Travel – Page 4 – theplaceswe

July 5, 2016July 3, 2016

It’s Voting Day

Arriving into London was amazing, mainly because it felt a lot like home. We woke up early because we only had one day there and had a lot of things to do. First thing was to catch up with an old colleague of Marks who is now living in London. Although I was just meeting her for the first time I know Mark really enjoyed being able to talk to someone about the difference he felt in himself after leaving work. She also told us about how she had just voted in Brexit because she was an Australian citizen living in London. From our point of view that seemed odd. She has only been living there for less than a year but had a right to vote in one of the UK’s most life-changing referendums. Lunch was really nice but by the end we had spent our entire days budget on one meal and it was then that we realised just how expensive London could be if we didn’t watch what we were spending our money on. London’s gift to us was making sure we experienced London as it is for the locals – rainy.

DSC07442_Fotor — Before it started pouring rain and we stopped by Buckingham Palace

It rained for the rest of the day and we were soaked by the time we made it to the Australian High Commission so we could vote in the Australian Election. The High Commission is a beautiful building in the heart of London. As soon as I saw the building I got a little bit excited and blurted “Do you think they will have a sausage sizzle like they do back home?” Mark rolled his eyes at me as we walked closer but I think he was secretly hoping there was one too. It was so weird stepping into a building and hearing so many Australian accents. We were greeted by a man who said we were a very “colourful looking couple” and I took that as a compliment as I assumed he was talking about my yellow rain jacket, not us being weird. He directed us over to the VIC line where we were marked off and given our voting papers. The process was so quick that we thought it would be quicker to fly to London and vote in future elections instead of waiting in line at home. The only downside of course is the lack of sausage sizzles in London. Feeling very proud of ourselves we went to the British Library simply because I love libraries and could spend hours in them just looking at books. The British Library is spectacular. To access what they call ‘reading rooms’ which is where most of the books are kept, you need to register and show documentation of a local address so we were unable to go and actually read the books but they have collections throughout the library that you can go and see. We spent most of our time looking at the amazing historical collection containing all different types of documents, from all different parts of the world, from all different periods in history. It would take an entire day, if not longer to look at each item and understand the enormity a lot of the items had on history. There were spiritual documents, original Beatles lyrics, scientific documents, literature and writings from artists. It was an amazing room that wowed me at every turn. The first thing I would do if I ever lived in London would be to go to the library and register.

After being in the library we headed out to dinner to catch up with another friend from home and we caught up on her time living in London and the differences she has found between London and Melbourne and had generally a really good night that felt really normal which was just what we needed after quite a few days of travelling.

We are at the airport now though taking in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. When we went to bed last night the news was saying that the UK was to remain in the EU, however when we checked XE this morning for exchange rates the site crashed which prompted us to check the news and what do you know? the UK has voted out of the EU. I won’t bore you readers with my detailed view on why I thought the result was a good one but simply say that travelling around a lot of Europe recently has shown me that change in the region was needed and the UK has just began this change. A defining moment in history and I hope only positive things come from the Brexit vote. We have friends and family all over the UK and Europe and even though I imagine things may become difficult for a short time I hope in the end the UK and eventually Europe are better off.

July 3, 2016

On the move

We’ve spent the last 12 days travelling through 4 towns in 3 different countries. It’s been pretty laid back and we’ve taken most days as they come.

Our first stop was Warsaw in Poland and there wasn’t a whole lot for us to do there which was okay because we only had one full day there. We had booked train tickets online and the Polish Railway Company sent our tickets to our hotel. I felt really organised as all the tickets matched what we bought and the train stations were all close to our hotels so we could easily catch buses or trams to our hotels and save money. After our day in Warsaw we packed our bags and I worked out how to get to the train station – everything was fitting in well; check out was at 11am and our train was at 12.06pm so if we left straight after check out we would have plenty of time. We did that and were so relaxed once we got to Warsaw train station, why wouldn’t we be? we had half an hour before our train was due to depart. We put all of our bags down and I took our tickets over to the departures board to work out what platform we were on. I was staring at the board and found our train but the time was showing as 12.15pm so I figured that it was delayed slightly. Just to check it was ours I looked at our tickets… Turns out it wasn’t our train. Our train didn’t depart at 12.06pm like I thought, it departed at 10.30am ON the 12th June (12.06). Yep, we missed our train. Turns out I wasn’t as organised as I thought. Mark just laughed the entire time so while he stood with our bags laughing I was lining up to buy new tickets which cost close to 3x the original ones and we had to wait over an hour. We had no real option though, we needed to get to Krakow so we waited at the train station and had a sneaky cheeseburger from McDonalds.

