More Europe :)

• It has evidentally been 11 days since my last post, that means this might be a long one! It doesn't fell like that long. Maybe the computer lost count. I also have to apologise in adavnce for the typos - the keyboard is really sticky and letters keep on not coming out or are delayed and in the wrong order - but I'll try (a little).

• Braedon is curretly cooking as we have a hostel with a kitchen and it smells really good!

• Last time we caught up we were in Rostock staying with the heavily pregnant Andrea and her partner Emiliano. It was really get up there. We lay on the beach for ages without sun block and didn't get burned (and yes the sun was shining brightly). Andrea and Emiliano are busy preparing for the arrival of their first son and seem to be getting excited now that they have everything in place and are ready. It was really great to catch up after so long (10 years!).

• We took the train to Berlin and stayed at Sandra's flat while she stayed with her partner Sven. We were Snadra's Kiwi Connections hosts when she was studying for her masters in Law in Wellington in 2003. She was a great hostess. She brought us a full German breakfast two mornings and dined with us. We went for dinne the first night and then went to a beach bar on the top of a 5 storey car parking building. They brought in lots of sand and deck chairs and we had drinks in th dark looking over the lights of Berlin. It was pretty cool (except for all the sand in your shoes). She showed us around the Reichstag (she works there so could take us places that tourists don't normally go). It was quite cool. There are lots of buildings with little "secret" corridor links. We saw the Brandenburg gate and the haulocast memorial (fantastic experiential sculpture). It then started to rain really heavily and we got pretty wet running about 100m to a restuarant for lunch. But never fear because it's summer and it was still pretty warm! : ) We visited the Potsdama Platz and the Sony Centre. Berlin has heaps of new developments at the moment as when the wall came down it created large amounts of empty space in the central city so there was quite a lot of inspirational mordern architecture. We also went to the New National Gallery (designed by Mies van der Rohe and constructed 60 yrs after his death). They had an exhibition of French modern (early 20th century) paintings from the NY met (which is currently being renovated), so that was pretty cool to see. Braedon and I had drinks at an old converted brewery. We caught up with Braedon's cousin Amber and her hubby Heiko who live in Berlin. We had brunch at their place then went via a market to the East side gallery, which is a length of the old wall that has been painted by artists. One thing about Berlin is that there is bad graffitti everywhere they can reach, and lots of people had scribbled all over the art on the wall - it was quite sad. We went to the Bauhaus Archives (yet another architectural exhibition), and we tried currywurst, bratwurst, and other wursts (there are seriously sausages everywhere in Germany - at the fair i nRostock approx every third stand was selling sausages, it was pretty funny - Braedon had his half meter bratwurst in a small bun, very amusing). We dropped into the Radisson hotel where there is a glass lift that goes up inside a huge fish tank - not sure of the depth but somewhere between 20-30m. Talked to a German freediver at the WCs about diving in it but h said they're still working on getting permission. : ( We also briefly dropped into the Deutches Historiches Museum before it shut and saw the modern addition by IM Pei (the guy who desighed the Louvre's pyramids). Sandra and Sven took us across town for dinner to a traditional Berlin style pub where we ate traditinal German food (not sausages, but lots of heavy meat of course). We also managed to visit the Jewish Museum, which was incredible - moden architecture again, but really sculptural (Josh would love it). We spent quite a long time there and I'm now well versed in the history of Judaism in Germany. We dropped in and had a look at Sandra and Sven's new apartment that they had just got the keys for and were starting to paint. Then we caught up with Stefan (my old scuba diving buddy until he left and went home to Germany) and Miriam and their daughter Helena who only arrived after they got back to Germany. They cooked us a fantastic meal in their apartment. Stefan also took us on interesting short driving tours of Berlin on the way back to the apartment after dinner and on the way to dropping us off at the airport the next morning. It was quite interesting to hear Berlin history from people who grew up with huge changes there.
  
• We flew down to Venice. Venice was so beautiful. Again, no cars, which really makes European towns fantastic. We only got in at about 4pm but managed a gallery visit and a good browse around the area where were stayed before trying out some local cuisine. We went for a walk after dinner and took in San Marco Square by night. The Venice Biannale (modern art representing a number of different countries - NZ did not attend this year but has in the past) is on (this year) so we visited quite a few pavillions as we stumbled upon them dotted around town. We did all the standard touristy things during our 2 days in Venice but it was more an experience of the town. We managed to not get lost either, somehow...
• We spent a day in Bologne on the way to FLorence, but it was a bit disppointing. The town was beautiful but nothing was open - everything shut for 3 hours over lunchtime, most shops where shut as the owners were away on summer holidays, it was incredibly hot, and the food market that is meant to be pretty cool was all locked up. We ended up visiting the chuches we could get into, then sitting in a park in the shade of a tree for a while. We then waited at the wrong quai 3 that the train station (didn't think the station was big enough to have two quai 3s) and had to run for the train with our 18kg backpacks on. Did catch it, though they had already blown the whistle before we started on the flight of stairs up to the quay...
• Florence is lovely, but smaller than I had imagined. We fitted two days of plans into today so I think we'll get a sleep in tomorrow and then head off on a day trip to Siena or somewhere else close by on Monday (though we just missed the horse race around the square - it finished yesterday : ( - might be a bit of a mess now). Today Braedon went to the market first thing, hence the cooking, and I painted my toenails - as you should on summer holidays... We saw Michaelangelo's David at the Accademia, visited lots of Brunelleschi buildings: ospedale delgi innocenti, basilica di San Lorenzo, the Duomo and the bapistry. We also saw Michaelangelo's new sacristy (Medici chapel) and the copy of his David where it used to stand outside the Palazzo Vecchio. Tomorrow we're booked in to visit the Ufizzi Gallery and then we'll visit the Ponte Vecchio (famous bridge) and walk past a few more old buildings, so that's pretty much Florence covered...
• Unforunately we'll be home in a mere two weeks, with our fantastic tans and new legs made for walking. I'll try to organise some photos soon.