Blitzkreig
Whether you think this German side is good is irrelevant, but the Brazilian side has about as much commitment as a bad Division One side!
Will anybody beat the Germans?
Yes! But I don’t know who will!
Man Gets Stuck In A Vagina
This story was the most looked at on the BBC’s web site, so I had to link to it.
I should say it was a stone statue and the man was an American student.
Planning Another Trip
Since my return from Gdansk, I’ve been thinking about another trip to Poland.
I would go a bit more southerly and probably start with two nights in Krakow. I would probably then go to Prague, possibly spending a night en route at either Wroclaw or Poznan.
From then it would be on to Dresden, a city I’ve always wanted to see. From there there would be an intermediate stop before Cologne, where I would run for home using a Eurostar ticket, as I outlined in this post.
So the trip would look something like this.
Day 1 – Krakow
Day 2 – Krakow
Day 3 – Wroclaw/Poznan/Other (?)
Day 4 – Prague
Day 5 – Prague
Day 6 – Dresden
Day 7 – Weimar/Nuremberg/Other (?)
Obviously, nothing is cast in stone and any suggestions would be gratefully received.
Home From Heidelberg
To get back home from Heildeberg, I took the train to Brussels changing at Cologne. And as I usually do, I took one of the last Eurostars for London that arrived just after nine in the evening.
It was a long if beautiful journey from Heidelberg to Cologne, which went right up the western bank of the Rhine. Sadly my camera had expired, so the pictures will stay in my mind.
In DB Style From Berlin To Heidelberg
I’d always wanted to go to Heidelberg, as it was probably the first German town, of which I knew the name. This was because I spent so much time from the age of about six watching one or other of my father’s Original Heidelberg printing machines. One is shown in this post. My simple job, was to call him, if the machines dropped any paper, which is a letterpress printer’s worst nightmare, as then other shets follow and paper goes everywhere, often damaging the intricately set type.
There is no museum in the town, but I just had to go.
So I bought an extremely expensive ticket at €215 for the journey, expecting a bit of DB TLC in First.
All I got was one cup of coffee which I had to pay €2.50 for.
My €2.50 Cup Of Coffee
But I suppose the seat was comfortable and I had most of the carriage to myself.
At least on my journey from Berlin to Warsaw, which is about the same distance, I paid only €79 and got a free cup of coffee and some biscuits that weren’t gluten-free.
As Berlin to Heidelberg is virtually the same distance as London to Edinburgh, I looked up the fares on the Scottish route. Today it would be £208, but tomorrow it would be £120. On the other hand for the German trip for say next Thursday, it will still be €215.
There is also one big difference in the UK, in that anybody, even Germans, over 60 can purchase for £30 a Senior Railcard, which reduces the prices I’ve shown by a third. And you can buy that at a ticket office, when you take your first journey. I did try to see if I could buy a DB Card, but the lady at the ticket office didn’t want to sell me one and didn’t have good English.
But the biggest difference between East Coast or Virgin and DB, is that on many long distance journeys you get snacks and endless tea and coffee thrown in with the ticket.
I have had customer service problems with Deutsche Barn in the past, most notably at Osnabruck.
No wonder the train was empty for most of the way!
Visa And Amex In Germany
When I arrived in Berlin, I needed to buy a ticket and as I’m a Nationwide customer, I have one of their Visa cards that converts local currencies immediately without charges to my statement.
But in many places in Germany the only card you can use in Mastercard. As I travel usually with just Amex and Visa, I would have been scuppered, if I didn’t have quite a few Euros.
Surely, if we are a united Europe economically, then all machines and web sites that accept credit and charge cards, should be m,mandated in EU law to accept all types.
A consequence of the German policy was at Berlin, the machine on the platform to buy tickets for the S-Bahn was blocked with Americans and Australians trying to buy tickets without a Visa card and no euros.
Obviously, because of the way things are going when in perhaps five years, many cities will allow contactless cards as tickets, as London buses now do, this is going to be an area, where the Germans will have to allow cards other than Mastercard.
My Itinerary For Gdansk
I’m putting my itinerary here, so I can get it at any time.
26/27 April – Gdansk
Arriving in Gdansk on Wizzair 1612 at 23:35.
Restaurants
28/29 – Warsaw
Trains to Warsaw from Gdansk
06:52 – 11:24
08:52 – 14:39
10:52 – 16:39
13:43 – 18:45
Restaurants
30 – Berlin
Trains to Berlin from Warsaw
09:55 – 15:16
Restaurants
1 – Cologne, Brussels, Amsterdam or The Hague
Should We Nuke Russia?
The title of this post is not a serious question in the way you think it is.
I was thinking about how we control Russia in its expansion into Ukraine and wondered how much gas we buy from the country. Google found me this article on the Forbes web site. It has the title of Nukes Best Option Against Russian Gas. It however did give some interesting facts about Russia and its gas, particularly with respect to the sale of the gas. The article contained the answer that I wanted in this sentence.
Russia gets about €300 billion a year (US$417 billion/yr) from fuel exports to Europe, almost 20% of its GDP
So it looks like that by its policies and purchases, the EU is strongly supporting Russia. The article also contained these paragraphs.
It is unfortunate that Germany closed down almost half of their nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima, 8 out of 17. Nukes really come in handy during this kind of energy conflict. It would behoove Germany to rethink that decision and to postpone their plans to shut down the remaining nuclear plants over the next ten years, to give them more leverage to address the Russian aggression as they continue transitioning to alternatives.
Until recently, Germany’s 17 nuclear plants produced power exceeding the energy produced by all of the Russian gas entering Germany. With eight shut down, the amount of nuclear energy produced still offsets much of that produced by Russian gas. If Germany insists on prematurely shutting the rest of its nuclear fleet, then the amount of gas needing to be imported into the country will double, even with projected increases in renewables.
This explains the title of the article.
The writer has a point. Whether we like it or not, Europe and especially Germany is playing the Russian’s game, by buying more gas and giving Putin the funds to be aggressive.
The sooner we stop buying gas from Russia the better. We need to start fracking and build more nuclear power stations.
It’s Not April The First!
This story about exploding cows in Germany is straight out of the Guardian’s list of April Fool Jokes. There is a serious side though, as the article says!
Cows are believed to emit up to 500 litres of methane – a potent greenhouse gas – each per day.
Perhaps we should link all cows to the gas grid or have a cow in the kitchen connected to the cooker.
My Last Bottle Of Lammsbräu
This is my last bottle of Lammsbräu.
My Last Bottle Of Lammsbräu
The supplier is still awaiting deliveries of this excellent gluten-free beer from Germany.
I ordered something else from the supplier; Beers of Europe, on Tuesday and it arrived yesterday. So at least the local loop is efficient!
The Anonymous Widower 