Hello all, well this looks like it'll be my last entry. I'm actually back home already, but thought I should let everyone know what I did in my last two weeks. Thankfully the weather was kind enough to give me a little more snow. How gorgeous does my street sign look with the snow covered shrubs behind it.
I decided to get around Berlin one last time and check out a few things I hadn't yet had a chance to see or at least to photograph. The DDR Museum right on the banks of the Spree river is pretty small, but considering it was only opened last October has a pretty decent display.

The Palast der Republik is a little worse for wear. They're ripping it down (slowly, so they can reuse the materials) and are planning to rebuild the Berlin Schloss, which originally stood in its place.
Bebelplatz, the site of the 1932 book burnings. The monument to this tragic event is very well done. There is simply a white empty room underground, with enough room to hold 20,000 books.
The law faculty of the Humboldt University looks out onto Bebelplatz. And you think the law palace at Melbourne Uni is flashy...
Some of the statues on the bridge leading to the Berliner Dom (berlin cathedral). The cathedral is missing it's crowning glory, as the big golden cross has been taken down for repairs.

BERLINALE!!! I went and saw a film by the name of Die Faelscher. Really, really good. It was kinda annoying having all of these tourists in town for it though. Shopkeepers started treating me like I was stupid and talking to me in english all the time.

My very last ice hockey game. The eisbaeren won, naturally. 6:3. It was a great game. Edge of your seat type of action.
For my last weekly dinner with Dana we went to the Kartoffel Keller (potato cellar). Paul came too and we had a good night, even though the food wasn't that great.
I went with the boys, Richard and Derek, to the Dorotheenstadt cemetary. Some cool graves there. The boys were very excited by finding the philosopher Hegel.Before leaving Europe to come home I went to visit Lionel in Lyon. We went on a bus tour to see some of the city sights. The windows on the end of that yellow building are all painted on. There are a number of other buildings in Lyon which have similar artworks.

We went to a park for a lovely picnic lunch. The Parc de T'ete D'or. There was a gorgeous little zoo in the middle of the park which we had a look around, and also the gardens themselves.

Here I am standing near the Saone (or was it the Rhone?) when we went for a walk around town.
We visited the old roman ruins in Lyon too. Apparently Lyon used to be the capital of Gaul, so there's a lot of roman stuff about to look at.
On top of one of the hills beside Lyon stands this gorgeous basilica. It is a contemporary of the Sacre Coer in Paris, and quite simply beautiful.
I had to show proof of Lionel being domestic. Here he is making me eggs and bacon for breakfast. He also made a pretty decent penne carbonara, from scratch! I cooked for him too, of course. We ate very well during my stay.
So that's about it really. We had some adventures getting back home. Fran got lost on the Berlin train network, and then the airline had no record of her electronic ticket on the system. WE are home though and ultimately that's all that matters.
Til next time, this is the end of the adventures of Alice.

Jetzt geht's LOS! So sorry about the delay old chums. I've been rather busy in the past few weeks. Only 12 days left, how time flies...
The first fantastic event is made pretty clear by the photograph below. That's right, we've had snow!!!
Unfortunately for Fran, it all melted on the day she got here, and then started up again the night she left. I hear it's snowing in London too though.
Fran arrived safe and sound an hour later than anticipated, which meant lots of lovely waiting around in the airport for her. Tegel is so small and there's so little there. I think I looked in every shop and still spent a lot of time just sitting.

One advantage to the lack of snow was that it made getting about Berlin much more comfortable. Fran ticked off nearly every sight from Berlin in her book. Adove you can see her smiling away at the memorial to the murdered jews of europe.

After the jewish memorial we headed to the Reichstag. I wanted to go up there again seeing how miserable and dark it was last time I was there, besides which, it's free. You really get an awesome view. This time the weather was very kind. The coney thing beside Fran is covered with mirrors and is used to direct natural light into the main parlamentary chamber, so they don't have to use so much electricity for lighting.
We made the trip out to Potsdam to visit Sans Siuci, only to discover we were one minute too late to get tickets to go inside. We had a good look around the gardens, until it started to rain, at which point we rushed back to the bus. The building is still very impressive from the outside.


