Flights; Melbourne-Malaysia,
Malaysia-Frankfurt:
Mum held her arms around me, after having
what she said was a sleepless night of worry and angst. I myself slept like a
bub and didn’t see the worry. I broke from her grasp and aimed the hand at the
old man, which was met by his gorilla grip for a firm shake, followed by the
advice of ‘Be smart’, a short motto I will need to remember if I’m to have a
safe and enjoyable 4 months away from the Melbourne burbs. A wave to the bro
and I was on my own. Uneventful processing, two bomb checks and a pat down, but
what else to you expect when you have a little hair on the face. This leg of
the 20-hour plane trip was the worst, as I struggled to get comfortable and had
to deal with the elderly Indian passenger I’d been paired with. She was lacking
English skills possessing only the only words ‘vegetarian’, for the meal she
hadn’t ordered, ‘coke’ for a beverage as well as a grunt when she shook me mid
sleep to indicate her headphones weren’t working. She also kept turning the
light on and off and unknowingly kept pressing the service button to which the
hostess soon began to ignore. 2 hours in transit at K.L was boring but was
livened up by a WWE title match on TV, which helped alleviate some boredom. I
also met an Aussie in the terminal, who was alright, but loved himself to
pieces and I struggled to chat due to some partial deafness from the flights
pressure, causing myself to struggle to talk as not being able to hear yourself
is tough on the brain, and my was at exhaustion. Frankfurt flight was same ol’
and a few beers with my passenger buddy Klaus was nice, and refreshing. Klaus and my language difficulties forced only non-verbal communication, which only
extended to a chink of glasses. 2 blocks of 2 and 3 hour sleep provided some
reprieve from my exhaustion, ready to meet the much missed Finch and Cocka.
Frankfurt day 1:
After indulging in some of the worst coffee
(and most expensive) in the world and being fleeced by a cab driver to the
hostel I felt that Frankfurt had full heartedly welcomed me to Europe. Things
could only get up from here. Finch and cocka chaperoned me to the hostel where
I checked my bags in, but with a 2 o’clock check in and my watch saying 7:15
some hours in limbo were imminent. We proceeded to finch and Cocks Hostel,
where they had stayed the previous night to which I was warned was not the
classiest place. How bad could it be a 7:20am. At 7.20 There was two drunk
teenagers staggering around with jugs of wine, a man with long hair and a sailors
hat stuffing his pipe with a unidentifiable substance and countless vagrants
boozing on to the back drop of sex shops, whore houses and Casinos. I put my
camera bag out of sight and kept my head down. fight or flight activated at 7am
in the fucking morning! It was indeed a notorious red light district and this
place needed a clean on too many levels. Finch told me of a man the previous
night when they were getting in to there hotel who in fact was doing his best
to give it a much needed clean. Too bad he was a pissed up, homeless man waving
a homemade broom, whom a gentleman decided was a blight on the a fine stretch
of road and took it upon himself to hurl a bottle at him, connecting right on
the renegade Janitors Funny bone. Remember to keep your head down at all times.
Drinking a beer on the streets at wee hours of the morning, is a quite
acceptable practice here, with a booze culture that I can imagined is
rivaled only by their eastern sparing buddies Russia. After hanging out eating
tacos and bottled coronas we decided to search for some beers and our keen noses for a lager, lead us to a small beer fest outside the state library, where we
carelessly drank bittewurten beer, threw down some authentic German Bratwurst
and got pretty well oiled. With a few under the belt it was time to hit the
main drag, but to our disappointment the main drag consisted of tiny bars where
locals drank with no mood for music and fun, but merely old men sucking on
thick cigars. Finch said he knew of a hostel that doubled as a club of an
evening. The lights were luminous and the place looked promising until we had
looked inside to find acne ridden teenage dude sitting at a table stalking
facebook. With the Shisha bar closed all that was left was a few captain
morgans and some drinks at the hostel before turning in. First impressions of
Germany; great beer and beautiful architecture, but an alarming amount of
homeless, drunks, drug fiends and seedy individuals running the place.