Munster, Frankfurt, Berlin: Ich Bin Ein Wanderer.

Having passed through Germany so many times without really having explored the country at all, we thought it was just about time to get amongst the German scene for good. We started off with a stop in the pretty university town of Munster – where Phoebe’s friend Pepita lives.

Being only a few hours from the Dutch border, bikes were all the rage in Munster - we got some sweet ones and headed around the student city with Pepita showing us the cathedrals (there were so many!) and the pretty old streets.

When it's sunny everyone goes to the lake to hang out. We were a bit confused by this as the lake isn't actually clean enough to swim in. It's like a form of torture - looking at it but not being able to get in it.

Frankfurt was next on the list, to visit Luke and relax for a few days. Compared with the last time we were in Frankfurt back in November, there were significantly more celsiuses in the air this time around, and the gluhwein had turned into apfelwein. We were starting to think Germany didn't do summer until now, and were happy to be proven wrong. The Germans themselves all seemed pretty excited about the good weather too, they were taking their clothes off all over the place and sunbathing wherever they could.

Felix got a bit carried away with the razor. From woolly mammoth to giant egg, in a matter of minutes.

Luke took us out to the Rheinesteig walking track not far from Frankfurt for a 22km stroll along the Rhine. Castles every 500m (literally) made for some lovely scenery.

This was our first urban tramping experience. It took a while to get used to the idea of tramping through towns and on tar-sealed roads, which we came across every few kilometres. When on a tramp, you shouldn't have to be mindful of traffic.

Although one benefit of urban tramping is the bonus activities along the way!

Our final German destination was, of course, Berlin. This was also our first stop in a while in which we didn’t know someone to stay with – thankfully we found a cheap hostel run by a bloke from the Wairarapa called Lindsay, who quickly became our pal. Lindsay had decorated the inside of his hostel with Maori carvings which he’d done himself with a chainsaw, he had a giant kiwi perched out the front, and the logo was a sheep. He was a pretty top bloke, full of quality banter and advice on the must-see sites of Berlin (most of them were night-clubs). Berlin is a rather unique place, with constant reminders of its dark past integrated with the arty, funky, lively atmosphere that East Berlin is infused with today. In some of the more underground/alternative parts of the city it was easy to forget that we were in Germany as it felt so different to much of the rest of the country, yet in the centre the iconic buildings and associated history screamed Germany. Both a fascinating and fun place, it seems like today is a great time to be visiting Berlin, and it is easily one of our favourite cities we’ve visited so far.

On a side note, our latest money saving initiative backfired rather disastrously. Everyone says not to pay for the metro in Berlin - 'cos they never check tickets. While this may work in many European cities, it turns out in Berlin it's not so easy to escape the ticket people, and if they catch you they'll be really mean, then charge you 40euro each.

Token pic in front of Brandenburg gate. We've been getting amongst the free walking tours recently, which are actually super interesting with funny stories weaved throughout. History is full of the lolz.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in central Berlin. A very simple but abstract design. No names, no explanations, just thousands of concrete slabs which seem to get taller (or does the ground sink lower?) as you walk further into it. Pretty effective and haunting.

On Saturday the 13th of July, 2013, Felix ate a sausage at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, Germany. When the historians write the history books they will no doubt leave this out, but it happened.

If you were to only visit one thing in Berlin, make it the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining part of the Berlin Wall today. It's the cheapest art gallery you'll ever visit, and you could easily spend hours perusing the amazing artwork along it. And of course for you history buffs out there (which we seem to be turning into) it's a pretty concrete reminder of the effect the Cold War had in Berlin.

One of the many flea markets in Berlin. Old records, bike parts, homemade clothing, jewellery, German books and tasty treats, all in the convenience of your local bombed-out war bunker.

Ich bin ein currywurst! Nomnomnomnomnomnom.

Next time: Speed tourism in Prague, Vienna and Bratislava.

