no clue!)

9. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favourite colour and the automobile your mother drives)
The Red Astra.

10. YOUR ACTION HERO NAME (first name of the main character in the last film you watched, last food you ate)
Dr Strangelove Chips.

R to the P

I have to come round to mentioning another weekend of travelling. This time, it was around Rheinland-Pfalz by train on the first weekend of coming back to Germany.

The plan was to go to Worms (again), and meet Rob and Leo, who was still there. We thought we’d go to Mainz, Koblenz, Trier, Saarbrücken (which is in another Land), back to Mainz, and then Worms.

It needed an early start, which I have trouble doing sometimes… but we somehow managed to get up in time and get the train to Mainz. The weather outside was really nice, and snow was still around. This was a good time to take some photos from the train as it went along the Rhein… it was also something to do to get away from this woman-thing sitting opposite. It’s not nice to describe… something like a pig that went through a drastically failed dental surgery. But she had lots of people to talk (and spit) to on the phone, and was eager to tell them she was on a train to Koblenz! Luckily for us, we were heading that way, too.

So, we arrived at Koblenz, where we met Laura (Emma was to meet us at the Deutsches Eck), and made our way to the Deutches Eck. The Deutsches Eck is a monument platform thing that is on the Mosel and Rhein junction, both of which were full of broken ice and slush. There was this huge statue of a King of Germany on a horse, with some random guy by the side. And there are flags of all the Bundesländen and also the German flag at the tip.

There were these benches, which were too cold to sit on. However, they were suitable to pose as YMCA letters… and the German guy who took the photo seemed to have no clue what we were doing! And it was also the ideal situation to crack open the first beers of the day!

We made our way back to the station, not without a detour into a hotel for the toilets, and we were Trier-bound. We didn’t stay there long, it was just light enough to take photos of the square and the Porta Nigra… which happens to be the best preserved Roman gate on the West part of the Empire. It’s a nice place and not too big, but pity that the bakeries don’t have enough Brezel!

Next was Saarbrücken, which is in Saarland. It has a nice Mexican restaurant.

So anyway, on the trains, we came up with something to pass the time, we came up with this game, when someone picks a topic, and each one takes it in turns to name something of that topic. Whoever repeated or couldn't think of anything was out. For example, grapes of wine, makes of cars, counties of the UK (ceremonial and administrative) and so on... we also had to come up with songs or films with colours in the titles. It was good, and it passed the time, too... even though I wasn't too good at it!

Then we went back to Mainz, but we went via Kaiserslautern and Bad Kreuznach, along the way we said bye to Laura and Emma. And at Mainz, we had enough time to go to a bar for a swift one! Luckily, there was a cocktail bar across the unmarked crossroads, and they were making cocktails for a fiver! Which was appealing. But the waiter did take a while to make them. During the process, he stopped, took orders from other people, and carried on… so he was making about half a dozen cocktails at a time. Wouldn’t it be easier to go one at a time, like normal people?

But we eventually got ours, but time was tight… so we ended up basically chugging them down… they were nice, but I’m not used to spirits anymore, so it proved more challenging! For five Euros, I couldn’t complain! At least we got back to Worms alright!

Religious Studies

Do you often come across some people who are just totally random, or just plain weird??

Just as an example, the other day I was in a service station in Germany, reading some maps, as you do. Then this guy came up and started to read the travel magazines next to me. I didn’t take much notice of him, until he just came out with the question:

“Are you evangelical?”

I thought to myself… “erm, I know my German isn’t perfect and, but did he just ask me that? Or am I on a completely different wavelength?”

I replied. I said, “Are you talking about religion?” He noticed that I wasn’t German (probably due to a strong Welsh accent that I may have), and then started to speak English to me. So, he went on about religion, Christianity mostly, different types of Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism and so on…

He asked me what I believed in. I said that I don’t believe in a God, but I reckon Jesus existed, but all the stories may be a bit exaggerated. I said something about reincarnation. He seemed to have taken an interest in this, and went on and on about it, and how he believed that you have to search for God. And how I should search for God. Should I search for God? Or just go about my life as it is, and wait until he finds me… probably in a pub. For his efforts, I may buy him a pint. I’d say he’s an ale drinker, personally.

