After a month in Europe, long flights home and a decent night’s sleep, the CB and I are back in the land of the living. Here are a few final thoughts, in no particular order, to wrap things up.
In Nuremberg we had a look at the place where Hitler conducted his rallies and made those infamous fist waving speeches to the then adoring masses. It’s been preserved so we never forget what went on there. As a music lover I like the idea that it’s now used for rock concerts. I don’t know if Iron Maiden have performed there but seeing Bruce Dickinson in his redcoat tunic waving the Union Jack while singing The Trooper and leaping about in the spot where Hitler once stood appeals to my irony gene.
We saw numerous castles on our travels. I love castles. Inverlochy Castle in Scotland was used for protection back in the 13th century. This involves fighting. I am photographing the defensive capabilities of the castle – the moat, the battlements, the walls, the ingenious ways they had in those days to trap or kill attackers. The CB is photographing bluebells growing out of the walls.
I’ve previously reported in Widows and Walking Sticks and other previous posts that we have been travelling with a bunch who are about a generation removed from us – up, not down. And there are a lot of single ladies amongst them. So while Cuz1 and I have been focussed on getting the next round in, Cuz2 and the CB have been more concerned with who’s doing what to whom. A bit crude I know but when we are talking about an average age of about 80 it takes on a whole new dimension. They had the male and female tour guides sorted on day one despite a left-field intervention from another of my cousins in Vienna which I won’t outline here but some of the other “connections” were ……… I don’t know why I’m talking about this and will stop immediately.
We’ve encountered many, many famous people on our travels this past month ranging from Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome and philosopher extraordinaire to Ferenc Puskas, Hungary’s and one of the world’s most famous footballers who was given a cathedral burial. We saw Oscar Schindler and Ralph Wallenberg, Gothe and Richard the Lionheart. There was Zsa Zsa Gabor and Conrad Hilton and various Habsburg kings and queens. We caught up with Mozart, Beethoven, the various Strausses, Haydn and Schubert in Vienna and Richard Wagner in Germany. It seemed like every town, big or small, had a claim to fame usually involving a figure from the history books. And that’s a big reason why the CB and I love visiting Europe.
Of course getting from Aus to Europe can be a pain and readers of one of the earlier Rheinube episodes will be aware that British Airways fell rather dramatically in my estimation when they put the CB and I in the middle two seats of the four in a 2-4-2 configuration. They redeemed themselves by giving us an aisle seat and a middle seat with no one in the other middle seat coming back the other way. It was looking dodgy there for a while BA.
Then when we showed our boarding passes at the Qantas lounge in Singapore the nice Qantas gentleman said they had different boarding passes for us and went to consult with a colleague. They were different but not in the way I hoped and at this point expected. Rather than an upgrade, they were switched from paper to cardboard and the seat numbers didn’t change. Hoo-bloody-ray. Maybe Alan Joyce knows I think he’s a social justice warrior wanker who should confine himself to running an airline when wearing his Qantas hat. I’m a Qantas shareholder and he doesn’t speak for me when he says Qantas believes this or Qantas believes that (insert favourite lefty cause).
And finally we were very fortunate to have travelled with such fun loving, and booze loving companions in Cuz1 and Cuz2. When intentions (having a good time mainly) are perfectly aligned you can’t go wrong. Any hint of disunity prior to departure however will be magnified especially in the close confines of a boat or a coach as someone I know recently discovered. Not us. We had a blast and intend doing it again and if you hang around long enough and I don’t get sick of doing this you’ll read about it here first.