To,m Goes south

Well my plane leaves in 5 hours for KL. I'm not sure there is really too much else to say. I slept last night on a balcony of an 11th story apartment and awoke this morning to see the sun rising over Paris. It really is a beautiful city, its just a shame its so crowded with tourists even in the off season.

Dortmund

Its really starting to dawn on me that I'm heading back soon. Its also starting to get really cold here in Germany. My thoughts of only bringing summer clothes since i was coming to Europe in July seem so niave now. But I´ve kitted myself out in gloves and a scarf for only €1.50 at "the €1 shop" (well of course the name was actually in german). In preperation for clearing customs on my return, I´ve already shaved for the first time in almost 3 months. It took me 30 minutes and 3 razors, but I got there in the end and it turns out there was skin hiding under there all along.

In the next few days ill have to head to paris so i can catch my flight back on the 31st.

Berlin

Well Ive been in Berlin since Wednesday, and I have to say I like it. Its been one of the few places thats really stood out as a place i could see myself living. If I end up starting the new year unemployed, as is looking to be a real option, then Berlin will definitly join my list of acceptable job locations. Though my lack of knowing german could be an issue there, but im proud to say i can atleast count to 9 now (10 still escapes me.

Today i did a tour of the old berlin bunkers, including an old WW2 bunker and a modernish train station (1973 if i recall correctly) that was built to double as a nuclear fallout shelter. Its been interesting to be somewhere with such recent war history after the rest of europe where the interesting history stopped after WW2, while hear in Berlin its run right up till the 90s.

Tomorrow i think its time to start heading west again, i have to be in Paris by the end of the month, and i still want to make it to quite a few more destinations before i leave at the end of the month. I think the plan is to go visit another camino friend in Essen, but I as were both highly disorganised, we havent arranged anything yet!

Prague

Well I'm in Prague for the day, before continuing onto Berlin tomorrow. Though if I like it here, there is always the possibility of one less Berlin day and one more Prague day. That's the beauty in not booking anything in advance. Normally the
downside is that you end up paying through the nose for it. But coming
to Prague, I bought the ticket from Munich 15mins before the train and it was only 34Euro. However the journey required changing trains no less than 5 times, and some of the trains seemed more like glorified buses
from the 60's that were confined to only running on rails. Despite not
having a change time longer than 10minutes, I managed to make all my
connections, though there was a close call when I tried to get out at a
provincial station with the same name as the main station. I eventually
even managed to wonder the suspiciously quiet streets of Prague till I found the hostel without getting mugged!

Munich

I´m staying with some wonderful friends I met on the Camino in their apartment in Munich or München as the locals seem to call it. I also managed a day trip to Heidelberg and a quick stop in Stuttgart for lunch while i changed trains.

Tomorrow we´re planning to go for a walk in the alps, the day after that, I think I have to leave to explore more places. The goal is to get to Berlin on Tuesday via Prague and either Nuremberg or Dresden.

Also I spent some time playing with flickr. I accidentally missed some photos so it´s now 30 camino photos, and I´ve also placed them all on the map, so there is a map view now here. Some of the ones especially of fields I jsut had to guess, but most are accurate.

More photos

Well so far Karlsruhe is all very nice, my only complaint being that it turns out all the museums and tourist like attractions are closed on a monday! This has atleast allowed to sort out some things that I was unable to while on the camino, such as uploading some more photos. It's still by no means my complete set, but my 25 selected camino photos are now on my flickr page. Eventually once i'm back i'll find somewhere to upload the entire set (minus out of focus/duplicates).

Karlsruhe

Well Berlin turned out to be pretty far from Frankfurt Hahn and Karlsruhe turned out to be very close. So here I am.

I'm finally overwhatever was afflicting me before. It seem the perscribed combination of bacteria and antibiotics fixed whatever evil lurked inside me. It's still a shame that I never got to really celebrate the end of the camino either in Santiago or Finisterre but that's life and it doesn't distract too much from the experience.

The other thing that's finally over is my climbing draught. I went indoor climbing yesterday with an old friend in the gym here in Karlsruhe. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting after nearly 4 months without climbing, but it certainly wasn't pretty either.

Not really sure of my next destination, it seems like i'll have a bike, a climbing gym and the people are friendly so i'll probably stay atleast a few days, then either go somewhere random near by, or visit some camino friends in Munich (I assume they've finished walking by now anyway - they had to pause for a job interview).

Santiago take 2!

Well I´m no longer a pilgrim. I picked up my package from the postoffice that i had sent to myself 37 days ago. I´d pretty much forgotten what was inside, so it was a bit like getting a present opening it. It turns out i had some nice clothes in there, so i´m now wearing nice clothes. Other than my beard (which is too unweildly to shave despite my present to myself containing my shaving utensils) I don´t look at all like a pilgrim, and I don´t look spanish which i guess makes me a tourist.

I didn´t really see the cathederal the first time i was here, so i´m off to go see it better and probably get looks from pilgrims who think i´m just a tourist.

Finisterre

It took me 4 days rather than 3 since I´m still sick, but I made it to the end of the earth! (or atleast what was thought to be many hundreds of years ago). As is the tradition I burnt some clothes as the sun set. It´s certainly nice to be by the beach again. It did seem odd to me to be walking for 35 days continuiously and not see the ocean.


In an hour or so i´ll bus back to santiago, pick up my long lost posessions from the postal office and find a hotel for the night. Then an early flight tomorrow back to germany. Hopefully the ´being sick´ thing will end soon, as its harder to enjoy things when all I can eat and drink is bottled water and toasted bread.