Berlin

So I seem to have completely missed out on writing a blog from when I went to Berlin- I loved Berlin so not sure how I forgot. I arrived in Berlin after a late flight from Paris on Friday (15th April). I stayed in a lovely hostel and had an 8 bed room all to myself on the first night which was nice! My first day in Berlin I had booked a bike tour outside the city (bit sick of touring round boring monuments!).

The bike tour was to Potsdam which was only about 45mins away on the train. There were only 5 of us on the tour which was great because it meant we could almost pick and choose what we wanted to see. We rode through the town first and rode under the Jager gate – the inspiration for the Jagermeister logo! I wasn’t quick enough to take a photo of it though!
There are lots of palaces and the parks and lakes were beautiful. One of the more famous palaces was Sans Souci (means No worries).

It was quite modest for a palace; it looked like you could actually live in it. It turned into a lovely sunny day so we went to a beer garden for lunch. Beer and schnitzel – delicious! I love German food! We also went for a tour through the Cecilienhof Palace which was where the Potsdam Conference was held at the end of WW2 where they decided deal with Germany so they didn’t start another War!

After getting back to Berlin, I just had enough time to head ‘home’ for a shower and a change for a pub crawl. I managed to convince one of the girls who was staying in my room to join me. The pub crawl was so much fun. Immediately met some great people - yay for single travellers –we’re so much friendlier! Pretty much the whole group were ‘expats’ working in Europe and travelling on the weekends – also meant they were around my age. The pub crawl consisted of visiting 4 pubs with free shots in each pub and drink specials and we got a carton of beer to share while we waited for everyone.

Absolute bargain for 12euros! Had a fabulous time and definitely must do more pub crawls in other cities. I didn’t stay too long at the last club but still only got home at about 1am!

The next morning I had another bike tour of the city booked in so I had to drag my hungover self out of bed to be on time. Luckily there was a Starbucks nearby and I managed to consume enough coffee to get me through. The bike tour was great – saw all of the major sites.

Brandenburg gate, Holocaust memorial, Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, where Hitler’s bunker used to be, Parliament buildings, Tiergarden.

It was great to see and touch all this history that you learn about in the classroom. We had lunch at a beer garden in Tiergarden. Another beer and schnitzel – yummy! We spent a lazy afternoon sitting on the grass on the island of museums.

Now when we got back I looked at my watch and it was 4.30pm and I needed to be at the airport at 6.30pm. I thought I had enough time to quickly go see the eastside gallery before I went to the airport. So hopped on the train out there and the next time I look at my watch it was 5.30pm and I was on the other side of Berlin – I don’t know where the time went! SO long story short I ended up missing my flight and having to pay 250Euros for a flight out the next morning at 6am which meant another night in Berlin and a very early start. A very expensive lesson to learn! It was very lucky that I had such a fabulous weekend otherwise I would have bawled my eyes out about it.

Rach's Birthday!

I arrived at Rach's place straight after work to celebrate her birthday only to be greeted by one the kids saying - Nikki can you quickly make a little cake for Rachel! With pretty much no recipe or time I managed to make some cupcakes - not a bad job I reckon! We had to count out the correct amount of candles for the kdis - thankgod the smoke alarms didn't go off!!

After dinner, we headed out to party, first stop was a Scottish pub where Rachel made me order 2 shots -blowjobs- thanks Rach! They are pretty elaborate shots, Baileys and Midori and then Whipped cream in trail all the way down the glass. You have to have your hands behind your back, lick the cream and then take the shot - not a particularly classy shot to do but fun nonetheless! Headed out to Cafe Oz afterwards and got home at about 3am, and I had work the next morning and a train to London...was not happy the next morning!

ANZAC Day - Western Front

So I arrived in Amiens after an already big weekend to prepare myself for an early morning. My hotel was full of aussies, so nice to hear them all. All the aussies I met were on holiday or were living in London and came for the weekend. Was hoping to find sole aussies living in Paris :(. The aus embassy had organised buses out to the dawn service at 3.45am - early early start! It was a bit disorganised to start off with, but I think everyone got out there in plenty of time. Being on my own, I was able to go closer to the front and take the spare single seats(one of the joys of travelling alone!). Ended up sitting next to a lovely couple who were also on the day trip.