The train to Krakow was really straight forward and as soon as we arrived in Krakow we immediately liked it so much better than Warsaw. It was a lot prettier and everything seemed to have so much more character to it. Our main reason for being in Krakow was to travel out to Auschwitz I & Auschwitz II Birkenau Concentration Camps which we did on our third day there (we lost a whole day after our train error in Warsaw). We didn’t book a guided tour out there and just booked entry tickets for the afternoon. Before we left we caught up with some friends from back home and it was so nice to talk to friends about what was news with them back in Melbourne and also to have honest conversations about our travels and theirs. There was no need for small talk and we could just hang out. After catching up with them for lunch we caught a bus out to Auschwitz I. The camp has been turned into a museum using the old buildings and structures and contains exhibits displaying the daily struggles and atrocities that took place there. Because we weren’t part of a guided tour we did a bit of research before we went so that we knew what we would encounter. I think for this reason we weren’t as shocked as a lot of people say they are when they visit but of course there were a few things that shook me. There were rooms filled with possessions that were taken from people when they arrived at the camp, there were barracks set up with the beds that the prisoners were forced to sleep in (often 3 to a bed), there were photos of the starvation that occurred but the one display that got me was the window full of human hair that was cut and shaved off bodies after being murdered in the gas chambers. The amount of hair that still remains is just unbelievable and to make things even more unbelievable there are mats in the same room that are created from human hair. Often, the hair that was cut off was later sold for a small price and was made into fabrics. After seeing this nothing shocked me and we left soon after to go to the Auschwitz II – Birkenau camp which is about 2km away and was built after the first and held and murdered more people. Not many of the buildings and structures still remain here but because we arrived at Auschwitz I later in the day it meant that by the time we got to Auschwitz II – Birkenau, the last of the daily guided tours were finishing up and there were only a hand full of people at the camp. We waited until the last shuttle bus back and it wasn’t until we were walking out of the camp that we realised we were the only people there besides the security guards. It was eerily quiet and we just stood for a moment looking down the train tracks and thought of the terrible things that happened there.

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After visiting Auschwitz we were ready to leave Krakow and did so on a train to Prague. I celebrated my 24^th birthday in Prague and did so by nearly getting a fine at the metro station, walking 10kms because we didn’t know if we should attempt to use the metro again and then avoiding all train stations because of an ‘incident’ at the main terminal. By late afternoon I wanted the day to be over so that I could try to ignore all the signs that showed just how terrible turning 24 was. I will admit it wasn’t all that terrible though. My beautiful younger brother created a slide show for me with messages from my whole family and some family and friends sent me video messages saying Happy Birthday. My family did also sing Happy Birthday to me over FaceTime, we had a cake and all – I just had to pretend to blow out the candles while someone else did it for me and they all got to eat cake while Mark and I watched. Months ago Mark and I had talked about how it looked like we wouldn’t be able to afford to go to New York for New Years Eve and I was pretty devastated but did look at the bigger picture, for my birthday though Mark decided that it was possible after all and bought us tickets to New York. And because Mark felt bad that my birthday wasn’t as spectacular as his birthday he bought me banana cake in bed for breakfast the next day and downloaded a birthday cake app so I could blow out candles after he sang Happy Birthday to me, he also let me spend the day booking accommodation for New Years and looking at all the things we could do there without complaining once. I then spent the afternoon at the hairdressers cutting off half of my hair. Okay, not half but a lot of it! We left Prague the next day for Budapest.

