Its a boy...

Congratulations to Les & Mel on the arrival of their baby boy... Brother to Z & J... Its great news and I'm glad all are well, will try to call you again soon...

It hit home on Monday how far away I was from home... with the arrival of my friends baby boy and the death of Steve Irwin I started to miss "Australia". So many people mentioned to me about Steve Irwins death here, and as all I can watch in English on TV is CNN it was the main story for most of Monday! I'm not yet half way through my trip as yet... still another week before that happens... but already I am thinking back to when I first started my holiday and it feels like a distant memory. I watched part of my Hong Kong video earlier this week and it brought back good memories. The adventure continues though and I'm still having a great time. Feel free to send through updates of how you are all going or leave comments, it will give me something to read on the plane to USA :-). I'm checking both of my email accounts so just send an email as you normaly would.

I spent my first few days here in Berlin relaxing and not doing too much... it was great. Unfortunately my friend Anja, who I was catching up with in Berlin had to go to France for a few days but I was more than looked after buy her brother and parents. Germans, like the Thai's are really giving. I went for a few walks through Berlin and noticed a big change from when I was here 7 years ago. It seems to be much cleaner.
Berlin has an amazing train network... its so easy to use... and the stations are so big. This particular one has a shopping centre underneath it.... no need to go outside into the weather, just get of the train, go down the escalators and you're in your shopping centre!

A memorial to the "Berlin Wall" lining the actual location in Potsdam Platz

An Australian Shop in Berlin selling "Australian" foods... none I recognised or had ever heard off (Except maybe coke!). There was another shop that did sell Ozzie foods like Roo steak!

Now you may be wondering why I am showing you a picture of a toilet... but this is something I am coming to terms with about Europe (well Germany and Finland).... you have to pay to go to the toilet. Rates vary between .50 Euro and .80 Euro... I must admit though, they are the cleanest public toilets I have ever seen (NB you pay everywhere including Macas!)

I have spent the last couple of days heading to and from Hamburg. Anja's brother had to go to Hamburg so he asked if I wanted to come along, while its only just over 2 hours away we diverted to Hohenvolkfien and stayed with some friends of Anja's brother. Where is that I hear you asking... well I'm still asking the same question so Google it and you will know more than me!

Wednesday we headed on into Hamburg and for lunch I had the most amazing fish, I have no idea what type of fish as we haven't been able to translate it into English... but it was good. Unlike Berlin Hamburg is on the sea so has a large variety of fish to choose from and also large fish markets. I didn't really do any sight seeing as such in Hamburg so no photos... we had very little time but from those parts I did see it was very much like parts of Berlin... apart from the massive ship building industry!

It was a real eye opener being in a car on the Auto Bahn.... we were doing around 140km/h and to have cars flying past you is an experience. Apparently Hamburg is full of millionaires so they tend to be the ones doing the speeding... although the fine is big... 10% of your salary! I'm still coming to terms with being a passenger in a car on the wrong side of the road... and so to crossing the road. Hong Kong and Thailand drive on the same side (mostly!) as we do in OZ but I've had to be careful in Finland and Germany.

Its going to be a busy week ahead and I don't know when I will be blogging again.... I just found out I'm off to Dresden for the weekend followed by Cottbus and then back here to Berlin on Wednesday. I then fly off to America on Friday so its going to be busy week and a bit (I know Joel has a full agenda for us (me and some fellow Aussies) for when we are in Washington... I'm really looking forward to it.

Until next time...

Tschuss

PS... Apparently I need to apologise for my spelling in my last blog, I normally check my spelling in word first but haven't had much time... and have been really tired. My spelling isn't that good at the best of times so with little sleep and jetlag... well...

How did I go this time "Miss H" ;-)