However, Father Ted didn’t think in reincarnation. He says there’s a Heaven, or something like that. But I don’t know if he noticed my lack of interest in this conversation, or he realised that Songs of Praises was about to start soon, but whatever reason, the decision was a saviour for me.

Foreign driving in foreign lands

Now mostly about non-German roads. When travelling to Strasbourg, we got to the outside of the city, and there were signs for it. But all of a sudden, they just disappeared. Was this city like Bielefeld and didn’t really exist? Or were the French just being lazy and didn’t put any more signs up, thinking that the locals would know the way, anyhow? However, we just headed towards the city-direction… if there were less buildings, we’d turn around, and if there were more crazy drivers, then we’d carry on.

And the French and the Dutch have peculiar traffic lights, when they turn red, it’s normal. But from red to green, it goes… red… green. That’s it. Where’s the warning? I’m sitting there, waiting for them to change, and all of a sudden, it’s changed. It was so sudden, I’m still sitting there waiting for amber!

But the French have the groovy idea of putting li’l miniature traffic lights at eye-level with the drivers at the line. This way, there’s no need to painfully crane your neck over the steering wheel to watch the lights high above the car.

In Switzerland, the Autobahn signs were green, which didn’t prove too much of a problem, even though it’s expected after getting the required Vignette. But in Basel, the signs just do what they want. In this instance, and thankfully it was evening and all quiet, I was driving around the place, trying to find a decent place to park. I managed to drive down a one-way street…well, two of them. And I managed to drive in the middle of a pedestrianised square, which its only exit was via a tram stop at the other end.

The reasons for these were that the signs for the one-way streets weren’t really visible. You had to turn the corner of them to actually see them. And about the square, without warning, the street just stopped, or did a U-Turn. There was no indication of this, and if it’s a pedestrian-only square, then there should be bollards, a fence, or a kerb, at least.

As far as signage and road markings go, I think Belgium and the Netherlands are the best. Denmark was good, too… their signs were all in red. Reminded me of MOD a lot.

But one of the things I do miss about being back home is driving on proper roads, with proper signs and on the right side of the road!

German drivers and signs

More about roads in Europe. Have I told you about the road users here?? In Germany, the drivers are generally good. But the do some things, which wouldn’t go down well back home.

On the stretches of non-speed limited Autobahn, you’d have to be quick if you want to overtake the vehicle in front. If you see nothing in the mirrors, you can go, but you may suddenly find a Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, *insert other big posh cars that are driven by businessmen; bank managers; egoists; people who are so far up themselves they think they own the road; etc. here* so far up behind you, it makes you feel rather uncomfortable in a few ways. You may even see his disgruntled face, or maybe the bronzed suntanned skin fading into his receding hairline, unless it’s covered by the unhealthy amounts of slick-back hair gel, or a wig. You may even be lucky to get blinded by his flashing headlights in the mirrors to tell you to get out of the way, because you’re holding him up as he’s late for a meeting, or his tailor is about to close.

Another feature back home, which isn’t on the Autobahn, is on the signposts. If you want to go London from Swansea, you know it’s East. So you go onto the M4 Eastbound, or M4 (E) as it’s signposted. The same for every other motorway, the direction of travel is posted on signs. However, if you want to do that here, you have to know where these places are in respect of your intended direction, even if these places are miles and miles away from your destination. Or sometimes they may not even be in that direction.

An example or two. If you want to head from Recklinghausen to Dortmund, you travel East on the A2. But, the directions aren’t posted, but instead a city. Dortmund isn’t posted on signs, but a place called Hannover. Hannover is a couple of hundred miles away in a different Bundesland, and it’s in a Northeast direction. Why don’t they put Dortmund on the signs? It’s only half an hour away. Or even easier, why not put a direction on it, too? What’s also confusing is, you travel South down on the A43, you may be around Hattingen (I’m not sure where exactly), when you see signs for Bremen (A1). Now, you may be approaching the A1, but this is Southbound. Bremen is a good few hours away, and it’s up on the coast. Why travel South and just about double back on yourself, when you can easily just go up? The A43 joins the A1 on both ends, anyway. And junction numbers aren’t very well advertised either, they’d rather go by name than by number.

