Friday

That morning, we all got up early, because Theo decided he'd leave a day earlier than expected so as to maximise his use of his EuroRail Pass. Vaki kept trying to convince him to forget the idea and go back to sleep (I think his advice lacked partiality, considering he'd stayed up til 4am drinking with some Spaniards and Braziallians and was suffering from a rather bad case of 'Tomcat'), but he wouldn't be swayed, so we ate breakfast and took him to the train station. The '20 minute walk' ending up lasting quite a bit longer because we took a scenic tour of Frankfurt, including the Town Hall and the more disreputable quarters (I waited outside in disgust, while they captured their mocking antics on camera:S).

At the train station, I bought a ticket to Baiersbronn for Sunday, while Theo tried to work out whether he wanted to go to Berlin or Köln first. He eventually decided on Berlin, and we escorted him to his train and sat with him for a little while before bidding him goodbye. He was great to be around, full of energy and curiousity. I'm glad I met him, and I'm sure he'll have fun in Paris, Barcelona, Prague and all the other cities he's visiting.

We went back to the Hostel and played chess on Mark's laptop for a while and then I went for a run, which was once again very nice. I raced a cargo ship back to the start and won hehe.

There were two new guys in our room from South Korea, so we talked with them for a little while (it was a bit hard though because apart from Korean, they only spoke very limited english). We showed them round Frankfurt a little and helped them work out how to call home. I felt a bit protective of them because they seemed to be really quite helpless. It's allright in Germany, where you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't speak at least some english, but in Paris, Spain and Prague, I suspect they'll have quite a hard time of it. Mark doesn't agree though, he thinks they are a lot more capable than they let on.

He told me about this theory he has about why Asian tourists travel to Europe, but don't really go to the cultural attractions, but instead spend their time taking millions of photographs of shop windows, etc. According to him, travelling to Europe is a massive adventure for them, a test of courage. The photographs and the passport stamps are evidence to show back home and when it passes muster, they are revered as heros among their peers. It is a massive generalisation, but it probably has some merit.

I think the same is true for westerners travelling to Asian countries. It's very hard to appreciate the intricacies of a culture vastly different from your own that you know little about. You look for similarities and when you don't find enough, you resort to this 'Blitzfahrt' style of travel. It is also probably a reflection of time constraints. The South Koreans were college students, so they had 2.5 months of holidays or something like that, but they said full time jobs are very limiting in the amount of time you can take off. With a maximum of two weeks at your disposal, you'd want to cram in as much as you could. You can't get anywhere near to understanding a city like Frankfurt or Paris in two weeks, but you can gain a glimpse into what they're like and later, when you have more time, you can go back to the places you like the most.

We took the South Koreans out for pizza (oops we should've taken them somewhere more german:P) and beer (they preferred apple wine heh). Vaki and I talked for a long time about his past. He has a bit of a sad history. His family moved to Germany when he was one to escape the war and his father didn't cope well with the change. He ended up running away from home to escape the beatings he received and spent most of his childhood and adolescence in a children's home. He's turned out allright in spite of that. He has millions of friends and they're his family now. What's really sad is that he had a dream and the talent to achieve it, but has let it slip out of his grasp. He was an amazing soccer player as a child, and when I say amazing, I mean easily the best on every team he ever played on. He had an ambition to play for Germany one day, or at least play at a high enough level that he could live off it. For a while, it looked like he'd achieve it. He was playing at a very high level (I didn't really understand the league systems, but it would probably be analogous to the reserves for the A-league in Australia - they got paid for big matches, but normally nothing), training hard, really enjoying it...and then he just fell off the rails. He started drinking, started smoking, stopped going to training and showed up to matches late. Eventually his coach had had enough and they had an altercation and Vaki stormed off never to return. He kept playing but not seriously, and now he doesn't play at all. He decided he needed to prioritise work. I suggested he should play night football once a week, but he told me, for him it was everything. If he plays, it has to be with his whole heart and playing once a week would be worse than not playing at all. And now, apparently it's too late for him to get back into training because the top class players have a lifespan from about 18-31 and he's too old now. It made me really sad, because I could tell he loved it so much, and was angry at himself for letting it go.

Back at the hostel, we had quite a few drinks with this Japanese guy and girl, who were very different from the other Japanese people I've met abroad. Normally, they're very shy, but these guys were quite the opposite and could speak very good english courtesy of having studied in Portmouth in England for a year. A french guy called Pierre also came along and he was a lot of fun.

I went to bed very drunk that night and fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, so I didn't bear witness to the revenge attack that was going on in the bunk next to mine (hilarious story, but I'll save it for parties).

Some photos from Frankfurt: http://monashedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81217&l=d0e2a&id=639895031