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| 1st January?? (New Years Eve) |
| Read below to hear about Lou and my hippie / medievil New Years Eve. Click here to see photos. Bulletin Board Don�t forget, I now have a bulletin board set up for this web site that you can access using the link in the bootom left of this page. Current topics include �Who�s coming to Oktoberfest 2004?, and �Who is where?� News A bit of news before my posting about New Years Eve. I�m sad to say that the end of an era is over as Lou and I have decided to break up and Lou will be flying back home on the 5th of January. I�ve had an amazing time traveling with Lou and I have a lot to owe her for lighting up my travels, laughing at my jokes, and being a great girlfriend, travel companion and best friend over the past 15 months we have been together and 12 months we have been traveling together. I�m going to really miss Lou but it�s time for me to throw even greater challenges at myself and get more out of my travels and I�ve decided that I need to do this on my own. Thanks for everything you�ve done Lou. I hope and expect that the experiences we�ve shared together will bond us as good friends for life. Lou and My Tripped out Medieval New Years Eve |
| figured out to sleep with his dog next to him to get the body warmth. I was pretty impressed with that, although it served a great opportunity to crack the old �Nice looking girlfriend you got there mate� joke. After the dark fell we all huddled into our tents and then cut up everything for dinner. I was delegated to cutting up the Onions, and given we had 30 people to fee, there were a lot of Onions to cut. They cooked up this German specialty, it�s a round doughy ball with oatmeal, onion, zucchini, and all kinds of other chopped up goodies. They boiled the ball in water and we had a taste when it was fresh out of the pot, damn it tasted good. After everything was ready we went to the main tent and all sat around the fire inside and passed around the dishes of food each tent had made. My taste buds were on fire after stupidly skipping lunch earlier that day. |
| Hope you all had a suitably big evening for New Years Eve (or Silvester as they call it in this part of the world). Lou and I had what I think was for both of us one of the most unique New Years Eves we�ve ever had. We joined a friend of ours, Chrisi, with a group of his friends who camp at the edge of a frozen lake at the base of the Bavarian Alps each year. These guys have got all the gear for winter camping and it felt like I�d stepped back into Medieval |
| times, and after watching Lord of the Rings a few nights earlier it just spun us out even more. When we arrived they had a campsite set up with 5 big tents that had a hole in the centre of the roof so you could have a fire inside (like an Indian T-Pee). They had all the gear for cooking up meals over the fire, like big pots that hung from a chain and kettles to put straight in the fire. The group we were there with were very cool. There were young people like Chrisi, Lou, and I, and then there were families as well with kids running around everywhere. We also had a few dogs there that fought with each other the whole time. . That just served to reinforce the whole medieval thing. One guy had even |
| Lots of snow for New Years Eve |
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| After that a lot of German songs were sung and some people took the opportunity to walk down to the bath they had set up next to the edge of the lake. Each year they place this bath over a fire and heat the water up. Those that chose can then strip down and cleanse themselves for the New Year. I know what you�re thinking, Trippy. Well I�m glad to say people that free lovin� and being at one with nature still exists in the 21st Century in Germany and I had New Years Eve with some of the greatest followers. To see photos from this tripped out Hippy/Medieval New Years Eve click here. Ned. |
| The 'Beacon' |
| After dinner we headed outside where they had made this massive bonfire that looked exactly like the beacons in Lord of the Rings 3 (Ben Rowley will be following me here). They had a big beam of wood sticking upright in the centre of the fire with a rocket firework mounted at the top (O.K, that bit wasn�t in Lord of the Rings but it would have been handy). We were told to all remove our watches so we didn�t know what time. The New Year occurs when the fire finally reaches the firework and sets it off. After about 30 minutes the flames hit the firework and it did a perfect path over the lake and exploded about 20 meters above the ground. It turned out the timing was almost perfect because the ski field across the lake started it�s own fireworks display soon after. |