The Rest of Germany

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So last time I wrote I think I was at the start of my time i Berlin. I ended up spending ten days there then heading down south to meet up with some friends. Berlin is a great city with heaps to do and I have only realised how awesome some of the stuff is since leaving it. For example the doner kebaps and felafel are cheaper and better than anywhere i have found in south germany. And you can get them at any time of the night! Which is exactly when you want them. Down in the south things tend to close a lot earlier and there are no kiosks which are awesome little milk bars that sell cold beer and are open all night as well. Berlin is also full of reminders of 2 massive parts of 20th century history- the second world war and the cold war. There are parks made from the death strip between the 2 sections of berlin wall and plenty of places where you can still see old sections of it. The history in the south is not as obvious and tends to come in the form of buildings from much earlier in history which i dont know as much about and to be honest isnt that exciting. What has been good about the south, however, has been the amount of hearty german food and drink that ive been getting my hands on. The beer is great and there are more ways of eating pork than i could have possibly imagined. Ive been traveling for the last week with carmel, mike and helen- i met them in nurnberg after carmel called me to say they had hired a car and then we went along the romantic road through some very quaint old towns and into the black forrest. Bamberg was probably my favourite as it has a great smokey beer and is small and quaint without being too touristy and contrived. The black forrest wasn't really anything that special but afterward we went to berchtesgardener land which is an area of the alps just near the austrian border. We stayed in this lady named Annie's awesomely traditional little guest house and we were the only ones there so it felt a lot like staying with someones grandma. The view from our balcony went straight out onto the alps and this was definitely my favourite part of all of the south. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great for us and it was cloudy and raining most of the time we were there but it was still pretty spectacular. Went up to Hitler's holiday retreat on the top of a mountain and caught a boat across a beautiful lake and did a bit of walking. Now ive been in Munich for the last couple of days. Its nothing that amazing but the augustiner beer hall is great. Going to italy to meet raff on the 14th of July then heading to amsterdam to meet up with tess and vicki.

love to you all

ross

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