Our big and rather sombre day trip was out to the Sachsenhausen conzentration camp near Oranienburg in the neighbouring state of Brandenburg. It was truly chilling to walk through those gates. I didn't take too many photos here. It didn'tfeel right. I also almost feinted in the dissection room as Christian (our guide) was explaining some of the medical experiments which were undertaken in the building.
I decided it was worth while taking a photo of this, the memorial to the victims of Sachsenhausen. It's covered in flowers as we were there just a few days after the official remembrance day on the Auschwitz liberation day anniversary. To my left as i took this photo were the furnaces of the crematorium and behind me the gas chambers.
On Friday afternoon we went out towards Warschauerstrasse and took in the East Side Gallery. Unfortunately a lot of the better artworks on this section of wall are fading or being chipped away. The intention thereafter was to go and see a hockey game, but being a game against Hamburg (like a Collingwood v. Essondon match) it got sold out as we were waiting in the queue. To make up for it we went to Zur Gluehlampe, the little bar where I spent my birthday. We ended up staying until really late in the night, despite having to get up early and catch a train to Prague the next morning.
Here is the statue of good king Wenceslas (you know, from the christmas carol) on Wenceslas square. He is surrounded by the four Holy protectors of the Czech people and behind him is the national museum.
Here is the changing of the guard at Prague castle. The soldiers look so bored, bemused, something... I bet you'd feel a little silly too standing perfectly still for an hour and having stupid tourists come up and take photos of you.
The famous astronomical clock on the town hall on Old Town Square. Kinda speaks for itself... Lot's of people were standing around o watch this clock toll.
And last but not least, the Charles Bridge gate. The batteries on my camera were just about to die by this stage, and I didn't even take that many photos. The bridge is gorgeous, with all of these sculptures of the crucifixion, saints etc along it.
We got up to a whole lot more, but those are the main bits for your perusal. Sorry it's so long, but remember I could have made it a heck of a lot longer...
I went to the Schloss Charlottenburg yesterday with Dana, but shall give you photos and details of that and so much more in my next entry.
Bye for now.

So I forgot to bring the adaptor thingy to plug in my laptop, which of course was already low on power and therefore promptly died upon my finally uploading pics for another blog entry :( Hence my apologies here instead of an entry. Soon, I promise, boy have i got a lot to update on. In two weeks I'll be on a plane anyway, so catch you soon.

HURRAH! Here I am ready to write another entry.

It has been a crazy few weeks. Homework is starting to really pile up as the semester comes to a close. It's hard to believe I have only got about a month here now. I've written up a list of everything I want to see and do in Berlin before I go, and have crossed off a few as well.

I took myself off to see Charlotte's Web (Schweinchen Wilbur und seine Freunden(I know, the title sucks in german)) about a week ago. It was really good. I can recommend you all go to see it. I'm pretty certain noone else in the cinema had ever read the book, cos even the adults were gasping with surprise.

Last Thursday was a maniac type of day. I had a physio appointment in the morning (I'm paying for my health insurance and am therefore also using it), which was followed by a lovely lunch of leftover pumpkin and spinach risotto thanks to my playing host to Dana the night before. I then headed out to a little place near Wannsee funnily enough called Haus am Wannsee (I'm not translating that, you can understand what that means without me).

This was the villa where all of Hitler's nearest and dearest sat down to brunch, cocktails and planning the elimination of the jewish race. Of course Hitler himself could not possibly be there himself... It was a really good little museum, way too much information to read at once. I skipped a fair it of it. Unfortunately they were setting up for some kind of press meeting or something of the like in the room where the conference actually took place, so i couldn't get a good look there.

Here is a lovely view over the Wannsee itself near the villa. As you can see it was a miserable day. I had intended to head to the Gruenewald train station, which is imfamous for being the station from which the Berliner jews were shipped out to the various concentraton camps, but due to the weather and the unexpected length on my visit to Haus am Wannsee I decided to head straight into town for my next adventure of the day.