The ceremony was amazing and I was so impressed with the design of the memorial, the sun rises over the back of it behind the central tower. Watching the light change as morning drew near was a once in a lifetime experience. It was a different dawn service compared to others that I have been to, the amount of people there for one and when you think Australia lost 23 000 men in these fields where you are standing, France lost something like 204 000, it brought it closer to home. Not being a true Australian (although I will argue otherwise), I got a bit confused about it all, decided I was there to remember all those that die serving their country. I do like the dawn service though and I love Australia for keeping up the tradition and passing it onto future generations.

After the ceremony, there was coffee, tea and little pastries for everyone which was a nice touch and got everyone socialising. I had signed up for the all day bus tour that the embassy had organised for free! Others left to go back to Amiens after the ceremony but our dedicated group went off to the next service in Villers-Bretonneux, the town organised a concert as well which I stayed for a bit but fighting sleep I then headed to the school here which was built using donations from school children in Victoria and also houses the museum. Below is the sign they have in their playground. The museum was good and Kevin Rudd was there!

After we nearly got left behind by the bus (they were doing an easter egg hunt in the park for the kids) we headed off to a school for lunch that the Aus embassy organised. There were lots of defence and embassy staff there. Most didn't have as many medals as Matt I noticed! hehe! Then it was off to Bullecourt for a ceremony in the village. There was a cute little pub on the corner called the Canberra where we had a welcome beer before the ceremony started. The crowds had definitely thinned by now - it was basically the embassy bus and defence representing Australia (definitely rent a crowd by this stage!). Got a good possie here and took a snap of KRudd....

Then it was a short procession to the Australian Digger Memorial on the outskirts of the town. I really liked the idea of everyone walking there as a bit of a pilgrimage. Another ceremony, was a bit weird, aussies seemed to congregate on the left where the aussie soldiers were and the french on the right were the french soldiers were. It just happened naturally - very odd!

So after the last ceremony we all traipsed back to the village where the Mayor had put on champagne and nibbles for everyone :) After another few well deserved beers in the pub we headed back to Amiens and the train back to Paris. Had a late farewell dinner with Smithy and Ingrid and then finally crawled into bed. A long long day, but one for the memory bank!

Ingrid & Smithy do Paris!

I love having visitors who want to see and do everything, think they might have regretted this as I think I wore them out a lot! Smithy and Ingrid are old friends from uni days (seems a long time ago already!) and were travelling around Europe with first stop in Paris for the long weekend. Unfortunately France work on Good Friday so I had to be at work for their first day but they went out to Versailles for the day and I met them after work to take them up to Sacre Coeur to watch the sunset :) After we got through a bottle of wine we headed out to dinner and then down to Moulin Rouge before I finally let them go home to bed!

They were up early to get up the Eiffel Tower, so I met them afterwards and we went to see the Arc de Triumph and the bloody staff were on strike - Quelle Surprise! So didn't end up going up. Walked down Champs Elysées and a lovely picnic in the Tuileries, before having a photo stop at the Louvre :)

Got icecream at Ile-St-Louis and ended up having to put up Ingrid's umbrella (bad tour guide didn't bring one!) Such a brief little storm, was funny but we needed it as it was so hot. We were planning on doing a night bike tour but ended up going on an evening cruise along the Seine with snacks and more wine!

I forgot my camera the next day so you get repeats of Day 1! Ingrid and Smithy were very keen and got us a place in line to go up the bell tower at Notre Dame - I still hadn't been up so was nice to have someone there to get in line for me! Was a nice view from there but wouldn't have waited in line for it. They can only let a group through at a time as there is a small set of stairs to get up the top that you couldn't have people going up and down at the same time. As it was Easter, we didn't make it into Notre Dame as there were services on the whole time and they closed the doors.

It was easter weekend so Paris was overflowing with people so decided we should head to a less touristy place - Jardin des Plantes, another place that I hadn't yet been to in Paris. All these firsts. We had lunch there in a little restaurant with a rude little french waiter so got that ticked off the list too. It was a pretty aprk but still not allowed to sit on the grass so crossed off my list of places to go. We ended up sitting on the banks of the Seine in the outdoor statue park. We got more ice-cream- I love Berthillon ice-cream, not sure I am going to cope without it at home!

Then I had to leave them as I had a train to catch to Amiens for the ANZAC dawn service! So nice to have vistors and so glad I could show people around my city. Thanks for visiting guys!