European driving

Since first arriving in Germany back at the beginning of September, I have driven at least 10,000 miles in Europe. Mostly around Germany, also to Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark. And I have more places to go to.

I've mentioned a few things already about driving out here... but I'll carry on.

I reckon that driving in different countries makes travelling a lot more interesting and can be fun. You get to see more places than you would by public transport. You’re able to go whenever and wherever you want (provided there’s a road), but even so, you can just park up nearby and walk… or cycle in one case! There aren’t any delays with cars, unless you can’t start it. But it’s much more flexible than a train. And it works out cheaper, too.

However, driving in Europe isn’t the same as driving back home. For a start, we have to drive on the wrong side of the road out here… or for non-British people; it’s on the right side of the road. People drive left-hand drive cars, too… but I haven’t driven one of those yet.

But the layout and signposting is similar to those back home. After some Vienna Act a few years ago… 1968, I think… all European countries, or most, have adopted a signposting system, which can be easily recognised by every European driver. 

There are a couple of differences, and also signs that aren’t seen in Britain. You don’t see the ‘Araf/Slow’ road paint here, but you see signs that tell you that you just exited a tunnel. There are also signs in a shape of a diamond/rhombus, it’s yellow with a white border. This means that it’s your right of way… and drivers at junctions must wait. However, if there’s a black line through this sign, it means you haven’t got right of way any more. So you have to be extra careful in urban areas with these signs around, in case you’re travelling along at 50km/h (or 32mph), and suddenly you have to slam on the brakes because someone just pulled out of a parking space on the side of the road. How stupid.

Roundabouts are around here, but not as much as back home. But the system is the same… but opposite directions. You approach a roundabout, and give way to traffic from the right (or already on the roundabout). However, in France, this rule has recently changed, you had to give way to cars entering the roundabout… but no more. Apparently, this rule may stand in the more rural areas, but I’m yet to experience that.

And since there aren’t many roundabouts, there are a lot of cloverleaves. Back home, there are so few examples of these that some people don’t even know what they are. What they are? Stupid and dangerous.

Basically, picture the scene. You’re driving along at about 70-80 miles per hour on the Autobahn, and approaching a junction. You get onto the slip road and start to slow down. You approach the bend, maybe between 30-40mph, which people normally do back home when they exit the motorway. But, even at 30mph, it’s too fast to go around these bends. And they aren’t even bends, they’re nearly circles. Tight circles. On some of them, I had to slow down to about 20mph to get around them. Luckily some of them are wide enough in case you have trouble keeping ‘straight’. Otherwise, the crash barriers will come into use.

As the German population strives for perfection, or so I’ve heard, the Autobahn network must always be of a high standard. So a lot of maintenance work is being done all over Germany to keep the roads up to standard. This means a stupid amount of road works, widening the carriageways, maintaining bridges, filling in potholes, and so on. And the lanes through these road works become really narrow, which makes it difficult to overtake a lorry that keeps straddling lanes, especially as some lanes narrow down to a width of about 2 metres. This is not fun during a rainy night, as it’s really difficult even to see the lines when dry! And the lack of any cat’s eyes doesn’t help. I really don’t know why they aren’t introduced around here.

And in road works, the lanes change position, and they use these yellow stripes. And these things sometimes don’t stay on the roads and peel off, so you get small piles of yellow stuff on the side of the roads, or they’ve been warped and in weird shapes and not in straight lines, unless the guy who did them had a bit of a wild night down the local beforehand.

And people were complaining about the road works around Cardiff on the M4? They’d love this place. Especially the queues and congestion they cause. Wouldn’t you like to be at the back end of a 10km Stau?

Going Back

The trip back to Germany was interesting. First of all, when we left Maidstone, we encountered snowy roads. It was me, Rob and Leo, who is a friend of Rob’s. And we got to the motorway, and were trying to make time for the ferry. But as I got onto the outside lane, the car started to slide all over the place. I thought this was a bad idea, but I managed to get back onto dry road. Then I noticed that the outside lane hadn’t been used at all much. By judging by the tyre marks in the frost, they didn’t stay on long, either.

