Thu, 13 Nov 2003

author Tim	location Hornchurch, Essex, England
posted 13:17 GMT 18/11/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 4 ( all photos )

Farewell to Hamburg and Seb and Jessi ( No photos )
We awoke with not too much to do for the day, besides pack up and head off.
Sebastian invited us to meet him for lunch at his Uni, which we thought a great plan as it was across the other side of the city. It was a nice walk up there, the locals suprised that we had chosen to use our feet rather than pay for the trains. To be honest our feet wanted to walk again, they are so used to it now!
We found the Uni up to the north of the city, and then the Mensa building and Philosopher's Tower where we were to meet. Seb came out a little later and we wandered with a friend of his into the food hall.
It was so weird to be back in a Uni after so long - the posters and flyers might have been in Deutsch, but their messages were the ones shared by students world wide - don't increase our prices and don't reduce the quality of our education. The sad fact is that in Germany, education is still free, whereas Liz and I (and everyone else in Australian Unis, of course) paid huge sums of money via HECS, and still had to face price rises and quality cuts as these people were here.
After an amazingly cheap student lunch, we walked out, grabbing on the way a sample bag each from a magazine company, filled with toiletries and things, which we could use, and of course a newspaper and magazine, which we could try to read. Great for the bus.
Not far up the road, we bid Sebastian farewell until next year some time when he aims to come and study in Australia for six months (must be a great place if he is considering changing from paying nothing to paying huge fees just to study out in Oz!). Once again they were suprised when Liz and I elected not to get public transport to the Hauptbahnhof where our bus was leaving from, instead just having a nice walk in the awful weather.
Our one remaining task for Deutschland was to find a fridge magnet to complete our collection, but it seems that Hamburg just isn't touristy enough to warrant decent tourist garbage shops, and the closest we could find was a keyring. Not what we were after, so we will have to try and find one online when we get home.
We found our way to the bus station, where our bus was already waiting, and climbed aboard nice and early to get a seat this time, happy to be together instead of strewn across the bus. It didn't look like we would get to sleep, but since it was only 2pm that didn't really bother us too much.
Leaving on time, bus eventually found its way across the border back into The Netherlands.

author Tim	location Hornchurch, Essex, England
posted 13:09 GMT 18/11/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Netherlands/Netherlands 4 ( all photos )

Ticking Off the Countries ( No photos )
(Continued from Deutschland 4)
Not suprisingly, there were no border formalities as we crossed back into The Netherlands. The Dutch don't have much to fear from outsiders - there's nothing that is illegal there which is legal elsewhere anyway, plus they are very tollerant of foreign people. Oh, and also, they respect the Schengen agreement which they have signed, unlike the Germans the other day!
The remainder of the journey passed un-eventfully, neither of us drifting off into sleep but that was ok - we had a bed to get to at the other end, and night was approaching.
Back at Utrecht Centraal, we just had a short wait for our bags before walking through the cold back to Donna's house and Rosie bus. We had a little bit of a shock upon opening the gate to see a different, much larger van where Rosie had been, but she had just been moved back to make room for some other people to camp there for the night.
The were a nice Canadian couple, also finished their travels, also with a blown engine, theirs the fault of Italian mechanics! That's not a good average for the mechanically-inclined people of Italy.
We cooked up some pasta and sauce for dinner, then slept to recharge for the big packing day.

(customised)