I had to write an article on the reopening of the Bodemuseum (big museum, full of sculptures) for my media class, and as entry is free after 6pm on Thursdays I decided to visit then. I did intend to visit the museum anyway, the assignment added to my impetus. SO I trudged up to the centre of town and then walked from Hackescher Markt to the Museuminsel (museum island, literally, that's all that's there) in the bucketing rain and gusting wind. Thankgoodness for my trusty raincoat, plastic pants would have been a good idea as my pants were dripping when I arrived. I had a really good look aroud as part of a tour group. Unfortunately they decided to close early so that the staff could get home before the storm really hit, so we got kicked out earlier than I would have liked. Still really awesome. In case you haven't heard, a hurricane hit europe killing 34 people including 10 in Germany. This Thursday is when it hit...

On the weekend I went swimming, and locked myself out of my apartment in the meantime. I left my keys inside, and my door doesn't have a knob you can turn on the outside. Luckily for me I have cool neighbours, with tools. They simply unscrewed the face plate from my door knob and opened it that way. It's kinda scary how easily someone can break in, but there's always lots of people about in my house, so I'm not worried.

Otherwise I've just been bumming about and doing homework. Philadelphia was on TV last night, Lionel you would have loved that one. What do you call 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?.. A good start!

Anywho, I need to do some work...

Hi all. I don't have any pics to upload, but I thought I'd let you all know I haven't died or anything, though I felt like it last week. I've been crook and therefore haven't been out and about much, but am all better now and plan to make up for it in the next week or so.

Well here it is, I'm back and ready to tell you all about my adventures, which i'm sure will make one Ryan Mason very happy.

I spent Christmas with my friends in Freiburg. The same people I stayed with during my exchange in year 12. It was soooo cool to see them once again. We had lots of fun discovering that 2003 to 2006 is 4 years.

Here are Anne and Joerg in the bell tower of the Freiburger Munster (cathedral). My god was that a long way up! My legs were killing me. It was a very narrow old worn staircase too, I didn't exactly feel very secure going up there, but it had an awesome view.

Here I am ice skating in the neighbouring city of Emmendingen. We (Anne and I) felt so unco with all of these kids doing spins and ticks all around us. That is until three men came onto the ice who simply tried to walk on the ice, rather than skate. That was so hilarious and made me feel much better about my ice skating skill or lack thereof.

Anne, Myself and Joerg atop the Kandel mountain. Barbara loves this mountain, she is always going on about it. Unfortunately fog in the valley meant that we could barely see it from home, but it was beautiful and sunny up here. I'm pretty certain this was on Christmas eve. The valley was filled with fog, it felt kinda weird looking down into all of that soup. There was also a falconer up there giving his birds a stretch, which was pretty cool to see.

Me (blinking) beside the Luchtenborg family christmas tree. Those are real candles. I helped to decorate this tree, and the tree of Anne's Grandparents who live in the house behind them. There was such a big mound of presents under that tree it was hard to walk in next to it for this photo. I got some chocolate from Anne's Grandparents, books from her parents, and a book and some tea from Anne and her sister Britta. Everyone loved their presents, especially Joerg who had wanted a VB tshirt since visiting Australia in 2004.

The ruins of some 2000 year old Roman Baths we visited in Badeweiler on Christmas day after lunch. Amazingly well preserved, although they had sat under mud and rock for the large part of that time. the roof is there to protect the ruins, not the visitors. It was still freezing cold and amazingly humid. There is a big day spa situated right next door which makes use of the same springs the romans used.

Here I am in Basel, Switzerland. I went on a day trip ther with Anne, Joerg, Britta and Britta's boyfriend Gerald. Being Switzerland this city was untouched by the bombing of WW2. When the sign above the door says it was built in the 1300's, the house was built in the 1300's. A very beautiful medievil city. Francs suck. Everything is sooo much more expensive in Switzerland. There was an awesome Kandinsky exhibit on though, which was fantastic to see. We also went rock climbing during my stay, went to the movies to see Little Miss Sunshine (in german of course) and met up with some of Anne's classmates from highschool, including some I knew. We went to a youth church service at the catholic church on Christmas Eve (even though Anne is protestant). They sang some english language popsongs as part of the service, I'm certain they had no idea what they were actually singing. An alright service I guess, but I would have much preferred a traditional service over this attempt at being cool.