IMG_6119[1] — 24 years old means short hair.

When we arrived in Budapest the city was a complete mess. Hungary had just drawn the night before in the Euro against Iceland so we could definitely tell the whole city had been celebrating. There were bottles, broken and whole, everywhere, along with piles of rubbish so we spent most of our first day in Budapest inside avoiding the remaining dirt and drunks. This probably wasn’t a good idea because we starting watching Orange is the New Black S4. By the end of our time in Budapest we had watched the complete 4^th season which had me heart broken at the end but also hoping that the inmates at Litchfield would rally together. It is prison though so I guess they can’t all trust each other, they are criminals after all. It is also a TV show so I can’t go around pretending it’s real…

Getting to the airport in Budapest was just a normal occasion until we went to check in and apparently our reservation number didn’t match our e-ticket number. Now because all of this information was in the airline’s system you could just assume that it was their problem and fault and not ours, but unfortunately the staff at the airport kept saying we had changed it. The whole problem just seemed crazy to us because the website would let us check in online when we tried but their system wouldn’t allow us to print baggage tags nor register that we should have been on the flight. Of course all of this could be fixed if we just paid the airport staff to change it in their system. Mark did not like this answer but because we had no other choice we paid up just so we could get to London and I am writing this as we sit at the airport waiting for our slightly delayed flight. Ahhh the joys of budget travel.

June 19, 2016

It’s raining, it’s pouring

The weather leaving St Petersburg matched our mood – dreary. We took the most famous overnight Red Arrow train to Moscow and arrived early in the morning to rain. Rain was pretty much a constant while we were in Moscow. It was ok from our point of view because we had been to Moscow before and there were things we could miss because we had already seen them on our previous trip to Russia. When it stopped raining we would venture outside (with our raincoats just in case) and check out a few of the sites. On our previous trip to Moscow we had walked inside the Kremlin, however this time we decided to walk around it. We forgot how big it was but luckily made it back to Red Square in time to check out St Basil’s Cathedral before it started pouring rain again. The one thing we noticed different about our time in Moscow compared to last time was this white pollen ‘stuff’ floating in the air everywhere. We asked our hotel receptionist what it was and he told us it was from a tree that is all over Moscow. He then added “it snows the entire year in Moscow”. We gathered he was talking about how much of this white pollen that seemed to be everywhere – he didn’t look too happy when he spoke about it and I could understand why. It got in everywhere! As soon as we opened the door to our hotel it would fly in and just form clumps all over the ground. It would be a constant job just trying to get rid of it all which is why I imagine they just left it. On our last day we got caught out in the rain so we decided to run into a huge shopping centre we saw. When we first walked in we noticed that all of the stores were for kids and there was a huge play area for them so we made our way up through all of the levels and at each level there were more and more kids shops until we worked out that the entire shopping centre was purely for children. It was amazing. It had everything from baby furniture stores to H&M for kids and even jewellery stores just for children! To make the shopping centre even more grand there was this ginormous gold clock mechanism that hung from the roof, all the way down to the ground level. Mark especially loved the Legoland creations and as he said “we got to see Moscow in miniature form”.

