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Plane trips

1.14pm 6/7/17 I'm on my way to Munich! I had a lovely last weekend in Berlin. On Saturday I played Rummy with Omi and we picked up Oskar for a cuddle session. Omi had bought him treats without realising they were rawhide chews, so it took him ages to demolish one, but he had a great time. He's such an excitable friendly dog, and he loves belly rubs. Omi said she'll continue his visits after I leave, which I'm sure the both of them will enjoy. On Sunday Dani, Omi and I went to an Italian restaurant for a goodbye lunch. It rained and rained and rained, so we had the restaurant almost to ourselves. I got to try spaghetti with truffles, and they had yummy cloudy Apple juice. Afterwards we all played Rummy together and Dani and I visited an intriguing exhibition about covering hair for religious or political reasons at the Jewish museum. The architecture of the museum is astounding, really interesting design. And I learned that some Jewish women consider a wig as covering their hair, which was interesting. Afterwards we had ice cream, strawberries and lemon liqueur for dessert. Monday I spent at home with Omi, packing. I'm pretty proud of my packing skills, I fitted more in than I came with, and only had to leave a little behind that hopefully dad can fit in his luggage. And I scraped by the 30kg weight limit with 29.3 kilos. My last night in Berlin I spent with my friends from my German class, a few of whom are doing internships here now. We visited a multicultural street festival, which had an Australian stall! But I didn't get to visit bc it bucketed down out of nowhere and we all got drenched. We ended up at this groovy Italian restaurant for dinner so it all worked out. And afterwards I taught my friends how to do a tim tam slam, so good! The amateurs had chocolate all over their faces but they enjoyed it! This morning I played a few rounds of Rummy then it was a teary farewell and now I'm on my way home! 6.06pm 7/6/17 One hour and forty five minutes from home! It's been a loong journey. Just now I found out how difficult it is to use toiletries on the plane, they don't like this messing around with air pressure stuff. As far as plane trips go this hasn't been too bad, I've had plenty of room to stretch out, the two long legs of the trip I had the row to myself. We flew over Perth and are soon entering south Australia (whoop!). I watched a lot less movies this time than I usually do. Guardians of the Galaxy and a kids movie called Ballerina in German, and half of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie for the second time (why do I never get more than halfway into that movie?), and some Big Bang Theory. I'm already missing Omi, and wondering what she's doing now. But I get to see my Aussie family in like two hours!!!

It feels like an age ago that I was organising my trip to Berlin. What a whirlwind of a semester it's been, thank you Germany!

Potsdam continued

5.38pm 2/6/17 This morning I had a delicious breakfast of cereal and yoghurt at the hotel and then met Dani at the train station where we began exploring Potsdam. We visited the art museum Barberini first, and my favourite section was on GDR artists and their rebellion against the requirements of socialist realist art. Afterwards we had some lunch and walked through the Park Sanssouci. We visited the palace and it was interesting to see inside the Roccoco style architecture and decor. We also visited the Chinese tea house and Potsdam botanical garden. They had a section on Australian plants and it felt like I was home already! Afterwards we visited the Potsdam Biosphere, which was a jungle greenhouse with heaps of interesting exhibits. My favourite part was the butterfly house, but the information about tropical plants that we consume in our daily lives and about the way animal and plant capabilities are inspiring technology was cool too. It was a long day of walking and exploring, and now I'm ready for Abendbrot with Omi and a relaxing evening!

Restaurant in the Russian quarter

Boat ride! (More pics coming from my camera soon)

I guess heiß and eis do sound quite similar :/

Potsdam!

11.12am 1/6/17 Today marks four whole months I've been in Berlin, that's pretty crazy. I experienced the freezing cold winter, Easter and the hint that spring was coming, the arrival (finally) of warmer weather, and then a heat wave! The first day of the calendar summer in Germany I'm spending on board a boat travelling to Potsdam. It's beautiful sunny weather, and I'm excited for a day on the water, spending a night in a hotel in Potsdam, and then exploring the city with Dani tomorrow. Yesterday was also a full on adventure, Anne surprised me with a trail ride instead of a riding lesson. I rode Bailey and another a girl called Hailey rode Donna. To be honest the idea of riding the spirited Bailey along roads with cars was a little angst inducing, especially when Anne decided we'd trot rather than walk (and I remembered my last encounter with Bailey trotting). But for the first bit Anne led the two horses on lunge ropes and navigated us carefully across the busier roads. We rode mostly through forest and after I got used to it, trotting with Bailey was fun. Apparently little 8 year old Hailey normally gallops with Anne along those stretches! We arrived at a little lake and ended up bareback riding the horses in the water, something which I wasn't expecting and proved quite difficult with Bailey being a bit high strung. Some other riders joined us and rode their horses through the water too, but one lost a piece of their tack and Hailey in her bathers had to wade in and fetch it. After a little picnic of biscuits and cherries I asked Anne politely how long the trip back would take, because it was already 6.30 and I had a long trip home. She hadn't paid any attention to the time and got quite a shock when she realised how late it was. So we hurried off on our way back. I was more relaxed on the way back and confident guiding Bailey without a lead rope. So after three hours of mostly riding (a little while leading the horses through the busier sections), I headed home, saddle sore to the bone but happy! 6.54pm I've now travelled through Potsdam by boat, bus and tram. The bus ride was interesting, my bus driver insisted I didn't need a ticket because I had a semester pass, and I didn't protest, even though that pass expired in April. He also beeped the his horn five times! After a long winded route and having to bush bash a bit after missing my tram stop I arrived at my hotel and settled in. It's lovely (quaint might be the word), and right next to the tram. I decided to go exploring and visited the Russian settlement in Potsdam. I had dinner at a little Russian restaurant outside with russian music playing and the sauerkraut was delicious. Glad to find one I like since the last one I had tasted like something rotten. Then a malt coffee with bikkies for dessert. I successfully navigated the trams back to the hotel and now I'm enjoying some music before bed.