Scandinavia: Of Danes, Swedes & Norwegians.

Let us tell you the tale of the time we spent in the land of ice and snow, the land of eternal sunshine, the land of trolls, vikings and unicorns. It is a tale wrought with intrigue, hardship, romance, friends and foes alike. It is a tale told mainly through photography, and it begins in the city of Malmo, Sweden, a stones throw away from the shining Danish capital of Copenhagen. Though we did not explore much of Malmo, opting instead for daytrips to Copenhagen and Ystad, we are very much grateful to Marcus for his hospitality (Norwegian salmon, yes please) and tolerance to the destructive tendencies of Phoebe. Sorry about the oven.

We spent a very rainy morning in Copenhagen, but once the sun finally came out, so did the smiles. It seemed like a rather nice city, but one that we shall need to revisit to get a proper feel for it.

Hanging with the hipsters in Freetown Christiania. This is a little community who don't identify as being part of Denmark (even though it is part of Copenhagen); they manage to keep police out and have established their own rule system - no weapons or violence, but marijuana is legal and the beer is cheap. Seeing as they are still officially under the Danish legal system though, they try to keep it all a bit hush-hush, hence photos aren't allowed in most of Christiania. An interesting place!

Marcus leading the charge into the Baltic sea in Ystad. It was cold and smelt like fish.

The tale continues as we headed to Oslo, the geographical zenith of our Europe trip, and the capital of Norway. For a European city, Oslo felt pretty modern. A lot of the buildings were big and shiny, and those that weren't were surrounded by construction workers. The other rather noticeable thing about Oslo is how expensive it is. No amount of money saving initiatives could save us in this city, and we were rather happy that Phoebe's Swedish brother Emil was lovely enough to put us up in his apartment!

Emil gave us the grand tour of Oslo's new port.

Midnight in Oslo. The sun disappears for a few hours each night, but it never actually gets completely dark. When do the hedgehogs come out to play? :(

There are heaps of trolls in Norway, most of them are pretty friendly but you can never be sure.

We bought in to the whole tourist business and invested in an 'Oslo card', which meant we could get into as many museums as we wanted within 24 hours. And free public transport, which in Oslo includes boats. Oh, the novelty.

 The viking ship museum was only for the most badass of badasses.

We got the feeling that the Norwegian Folk Museum was aimed at younger audiences than us - sadly we missed the "Meet the farm animals" and "Bake your own muffins" events they held earlier in the day. Got to see some delightful Norwegian folk dancing though.

The world's only steel ski jump, a short train ride out of Oslo. The record on this jump was 142 metres, which we thought wasn't too shabby.

It would have been rude not to visit the reptile museum.

All museumed out, we headed back into Sweden, to spend an evening with Emil's parents Eva and Leif in Karlstad. We spent most of the evening in a tiny lakeside hut, eating homemade moose sausages and joining in with Leif's Swedish folk band, both things we had never done before. When we say Swedish folk band, we're talking fiddles, mandolas and predominantly Swedish lyrics.

Our final chapter in the Scandinavian saga takes place in Stockholm. We had by far the best weather of our Scandinavian trip, which may have positively influenced our opinion of Stockholm, but we thought it was the funkiest and most enjoyable of the Scandinavian capitals. Lots of water (Stockholm is built on 14 islands), a nice mix of old and new, just the right amount of bustling, and a nice sprinkling of hipsters.

We were starting to wonder if it ever got warm in Scandinavia.

Stockholm prides themselves in being one of the only capital cities in which the harbour water is clean enough to swim in - not particularly impressive for a pair of kiwis, but still pretty cool.

Felix was in his element as there was a ski slope 10 minutes' walk away from where we stayed.

Phoebe was in her element when we found a vegetarian buffet restaurant for lunch. 

"I could easily just vomit right now" - Phoebe, after her 4th plate.

Next time: Returning to the land of sausages and sauerkraut!

