Volume 4: Pete in Europe Part 7. A young balding mans journey through 10 countries and back
Day 16 – Munich to Hopfgarten
You’ll have to excuse the next two days entry’s as I wrote the notes down after a massive night at a bar called the “Silver Bullet”. Thankfully, I got a few notes down without covering them with that mornings breakfast.
Our tour manager decided to delay our departure time to 11:30am so that we could go see the Glockenspeil go off at 11am. It was a nice gesture and one that would prove unnecessary. The Glockenspeil had clearly been built well before television or theatre or any other form of entertainment, as it would have no fame if were built today. The Glockenspeil is a clock that has moving parts that include little people that are supposed to tell a story, apparently a boring and incomprehensible story. I’m sure it was quite impressive in its day, but now seems quite lame. The many tourers who were left saying “Is that it?” is testament to that. Myself, I was more entertained by a t-shirt that had a block figure crawling on all fours on a yellow diamond street sign with the caption “Caution: drunk crossing”.
The first stop today was for white water rafting in Austria. The air temperature was cold, with the water temperature even colder. I’ve touched ice that’s been warmer than that river, and I’m surprised I could get my wet suit off without it snapping in my hands like a frozen piece of bread. It was my first time white water rafting and after the event I promised myself it wouldn’t be the last. While the water was tame for the most part, there were enough sections in the river to get our boat to replicate a bucking bull to make it a lot of fun. Towards the end of the trip, our driver got us at the one end of the boat and did his best to roll the boat. While he didn’t succeed, the effort was enough to dump me in the colder than ice water and force my penis to take shrinkage (read inverted) to new levels. Thankfully, the kiosk sold beer, which I enjoyed while I tried to defrost.
Our next stop would be where we would spend the next two nights; the small picturesque town of Hopfgarten. It was a beautiful, wet and cold, location in a region that made up the 2nd largest ski field in Europe. The links to other ski fields seemed to go on forever and would be the perfect place for anyone who enjoyed a sport that largely involved trying to avoid hitting trees at high speed with two planks of wood attached to your feet. I’m sure if Walt Disney hadn’t spent so much time in Nazi party meetings he would have made a movie set in this region.
Tonight was my first night on tour that I would have to share a room. My fellow tourers were quick to joke that I had stopped fulfilling Natasha’s, the tour manager, sexual needs and she had paid me back by taking the single room off me. Whilst that would have made a good story, I think it had something to do with equality or some people bitching to her about how unfair it was that I was getting a single room despite not paying for it. I didn’t really care as I was only spending about two or three hours a night in my bedroom anyway.
After dinner, we rushed through the rain to the Silver Bullet. Judging by the Australian flag inside the bar, this was another place that lived off of Contiki. Either that or the bar owner had ordered an Austrian flag and the factory making the flags misread the order. The bar also gave me a chance to send my 2nd alcohol inspired e-mail back home as there was a small coin operated computer in the corner. The foosball and pool table provided plenty of entertainment as we drunk our beer from our half litre steins. In fact, I liked the steins so much I decided to take one home the next night to show everyone back in Australia just how impressed I had been with the stein.
After a few solid hours of drinking we retired back to the hotel for the now compulsory game of UNO. I crashed into bed around 1am and spent most of the night listening to Brad talk in his sleep. By the sounds of it he was trying to broker peace in the Middle East with one of his comments being “Nah, its all right mate” as if sounding like he was trying to prevent a fight.
Day 17 – Hopfgarten
We spent this morning enjoying a pleasant, cold, wet, mountain bike ride up one of the mountains that made up part of Europe’s 2nd biggest ski field. I think the first part of the ride, up the mountain, took around an hour and half. While the second part of the ride, down the mountain, took about 15 minutes. The ride on the bike seat was so rough that I decided to call home and book ass reconstruction surgery for as soon as I was wheel chaired off the plane. The guy who took us on the bike ride told us the region was very safe and there would be no need to lock up the bike if we left it unattended. However, the same can’t be said for their steins as I took my 4th from Austria that night from the Silver Bullet.
After the bike ride I decided to just kick back in the room and plant my ass in a bucket of ice. During that time Todd B went down to the local fish farm to catch some fish, and enjoy a few beers at what is supposedly the cheapest place to buy beer in all of Austria. Naturally, I was disappointed that my broken ass had robbed me of the chance to experience the cheapest beer in all of Austria. Another interesting thing about the fish farm is that there is a guy hired to beat your fish to death as soon as you pull it out of the water. He’s hired because apparently it’s cruel to take a picture of a fish while it’s still alive, unlike beating a fish to death with a club that I’m sure is an activity that the fish enjoys. My dad had always broken the neck of the fish to kill it instantly and to cause as little pain to the fish as possible, but beating a fish between five to ten times to the head is supposedly a more peaceful way to go according to the Austrians.
After some rest, Brad H and I decided to go for a walk to try and find a supermarket. It was a pleasant walk with the aroma of freshly thrown horse dung on all the flowerbeds to ensure the flowers grew during the off-season. The horse dung bought with it hordes of fly’s and for one of the few times on tour I felt like I was back in Australia again. Forever more, when I smell horseshit, I will think of Hopfgarten. While on the quest for a supermarket, I went into the local post office to purchase a postcard. I then proceeded to have a 15 minute confusing conversation in which I tried to convince the Austrian behind the counter that I just wanted to purchase the postcard and not send it. To help get my point across I showed him that the postcard had not been written on, which I think only succeeded in confusing him more as I’m sure he was thinking along the lines of “Why the hell would you want to send a blank postcard?”. Anyway, I eventually convinced him I just wanted to purchase the postcard and we both happily got on with the rest of our lives.
Just before dinner we decided to enjoy a few beers at the bar at the place we were staying. The woman behind the bar was telling us that the temperature had been in the 30’s a week back. Given that it had been wet and cold with the temperature below 20 for the duration of our stay, I’m sure I would’ve called her full of shit to her face if she hadn’t been such a nice person who had looked after my beer while we went and got our group photo taken.
After dinner we succeeded in getting pretty much everyone on tour to spend the night at the Silver Bullet. It was a night I washed nine Red Bull and vodkas down with about two litres of beer. A fact my stomach would remind me of the next day. It was also a night that my face got re-acquainted with Mojo’s breasts. Needless to say, it was a good night. I don’t know what time I got back to my room, all I know is I did sleep that night so it must have been before 7am.
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