Life in the fast lane

Munich

Yesterday morning I listened to a John Piper sermon while driving at 200km/h. Legally!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had a great week in Berlin, and got to know lots of people on my course who I didn't know before, and didn't see while I was in Canada. We studied various things, some of which were more airy-fairy than others. One of the more interesting topics was "memory and the city", which in Berlin is quite easy. There is so much history in the city, and so recent, that nearly any street has an interesting past - maybe it was by the Wall, maybe it used to be a city gate, or is named after someone or somewhere.

We were staying in Kreuzberg, an area just south of the city centre. It was a nice neighbourhood - plenty of people around, and lots of immigrants. As such there were loads of interesting and cheap places to eat, such as Mexican, Turkish, German, Italian and so on.

Unfortunately my room-mate, Tony, had a cold during the week and I picked it up just before the end of the fieldtrip. My head feels weird.

On Sunday morning I met up with Steve near to where I was staying, and we set off southwards. We made it here to Munich in 8 hours, including a brief diversion into the Czech Republic. Driving on the autobahn was amazing - I took a stint at the wheel halfway through the journey, and cruised at 150km/h. People were flying past regularly in BMWs, Audis etc. On one downhill open stretch I floored it and reached a top speed (GPS measured) of 203km/h! That was fast.

Once we arrived in Munich, we headed into the centre, and to Oktoberfest! There are an awful lot of people there - 14 beer tents, each with a couple of thousand revellers inside; plus a huge fairground and lots of people milling around. I managed a "Mass" - 1 litre of very nice Hacker Pschorr, but slept very well as a result!

We're off to Switzerland today, via Austria and Liechtenstein - my 25th country, if all goes to plan...