Time for a Reality Check!

And here I am in Canberra returning from the Gold Coast with a virus - doctor's orders not to do any sweat-inducing exercise for TWO weeks. Bang goes the City to Surf. I'll just have to be a good spectator. Tomorrow, it's back to the office and a return to the real world! So now I'll complete the travel blog by returning to where I left off in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.

Before returning to Germany I must just add that while we were parked outside Kirsty's apartment in Vienna we received a parking ticket because parking there is for locals only. We were parked on that spot for three nights and the one ticket was for 21E (about $30Aust). It will make a good souvenir! Kirsty was most impressed and thinks she will tell all her overseas visitors to park there as legal parking places cost far more than that for one day let alone three!

Saturday 23 July - Bad Kreuznach
We brought all our bags into the hotel and did another complete organise and re-pack. It was a cool, cloudy day and after a shower and good brekkie we walked through the shopping centre and into the township to browse. Here we found the internet cafe where I caught up with my blog which took three hours I might add! We next found a hairdresser to tidy up my hair. It was a very trendy salon with music so loud nobody could chat. When they realised I spoke English (pretty obvious after my interesting hand signals for a hair cut!!) a black South African girl was selected to cut my hair as she could speak English! A shampoo and cut cost 12E ($18Aust). In Oz I pay nearly four times that for the same result! My young hairdresser had lived in Germany for some years and in Bad Kreuznach for four months. I asked her if she would ever go home and she replied, "Oh yes, the German people are not happy - they never laugh". I thought about that and actually that statement is true to a certain extent all over Europe. Although people are helpful it is not often shop assistants smile and middle aged people don't generally laugh a lot. Again, we live in a great country in Australia or indeed New Zealand. We are generally happy people or at least we know how to smile!

The shops stayed open until 7pm when we walked back to the hotel, changed, collected some towels and walked to the public bath house. Wow, what an experience! We had just over two hours to enjoy all the different rooms of saunas, spas and bubbling pools. Each room had beautiful aromas, hot marble benches to lie on in the saunas of varying degrees of heat (we avoided the 90deg one) and there was also a plunge pool and an ice room. Everybody walks and lies around naked - you just take a towel to dry off. It was so relaxing once you became used to it - all shapes and sizes. Nobody cared. If there is one of these bath houses in Aussi lead me to it - I'm booking my next holiday there! What an amazing way to spend a Saturday night. Later we ate at a lovely restaurant overlooking the river with the houses reflecting in the water. By the time we walked back to the hotel it was approaching pumpkin hour again. What a fantastic evening!

Sunday 24 July - Auf wiedersehen Deutschland - Bonjour le France
We set off late morning after writing and posting a few postcards and visited Frei Laubersheim where Dave's great grandfather was born in 1840. I think I said previously he was his grandfather but it was his great grandfather. This is just a small town but very pretty with flowers in windowboxes in the houses. The war memorial had several Baussmann names listed. It's possible some may be distant relatives. Dave's great grandfather emigrated to England in the early 1860s and died there in 1926.

We stopped to top up with petrol a little further on and there just happened to be a car rally going on at that spot so it was quite busy. Of course Dave had to investigate so we had a slight delay here. It was a 'slalom' which is where the cars go in and out round cones on a circuit - Polos, BMWs, Clios, an Opel Manta and one Ford Escort (JS and PB - this is for your benefit)! Back on the road we spotted lots of windmills (at least 40 in one spot) and many vineyards.

We stopped just past the French border for a bite of lunch, then on to France where it started to rain, lightly at first then quite heavily. We haven't seen a proper downpour for ages. At least it cleaned our windscreen! We stopped at Chalons en Champagne after passing long meadows of lavendar. There was a band playing Latin American music under a tarpaulin in the square and it looked like the entire population of the town was gathered there listening to the music. We wandered round but couldn't find an information centre or a place to stay so decided to continue on our way, driving past patchwork meadows of wheat fields interspersed with green and flat, flat countryside with not a hill in sight. Occasionally there were a few farm houses and there weren't big distances between villages. I was delighted when we passed some fields of sunflowers. They always make me feel happy and remind me of Tuscany. And then we drove past fields and fields of vineyards as we approached champagne country.

We stopped the night at Epernay, about 120km from Paris, on a drizzly, grey evening. We found accommodation in a hotel up a few flights of steps without a lift. Our room was small, cheap and very basic but it had a double bed with one mattress, one set of bedding and two extra pillows - whoopee! We walked through the town in the evening but being Sunday nothing was open and it was very quiet.

Monday 25 July - Champagne and Paris
We went for a 38minute run around the streets of Epernay and to the furthest part of the town after a pretty rough night - paper thin walls with next door's telly blaring until the small hours, rattling pipes which Dave threw a towel over to stop the noise and a really hot, stuffy room with no air conditioning or fan. We have definitely had some variations in the standard of our accommodation.

We bought some croissants for brekkie from the local bakery on our return from our run, showered, packed up and drove to Mercier Champagne Wineries. Here we had a guided tour in English which included a movie and a lift down to the caves with panoramic views on the way. There we rode on an open train ride through the caves as our guide explained the processes of champagne making. At the end of the tour we had some tasting - mmmm! This particular champagne is not available in Australia and they didn't ship boxes overseas so we bought a few bottles to take home but carrying them could well prove a problem!

It was after mid-day when we left Epernay after buying some fruit, yoghurts and water to keep us going. We reached our hotel in Paris without too much of a problem and emptied the car completely as Dave had to return the car to Europcar in town. It's been a great, economical car and very roomy. Now we have to work out how we're going to carry all these bags back home on the aeroplane on Wednesday. I'm sure we'll have to pay excess baggage!