Southside & the Netherlands: Scarfies in Europe.

You may have noticed that most of our blog posts begin with some sort of travel-related shenanigan which wasn’t funny at the time, but in retrospect it’s hilarious to laugh at our expense. This post is no exception.
When we arrived in the middle of god-knows-where (somewhere in the south of Germany) for the four day camping Southside Festival to meet up with Ally and Molly, excitement levels were pretty high. This was quickly dampened by the thunderstorm which broke out as we struggled to put up our non-waterproof tent. Determined to keep our spirits high, we crawled into the tiny tent which could only just fit all 4 of us it with our bags, and huddled for warmth, taking turns to puff up our double air-mattress. We woke up many times in the night, partly because the mattress was deflating, partly because there were raucous Germans singing along to Rammstein outside our tent, but mostly because of the amount of water entering our tent. Thankfully the days were dry and relatively warm, so we could lie in the sun, dry out our sleeping bags, drink sangria and forget about the nights.

 Money saving initiative #4: That canvas shell that goes over most tents and keeps it dry is definitely not worth the extra 40euro - go instead for the cheaper, non-waterproof option. Even if you've seen the weather forecast and it predicts thunderstorms.

 Although we spent some long, wet, sleepless nights in our tent, we grew pretty fond of it.

Drying off in the sun with a cheeky wee boogie. We introduced the Germans to Flight of the Conchords, they didn't get it.

We almost forgot to mention, the festival itself was mindblowingly great. European festivals are on another scale to NZ ones (unsurprisingly)! Alt-J, Two Door Cinema Club, Ben Howard, Frightened Rabbit, Bloc Party, Of Monsters and Men, the Arctic Monkeys and of course the National were all amazing. Rammstein must also be mentioned, for exceptionally terrifying use of fire on stage.

Matt Berninger you beautiful, beautiful man. WE ALMOST TOUCHED HIS FACE.

Toning it down after the festival in Alex's study town, Tubingen.

After our night of recovering in Tubingen, we were ready to face our next challenge: Amsterdam. Here Molly introduced us to her friend Lieke, who made a very good tour guide. Of all the cities we’ve been to, Amsterdam was probably the most useful one to have a guide for – Lieke showed us the ins and outs, the highs and lows, the dos and donts of this crazy city. Getting around Amsterdam is a bit like that scene in Dodgeball where the guy says “If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball”, except instead of just cars it’s with bikes, trams and pedestrians too. There was even an educational side to Amsterdam as we visited the Anne Frank house and the Sex Museum - one of them was sobering and informative, the other was shocking and hilarious.

The team in Amsterdam. Beers and our first introduction to bitterballen.

 Everyone in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and northern Europe for that matter, gets around by bike. It's the cool thing to do; they're at the top of the food chain. Here is an example of one such bike.

 In this photo, you see an assortment of lots of different bikes all hanging out together.

 Molly in action, riding one of these bike things. See how it makes you look badass?

 HOW MANY BIKES IS TOO MANY BIKES?

Raw herring with pickle and onion, somewhat of a Dutch delicacy.

Being students at heart, our next stop was in Lieke’s study town, the Dunedin of the Netherlands; Groningen. We have to be honest, there isn’t a lot to do in Groningen other than get amongst the student culture, which is exactly what we did. Our favourite bar was Chupitos – think 'Shot Shack' in Wellington, but with more epic shots. Shots that light the whole bar on fire, shots with flames on which to toast marshmellows, shots with flower buds which numb your whole mouth… Lots of shots. Due to this we don’t have very many photos of Groningen, but we would recommend a cheeky visit!

Money saving initiative #5: Buy your food from the wall! It's cheap and avoids human interaction. Here Phoebe is opting for a delicious kroket, which resembles a burnt, crumbed sausage filled with mince and gravy. Mmmm.

Lol. Geddit?

Next time: Continuing north for some Scandinavian adventures.