IMG_9493_Fotor — Miniature Moscow in Legoland

We left Moscow after a few days to get another train but this time to Kazan. We hadn’t been to Kazan before so were excited to see another part of Russia. Arriving at the train station in Kazan, the maps on our phones weren’t working properly so we couldn’t see where our hotel was in the city. After walking around a bit trying to see if there was somewhere we could go to get WiFi we decided to just get a taxi because it was pouring rain and all of our bags were getting soaked. Walking up to a taxi driver we had the address out and were asking how much to take us there. He was looking at us in a slightly odd way but we just figured it was the language barrier so Mark tried to explain slowly what we wanted. The taxi driver just looked at us and said “Crystal Hotel?” to which we replied “Yes!” he then looked at us with a smile on his face, turned around and pointed across the road. We looked up to see a huge hotel with the name sprawled across the top in English and Russian. We just laughed with the taxi driver and walked across the slightly flooded roads to our hotel. We had the option of waiting 5 hours until check in or we could pay more to check in early and considering I had stepped in a massive puddle and one of my shoes was soaked all the way through we opted to pay some more and check in early. It rained for our entire 3 days in Kazan with the occasional dry spell (mainly at night though). Because we hadn’t been there before we braved the rain as much as we could and walked around to check out the sites which lucky for us are all pretty much in the one area. When it’s raining that much it makes it difficult to really look at many of the things a city or place has to offer but we are glad we went out anyway, even if we weren’t out for as long as we would have liked. After days of rain we got up at 2am for our flight to Minsk and what do you know? Clear skies everywhere. Thanks Kazan!

DSC06389_Fotor — Kul Sharif Mosque in Kazan. The photo doesn’t do it justice!

As Russia & Belarus are 2 different countries we had read that we required visas to enter both. We knew this of course for Russia and it didn’t surprise us when we read this about Belarus. What we didn’t realise though, and what we still don’t totally understand, is that there seems to be open travel between the 2 countries, even for foreigners. What this pretty much means is that we left Russia to fly to Belarus on what is considered a domestic flight. We still don’t know if we even needed our Belarussian visa but are glad we had one. Imagine getting detained in Russia or Belarus for not having the right visa… no thank you.
Minsk was pretty much like a country town of Russia. 2 thirds of the country is actually covered in woods and forests and Minsk seems to just pop up out of nowhere after driving for about 45 minutes from the airport. It was slightly chilly when we arrived but we were so glad it wasn’t raining that we went and sat in a park for a while and watched some artists paint. After a little bit the sun started to get really warm so I laid down on a park bench and rested my head on Mark’s lap while we just enjoyed the warmth on our faces. After about an hour of this we went to check into our hotel. On the walk back I started to get a bit itchy and I thought it was just the heat and me wearing too many clothes so once we got to our hotel I went to our room to change into a t-shirt and it was then that I found the cause of my itchiness. I had these hive-like lumps and bites all over me and more and more were starting to show and get even itchier. So, like I would back home, first thing I did was take a photo and send it to my mum asking her what she thought it was. She told me she thought they were bites of some sort and to get an antihistamine. It took a full 12 hours after taking the antihistamine for everything to go away which was annoying but I was glad it was gone! Today was our only full day in Minsk and we spent it checking out some of the sites before heading to the airport later in the afternoon for our flight to Poland. One of the first things we are going to do when we get to Warsaw is eat Pierogi! – It’s always about food!

DSC06439_Fotor — Artists in Minsk enjoying the sun and clear skies.

B xx

June 11, 2016

White Nights of St Petersburg

There are some things you should know about me.

1. My favourite book is The Bronze Horseman.
2. Subsequently my favourite author is Paullina Simons.
3. I automatically love anyone who loves The Bronze Horseman as much as me.
4. Our first trip to St Petersburg a couple of years ago was because I wanted to see the city she writes about.
5. Our trip to St Petersburg this time was because we loved it the first time.
6. St Petersburg is now one of our favourite cities in the World. I may be slightly blinded by my love for the book but I don’t care.

Arriving in St Petersburg in the afternoon was a bit exciting for us. It was the first time we had ever re-visited a city in Europe. We got to our room which was really bright and clean and because it was a part of a huge apartment it felt like it could easily be home for a while. For this reason we decided to go grocery shopping so that we could cook for a change, instead of eating out constantly. We bought enough food for breakfast everyday and some dinners. By the end of the day we felt like we had accomplished a lot – checked into our room, went grocery shopping, put on a load of washing and went out for a walk.

