DnA Travels 2009

Amsterdam was pretty much as I had expected.. dave held out hopes that I would want to attend a cultural show

The canals are pretty, and the cops use them for patrolling and spotting people daring to drink beer from cans instead of paying 5 Euros for a pint

The coffee shop thing is easy, just go in and get a menu and order either pre rolled joints or by the gram. But you can't smoke tobacco inside, although you can really. You don't really need to buy anything, just walk in and breathe in. But them Amsterdam is pretty edgy place, I don't think you'd want to get too off your face there, although most of the people there would disagree with me I'm sure, I'm just out of practice! You can get hash brownies and cookies and mushrooms, soft drugs.

It goes without saying that there are sex shops everywhere, and DVD titles revealing the pornographic longings of people's lives that were news to me (incest porn, rape porn, shit eating porn, of course lots of wee drinking, fat mammas, everything and more)

The sex museum was pretty good, although at one moment I realised a respectable looking Asian tourist was having to peer over my shoulder as I took in the exhibit about fat mammas in the sex industry. I thought - what am I doing, is this normal? Things that are taboo everywhere else are normal there.

I'm not sure if I was the only woman walking around the red light district after having many beers and joints but I felt like it. the girls are in the windows, it's just like you imagine it to be. In the day the 'girls' in teh windows are a lot older, and no offence but surely even horny boys wearing their beer and hash goggles wouldn't be tempted, apart from the ones with a predilection for the well, old prostitute look. And if you can't afford it or are too chicken, they have the wankers booths for you, it's all taken care of

We had two nights in Lubeck and then my Dad was heading back to UK, so we got moving as well. Well, we tried to, but Pam wouldn’t start again, and there didn’t seem to be any tweaking or hoping that would get her going. So we had to ring the breakdown company, and they were pretty crap at dealing with our problem, def not as good as the RAC had been when we broke down with Stan, Listening in to Dave trying to explain where we were, by giving someone an address, postcode, everything, then to hear him say ‘Lubeck, it’s in the North of Germany’, did not inspire confidence.

But once we’d spent about a tenner on calling the UK, and they’d rung us back a couple of times just to use a bit more credit up, the breakdown guy did arrive only an hour or so later on. Imagine our embarrassment when Pam cranked into life, and he had basically nowt to do with it. Something was up though, but he had no help to offer, and he didn’t speak English anyway, so we wouldn’t have got very far.

We drove a massive 361km that day, and has we hadn’t set off til 4 or so, it was quite a late one. I drove for the first time in weeks and weeks, but it was only in a straight line on the motorway so no worries! We drove past Hamburg and Bremen, and slept right next to the Dutch border, by a pretty lake with lots of campervans. That night we had a few bloody marys, and I accidentally drank nearly a whole bottle of red wine while watching ‘Precious’, a bloody great movie.

So next morning we were both a little worse for wear, and I was feeling a bit pessimistic about Pam and moving anywhere. My fears were realised when the battery just wouldn’t get the engine started, which started a whole comedy of near errors. Our neighbour headed over when he saw what was wrong. He was obviously a total boozer, with a big purple nose and rather too much enthusiasm. He was German, and wanted us to push Pam over to his van so he could give us a jump start. We tried to point out that Pam, although nowhere near as massive as his camper, was pretty heavy schwer and I thought it was unmoglich that we could move it. His wife, also pissed, insisted that nicht is inmoglich and we should try it. So we did, while they also hopped around insisting that I sit in the cab and steer, as though we would actually be moving anywhere.
It was not going anywhere, and I looked over with desperation in my eyes at a Dutch family trying to make a getaway. I waved the jumper cables at him, and hoped he would help a damsel in distress. He didn’t have any option in the end as our saviour with the nose shouted him over. There then proceeded such a comedy that almost wasn’t, with 4 men, two of them pissed, one of them trying to stop the pissed men wrecking his campervan, and one English man trying to keep his temper and patience while the Germans seemed incapable of recognising positive and negative on the battery without use of a multimeter. They tried the secondary battery, and no joy, and then suggested they tow us! Meanwhile Dave was trying his best to get them to attempt jumping the main battery. The Dutch guy moved his van, back up to ours, ready to tow. No! It’s too heavy, thanks, but please please try this battery... eventually he turned around, linked up the cables and yes, it started no problem. Much emotion and slapping of backs later, we knew we had to get a new battery.