Anyway, we got to the ferry on time about half ten on the Monday morning. And it was a rather rough crossing, a couple of times, the ferry got hit by huge waves and sent a loud bang and made a few people jump up from their seats and stuff. One or two screamed.

We wandered around the ferry for a bit, and found this arcade games room type place. But what amused us most was this rogue door. This door was without a lock or latch. And due to the roughness of the ferry, it kept swinging in and out all the time. And occasionally, it would smack against the walls quite hard. It was so much fun, that Rob decided to make a video of it. Though I’m not sure if I’m able to upload it on here (sometimes, it even has trouble managing a photo). 

We got to Calais and had another wander around the supermarkets, but didn’t get any alcohol this time. But we did visit this Buffalo Grill diner across the road. Due to the things that were not on the menu, we ended up having bison and chips. And a salad. It was really nice… that’s the bison and chips, not the salad. And the waitress wrote a note saying thanks and hope to see you again soon and stuff… it was nice. Bless.

My car needed a clean due to the crap that sprayed up from the snowy slushy wet roads, so we found a carwash. The drive-in one was kaput, so the jet wash would just have to do. So I parked up and got out. The instruction diagrams were rather confusing. For some reason, it had some stupid French-talking dog showing me what to do with a jet wash. So, the washer was sat in this tube thing that holds it, and I put some money into the machine.

Now… as far as I knew, I put the money in and then press a trigger or something on the washer-nozzle-handle-thing. But being French, it was a bit different. As I put the money in, I heard this whirring noise. It sounded as if something was starting up. I turned my head to the washer-nozzle-handle-thing, and realised… it’s going to shoot out and squirt water everywhere. It’s like what you see in cartoons, as Rob put it, when the character is jumping out of the way and running from a hose, which is out of control and gushing out with high-pressured water.

And that’s exactly what happened.

It was much to the amusement of Rob and Leo. And to be honest, I found it funny, too. But after I cleaned the car and attached the headlight deflectors on, all was set to go.

On the Autoroute, the crappy weather and the spray made my windscreen dirty. So dirty that I ran out of washer fluid. But it was not an easy task to find any Scheibenwasser to clean it. I needed water and this antifreeze stuff because of the climate and such. But I eventually found somewhere that sells it and put some in. However, none of us were sure whether or not this stuff was diluted. But I put about a bottle’s worth in along with sufficient water. And tried it out. It took a while (also due to the ice forming around the washer nozzles), but all what happened was just one nozzle was working. Just a small trickle was making through. It wasn’t a spray, or a seep, it was the same as when you squeeze liquid from a bottle, or take a piss.

Unfortunately, that was the last time it worked for a while. So every now and then I get a little but lonely and you’re never coming around, turn around bright eyes… *ahem*… what I was meant to say was… every now and then I had to pull in at services or parking bays along to Autoroute to clear my windscreen over and over again. The next time it worked was a couple of weeks later, when the weather was a bit warmer and the water had time to mix in with the fluid, which probably formed a funky-gunky blockage in the pipes. My odometer light was temperamental, too. But it works fine now. The only thing that isn’t working is the display light on my radio. But at least the sound works through all the speakers!

Along the way, we listened to some of Rob’s and my music, depending on whose battery was strongest. But when they failed, we switched to German radio. I can’t remember the station or the title of the song, but there was this particular track, which was just unbelievable. It was a terrifyingly bad crossbreed between rap and country. Maybe creating the new genre of ‘crap’. It was so bad that we found it funny. It just had to be listened to. It was one of those songs.

Those were the highlights of the trip back to Germany. And due to the many miles (or kilometres) I drive here in Europe, I have a few comments to say about the roads and things relating with them.

