Hey all!

 

Sorry for not updating for so many days! My travels have been truly hectic, but things have quietened down a little since I'm in Britain now with my family, so i have some time to write! So here's a brief summary of what has gone on the last two weeks!

 

The day after I last wrote Maria travelled back to Magdeburg for university. It was sad to see her go, after all the fun times we had together, and hopefully she will come and visit us in NZ sometime! After saying goodbye, Tim and I headed to the Museum at Checkpoint Charlie, which is full of exhibitions about how people tried to escape across the Berlin wall from the East to the West, and about the fall of Communism in Europe. The exhibitions were awesome, and really brought the history of that era to life- a truly outstanding museum. After the museum, Tim and I met up with David again after he checked out of his hotel which he had been staying in with his parents. We caught up on what had happened in the last two weeks (it sounded like he had a great time!) over lunch, and then after that, Tim and David hopped on a 200 Bus over to West Berlin to have a look, whilst I headed to the Pergamon Museum, which had some fantastic ancient architechtural exhibits, including the Altar of Pergamonn from Greece, the Gates of Babylon, and a comprehensive collection of Islamic art, artifacts and ruins. Another fantastic museum, with admission for only 4 Euros, and included audio guide, which was fantastic. That evening, the three of us headed out to Dinner at Potsdamer Platz, before David and I decided to catch another movie (a Jennifer Aniston chick flick) at the Sony Centre.

 

The next day, David had a lot of AISEC work to do, so he decided to stay in. Tim and I went our seperate ways for the day, since I wanted to go to Schloss Sansoucii in Potsdam, whilst Tim went and saw the East Berlin highlights which I had done on my tour. Sansoucii was King Frederic's summer palace (the guy that was a flautist, and wrote a flute concerto) and was a smaller, more intimate palace than many of the other I had seen in Europe. It was still decorated in spectuacular style however, the the entire palace complex (Parc Sansoucii) is truly huge. It was too cold to truly wander outside however (it was -3 degres outside!), so I visited the palace and then headed back to Berlin. The afternoon was spent wandering West Berlin, with its bombed Gedachtniskirche being a highlight, as well as the Berin Philharmoniker hall complex. David, Tim and I spent the evening at the New Berin Pub Crawl, which was awesome. Heaps of drink, nice people, and awesome clubs, which was unfortuantely cut a bit short when Tim had a few too many and ended up not being too well. A fun night however, and highly recommended.

 

The next day was our last day in Berlin, since we decided to catch a night train to Brussels that evening. After getting over our activities of the night before, we headed out to the Reichstag to visit the dome. There was a huge long queue, and it was freezing cold, but we finally made it in, and the view was really cool. We decided to search for some warmth in the Potsdamer Platz shopping centre after, and pretty much hung out there, and at the Sony Centre (I played with all the Sony toys, and the VW rally simulator), until we had to head to the train station for our night train to Brussels.

 

We arrived in Brussels at 6am, absolutely exhausted (I didn't sleep well on the train), and headed straight for the hotel. The hotel did not have a room ready for us yet, so the three of us immediatey wandered into town, and found some breakfast. Tim and David immediately dove into the Belgian food- waffles, for breakfas, whilst I settle for bacon and jam on bread. After Breaky, we went for a walk around town to th Royal Palace, around Grand Place with its spectacular Town Hall and to Manneken Pis for some photos. We were all absolutely exhausted, so as soon as our room was ready, we headed back to the hotel for a nap. One of the best museums in Brussels is the Musee des instrumets de musique, so I took a visit in the afternoon. This museum had a truly amazing collection of instruments from all over the world, wit headphones the play example recordings of each instrument automatically- absolutely awesome! In the evening, the three of us headed out into town, where Tim sample more Belgian cuising with some mussels for dinner.

 

Update more later- got a bit of writers block...