I left the Luchtenborgs on the Thursday after Christmas, exactly one week after my arrival in Freiburg. I discovered I hadn't taken any photos of Britta or their parents during my stay. I had a very interesting train ride back with 5 stoned swiss germans, whose german was absolutely impossible to understand. Nice blokes, but i would have preferred a little more sleep.

Lionel arrived on the following Saturday, shame his lugage didn't arrive til Monday. We went into townto get him a few essentials, went ice skating, visited the wall at Potsdamer Platz etc. Nothing particularly exciting as everything was shut on the Sunday and Monday. New Years Eve was spent with Dana, Paul, a guy called Lars, the Scissor Sisters and about a million strangers at the Brandenburger Tor. In case you saw any footage, the chick in the white coat next to the guy in the black beanie is me... I let Lionel take the NY photos with his fancy new camera, cos it takes much better night shots, so I'll skip straight ahead to Paris.

The Arc de Triomph. Our first destination after dropping off our bags at our Parisian hotel. It is truly awe inspiring. I'm just so glad I didn't have to drive on those roads. Apparently you are not covered by your car insurance company whilst on the roundabout around the Arc, it's that crazy. There are no lane markers...

Lionel (who has promised to get a haircut) in front of the Champs Elysees street sign, we walked the entire length of that road down to the obelisk at Concorde square, where we got onto this thing:

One lovely large ferris wheel. The little cabins were open air, so you could quite easliy jump out if you so desired. As always I was somewhat nervous for about the first half way up, but then was fine. There was an italian family in our cabin with us. They spoke a tiny bit of english, no french and no german. I could remember enough italian to comment on its being very cold, but otherwise nothing. Seriously, when am i ever going to need to say that a little butterfly is flying past... We spent the most part of the evening just wandering around Paris, through the gardens, past big fancy looking buildings with french flags sticking out the top of them, along the Seine. Once again, Lionel's camera is better at night shots.

In the morning we headed to the Louvre, to discover disgustingly long queues, we decided to come back another time. The queue you can see in this picture keeps on going out of shot, and continues inside the glass pyramid for about the same distance. Rediculous. We elected instead to go via the Pont Neuf,..

And the Palais de Justice (Lionel was very excited to see the french high courts, but once again rediculous queues quashed that desire),

On our way to the Notre Dame cathedral.

There were no stupid queues here, just beggers. We went inside for a look around. It is a very large, grandious church. You can understand how people are moved by such surroundings. Shame the church doesn't give some of it's money to the beggers out the front...

We then headed, via a crepe, up to the top of Montmartre to see the Sacre Coer church. Relatively young in cathedral terms, this beauty was finished around the beginning of the 20th century. It is a truly devine location, with views all across Paris. Of course all Baz Luhrman fans out there will know of one other famous landmark in Montmartre, the Moulin Rouge.

It was a little disapointing really, I expected more sparkle or something. There was certainly a lot of sparkle in the surrounding streets. We had to walk through the red light district to get there Lionel made me promise not to take any photos which might be used as evidence to say he had been there. We just walked through very quickly, though some of the shops were very in your face and couldn't be totally avoided.

That night we went up to the top of this grand old lady. We stood in the queue this time, even though it meant waiting almost 2 hours. The sun was still up when we started waiting. Such a beautiful view over Paris at night was to be enjoyed by all. Photos didn' work, so you'll all just have to visit it yourselves.

The next morning we headed out bright and early to the Palais du Versailles. Amazingly we didn't have to wait too long to get in, and did a lovely tour of the old palace. A large portion of the Hall of Mirrors was being renovated and was therefore covered up, but you still got the main effect. There are so many sculptures and fine paintings adorning it's halls. It would truly have been a grand residence in its day.

Just as remarkable were the gardens out the back. Entry to the gardens is free. Lionel and I have resolved to return to these gardens during the summer some time. We are sure it would be even better then.

