2009

I've been strongly 'advised' by several people to update this - sorry for the delay. Internet cafés that haven't been shut down due to rent issues (wasted half a day walking around Köln before I found that one) are hard to come by. And yeah, I've been pretty lazy since we got here (ask Biddo, for once it's him waking me up instead of the other way around).

So shortly after Christmas we made our way east to Berlin. As far as first impressions go, Berlin's was the strongest yet, the -4°C winds we got in our faces as we stepped out from the Central Station making the trip to the hostel somewhat uncomfortable.

During the day however, the chill was bearable. We took the Third Reich walking tour the next day, where we were shown around to places like the Reichstag, Soviet Memorial, Jewish Memorial, as well as the site of Hitler's bunker, and the former SS and Gestapo buildings.



The Reichstag. The line for entry was easily 100 metres long.



The park adjacent to the Reichstag.



Officially titled 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe'. Highly open to interpretation.



A section of the Berlin wall, and the foundations of the thought-to-be-destroyed SS and Gestapo headquaters.

For New Years Eve, we siezed the opportunity to partake in activities otherwise illegal in Australia, and bought ourselves some fireworks (pack of about 8 rockets) for the night. Don't have very good photos of us setting them off, but I did take a few videos, so I'll upload them to YouTube when I find a computer with a USB port.

Went out drinking (responsibly) that night, then headed down to the Brandenburg Gate for the countdown (not before stopping off at Freidrichstraße for a celebratory bratwurst). However, given that roughly 4 million Berliners had the same idea that night, we got nowhere near the gate, but were trated to a pretty impressive fireworks show anyway, thanks to the multitude of people setting theirs off in the streets.





The fireworks (especially firecrackers) started in the streets as early as the afternoon on New Years Eve, and didn't stop until two days after the new year. Once everything opened again on the next day, we took a day trip to the Sachenhausen Concentration camp. Took some photos, whicl I'll upload later, but it was a pretty sobering experience. Our tour guide went into great detail on the living conditions, daily life, as well as the multitude of ways SS guards could torture of kill the prisoners. Not nice, though the tour was pretty good though. It was extremely cold that day too (negative temperature, plus a strong wind), but I think we're starting to get used to it.

That brings us to Köln, where we've been for the last three days. The first thing you see stepping outside from the station is the Dom - Cologne's massive Cathedral that only survived the bombings of WWII because Allied pilots used it to navigate due to its sheer size. It apparently houses the remains of the Three Wise men, which are only on display on the 12th day after Christmas (which happened to be yesterday), so I checked it out. It's definately bigger than the Notre Dame, and noone seemed to have any problems with taking photos inside (much like the Notre Dame, only they had signs).

Biddo's started his study course now, so I've been spending the last few days exploring the town and doing some gift shopping, while at nighttime we usually hang out with some of the other Australian/Malaysian/German students doing the course. It's also my 21st tomorrow (today for you guys) so we're heading out to a restaurant then a series of pubs that some of the other students picked out.

Tomorrow (or the first morning I get out of bed before 10) I'll probably head down with the students to the Uni so I can upload more photos using their computers (and enjoy some free internet for once), as well as frantically plan the Japan leg of our trip (of which everything is still unbooked, save for flights).

Hope you're all well, and wish you all a happy new year from myself and Michael!