The first time we visited Russia was during winter so it was very cold and dark, this time however it is summer which means White Nights in St Petersburg. Because of St Petersburg’s geographical location, during summer the sun never really drops below the horizon which means that although the sun has ‘set’ it’s still light outside. There are always people out on the streets during summer and at 2am, although it’s quiet it’s not deserted by any means. It was nice knowing we had been to St Petersburg before because it meant we could spend more of our time outside, instead of inside museums and cathedrals. We checked out some of our favourites of course, but only from the outside. The Hermitage & the Winter Palace which never disappoint as well as The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood and St Isaac’s Cathedral. We spent most of our time though walking around the Summer Garden, checking out the Bronze Horseman and pushing through crowds on Nevsky Prospect.

IMG_9377_Fotor — Forcing Mark to take a tourist photo with The Bronze Horseman

During this visit we did 2 things we didn’t do on our previous trip. The first was going to the Ballet. I’d always wanted to go to see the Russian Ballet in Russia but last time we just didn’t have the time, this time around, thinking we could book last minute tickets to the famous Bolshoi in Moscow we were told that everything was sold out! So we thought “not to worry we will just go here in St Petersburg”. “Sorry, everything is also sold out for the time you’re here” WHAT?! Turns out that wasn’t the case, it was just that new shows were opening a couple of days after we left and these were sold out. After being sent on a mission around St Petersburg we finally found one of the authorised sellers we were after and it was meant to be! There were 2 tickets left on the day we wanted, but for a different, smaller theatre. We bought them because there was no way I was going to Russia twice and not seeing the Ballet. The ballet culture in Russia is huge! Everyone gets dressed up, arrives early for drinks and canapés and then heads out for dinner after the show.

We got to the theatre super early and had some drinks and food while we waited, just before going into the show our waiter asked if we would like to pre-order some drinks for the intermission “Of course we would – 2 of the same please”. We walked into the theatre to look for our seats and were told we were at the end, so we walk all the way to the end until we can’t go any further and there is no entrance which is when we were given our our swipe card to a private room. Crazy I know. So we go through one door, into a small waiting room with private bathrooms, through another door into a private sitting room and then finally through another door onto a private balcony. We were shocked. And then, to top it all off, it looked like we had gate-crashed a small party, because the other 6 people all knew each other and had booked the entire balcony, or so they thought. We then discussed that they probably assumed no-one would buy 2 tickets, one in front of the other, but they didn’t count on us doing just that! They were lovely people who made us feel really welcome and I get the impression they were regulars at the ballet. So there we are in our fancy seats watching the ballet and then at intermission we walk out and think “Hmmm how do we get our drinks we ordered, we didn’t get a ticket or receipt” we didn’t even have to worry because as soon as we walked out, our waiter found us and took us over to our old table which was now reserved for us. Our entire experience of the ballet was a positive one, maybe because of our seats, maybe because of our reserved table, but mainly it was because of the formality and tradition behind the way everyone acted and the respect everyone had towards the art of ballet. We can’t wait to go again, although next time we will book well in advance so that we can go to the Bolshoi in Moscow!

The other thing we did this time was visit Peterhof which is the Summer Palace of Peter the Great. This place was ridiculous. It is called by some as the Fountain Capital of the World and once you’re there you can understand why. Everywhere you turn there is a fountain, either big or small, real or trick. The real fountains are quite obvious but the trick ones can get you, however you can usually spot them from a far by the crowds of kids running and squealing. The trick fountains just mean that the can shoot out water at anytime, and some that are hidden in the ground can catch you off guard completely. It was nice watching families running around these areas just enjoying the time outside. Sometimes we forget how much joy can arise from a water fountain or sprinkler. Besides the thousands of fountains at Peterhof, the gardens are simply breathtaking. My brother is a landscape gardener so pretty much the entire time we were walking around we kept saying “Chris would love this place” “Imagine what Chris would say if he was here” “We should take a photo and send it to Chris” “We should tell Chris to come here”.
We had been told to pack a lunch so we sat by the waters edge, looked out towards Kotlin Island, St Petersburg, ate chicken salad rolls and watched a newly married couple celebrate with what we imagine were 8 of their closest friends. It really was a nice way to end our time in St Petersburg.

