I love Berlin

Berlin is a city of intrique for me with its mix of war history and art collectives.
Phillip loved Berlin also and has been talking about the desire to move there ever since we returned. I like the idea of moving there but since my German was restricted to "Meine Deutsch ist nich gudt. English Bitte" perhaps we could wait until I did a language course so I can order beer and pretzels with confidence.
http://airout.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php
Bretts World Cup podcast - http://hutley.net/brett/WorldCup2006.mov



Day 1 - World Cup Ukraine 1 vs Tunisia 0 + Freidrichstein
We landed at Shonefeld Airport and made our way via the S-Bahn (above ground) to Christophs apartment in Neukolln, the Turkish quarter south east of central Berlin. (THANKS CHRIS!) A great place to stay in Berlin. We had to power nap as we caught a red eye flight via luton and hadn't slept until 2:00am that morning.
Ukraine vS Tunisia - The game was quite lame but the atmosphere was great! We sat up high in the Olympiastadion so we had a good view of the play and also the 70,000 people, all dotted with either Ukraine (yellow/blue) or Tunisia (red/white) colours. It was such a high to be there.



Day2 - City frolicking + World Cup in TierGarten + Tacheles cocktail hour/s until 3 am
We saw alot of the city today on a bus tour with the world cup gang. It was fun to see the city like this and we stopped at a really interesting and famous part of Berlin called "Checkpoint Charlie".
Later in the day we found ourselves in the park TierGarten with 1/2 million Germans watching the Germany vs Sweden game. It was hot and raucous and I had a headache but nothing could have been better than this. Crazy and excited people yelling German at us as each goal was scored. Brett and Phillip spent a bit of time drinking beer and Phillip nearly got in a brawl (in German) at the beer tent. But I'll let him tell you about that.



After the footy we finally found a great place to relax and spend the afternoon, called Tacheles.
Near Oranienburger Straße Tor U-Bahn (East Berlin), Tacheles was a department store built in the early 1900s that ended up as headquarters of the Nazi party in WW2. Apparently they detained french POW here on the 5th floor where there now is a large art gallery. The building was bombed heavily in WW2 and from the back you can see alot of the damage where this happened. Tacheles link with some history also http://super.tacheles.de
There are now a whole bunch of little bars (one a combi van) selling bratwurst (and veg delights) and vodka cocktails. It was here that we drank and listened to Tom Waits etc for hours sitting on the giant steel lettered seats in the sand. Great place to hangout with a few people as you can float from bar to bar and do some people watching.



We later moved to another bar in the complex to watch Mexico 1 Vs Argentina 2 (M..E..X..I..C..O..chanting) I was trying to avoid the crazy fire juggler in the courtyard who thought that giving a flamethrower to a drunken Canadian Backpacker might be funny.. ummm. somehow not!
Later upstairs we drank Vodka and Apple cocktails and checked out the art studios where we bought a few little pieces of art. www.pivoandpivos.com We listened to James Brown in one of the bars (and formed a band called Sparkasse where Phillip plays the skin flute) and drank until the early hours of the morning. What a great place to party and this was certainly a highlight of the trip.
Cocktail - Beer and Ruddelers in the Tiergarten + Vodka and Apple cocktails
Food - Bratwurst and more Bratwurst



Day 3
Early rise to meet the gang in a little cafe near the brandenberg gate for breakfast and hangover talk. Nigel at this point is still hassling me over the Aussies we saw last night singing oi oi oi. My head is aching but the coffee is just what the doctor ordered to keep me alive long enough to see the holocaust memorial, the berlin guggenheim, the reichstag and some more walking around east Berlin. What a great city. I am so in love with this city.
Cocktail - Water water and more water. Very hot today with a hangover. Both scared off all thoughts of a hair of the dog.
Food - Breakfast at Il Punto next to Brandenburg gate + Awesome kebabs (Sharwarmas) in Neukoln.

Some Berlin LINKS for yee all :
- Checkout some funky "Mitte" Moosik at Kitty-yo http://www.kitty-yo.de
- Some history about Berlin and the Berlin wall http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/
- Berlin travel tips. Alos check out this bloggers storm photos http://www.nodium.com/articles/147_berlin-travel-tips/

Back Blog 2 - Sultans Elephant

When I left Animal I was given a Timeout subscription by everyone which has been really great for getting out and about in London (thanks Sam and Amanda). We have seen comedy and music and all kinds of stuff. However this one so far has been the highlight, called Sultans Elephant. I can only describe it as giant street puppets. There was a huge elephant puppet and a large girl puppet and the puppeteers made them seem so real I was mesmorized. The girl puppet was followed down the streets of London by thousands of people, tripping over and hitting each other just to get close to the action. It was quite spectacular and I have never seen something captivate so many people.























You can see the website and official photos here.
http://www.thesultanselephant.com/home.php

Portugal (Bernies request)

Sardines, beaches and Portwine. Nice combination really in any order.

We spent a week in the southern region of Portugal called the Algarve, staying in an old Portugal villa called the Quinta Do Santo Phunurius 15 minutes walk from the centre of Lagos.
It had a pool and a frog pond but we mostly spent time away swimming or driving around exploring the beaches and small towns to the south west.

