AUF WIEDERSEN, AU REVOIR & GOODBYE

Five weeks, four countries and two pair of tired feet.  A diet of sausage, pretzels, pasta and beer has been countered by many thousands of steps over butt strewn uneven pavements and cobble stones.  Combine that with hauling suitcases onto platforms and train carriages has left us in pretty good shape, but not something we want to do for more than five weeks.

We haven't missed the Australian political shenanigans and are pleased to hear parliament is in going into recess.  The only time Australia made the news in Europe was damage to the Great Barrier Reef, Murdoch's racist cartoon and the strawberry matter.  Europeans all want to visit and are shocked to hear we experience winter. With any luck we will bring the magnificent weather we have enjoyed with us to counter Canberra's rubbish start to spring.

Our last week has involved quite a few train trips, and has brought home to us how poorly Australia is treated by our political masters.  Decades of inaction has left us with a fifth rate rail network and a dinosaur era power grid.  Rather than rely on ugly polluting coal mines and stations, we should do as Europe does and install vast banks of solar panels and wind farms.

It's been a largish last night in Munchen.  Linda's advice was to get to Cafe Palau early to claim the outside seats.  Luckily we got there early as locals Danny and Tim had bagged two of the best spots.  Palau rapidly filled up with bottles of sparkling rose and cava the preferred tipple.  I stuck with Cafe Palau's sponsor Estrella Beer.  Our overnight accommodation was at the Arabest Hotel located in Munich's Arab quarter where wine is unobtainable but shisha pipes and shawarma are available on every corner.  We asked if we could leave our bags while we explored Munich for the last time.  "Of course, and please use one of our rooms to refresh before your flight."  "How much do we owe you?"  "Nothing, it is our pleasure to have had you as our guest."

Munich is being invaded by party animals eager for Octoberfest to begin.  Lederhosen and dirndles are literally flying out the door all over town.  It doesn't suit everyone but that ain't the point.  Other cities like Zurich and Stuttgart are hopping on the tracht bandwagon dressing their citizens as faux Bavarians.  The omnipresent teams of Jehovah Witnesses with their Wachturm aren't in costume.  Perhaps that's their problem?

It has been said that travel broadens the mind.  So I will leave our final comment to Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”