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| New Town Hall |
Please excuse my tardy travel update… It seems it’s rather hard to come by decent internet here in Europe. Not only that, but as some of you know, my exciting adventure took a nasty turn a few days back. What was going to be a leisurely visit to Munich and its surrounding fairytale castles - turned out to be a teeth-clenching nightmare. I started getting a throb in my lower gum in Amsterdam. I thought nothing of it, thinking it was my jolly wisdom tooth trying to be pushy once more. I mean they grow right? And it hurts, just like when babies teethe. Exactly. Well I continued to sample Dutch chocolate and candies and fairy bread (Don’t worry, I assure you this wasn’t the entirety of my nutritional input – there were many Euro 3,00 salads too.) I took a Panadol here and there to numb that molar of mine, and it seemed to be doing the trick. Fast forward a few days, I trained all the way down to Munich on an overnight express. My tooth started giving me a little more grief. Usually my wisdom teeth growth spurts only last a day or two. It was at this point I became a little more concerned. Enter Munich.
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| Old Town Hall |
I arrived in Munich in the early morning did the usual bag drop off at the hostel. Possibly the strangest hostel I’ve ever been to, but more about that later. I wandered into the city centre and found Mary’s square, complete with both new and old town halls. The New town hall is actually older than the Old town Hall, being that the Old Town Hall is a replica of the actual Old Town Hall. As there was this thing called the Second World War and some chump who had difficulty in growing facial hair decided to bash his way through the original Old Town Hall so he could get his oversized automobiles through the glorious archways. Suffice to say, it had to be rebuilt. The New Town Hall is a dirty, neo-gothic monstrosity with a rather dated animatronic cuckoo clock sort of deal. I remember watching this with my family back in ’00, and being as equally indifferent then. However, if anything, it was sure to have been a marvel of human ingenuity back at the turn of the 20th century, and now, a historical evidence of how far mankind has come in animatronic technology. Once the finale had been performed (I won’t spoil it for you – it really is the defining moment in the whole spectacle – *yawn*) I was absorbed into a pay-as-you-like walking tour of Munich central. The tour was conducted by an ex-Texan come German immigrant named Kevin of Radius tours. The group was a friendly bunch - mostly Americans, a few Germans, and an Australian couple. Kevin took us through the marketplace and to his friends butchery where we could sample some fine Germany bratwurst if we wished. I bought I large punnet of raspberries – oh the summer fruits are so fine! He gave us a good wee history lesson, including taking us to the new Jewish quarter – which is a really nice area.
After the tour I wandered my way back to the tram (I love trams and I think Christchurch should definitely invest back into them.) You would hardly believe the hostel was a few stops from a bustling city centre – it felt like we were situated in the middle of nowhere. That evening the pain in my gum was at an all time high. I decided to try popping some antibiotics to kill any nasties that might’ve been hanging around. At this point I had also been receiving advice from some lovely ladies in my life on what to do re toothache…. I woke up at 4am in a whole lot of pain and feeling very queasy. Thank goodness no one else was in by six-bed dorm that night. Whether it be from lack of food (was too painful to eat much), antibiotics, the pain or most likely, a combination of all the above; I proceeded to throw up many a time. I was feeling so unwell I thought I’d have to go to hospital for emergency dental surgery. I packed my bags and cautiously headed down the four flights of stairs to the reception hoping like anything they were open 24hrs. I was frightened and my only friend in the world right there and then was my stuffed Pushen cat plushie. It’s amazing, despite being a 27 year old woman, how much comfort a stuffed animal can do in a moment of disappear. I attempted to explain my situation to the receptionist who got on the phone immediately and started calling for some form of doctor. She arrived after half an hour and a few more trips to the bathroom later. As expected there was little she could do for my tooth, but she offered to inject me with pain and nausea relief. Now, the as a general rule doctors aren’t particularly warm as they prefer to cut the small talk and get to the problem, but German doctors are a whole other level of cold. Two extremely painful injections in my lower back later, I was sitting in bed again wondering what to do. When some of the pain and nausea had subsided the receptionist knocked on my door to give me the address of a emergency dental clinic. Not only was it about 5am, it was also a Saturday, so the chances of finding an open dental clinic were slim. Sure enough, when the taxi dropped me at the suggested clinic there was not a beacon of light in sight. Thank goodness I got a kindly taxi driver, as did some detection work to find a dentist for me. A few phone calls to his taxi pals did the trick and before I could say root canal I was at a 24hr dentist (which happened to be right in the middle of town go figure.) Next came the arduous forms to fill in, the credit card declining the deposit (and of course I’d left my emergency credit card at the hostel.) Thank goodness my 3G was working and I could transfer across enough funds to pay the dental deposit. It’s scary enough going to the dentist (I should know, I had a phobia of them for almost 10 years), so going to a dentist that only speaks a minuscule amount of English is even more frightening.
They take a 360 x-ray of my head and tell me they ‘Want to get a close look’, so ensue even more injections, and this time into the very red and inflamed gum that had caused all my problems. During this I think ‘So this is my holiday, that I worked so hard to afford…’ It shouldn’t surprise you that my dentists were frostier than the doctor. One of them kept getting angry with me - yanking my mouth open. But I had a cracked lip and was frightened and didn’t know what on earth they were doing, so was understandably reluctant. The thing which annoys me most about dentists is the way they treat you like a lab rat: They speak in their dentist lingo (yes even those native English speakers), they put strange implements inside of you without you knowing their purpose or if they will hurt you. How easy is it to say ‘Okay, so I’m just using this tool to clean around the edge of your gum line’ or ‘this is a drill so you will feel a bit of pressure’ and so on. But no. Hello, I’m awake here! It’s not like a surgery when you are under a local and they can do whatever they like to you… I’m awake and I need to know when to brace myself and when not to. So there I was, numb face, shaking lamb and they put a metal implement into my mouth and start doing what I presume is cleaning around the tooth. In goes another metal implement and she says: ‘It is normal to feel pressure’ to which I think ‘Cool, that’s okay. You gotta clean that sucker real good…hang on a second…’ CRACK! I feel a blood-curdling crack resonate throughout my jaw. At this point I thing it would be reasonable to say that I start freaking out. The nurse coldly attempts to calm me down, and the next minute the dentist is showing me my extracted tooth. Oh, so you are taking my tooth out – nice to know that. Thanks. As you can imagine I’ve now been popping just as many painkillers, but thankfully now they are becoming less and less, and now I can start enjoying my holiday once more (hopefully do more blog posts too!)
ps. When you are my age, the Tooth Fairy doesn't leave a shiny coin anymore, but an expensive bill under your pillow. Yippie!
