Travelling to Germany, 165KM on the Autobahn and Kaufen auf Deutsch?

Schafflund, Germany

After 26 hours of traveling, I have finally arrived in Schafflund, Deutschland. I have attached a map of my journey.

I started my journey in Camden Town, London at 5pm. I caught a double decker bus through central London to Victoria Bus station, the buss went through Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street, by Downing Street, Westminster and Westminster Abby, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace Road. I waited at the bus station for an hour and then caught a bus for Amsterdam. We first went to Dover and boarded the bus onto an underground train. We were able to get off the bus and stand around in this massive train as it speed under the English Channel, in about 25 minutes we were in France. The French Authorities then boarded the bus and took the passports of anyone that wasn"t from North America or the EU. It took about 20 minutes to check and then they came back, handed the passports back and we were on our way.

Around 3am I woke up. I didn"t know what country I was in. All the license plates at the gas station were Danish, I couldn"t figure out what language was on any of the products in the store and no one seemed to be speaking the same language. Eventually as our bus drove on I realised that we were near Antwerpen. Around 5am we arrived in Amsterdam. There I waited about 2 hours for a bus to Bremen. As we drove out of Amsterdam and too the country side, I was amazed. The Dutch country side is the most beautiful I"ve ever seen. They have replaced most windmills with massive wind propellers. Eventually we arrived at the Deutsch Border. Customs pulled the bus over at a gas station and began going through everyone"s passports. Once again, anyone not from the EU or North America had their passports taken and checked. A few people were asked to stand up for inspection as well, being that they didn"t resemble the photo in the passport. While they were doing the checks I went into a grosery store and got some food. I went up to the till and said "morgen", the women then replied with "morgen", then she started talking in Deutsch really fast, I just stood there and looked at her as she yelled at her computer. Eventually she rang the food in, I gave her ?4 and said Danke Tsuusse, and was on my way.

I arrived in Bremen around 1pm, Anja picked me up ina very lovely red Mercedes and we went to McDonalds. I went up to the cashier and said "eins und coke bitte", the woman didn"t understand me and asked in a very rude voice, "don"t you speak english!?!?!?", I replied with yes. She then started talking to me in english like it was my fifth language or something. I can"t believe that. Anja said how most people that work at McDonalds in Deutschland don"t speak Deutsch very well. Same goes in England ;-).

We then went and looked at a flat. The place looked very posh, had a decient price and was near a train station so we made a deal on it. Afterward we drove on the AutoBahn at 165KM/h+ to Schafflund. We arrived at her parents house. I must say I"ve never seen a house soo nice in my life. Apartantly her parents also own a restaurant in a castle on an island near by, were going to go see it soon. We watched simpsons, which has been dubbed very well and each character had a very different voice from the american version, I hope I can tape some of the show and put it on my website some day. It was very interesting seeing Simpsons in Deutsch. In the evening we went for dinner, I met her family and Rainer, the owner of COMbridge, the company I am hoping to work for. We made an agreement to meet this afternoon at 2pm. I hope everything goes well.

Last night I slept like a baby, the bed was extremely soft and comfortable, the room was a nice tempreture and the shower was to die for. I think I"m going to love Germany, I didn"t think that such nice places existed in Europe but the standard of living here looks to be higher than that in North America.

Here is a map of my journey through 5 countries yesterday. I almost made it 6 but we didn"t go to Denmark, through I can see it from where I am.

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