I caught up with Sonja and Mark in Germany, which is just like a toy village. All the houses are the same and painted in pastel colours and everything is very neat and tidy! The Autobarn ROCKS! They have drive thru petrol stations, in fact, as far as I could tell the whole place just runs so well. Gotta love that German efficiency! Oh, so tell me, how come it takes three hours to check in and board at Stansted, and in Frankfurt, I was through customs, had my bags and was out the front door smoking a fag literally within 5 minutes! Oh, I also went to the loo in that time and noticed that they have recycled toilet paper too! Love the germans!
Which brings me to the idea that if any of you were thinking of the UK as being a first world country - disuade yourself of that thinking if you ever come to visit. It will only frustrate and infuriate you when you expect things to work, expect to go to emergency and receive something other than a panadol, expect that your stupid bank account can transfer cash back to australia and actually work when you go to the continent. Seriously - my bank gave me a card that didnt work outside the UK (this i found out after ringing them from germany asking why my card didnt work). Which I shall point out is right bloody next door to the continent, as opposed to my australian bank account which works in the continent! Anyway, so once you get it in your head that the UK is actually more a second world and stop expecting things to run smoothly and efficiently then life in the uk becomes an adventure of impossibilities. Someone let you go in front of them through the tube ticket barrier - wow!, you went to the post office to mail a parcel and there was only 20 people in front of you and you werent in there for an hour - amazing! someone smiled at you on the tube - impossible!!! Trust me, its a fight to the death just to get to your local deli, dodging people and bikes and more people, homeless asking for cash, dogs, drunken yobs, men leering at you (apparently I am quite gorgeous over here - all you aussie bastards take note! chick with white skin and freckles - means exotic over here!!) but its also exhilerating too! Such a mish mash of people from all cultures and lifestyles, jammed together and doing their thing! So much so, that its a rare thing to meet a real londoner - someone who was actually born and bred here!
Anyway I digress, so back to adventures with Sonja and MArk!
Sonja and her mother bridgette took me shopping to some massive autobarn style complex with EVERYTHING you could possibly imagine in it! Grocery Shopping heaven here we come! The best bit was me wandering around checking out all the foodstuffs you can get in Germany. I just love checking out supermarkets in foreign countries. And what do they have in copious amounts in germany at christmas time?? GINGERBREAD! Well I bought so much of the stuff, I needed and extra bag to get it home on the plane!
Off on the autobarn we go on a mission to the french alps! It was fabulous driving through the alps - just like being in gran turismo! I especially loved tthe tunnels that went through the mountains! We made our way to a gorgeous little village called Megeve up in the mountains. Squeals of delight - here we are in france in a snow covered village out of some fairy tale! With the christmas lights it looker ever so pretty! They even have horse and buggies to take you around the town! Mark and I were incredibly excited about going snowboarding the next day, ok I know my back was only just managing to get better but it was snowboarding were talking about here!
Should have known - later that night, just as I am about to step into a nice hot bath, the disc in my back goes again, and a concerned Sonja races in to the bathroom to find out why I am standing nude and screaming. The pain was breathtaking, quite literally it took my breath away. Every time I so much as thought of twitching a muscle, some unseen imp was stabbing a hot knife into my spine! Needless to say, I went to sleep that night with tears rolling down my cheeks!
In the morning, our first mission of the day is to find me an osteopath, that is after I get dressed. Mark, bless him, put on my shoes and socks for me! I wanted Sonja to marry him right then and there! To cut a long story short, the osteo cracks me this way and that, says I have an inflammed spine and guess what - no smowboarding! So its screw the snow - lets hit the beach!
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