Ve-hickles

I haven’t mentioned about my new car. Anyway…

I ended up buying a red Peugoet 406 saloon car from a local car dealer who knows my uncle, who is also a mechanic. It’s done about 110,000 miles, it’s about 1o years old… nearly 11, and it has a 1.9 turbo Diesel engine. It has gadgets such as air conditioning, electric windows and central locking. Even though I’m not one for too many gadgets and features on cars, I’m getting used to them, but I haven’t used the air conditioning yet… I’m still used to winding the windows down. But even so, it’s not a case of ‘winding the windows down’ anymore. It’s… pressing the button. Along with an MOT test, I spent £1,000 for it. Plus £102 for tax. So I was happy with the result!

One peculiar feature is the number plate. The letters on it spell out Ruth. Much to the impressiveness to my uni/hiking friend, Ruth! But I haven’t named my car Ruth, though. First of all, even though I like the name, it doesn’t seem suitable for a car. And secondly, as it’s a French car, it would have to be a French name. So, I think I like the name Amélie. Don’t really know why. The other choice is Béatrice, which means voyager or traveller. The meaning is apt for my car, but not sure if I like the name!

It seems really picky about a name for a car. I know it isn’t as important as naming a kid. But still… gives me something to do. However, I think I’ll go for Amélie. It has a nicer sounding name to it… I think.

So, now I no longer have my Golf. After 3 years and 50,000 miles, it finally gave in. I didn’t want to get rid of it, but I had to. It’s one of those really sentimental things you have. I’ve been everywhere in it… it’s had good and bad times. Mostly good! And it’s well known between people I know… not sure whether it’s for the right reasons!

But hopefully my new car will be just the same… or better! We’ll see!

My first car, Astrid.

1994 Volkswagen Golf III, 1.9 Match Diesel.

My second car, Amélie.

1998 Peugeot 406, LS X 1.9 Turbo Diesel.

‘tis the season to be jolly… falalalalala la la laa!

My car got back home in one piece, however I had to use it minimally. I drove my brother’s car and also my parents’… but even so, I didn’t do much driving. Instead, I was busy with Christmas, as it was only two days after I got back.

I was also ill for a couple of says after Boxing Day. For some reason, I was spewing all night. And so was my sister. The next day, my brother said he’d been ill that night when he was staying at his girlfriend’s. And the day after, my other brother came ill, along with my mother. And then my father started being ill. Basically, my whole family, and many other relatives became ill of the same thing. It wasn’t anything that we ate, because some of us didn’t eat the same stuff. We must have caught something from someone sometime. Whatever it was… it was rather nasty.

And in the meantime, I was looking for a new car. There was no way my Golf could take me back to Germany. It wasn’t in a fit state, first of all. And I wouldn’t be able to get the MOT done in time, even though it would have taken longer because it needed fixing. So I decided to give it to my mechanic. My family have been going to him for years and he’s one of those mechanics who are really hard to come by. And what he has done for us, I just handed over my car. He said he could get it working fine again, so be it so!

So, by the time I picked the car up after MOT, I had to leave for Germany the day after. So I didn’t have a very productive Christmas. I didn’t get to do all the things I planned to do. But I managed. I did however, forget to take my plug adapters and I left the second part of my driver’s licence in the old car. I was unable to get a Welsh car sticker, too. I got a GB one, but I also tried to look for one with the Welsh flag on it, just like the one I had on my Golf. However, the place that sold them was in Swansea Market. And it was closed when I got there. And Halford’s have crappy designs on theirs. Hopefully one will get sent to me along with my V5 and driver’s licence counterpart.

Going Home

I seem to be lacking on input on this blog lately. Sometimes I’m too busy… sometimes I’m travelling somewhere… sometimes I just can’t be bothered. However, I got time now, so I’ll get onto some updating!

I’ll mention a few things, but briefly. I have to talk about the way back home before Christmas and the time at home, too. So I’ll start with that.

So… as my car was in a dodgy state, I had to be careful with it on the journey back home. I wanted to buy a new car out here, and I did find a nice car. It was ideal. However, due to it being a left-hand drive, the insurance back home would triple. I can see where they’re coming from. It is more difficult having the steering wheel on the other side of the car, when the car isn’t designed for such road. It’s not easy trying to see what’s coming on the other side of the road when wanting to overtake a lorry. The view of the road is very restricted in some places, especially behind such vehicles, or being at a sharp junction and so on.

