Germany: Weissenhauser Strand

Our German adventure started in the resort of Weissenhauser Strand on the Baltic coast. In the nearby town of Oldenburg Jeremy's good mate from uni, Tim Gifford, was getting married to the beautiful Mareille. We were among a contingent of Aussies who had come across for their big day. To get a little more acquainted with Tim's mates prior to the wedding, we took a day trip to a place called Kiel where we would make a very unfortunate discovery.

Gigantic pork bbqs...

Half meter pork sausages...

Oh, something not made from pork...sweets!

Thankfully, Germany does have something else to entice its pork-fearing visitors, beer. So, what happens if you dont drink beer? Well as TZ can testify, you are booed off stage. Below you can see TZ's over-sized lemonade being toasted (and simultaneously outcast) against the other beers. 
 
Here's something the JeTZ could enjoy together - Mojitos! We had not had a decent one since our time in Prague but Germans seem to have their culinary skills down to a fine art. We began to accept that from this moment forth, our diets would have to be put on hold until further notice.

Before leaving the festival, we came across this interesting Elvis impersonator. His voice was so deep it was if it came from his recesses of his bowels. Oddly though by the time that voice reached his mouth and our ears, it did sound an awful lot like Elvis.  In fact if it weren't for the fact that his side burns were tattooed onto his face, we might have claimed a legitimate Elvis sighting.

On the day of the wedding, the JeTZ scrubbed up very well wearing their Sunday best. Despite the beautiful wedding ceremony, in the church Jez appeared distracted. He could smell an odour most foul. Something akin to dog poo...it was in fact dog poo. And it was hanging for dear life to one of the brand new heels that TZ was wearing. Lets just say that it's not as easy as you think to go from backpacker to fit-for-human-society in so short period of time.

Tim and Mareille on the other hand looked like a beautiful and highly-civilized couple. When the Australian contingent degenerated in the wee hours of the morning they were like a rose amongst thorns.

When the happy couple first met, Tim did not know a word of German. But with some one-on-one tuition from Mareille , his tongue quickly learnt its way around the uber-sized, multi-syllabic German diction. (Hey if the Germans can make up their own words, so can we!) At the wedding, poor Tim had to give his speech twice. Once in English and once in German. So we would know which language he was speaking, he wore his German flag wig when he was speaking German and his cork hat when speaking 'stralian.

And when Tim was drinking, he wore his lay.

When the Aussie crew were drinking, we did it German style - red bull and Jagermeister shots.  Although as you can see, not all of us could wait for the photo to be taken...

Things started to get a little unusual when Tim was dressed up as a baby, shaved, fed and had has his teeth brushed by his new wife.
Meanwhile, back at our tables, we sat with our arms linked singing a crazy German song in which we had to chant 'die sau, die sau' - the pig the pig...turn it into sausage (or something unkosher to that effect).

The frivolity continued and at 2AM a gigantic cheese platter was brought out signaling that we must continue to eat and be merry. Sheets of white material were laid out for us to write our good wishes. At around 2:30AM a select few sheets were fashioned into the hot air balloon you see below and launched into the starry night.
Stranger still, when we left the party shortly after 3AM, the sun was just rising. 

Only hours later, we decided to take a walk to the beach. We were only moments from the Baltic Sea and we would be damned if we did not at least see what all the fuss was about. As Jez can testify the water is freezing. Fuss over.

However, if you are keen to hang out at the beach despite the hideous cold, you can cosy up in one of these little shelters. Not quite like lounging around on the beaches of Brazil, but ten out of ten for quirkiness!

We left Tim and Mareille the following day and visited the town of Lübeck to ingest a healthy dose of marzipan. We landed up in Hamburg a little unsure of where we were to go next. It wasnt until a rather unpleasant bar room brawl occurred involving Jez, a rambunctious Turkish woman and a 250 Euro bottle of Moet that we bolted for the countryside. We must press on but if you do wish to hear the story, Jez will be making a cameo appearance in Perth for a few days from 17 October and can fill you in on the gory details.