Trail riding!!! 😁

Installations at the Hamburg Bahnhof, the bed with drifting thoughts and a sound tunnel that played sounds of cars driving in a loop and popcorn popping 😊

XXL cocktails with Lia, Dana and Theo

Summer days

12pm, 31/5/17 Another update :) the piano concert on Sunday was lovely. They managed to get a grand piano up a steep hill to the top of Viktoria Park. It was a hot day, so I'm glad I found a place to sit in the shade, and I stayed and listened to students and their teachers play mostly classical music on the piano. It was a funny atmosphere because Viktoria Park was busy on such a warm day, so lots of people casually strolled through the performance area and just as many dogs were running around carefree. One dog decided the area was his territory, so ran and barked at anyone that came through, and one very rude man sauntered past the piano talking obscenely loudly on his phone. On Monday I went to uni and made use of the language learning centre again, this time watching Linie 1, a musical about the U Bahn line 1. It was so entertaining because I've experienced quite a bit of what they were showing first hand in the U Bahn, and also hearing songs sung in Berlinerisch was fantastic. I was pretty chuffed that I got most of what was going on, there were no subtitles, and the Berlin dialect was difficult to understand at times. In the evening Lia arrived for her one night stay in Berlin before flying home the next day. We wanted to visit this feminist vegan bar she likes a lot, but it was closed (unsurprising when we remembered it was a Monday night). So we ended up at the Bahamas bar, where Lia made the decision it was a night for XXL cocktails. When we ordered, the waitress assumed we wanted to share, but Lia put her straight aha. It was a lovely balmy night, and Dana and her boyfriend also joined us. Good conversation was had, and then we went home to crash bc Lia had an early flight the next morning. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with Dani. We visited the Hamburg Bahnhof Museum for Contemporary Art. A lot of the works made little impression on me, but a couple I found really cool. Especially this dark room with a small bed inside, and thoughts in all different languages projected on the walls, to show what goes through your head when you're trying to get to sleep. It was a clever idea, and tapped into a pretty universal situation. Some of the thoughts were pretty funny too, like "is my body just a sleeping bag for my soul?" Afterwards we went back to the amazing Mexican restaurant I went to with Nina, but this time it didn't put its best foot forwards. We order tacos, and they were tiny, came all on the same plate despite us ordering separately, and instead of crunchy corn they were the soft type, but soggy. Not too bad of a meal though, and the pistachio baklavas we had for dessert were delicious. We had a long trip home to Dani's house, and spotted two little frogs in the forest. This morning we had a delicious breakfast, just like last time, and now I'm waiting until it's time for a trail ride with Anne this afternoon.

Music without borders concert at Gendarmenmarkt

Food and entertainment- the perfect combo

9.39am 27/5/17

It’s the weekend again. On Wednesday Nina arrived, and stayed over Wednesday and Thursday night. It was nice to have some younger company for a while, and we did some good dining. On Wednesday before her concert we had excellent Mexican food (better than Montezumas!!) at a restaurant called Santa Maria. We had a pretty lazy day on Thursday, saw Beauty in the Beast at Potsdamer Platz kino in the afternoon. The movie was as soppy as expected, but I enjoyed it, the animation was excellent and they did a good job with the songs and script. Also there’s sand at Potsdamer Platz which made me super super confused until I realised it was an ad for Baywatch. It felt like walking along the beach at home. We had lunch with Omi (potatos and asparagus!) and found a restaurant along the Spree for dinner. It was nice weather, although I made use of the provided blankets because it was a bit chilly with the wind, and I had a Radler and Tofu Currywurst for dinner, which turned out to be FANTASTIC. Much better than attempt number one in the currywurst field, I don’t know how they did it but I approve. It was lovely to be by the river as well, and they had a little garden along the fence with pretty flowers. Yesterday I went back to uni, I even ate at the mensa, to try out the language learning centre again. I did an evaluative test, well not the whole thing because it was really long and I got bored. For the vocab section I got a nasty surprise, it told me I have the basic vocabulary that would be enough for a tourist to conduct small interactions, ouch! But the listening section was better, and matched up with the level I learned this semester.

Today is a home day, we’ve done some washing and I’ve made cards for Thomas and Dani to say thank you for their help this semester…I also went to the free music concert at Gendarmenmarkt on Saturday, in the evening (how could I pass up free music steps away from home?). The Berliner Philharmoniker played with refugee musicians and it was an interesting, modern composition that sounded like I was watching a movie, but without the visuals. Lovely end to the evening, and today I’m off to another free concert- this time piano music!

Victoria Park, the excellent cafe and the Volkspark Friedrichshain

Hiking and a reward afterwards

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