However, the trip home was in three legs. The first from Recklinghausen to Worms. The second was with Rob from Worms to Maidstone. And the third was from Maidstone back to Pontardawe.

On the day we left, we thought we’d call in Kaufland to buy some stuff, a crate of beer and some Schnitzel. I got my selection of different beers, a bottle of Sprite, some Haribo and a kick-ass Schnitzel from the Erich Zeiss. I must put extra emphasis on this Schnitzel.

Well, we got to the counter, and they had massive Schnitzels. And we thought that she’d cut them in half and give us a half each. But she didn’t. She cut them in half and put one on top of the other in the bread roll. So we had this massive Schnitzel in small bread. And the meat was good, too. It wasn’t dry crap that tasted and felt like rubber. It was soo good and succulent and faultless. It took me quarter of an hour to finish it. Just like the Cawlchen I had in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I didn’t want this to finish!

And, when eating this Schnitzel, I looked up and saw these two guys trying to bump-start this tiny Renault Twingo through the car park. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. And with this tiny excuse for a car, this heavenly Schnitzel, the good weather that day, and good music blasting from the only working speaker of my car, it seemed things couldn’t get any better!

So we set off. I drove towards Kaiserlautern and into Luxembourg. As fuel is cheap here, we worked out that I’d fill about half a tank in Recklinghausen, and by the time we were in Luxembourg, it would be bordering on the red. So then we’d fill up and it should last until I get home.

The route was really nice, we didn’t go on many motorways. Instead, we went on trunk roads along the French-Belgian border, and then take the French A26 to Calais. At Calais, provided we had time, we would go to the warehouses to get beer and wine and stuff. We did it, but we got to the ferry check-in point ten minutes late. However, these people are rather flexible like that, and we managed to get there fine. Even so, it would have been possible to get on the next sailing.

The rest of the journey was rather uneventful. Nothing much really happened between Dover and Pontardawe. Even though in Maidstone, I did get my first haircut since August. And come to think of it, my first English haircut!

Vianden

On the second day in Luxembourg, we decided to go North to Vianden. Rob was here some time before, so he told us about it and thought we should take a look. And on the way, Rob went to get a tape converter thingy for the car that plugs into MP3 players and the such.

In Vianden, we parked up tightly in between these two Luxembourgish cars, whose drivers couldn’t park in the spaces properly. The walked down this cobbled hill, and into a restaurant over the river, and I had an awesome Schnitzel, too. And the paper mat things were perfect for doodling!

However, we walked further down the road… saw some Victor Hugo house, and Rob was particularly interested in Luxembourg post boxes.

We then drove up the hill to the castle. Parking was a bit weird. Cars were parked up by the entrance, including another British car! But they weren’t meant to be there, so I had to go back. And it proved quite a challenge to turn around on a steep hill, with not much room, and old and fat people getting in the way and were taking their time going downhill, in case they fall and roll, probably. I eventually found some ‘free’ parking, and then we went up to the castle. However, Laura and Laura didn’t want to go in, so me and Rob did.

We had a wander about, and there were a lot of stalls there… with people dressed up in Mediaeval clothes and stuff. There was also a tavern type place, but we didn’t go as time was running out. And I was driving, too…

The place was nice and so were the views. But it would have been better given we had more time, but we had to go.

The drive out of the country didn’t take too long, as Vianden was just by the border. We headed to Trier to drop the Lauras off, and getting into the town was a nightmare with traffic and steep downhill. However, we got there.

Das Land des Luxes

Back in December, we went to Luxembourg for two days, or one night… well, two days and one night. Me and Rob went by car via the Pfalz region and stupidly narrow road through small villages, squeezing passed lorries using these lanes, and then into the small principality, through its many tunnels, which tell you that you have left the tunnel on the other side… in case you hadn’t noticed the blinding light once you leave. The fuel here is also cheap. It was averaging about 84 cents for a litre of Diesel! It was good! We decided this would be a good place to fill up on the way back to Britain.

