Okay well… over the past couple of days we’ve been to Heidelberg, Nördlinger and Dinkelsbühl on the Romatische Straße, very interesting and nice scenery but spent way too long on the bus… its been like 35 degrees, boiling hot during the day. But the most exciting thing happened yesterday… Omi told us there was a ’surprise’ for us in the Rathaus (town hall) so we rocked up at about 9am… and I would have never ever guessed who was waiting for us there… Mum and Dad!!!!!!! I guess they missed us so much they had to fly over to germany to see us. Hahahah.

They hired a car, so tomorrow we’re off on a road trip with them for 8 or 9 days I dont remember, we’re going to Prague, Vienna, Innsbruck, Lucerne, Venice and Milan… oh my god… so no updates for the next week or so!!!

Today marks the beginning of the Erbacher Wiesenmarkt (its kinda like the Ekka…happens once a year and its a big beer drinking fest with rides and stuff) in the next town, Erbach (pronounced kinda like ‘abba’ when you say it quickly). That sentence didnt make sense but i dont really care. It goes until the 30th of July. We might check it out for a few hours this afternoon after lunch, then we’re going back to Mechtild’s house coz one of Omi’s cousins, Sigrid, will be there so mum and dad can meet her.

Saturday was our Rhein cruise! We got up at 4.30am (I had to drag myself out of bed) and we had to walk to where the bus picked us up at 6am. After we were finally on our way to Köln city, we decided to ask around to see if anyone spoke English. The bus was packed with senior citizens (Aimee and I were the only ones under 65…hahahah) so I wasnt very hopeful. But it turned out that the lady sitting behind us, the first person we asked ’sprechen Sie Englisch?’ spoke the most English out of everyone on the bus! We chatted to her for a little while, and found out her name was Helene. We decided taht the safest thing to do would be to stick with her.

After about two hours on the bus, we stopped for a short break. The oldies (its an affectionate name!) were well prepared, they had a tablecloth set up on a tree stump, with coffee, orange saft (orange juice), bread rolls and a german sausage. ‘You taste German sausage!!’ cried Helene. So we did… haha I dropped my roll on the grass but the 10 second rule applied so I still ate it. Another two hours on the bus and we finally arrived in Köln. We had a bit over an hour before the schifffahrt (boat trip), so we went with Helene’s posse to find a nice cafe. Helene shouted us a cola each, which was nice of her.

Anyway the cruise was great!!! The tour guide spoke in German AND English, thank god. We sat on the top deck and had to borrow some sunscreen from the old lady in the red jacket, whose bag contained EVERYTHING I swear it was bottomless, and aimee still managed to get a tan. The cruise only went for an hour, so we had 5 hours to look around the city before the bus took us home again. Köln is the home of a massive gothic cathedral, the Köln Dom (pronounced ‘Dome’ but with a german accent) There was a festival going on in the city… the Rainbow Lounge…and it didn’t take us very long to figure out that it was a gay and lesbian festival. It was absolutely hilarious, our group of grannies, walking hesitantly through the gay slash lesbian crowd…we must have stuck out terribly!!!!! hahahah.

So anyway we had a look in the cathedral after we had something for lunch at the Chicago Steakhouse, and Helene bought us an English brochure of information on the Dom. We killed some more time by doing a bit of window shopping. Helene stopped us at a 4711 store, and explained that Köln was the home of 4711! cool. we mentioned that Omi likes 4711, and Helene said we should buy some for her. I thought that was a good idea, so we were ushered inside. We found a nice gift pack, ‘You like?’ Helene asked, and i said yes it’s nice, and continued to look around the store. I thought I may as well buy the gift pack, it was only €9 and Omi would appreciate it. So I went up to the counter to pay, BUT Helene had already paid!!! She wouldnt accept our money, and, furthermore, bought us a 5ml bottle of 4711 for €1 each, before we could blink.

Stunned, we walked outside and not much futher down the street was a clothes store called Madonna. Out the front were tshirts with Germany printed on them. Helene pointed them out. ‘You like? What size?? Take back to Australia to remember Germany!’ … no amount of complaining, begging or pleading would have stopped her from buying them for us!! AFter that, when we stopped at an Eis cafe, we insisted on paying. Helene had a Spaghetti Cabonara Eis (i thought spaghetti bolonaise eis was outrageous!) and Aimee and i shared a Schoko Edbeer (chocolate and vanilla ice cream, fresh strawberries, and chocolate syrup..in a MASSIVE cup…it was like a meal in itself).

What a day…but…it wasnt over yet… the bus trip back home, aimee and i were singing ABBA songs the entire way…and it distracted us so much that we MISSED OUR STOP. So… 11pm at night, with a bus driver who didnt speak english, all we could say was ‘Michelstadt!!’ and he said something unintelligable and we pretty much wanted to die coz we didnt know where the hell we were and we were the last two peopel on the bus…the bus driver made a phone call and then said somethign to me, all i got was ‘my wife’ and ‘car’.. and i was hoping to dear god that he said my wife will drive you home in her car. I was right….sigh…..we paid the driver €5 and his wife the same. I felt terrible… and when we got back to Michelstadt we ran all the way home coz it was dark and scary. The walk that would normally take about 10 mins we ran in about 2…haha. Well..til next time, auf weidersehen!!!!