DSC06297_Fotor — Peterhof Palace / Summer Palace. Amazing weather and sites for our last day!

June 4, 2016

A smiling face is half the meal

A smiling face is half the meal – Latvian Proverb.

I normally try to write each post when we are leaving a city or country as it kills time while we wait around but I wasn’t able to write about Riga when we were leaving Latvia, not because we didn’t have time but because I didn’t know what to write. When we first arrived we were so impressed. The airport was so clean and new, our bags were waiting for us when we walked through to the baggage point and getting a taxi was super easy. We met our host from Airbnb about 30 minutes later and walked up 6 flights of stairs to their apartment. They were such a lovely couple with a small 3 year old daughter who reminded us of our friends back home and that made me miss home. Because we had arrived at about 10pm she had stayed awake and didn’t want to go to sleep until she could see us. We stayed up quite late that night talking and speaking about life in Australia compared to life in Latvia. Surprisingly there were actually quite a few similarities although Australia just doesn’t have the same history as any country in Europe.

The best way to describe Riga is like a capital city with a country lifestyle. Everything is so clean and relatively quite. People spend a lot of time outside when the sun is out just walking around or sitting in the parks. We did this on both of our days in Riga, and on the second day, after going to the biggest market in Europe we sat in the park and made our own lunch with the food we had just bought. It was so calming just sitting on the grass. It doesn’t get dark in Riga until about 10.30pm so we always made sure we stayed out until the sun had gone down.

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Music and busking is really popular in Riga. There was always someone playing an instrument or singing on every street in the Old Town but the songs always had a melancholy feel to them. On our walk back to our apartment one night we walked past a young band playing. They had a relatively large crowd – mostly people the same age – watching them so we kept walking up to an older man playing a small instrument. There was no one standing by watching him so we stood for a while and listened. After a little bit, Mark walked up and put some money in his hat and the smile on the mans face almost broke my heart. When Mark turned around to walk back to me the man wipe a tear from his eye and started playing a new song for us. That was it for me and Mark knew it. I couldn’t speak the entire walk back. The next night he was there again and at first I don’t think he recognised us but we went and spoke to him this time hoping that he spoke English. He did of course (everyone in Europe seems to speak English) and he told us the instrument he was playing was a banjolele and he was Latvian and 76 years old. Quick maths in my head told me that he would have been born during WWII and subsequently lived through the occupation of Latvia. Not wanting to make him uncomfortable and disturb him any long we stood back and listened to him play another song before going back to our apartment for our last night in Riga.

When I think of Latvia and our few days there I picture an old quiet town and an old man with white hair and a sad smile playing a banjolele. Whether his life has been difficult or not, I don’t know, but I do know a lot of people have had difficult lives in Latvia so for whatever reason it is I want to smile and cry at the same time and hope that I’ll be back there one day to watch more of the buskers, singing happier songs.

May 29, 2016

The word on the street is: Awkward

It should have taken us 2 hours to get from Barcelona to Munich. Instead, thanks to all of the delays it took us 8 hours. The hotel we were staying at in Munich was a relatively big family-run hotel. When we arrived and went to check in the family were sitting in the breakfast room which at night is closed to guests. We of course didn’t know this as we had just arrived so we followed the husband from outside into the breakfast room while he looked for our booking. We walked further into the room only to be told by an older lady that the room was out of bounds and we had to stand by the door. We apologised and went to stand awkwardly by the door (but still in the room) to wait. After we had moved, there was this awkwardness that descended over everyone there. It was like those times in movies when something awkward happens and people try to find things to pre-occupy themselves with. I wanted to laugh because it didn’t bother us at all where we were allowed or not allowed to be but it seemed to make some of the workers/family members awkward.