We eventually arrived at Luxembourg City, which happens to be the capital of Luxembourg. We were to meet Laura C, Laura H and Emma at the train station, which wasn’t too difficult to find. But as soon as we got there, Emma and her significant other had to ditch us for some birthday party back in Deutschland.

It was already dark once we got there, so we weren’t going to wander about just then. We decided to dump our kit off at the youth hostel first… which the Lauras thought that we wouldn’t be able to find it by car. However, due to Rob’s navigational skills and my city driving skills, we managed to get there without a problem. Much to the impressiveness to Laura and Laura!

The hostel was really nice, and at 20 Euros per night, it was nicely priced. This also included breakfast. We got to our room; to find that some other random person was staying. He wasn’t there at the time, but his stuff was. We were anxious as to who this person was… was he an old man who’d snore and fart all night? Was he going to stumble in at stupid o’clock pissed out of his mind? Was he going to sleepwalk and jump in one of our beds? We’d soon find out.

Later on, we went for a wander about the City. Of what we saw, it was a really picturesque place, with valleys and old buildings and ‘special night life’ streets. We went on to find a bar, which proved more difficult than first thought. The ones we saw were more like clubs, or full of dodgy people. But we eventually got this place, which seemed alright. They sold Glühwein, too. But there was some crazy dancing going on in the back of the bar, it was more like a rave there. We moved on to another bar, but we were all too tired to stay out too long, unfortunately.

However, I must mention Laura H’s gloves. They were awesome! Slightly too small for my hands, but they were comfy and leatherous. I think I should get a pair, though bigger and not to à la femme.

We got back to the hostel and found out the guy who was in the room. I think we woke him up as we got in, and Laura C’s laughing fit may have contributed, too. But during the night, I couldn’t sleep, so I went out at 6 the next morning and took a few early morning photos of the older part of town, which proved to be very cold! Nice, but cold.

I got back to the hostel in time for Frühsück, which wasn’t bad, just the normal stuff, like bread and cheese and tea and such. And we got back to the room to get ready to go, and the guy was there. He may have been French, but Laura H tried to talk to him in a number of languages, including English, French and German. He may have been Bosnian…

Amser i ddod nôl

Roedd yn amser hir ers ysgrifennais i arno hyn. Yn gyntaf, byddai’n hoffi dweud roedd yr wythnosau cynt yn frysur iawn gyda phopeth. Mae gen i gymaint i ddweud, ond mae rhaid i mi eu ysgrifennu nhw ar bostynnau unigrwydd, oherwydd rwy’n credu mae’n hawddach y ffordd hynnu.

Y rheswm pam na ysgrifennais yn ddiweddar yw’r ffaith bod roeddwn i’n frysur a chefais i ddim amser, er enghraifft, yn chwilio am gar newydd, ac roeddwn i’n dost, hefyd (gyda phawb eraill y fy nheulu). Roedd Nadolig yn reswm arall pam na gefais i amser i ysgrifennu unrhyw peth, ac roeddwn i’n adref yng Nghymru am lai na phethefnos, felly roedd rhaid i mi gwasgu phopeth i fewn pan chefais i’r siawns, ac yn y ddiwedd, methais i i wneud popeth â gobeithio.

Ond, yn ddiolchgar, rwy’n nôl, nawr! Felly, gallai ddechrau ysgrifennu eto. Mae gen i lawer i ddweud, fel gyrru i Gymru ac yn ôl, teithio o gwmpas yr Almaen a llefydd eraill, problemau â chefodd fy hen gar, arwyddon heol Ewropiaidd diddorol, ac yn y blaen. Byddech chi’n cael cyfle i ddarllen y storïau i gyd pan yr amser yn dod!

Dw i ddim yn gwybod pan fyddai’n gorffen ysgrifennu pob un, ond gall pethau fel hyn cymryd amser, enwedig oes mae yna llawer i’w gwneud. Hefyd, mae rhaid i mi ddewis beth i ysgrifennu ym mle. Efallai bydd e’n gyflymach i ysgrifennu popeth yn un bostyn, ond rwy’n credu bydd e’n rhy hir ac efallai’n ddiflas iddych chi.