Friedrichshafen – My Gateway To Skiing (London, Friedrichshafen)

3/3/2005 Thursday

Woke up this morning and talked to an American and Canadian that had jumped all around Europe on EasyJet flights for 2 weeks spending about 2 days in each place. Apparently they like them all, but said Paris was a bit of a disappointment. We were talking about how expensive things were and the American said he felt like bending over every time he had to pay for something. The Nirvana song came on, "Rape Me". It was suggested that this was a fitting song for their trip, singing, "Europe raped me". I think I will also take it up as my travel song for the rest of the trip.

Caught a RyanAir flight to Friedrichshafen. Turns out it is a pretty small place. Nowhere to get any money, so I had to exchange some at a hideous rate. I got just enough for the train... which I then got on the wrong one. After getting a bit suss I jumped off. It was some fast train too that had taken me a fair way from Friedrichshafen. I had just enough money, about 3 Euro cents spare, to make it to Friedrichshafen.

There were no banks open, so I had to find places that would accept Visa. I wandered around and found this place where they were playing bad music out the front of. Some kind of little festival. I think it was to do with skiing. There was wine and stuff being consumed out the front. I asked about a room and ended up in a quite posh little room.

I then decided to go in search of some food.

After wandering around a supermarket for a bit, getting some groceries and deciding to buy a bottle of caramel flavored vodka, I was most annoyed to find that this major looking supermarket did not accept Visa. I later read in the lonely planet that not many places in Germany accept visa. Of all the places countries for me to go, it looks like I picked the wrong one.

I ate at a restaurant that accepted Visa and made my way back.

One advantage to having a mini-festival playing out the front of your hotel is that you can find your way back pretty easy, just follow the noise. On arriving back at the hotel, I noticed that a DJ was now playing and two cute girls were dancing around on stage. After watching for a bit, I decided, "what the hell" and got on the stage and started dancing around with them. After a fair while some others joined us and we even made a conga line. We danced around for about an hour and a half and then it was all over. A good end to a pretty trying day.

I also found a wireless connection from a hotel that had no security key that I don't think its from my hotel... maybe my luck is starting to turn.