As I think about our days in Germany I wish we had filmed our time there. If I had to find one word to describe our time there it would be awkward. Awkward situations don’t actually really bother me most of the time and I find them more awkward for other people, watching how they react to the ‘awkwadrness’ – I myself generally find them amusing. On our second day in Munich when we were walking around the city we noticed groups of people all by the side of the park eating, drinking and playing bocci. Mark walked off to watch some of the games close up and I walked a bit further on and was just observing the entire area when I noticed a rather tall blonde guy walking towards me. At first I thought he was walking to someone behind me so I thought”woah better move out of the way otherwise he’s going to walk straight into me” this was quickly followed by “oh no, I think he is actually walking towards me” and then it was at this point when he was mere steps in front of me rapidly speaking in German that I just stood there, laughed and said “sorry English only” to which his reply was “Oh no problem. I was just saying that I thought you looked cute and that I should come over to introduce myself”. I hadn’t expected him to be able to speak such good English so this is where I got awkward and ungracefully pointed to Mark and said “I’m here with my partner”. After a bit of small talk I realised he thought I said parents and had pointed to an older couple standing near Mark. While trying to be polite I just couldn’t help but think about how ridiculous I must have looked and sounded the entire time, especially when I was talking about “our round the world trip” and he was thinking I was travelling with my parents. When Mark finally sauntered over the conversation ended pretty quickly but was followed by Mark’s questions and mocking. He found the entire scenario hilarious and then at the end of the day decided to tell me that he had been wondering what I was doing and had a photo…

Munich was a beautiful city, extremely clean and really quite so we were looking forward to seeing what Berlin had to offer. We got to Berlin early in the morning and couldn’t get access to our room at the hostel (yes, we stayed at a hostel again) until 4pm so we thought we would be productive and put on some loads of washing to kill some time. After our washing was done we sat outside with another Aussie and talked complete crap for an hour or so while we people watched. Our hostel was down the road from arguably the most famous club in Berlin, The Berhain. The club is infamous for its strict door policy, or lack thereof, which, according to numerous posts online, says that you can wait in line for 4 hours to be rejected simply because you didn’t fit their type. Well what is their type you ask? People speculate that it is a variety of different things but in the end I don’t think anyone but Sven, the main bouncer knows. So while watching people walk up the street towards The Berhain we would guess on who we thought would get in and who wouldn’t. So many people didn’t get in that we eventually stopped guessing because we just knew they wouldn’t be getting in.

Berlin is so full of history that when it wasn’t raining, we spent our time outside checking out the Wall, monuments to those that died or other historical landmarks. Berlin is so free from what most people would call ‘they normal way of life’ that it can be a bit of a shock. We definitely didn’t blend in with those in East Berlin – neither of us had enough piercings, tattoos or colours in our hair to be able to fit in, although my usual all black attire worked just fine. Apart from the huge variety of people in Berlin I don’t know if I can describe the general atmosphere there. My mind is all over the place when I try to think of a way to explain it so I think I’ll just leave you with a few contradictory words that could be used to describe Berlin all at once. Mournful, sunny, cheerful, dark, bright and grim. Also, I can’t forget to mention the vast amounts of graffiti that covers everything from buildings to rubbish bins, park benches and the ground.

DSC05903_Fotor — East Side Gallery, Berlin

I think we will definitely come back to Germany, although next time we want to explore the countryside as I think it would be so picturesque and authentic there. I’m not sure when we will be back though so I’ll have to start writing a bucket list so I don’t forget about it. We fly to Latvia tomorrow afternoon. I have no idea what is to be expected there and that makes me excited.

May 23, 2016

Hola!

A couple of days in Madrid was enough for us especially because the weather wasn’t the best. We stayed on a street equivalent to that of Bourke Street in Melbourne which meant when we walked out of our apartment the first thing we saw were shops, shops and more shops. I don’t think we could of left without buying something, so Mark bought new shoes to replace the old pair he was wearing. Apart from buying new shoes we spent our time in Madrid wandering around like we do. After 2 days there we got an early morning train to Seville. Just before leaving we were trying to remember why we were going to Seville as there didn’t seem like there was a whole lot to do compared to other parts of Spain. After spending a couple hundred dollars on train tickets though there was no way we were changing anything so we got on the train and figured we would use the time to relax if there was nothing else to do.

