Haibach Germany

First stop on my travels was Frankfurt where Kathryn Graciously had agreed to pick me up at 6am in the morning. The flight to Germany had been a 10hr flight from Sydney to Bangkok then a 14hr flight to Frankfurt after a 4 hour stopover. So by the time I arrived in Germany I had been awake for about 48 hours with no more than a couple of ten minute kips on the plane. Arriving at 6 in the morning I decided that the best way to get over my Jet lag instantly would be to stay up until about 9 than night. It worked! 64 hour awake and then a good nights sleep and I was adjusted to the German time zone in one day.

The week in Haibach passed with much needed rest and reading which I hadn't done in ages. Also lots of discussion with Kathryn ranging from women's right to choose to the effects of high doses of coffee, this later topic actually involve experimentation.

I finally got to meet Kal who is a lovely guy and told me many a story from his hospital giving me new insights and horrors from the world of hospitals. Mum being a pharmacist has already introduced me to the medieval torture chamber that is the Hospital but Kal being a doctor and surgeon just had those extra few details that really top off a good story.

One of the major highlights of the trip to See Kathryn was the trip we took to Nuremberg. I had heard the term the Nuremberg Rallies before but I didn't link them to the name that Kal suggested as a little trip. First off the Congress Hall that the Nazi Party built is huge. Huge really doesn't do it justice, it's Colossal. It was never finished and the most of the plans for the Nazi Party Rally grounds were never even started. They have turned the Congress Hall into the Documentation Centre which is basically a museum detailing the rise in power of the Nazi Party and the ways in which they dismantled and rebuilt Germany's systems of government to suit their own ends. It also details many of the social systems the Nazi Party put in place to get the German people to follow them. I cried a few times on the tour but one of the most startling thing from it is the understanding of how the people of Germany were manipulated. Kal and Kathryn both were startled to realise they would have been Nazi's. Kal would have joined whichever group would have given him the most badges. I figured that it would depend on how old I was when it all started. If I was in my 30's or older I would have been killed by the Nazi's well before the war even started. If I was in my 20's or younger I would have ended up joining up and either would have been in the SS or in some secret lab conducting secret super soldier experiments (or having them done to me). If ever you find yourself in or near Nuremberg please go to this museum and see this for yourself, it is well worth the visit.

After Germany I had a flight to America and a short stay in Santa Monica before Min turned up and we started our big Californian Holiday.