The town we're staying in, Nördlingen, has in its name a silent umlaut. More or less. I have confirmed this with a few locals. I suspect the Germans and/or Bavarians find it as difficult to pronounce with the umlaut as I did, but will need further research to see whether other silent umlauts exist in similarly challenging words. [View Full Entry]

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This post is going to be broken down day by day because there is so much to cover. Monday; Woke up early as we were driving to the North Sea. Packed up the van, picked up dennis' friend Nicole and then off. 350km further north we arrived in Wellhemhaven. It was pouring rain so we walked around the mall, then went for a late lunch at the McDrive. Which is what they call the drive through over here. Got lost on the way to the maritime musem. When we finally did arrive we checked out the collection of old WWII boats [View Full Entry]

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So I didn't get to do any of the sightseeing I thought I was going to do in Berlin, but I did get another pretty cool opportunity instead: Barack Obama was giving his first (and only) speech in Europe today in Berlin, and I went! He's an amayingly charismatic speaker, and he didn't once consult notes or a prompter for what to say: amazing. While it wasn't a particularly policy-laden speech, he did at least mention a number of issues that I'm pretty enthused about: nuclear disarmament, opening talks with Iran, addressing the genocide in Darfur, and immigration reform were among [View Full Entry]

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catrina and i are settling into berlin nicely. we went on a fantastic walking tour of the city yesterday. walking through the jewish memorial site was very overwhelming, powerful, almost anxiety inducing, because of its structure. there are basically just concrete pillars in rows of varying heights. so at some points they tower over you, and others they only come up to your shin. it was very moving. the same company also runs a pub crawl, so we decided to hop on that bandwagon. again, it´s fun to meet other travels to swap stories with. we enjoyed bouncing between the rugby [View Full Entry]

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The title is just a teaser ... I finally have been able to upload photos but this took all my time so I will continue this blog entry later. Hopefully everyone enjoys the pictures!!! A very tired, Catrina [View Full Entry]

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Montagmorgens Abfahrt nach Hamburg. Beinahe Gratisflug nach Dubai und zurück- ein Jahr gültig!(-> Unser Flugzeug war überbucht) Dann doch nicht ;-) Abschied von Luciiiieee..:-( (und nils nicht zu vergessen) Flug--gut. 3 Gänge Menü, eigener Touch-screen Monitor mit 50 Filme-Videothek nette Stewardessen ..(also unsere waren jedenfalls nett; Tanja & Moritz hatten eher Pech) weniger schlaf, eher beschäftigung mit unserem touch screen, wo wir ausser filme zu gucken auch noch multisession-wissens-duelle mit ben und liz autrugen, die sich ja auch irgednwo im flugzeug befinden haben müssen. leider fanden wir nie heraus, wer sich hinter den namen verbirgt^^ nach 8 stunden dann endlich landung [View Full Entry]

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I arrived without mishap(!) in Berlin last night, and have had nothing but a great time so far. I got an excellent deal with a private accommodation service in Germany; people rent out studio apartments that they own for much below the going-rate for hotels, so I have a 12th floor studio to myself in central Berlin for only €35/night! I've spent most of today sleeping in, doing laundry, buying a few necessities (I ran out of Q-tips!), and wandering. This evening I'll probably go out to dinner and perhaps to a club, but that's not yet decided. Otherwise, not much [View Full Entry]

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Guten Tag! Yesterday was a day filled with hiking and beautiful landscapes. While I will admit the weather was anything but ideal (think... very gray, pretty chilly and cloudy) it turned out to be a wonderful time to get a look at the German countryside. Kirsten was nice enough (still can't get over it) to drive us Rhudesheim am Rhine (the actual town name is a complete guess. I cannot remember exactly where we went, but it was on the Rhine and very nice). We drove there and back different ways so we got to see alot of the woods and [View Full Entry]

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It's been a bunch of long days of walking and riding the public transit. Once we arrived by train in Berlin, with little to none sleep, we started off strong by riding the public buses around the tourist sector of the city. This was 8 am and on a Monday (which just happens to be the day the museums are closed) so we walked around looking at the sites and not much more. It was good since the crowds were small. We hit the major museums and sites the next day; Holocaust Museum, Check point Charlie, Bode Museum and half of [View Full Entry]

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After a long trip/time through the countryside of Germany, we finally reached our destination - Berlin. The most fascinating part of the trip, was the amount of wind generators around the German countryside. I know that a lot of people in Canada don't like them because of the noise and size of them but based on sheer numbers alone, the Germans don't seem too upset. As we reached our hostel (yes that is correct, it isn't a typo, we are actually sleeping in a hostel). I think our combined age would make the combined age of a small room here. So [View Full Entry]

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