I’ve realised Mark just loves European life – especially those that encourage a siesta. Seville was great. Everyday we would get up and go out for a walk before deciding what we would actually do with our day. To decide what we would do we would have to go and buy some croissants or donuts for breakfast and then walk over to a local cafe so Mark could have his morning coffee. It was at this cafe that we decided to do our usual – Walk around. So after walking around for a bit we would stop by a small bar that was across the road from our apartment. We would buy 1 Euro beers and possibly get a pork and prosciutto toasted roll, possibly when translations didn’t work we would get a prosciutto and blue cheese – we did prefer the pork and prosciutto over the blue cheese. We would then walk across the road with the intention of writing/reading/emailing but just fall asleep like the rest of the town and wake up after our siesta feeling like we really did what we had secretly planned to do all along. After our siesta we would walk back across the road, drink more beers, eat more rolls and often get a plate of olives and some roasted chicken. As uneventful as all of that may sound we really enjoyed our time in Seville. We stayed out of the main city so we were away from all of the tourist sites which meant we could live just like the locals.

Living like locals also meant we had to do our own washing.

Mark was a bit sad to leave Seville. He absolutely loved the bar we went to everyday and he loved the entire vibe Seville had but we had already paid for our train so we left one afternoon to go to Barcelona. Barcelona was probably just as we had imagined. It didn’t move us the way Seville did as everything seemed more forced upon you. In Barcelona things felt forced whereas it didn’t feel like that in Seville, nonetheless we were in Barcelona so we had to make the most of it. We spent our first full day getting to know the city and checking out a few things before heading back to our apartment. We weren’t happy with our accommodation so that afternoon we packed up our things, wrote a note to our host and left. Our new room at a hostel in the Gothic District of Barcelona was so nice we were disappointed we didn’t get to spend our first night there as well! We ate at a new Spanish burger house down the road, downed some beers and sangria and woke up early the next day for our visit to Casa Batllo and Sagrada Familia. Both sites were amazing and were unlike anything we had ever seen before but if I had to pick between them I wouldn’t even need to think about it. Sagrada Familia was so amazing that when we went to leave the lady at the gate reminded us that once we left we couldn’t come back for the day so we turned around and ran back inside just to make sure we had had our Sagrada fix! Antoni Gaudi thought in a way that I would never even contemplate and everything he did in the cathedral, no matter how different just worked perfectly.

DSC05710_Fotor — Have you ever seen a ceiling like this? I hadn’t until I stepped into Sagrada Familia.

Barcelona is known to the yachting world for it’s huge port and boating lifestyle. We walked along the port throughout the day to look at all of the multi-million dollar boats and along one part of the walk I actually started to get really angry. In the water there were so many boats all worth a ridiculous amount of money, then there was a path running along the waters edge, along that path there was a wire fence (I assume to stop people from just walking straight onto the boats) and then on our side of the fence there were groups of people set up selling souvenirs, gadgets and fake shoes and handbags. The stark contrast between wealth was overwhelming and quite sad. Something that did cheer me up was seeing a rooftop garden on a building (I’m obsessed with them at the moment) – It was a proper roof top garden with grass and all, not just a roof with some pot plants! – and I know that Mark was secretly laughing at me getting so excited that while yelling “rooftop garden” and pointing hysterically, I tripped over while trying to run to get a better look. (My father-in-law would say that’s another reason why I shouldn’t attempt to run)

That night we met up with a friend who lives in Barcelona and funnily enough works on the huge boats that dock there. What was meant to be quite dinner and drinks turned into a very late night with us missing our flight this morning. Because we missed our flight we had to book one the of cheapest flights available and now for that reason we are sitting on a plane that took off and then turned back around because the landing gear didn’t go up which could apparently cause problems throughout the flight. Luckily, they have found us another plane that isn’t currently being used so once we are able to board that one they will be moving us from one plane to the other, or so they say. At this stage I don’t really mind because there is no-one seated next to me so I’m going to lay down and try to sleep so I can function slightly better when we get to Germany.

Adios Amigos!