Our room is on the fourth floor but there's a lift, just as well as all our bags have to be brought here. We are very near to the tube station and lots of shops. It's a much better kept room than in Epernay, small but fresh, clean and pretty and the bathroom has a bath in it - definitely a first in any of the accommodation we've had. We walked around the local area in the evening but were very tired and didn't stay up late.

Tuesday 26 July - Paris
The room was so hot last night. We opened the window but there was no breeze. Dave slept ok but I didn't sleep well at all. After brekkie we walked and walked and ended up at the square by Notre Dame where we sat to drink water and eat bananas. After more exploring we decided to catch a double decker tour bus and sat on the top deck with headphones with an English commentary telling us about the sights. We drove past the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, The Arc de Triomphe, The Champs Elysee and left the bus at Lafayette. As it's a two day ticket we can resume our ride tomorrow. We browsed through Lafayette and had a pastry in a cafe nearby. By the time we emerged it was raining and quite cool so it was a brisk walk back to the hotel where we showered, changed and went walking again to find a nice restaurant with a French menu and a nice bottle of wine. I had chateaubriand with a most beautiful sauce and Dave had grilled lamb chops which were really tasty. We also had the most beautiful baby green beans (haricots). I'm unsure how they were cooked but they were delicious which surprised me as I'm not usually a great fan of beans. We of course had dessert - Dave had a tarte tatin (an upside down apple tart) while I had a very rich tasting chocolate mousse. Then I tried to ask for a liqueur coffee. It was so difficult to explain that I wanted the Baileys in the coffee. Eventually I was given a small espresso coffee and Baileys - very nice but a big mistake for me at 11pm as I was awake literally all night!

Wednesday 27 July - The long long journey home
As usual Dave slept well and I tried everything - windows wide open to let the air in but the neighbours across the way were talking loudly until 2am. It was so hot in that room I tried wet towels, reading, sleeping with my head up the other end, panadol - nothing worked. I watched the clock on the telly all night in a hot sweat. It was awful. Then at about 7am I fell asleep and had a vivid dream about my father (who died in 1988) telling me that something had happened to my mother (who died in 1989) - so much for that sleep! Anyway I hoped there weren't omens afoot!

Eventually, feeling like a zombie, we headed down for breakfast, took all our bags to the hotel manager who stored them for us and walked into town again. We bought a couple of lovely pastries in the course of the morning and Dave found a model car shop - they seem to be everywhere. We hopped on our tour bus again just as it started to rain. This time we came prepared and donned spray jackets. We were taken on a slightly different route past more sights and left the bus at L'Opera stop to catch an underground train to Montmartre where we caught a funicular (tram) up to see Le Sacre Coeur. Le Sacre Coeur is an enormous cathedral in a most spectacular setting. It was great up there - just how I remembered it with the street artists and brightly coloured umbrellas. What's more the rain stopped and the sun came out and it was really hot. As we had booked a taxi to pick us up from our hotel at 4pm we didn't have very long and as it passed 3.30pm we thought we should hurry up or we would miss our pick-up. At 3.40pm we put on a very brisk walking pace and make it back to the hotel just 5 minutes before the taxi - one with a big boot fortunately!

And so farewell to Europe and off to the airport allowing plenty of time for our flight which was not due until 8.15pm. Nothing is ever straighforward when Ruth and Dave fly however!

We arrived at the airport well before 5pm and queued to check in our bags chatting to a lovely kiwi couple who had just returned from following the Tour de France on their bikes. They live very near where we used to live in Wellington, belong to a vets' cycling club and looked brown and fit, as you would, cycling those Pyranee hills! Anyway, when we reached the check-in we were told our flight had been cancelled and if we wished to catch our connecting flight in Bangkok we had no choice but to catch a flight that was due in half an hour. Here we go again - another mad rush! Our bags were weighed; we held our breath hoping she was in a good mood - no such luck.

"You are 28kg overweight" we were informed. "That will cost 34E a kg (translates to $1,000Aust). Ok, what now? We took back one cheap suitcase (we started with two to check through, now had four) and emptied the contents. What we could squeeze in extra backpacks we did, including our washing and my precious running gear and several pairs of shoes. We did leave behind all our travel guides but at least they are replaceable. I think the check-in lady (an Asian lady whose native tongue was French) felt a little sorry for us by now as in the end she let us through with 10kg over. Then we raced to catch the plane which was delayed about 40minutes after all that. We left our open suitcase in the middle of the airport with beach towels, travel books etc strewn everywhere - someone else would score a few good books!

And so finally on to the plane in separate rows of seats to Heathrow - only an hour's flight then a bit of delay before catching the plane to Bangkok - twelve long hours from 10.15pm Wednesday arriving in Bangkok at 3.30pm on Thursday local time. We had about two hours in Bangkok and fortunately we were able to leave our six heavy items of hand luggage on the plane when we disembarked. Here we were able to relax in the Qantas Club before boarding the final flight to Sydney where we arrived with a big bump at 6.05am on Friday. We were cleared uneventfully through customs and drove our hired Toyota back to Canberra arriving about 10.30am.

And so we are home enjoying our family. I managed to stay up, unpacking very slowly, until 11.30pm with a good night's sleep until 9am next morning in our beautiful soft waterbed with comfortable pillows. During the night we both woke startled surveying our surroundings and staring at the print on the opposite wall.

"This is an unusual apartment" I said.

"That print looks like the one we have at home" replied Dave.

Realisation dawned. Ahhh, we are home. In spite of that amazing, beautiful world out there, there's no place quite like home.