The rest of the morning was just painful, trailing round trying to get a battery, discovering that they are not the deal we thought they were, and then after eventually purchasing one (from Halfords in Holland), it wouldn’t go. So Dave swapped the batteries over, the main one having been finished off by its parasitic evil twin. Later on, after our first Holland supermarket trip (Piccalilly, tomatoes, Bavaria beer, chocolate milk, peanut butter), again a dead engine. But we soldiered on, Dave gave the starter motor bolts a tightening, and we were away.
Now in Amsterdam, hope to make it back to UK on Wednesday!

Stralsund turned out to be a pretty place, lots of big brick churches and a harbour. Unusual architecture that was going to be a feature of the next couple of days.
We walked down into the town, checked out a couple of ridiculously expensive shops, then headed back to the van to get going westwards. We’ve been thinking about the exhaust quite a bit, as the guy in Berlin said he reckoned 1000km would crack it again. We’d done about 1000 miles since then, so we went into a couple more garages and no-one could help. The second one, a Ford specialist, told us categorically ‘you will not get this part in Germany’. So at least that stopped us looking!

The night before I’d texted my brother and found out that my Dad was on his way to his dream place of Lubeck. He’s talked about the place for years, and we weren’t sure if he’d actually ever been there or not. I’d encouraged him to get there, as Ryanair fly right there, and he loves Germany. But it was quite a shock to find out he was actually coming. And made us get a move on!

We spent the next night in Wismar, and actually free camped for the first time in ages, as the aire was full. We made up for the free night sleep by having a pint in a bar – but I ended up with shandy and it was v expensive. A shame, why does drinking in bars have to cost 5 times what you would like to pay. We are definitely more comfortable with our cans on a bench!

The next morning was a bit of a worry as the van Pam wouldn’t start easily, and took a few tweaks of the fuel switch thing to do so. She did get going though, and we thought we’d fixed it with the switch magic. Then it was off to Lubeck, only another 70km down the motorway. When we got there it was much bigger and more normal looking than I’d expected, but that was just the out city. We headed for the ‘autohof’ but twas no longer there.... the first one in the CamperStop book that has let us down (although their co-ordinates can be a bit dodge as well). Luckily for us there was a campsite only a few km away, and it was only 16Euros a night.

We’d arranged to meet big Dave at 4pm, a random time I came up with thinking we might be coming from miles away. We were actually in the camping by 12 or earlier, but that gave us time for some chores, washing, lunch, shower, suduko etc so we were well rested by the time we went into town.

It was fab too see my Dad, he was having a little nod on a bench! We had a nice chilled time, canal boat ride, over-priced coffee, Greek dinner, beers in a great little bar, kebabs (Holstentorplatz Bistro), a quick pop into a church or two, appreciation of Lubeck as a good compact town, great shopping (TK Maxx!), and lots of benches to have a sit down. All good, and well done Dad for getting over. And great to have someone else to talk to!

Our not very serious plans to leave Swinoujscie after three nights came to nought after the battery wouldn’t start the van. It was already about 4 in the afternoon, and most proper campervanners get going at 9am, so we lashed down the currency exchange, got some more zwatties in and a few Bosman to celebrate.

The next morning we were keen and ready to get back to Germany (honest). The border is only about 2 km away, but cars have to go a bit inland for one of the coolest bits of public transport – a free car ferry! I mean, where would you get a free car ferry? OK there probably are places but we thought it was very generous of the Polish. Then you drive past the remains of the border controls a bit later, amazing to think that only 6 years ago you would have needed a visa to get over this border, and now its just another building covered with weeds.

Our destination was the island of Rugen, and the ‘Hitler Hotels’ which we’d heard about. It was pretty busy getting there as there is a 6km bridge from Stralsund over to Rugen, again all for free, which made me think about people coming back from their holidays in Europe and complaining about tolls on roads, they don’t pay our road tax when they’re in our country etc... we’ve paid for no roads at all in a year, except for one accidentally in Spain when we were trying to get some cheap diesel and ignored the satnav. No roads and no bridges, except for the Dartford crossing in England. And they are mostly good, especially in Spain. Roads in Poland are NOT good, sometimes I was gripping my seat and praying for it to be over as we bounced around and hoped the oncoming car would be able to get back in its lane before smacking straight into us... luckily we have our Irish roads background of getting in the hard shoulder and making a single carriageway into double.