That afternoon we headed back to the Musee du Louvre. We didn't bother taking photos again this time around, and just went inside. (Entry is free on Fridays after 6pm for anyone thinking of going). Unfortunately we weren't in Paris for a Friday night, and therefore had to pay. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and Psyche and Amore anoungst others. We even went down into the basement to see the middle ages foundations of the original Louvre buildings.

The next day consisted of packing up and checking out. Lionel accidently took our room key with him, and now has to send t back. I saw Lionel off at the train station and negotiated my way to the airport all by myself. French bureaucracy is so frustrating. It's no wonder they can't win a war, they're like the Vogons from the Hitchhikers Guide. Hilarious from the outside, but you don't want to have to deal with them.
Anywho, I'm now back in Berlin. Classes start again this evening, but I'm a bit crook so I'll wait to see what the doctor says about my attending tonights class. I think this entry is well and truly long enough now.

In case I didn't say it to you before, I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Years.

Love to you all.

HOORAY

Photos now on my computer! I'm afraid this will be a rather long entry, with number of themes, but you can take your time with it as there won't be another before Christmas at least.

Here firstly is a shot of me at the Olympic Stadium with one of Sherees friends. I can't remember which one she was though... :(

Sabrina (Derek's girlfriend) and I at the Berlin Wall remnant on Potsdamer Platz.

This is the Holstentor which leads into Luebeck. The city is nicely situated on a quasi-island, so there aren't to many ways to get in. This Tor is pretty famous actually, and featured on a limited edition set of coins (WOOT), like all of the towers in Luebeck these are crooked. The island is basically sand, so everything sinks.

A lovely little Luebeckian street we walked along during our two hour city tour. On the right hand side is a 600 year old wine merchant.

The main church, it was basically destroyed in WW2, and then rebuilt but they left the churchbells smashed on the floor as a reminder.

See, smashed bells....

Other than that, we had lunch at a restaurant where I had Luebeck style fish and potatoes, we went to the Buddenbrooks Haus (does the name Thomas Mann ing any bells?), went up the steeple of the St Paulus church, and bought marzipan. OMG, they make the best marzipan!

Now here is Dana on the train to Dresden. The train was pretty ancient, but it was travelling onto Hungary, and for some reason they don't send the good trains there... There is light outside the window, which means it must be somewhere around 8:30 am. We arrived in Dresden just after 9:00.

Here it is, the lovely Dresden as seen from the Augustinerbrucke. It was soooooo cold that morning. My hands and cheeks physically hurt. If it had rained then we would have had snow.

This wave shows how high the 2002 floods were, Dana provides a good comparison.

The first buildings you come across as you enter the Dresden Altstadt from the Neustadtare the catholic church and the Schloss (castle).

We spent the large part of the morning at an art exhibition, which had been a large part of the impetus to visit Dresden when we did. I saw 6 real Kandinsky paintings, and a whole room full of Klee! In the afternoon we went out to the Grosse Garten (big garden) and saw the Jagdschloss (hunting palace)

There is also the most gorgeous little narrow gauge railway there, but it only runs during the summer months.

Check out this old DDR mural. They certainly knew how to do a mural. It needs a bit of a clean up, but is otherwise a fantastic testimony to all things socialist.

The Christmas Market in Dresden is the oldest in all of Germany. I was a little dissappointed with it though. Too much of the same old stuff you find at every christmas market. Still, they must be doing something right to be still getting that many people attending in their 572nd year.

The Deutsches Hygiene Museum, i know it sound's really weird, but it was actually really cool. They had an exhibt on the medical ideologies and experimentation of the Nazis, as well as the standard exhibit. We spent about four hours in there. My feet were killing me.

TRADAH! Here it is. The Frauenkirche. Ain't she pretty? It's sooo gorgeous on the inside too. I only took the one photo inside, cos we weren't really allowed to take any at all. They broadcast the weekly service there on the tv here though. SO i can have my fill of godliness from home in my pj's.

The I.C.E., my train out of the newly renovated Dresden Hauptbahnhof. Much nicer than the train to Dresden. We had to change trains in Leipzig, so i've spent all of 45 mins there. They have a nice train station...