Anyway, I digress. We made it up to Prora, just north of Binz in Rugen. Now if you didn’t know anything about this place you’d get to the beach and see this massive, supposed to be 5km long, brick and concrete monstrosity, just behind the sand dunes and the trees, with no signage about what the heck it is.
I guess it’s a difficult thing to promote as a tourist attraction, a hotel built by the Nazis from 1937, big enough to accommodate 20000 holiday makers. It wasn’t ever finished because of the war, but it was used as a military training place, and as a base for the soviets, and then as a place for the DDR army to go on holiday in the 60s to 80s.

It was an interesting place to visit, they have made one section into a quite strange back in time museum. They really could do it a lot better, but maybe its just too big to do it properly I don’t know. There’s a really grim restaurant on the top floor, where we treated ourselves to a foul cup of filter kaffee, having saved a couple of Euros on the admission as we are ‘Arbeitlos’. The corridors reminded me of the Club Praia da Rocha, and the staircase of the Alexis in Lloret de Mar. Some areas of the museum were given over to stuffed animals of Austria, and others to the wonders of Gdansk. There were the usual rooms and rooms full of military uniforms (we’ve had our fill of these at the weapons museum in Poland, but that was much better), some on manikins and most wearing plastic covers like they’d come from the dry cleaners. They had only one room recreated as a hotel room would have been, but you couldn’t touch or go into the rooms, only peer in. Overall impression, strange.

Moving on from our nights kip just behind Prora, where we were kept awake by pesky mozzies, we went up to the corner of Rugen to Jasmund National park. Slept at the edge of the park and ride, a proper campervan place but like all things in Germany, as expensive as a campsite in Poland. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, windy and a bit cold, even clouds in the sky! The next day was a Sunday and the park and ride filled up to the max with tourists off to ascend the might peak of the Koburg Stuhl (110m). We set off walking, as get this, even though you pay for the park and ride car park, you still have to pay for the bus! They just don’t get it sometimes. It was a lovely walk through huge towering trees and only a couple of km to the main event. Unfortunately when you get to the KS you then have to pay 6Euros each to get in. So instead we walked down the 420 steps to the beach, where lots of day trippers are looking around thinking, well at least we won’t have to come here again! There’s a big white chalk cliff, and flint cobbles. Then back up and we realised that the beach to the bus stop is the 110m. Bus back, lovely lunch (because we were both starving), and off back to Stralsund for a night’s kip in a car park next to a motorway! Lush!

Hi folks

I'm sitting (sweating only slightly) in the cab taking advantage of free wifi on the campsite while dave snoozes away behind me. We've been on the Baltic coast for over two weeks, and it's been really good time, I can recommend it as a place to have a beach holiday, but there's not that much to see and do. The towns are all new build and the beach areas get a bit samey after a while, families, big pink bellies, temptation of Bosman!

We've had a couple of good nights out here in Swinoujscie, sampling vodkas, eating kebabs and watching street performers. The Polish are a very undemonstrative lot, at first impression. They don't laugh or smile that much, and don't seem to get into things like street performers in the same way that the Brits or French would. Saying that when dealing personally with someone they are helpful and friendly and a bit bemuzed that we are from England!

We've still only met one other couple from UK, and they gave us quite a wide berth. I reckon they couldn't know that our usual friendship group of the last year has been the over 60s!

Some shopping opportunities for today: shoes, vodka, Bosman, radishes (!), no food I don't think as the packaged food, although cheap, is not that good. i thought pickles would be good but the ones we've had have been a bit sweet, but then we have done most of our shopping in either Netto (who I reckon will one day rical Tesco for world domination) and Biedronka (cheap). We know from our first hand dealings with the German customs (zoll) our allowances, did you know you're only allowed to take 10kg of coffee into Germany? No, why would you, but why? I don't think we'll be in danger of reaching our 10l each of vodka allowance, a wee bit dangerous with Dave around!

OK time to download some more podcasts - Desert Island discs and Daily Bacon are still our saviours.

Hot again today, but ti's supposed to break tomorrow....

cheerio xx