Day 1 and 2 - Lagos and Portimau- Arrived Saturday evening and stumbled into town at 10:00pm looking for something to eat. The first thing I noticed about Portugal were the chimneys on all of the houses. We found a cafe where we ate fresh swordfish and pork and drank what seemed to be a bucket of wine. The Portuguese red wine (vinho tinto) was really cheap and light (like a merlot) and they also make a sparkling green wine called vinho verde which is fresh and quite good before a meal.
The town of Lagos was quite interesting with an old fort near the marina a few hundres metres from the fish market and main square and some really beautiful beaches with some scattered grottoes.
We caught a train to Portimau on day 2 hoping to catch a glimpse of the "Gyspy" market. It was quite a pleasant train trip despite the smeltering heat but when we arrived at Portimau we could not find the markets. We had not map and spoke no Portuguese so this was a bit challenging on the brain. Finally once we found it and we both had heat stroke, everything was crap and we left in about 30 seconds. It was totally not worth the trip so we decided to go to the Marina and try the infamous Sardines.

Day 3 - Monchique + Silves.
We hired a car and drove to Monchique and Silves. This is where we came across an old man and a donkey. The old man insisted I get on his donkey and when I did he tried to put his hand up my skirt as he asked me what country I was from. What a sneaky old perv. I jumped off very quickly and we drove on further and up the montain as far away as we could.
The drive was fun and I kept having to remind Phillip to keep to the right side of the road much to his annoyance ;P The most challenging bits were where we found ourselves in very small towns with cobbled streets so narrow that no car could fit through (like Silves on the way back from Monchique). We had to back out a few times. That tested the relationship for sure but we laughed alot about it afterwards and we got to see quite abit by just throwing caution to the wind.

Day 4 - Aljezur + Villa Bo Bispo + Sagres + (the edge of the world)
This day was great as we found an amazing beach (Amoreira) just north west of aljezur that our photos just don't quite give justice to. We were actually lost and were driving along a dirt road past cows and a little altar when we spotted the beach. We realised it was on the map.
There was a river running into the Atlantic ocean on one side of the beach. It was relatively deserted with only a handful of surfers there. It was like bondi with long waves on a long beach not like the Bronte dumpers. The Atlantic waters were crisp and fresh and Phillip and I body surfed for what seemed like hours. It was glorious.

Sagres - The name Sagres comes from the Latin Promentorum Sacrem / Sacred Promentory. This place has been considered sacred for a very long time, even before the Romans were here.
In Sagres there is a fortified Navigational School on top of a cliff that was interesting and great to take photos of.
This is where "Henry the Navigator" established his famous Navigation School. He was the person responsible they say for helping to discover the rest of the world. (See Cape St Vincent below). There was a 16thC chapel called Nossa Senhora da Graca (left) in the middle of the grounds and a very large and strange sundial looking thing that they called a solar clock. Be buggered if I know how it works. It kind of looked looked like an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture. We walked around the whole grounds but it was way too hot to be outdoors for too long. We were also eager to get to our next stop.

Cape St Vincent - This was a very special place. Called Cabo de São Vicente, it was once thought to be the "edge of the world." Sailors would not venture beyond this place as the cliff tops that we stood represented the edge of the known world. We aimed to be there for a sunset but it was around 5:00pm, there were vans there selling sausages and postcards and we thought "this just doesn't really smell like romance right now". But it was nice to be able to stand on the rocks and look across the ocean and imagine what people were thinking when they thought this was the edge of the world.

Day 5 - Lagos and Prai Da Ana. Prai Da Ana is a small beach near Lagos surrounded by cliffs and grottoes. The water was quite warm and we hung out there most of the day before heading back to the villa where we chased frogs on the pond and drank Portuguese Rose.

Day 6 - Lagos chillin and early happy hour at the villa. We made the effort of seeing the Lagos museum and Gilded church of St Antonio and found it was worth it. I enjoy seeing the carvings in these kind of churches. The interior of this one was completely covered by wood angels and Saints and decorative patterns. We spent some time swimming and watching the butterflies back at the villa and later ventured into town for the infamous Portuguese dish called "Piri Piri".

Day 7 - Faro was the place we flew into and now are flying out of on this day. The plan was to try to see the chapel made of bones. We arrived by train in Faro from Lagos (about 1.5 hour trip) later than expected so most of the town was closed including the chapel of bones. The Portuguese practise the siesta so you need to time if you want to do things that require them to be involved. We found a great little restaurant just near the train station that was still open where we enjoyed the best meal since being in Portugal. Fresh fish and steak and goats cheese and more wine. I left Phillip here to watch the football while I ventured to see the old part of the city and soak up as much as I could before we had to brave the crowds of sunburnt English golfing tourists at the airport.

We really enjoyed the trip and recommend to anybody to go here sooner rather than later as the tourist industry is booming. Even the Villa we stayed in is being sold to developers soon and will be knocked down to build more apartments.
You can see more photos here http://airout.myphotoalbum.com/

Birdflu

I think Tina's prediction that the hamstead pond is full of bird flu, may be correct as I am down with a rotten cold of sorts.

Footy fever - Jim dodd request

Phillip and I ventured to the most aussie of pubs that we could find ** a walkabout in west hampstead**. eeek! shame shame shame !!. We watched the Australia vs Japan game amongst a very loud and raucous group of 20-30 year old Aussies and also a few brave Japanese who thought a walkabout pub might be a good place to watch the game. It was looking like a sad result so we began to drink too much and almost decided to leave, when Cahill scored that first goal. I think Phillip was in tears after he stopped yelling and smiling.

After the game we took a little swim in the dark and murky Hamstead Heath ponds as it was a bit of a 32 degree stinker. It almost reminded me of the Boy Charlton until I nearly swallowed some duck poo. Well that was the end of that swim really. Refreshing atleast.

We are heading to Berlin next friday the 23rd to watch the Tinisia vs Ukraine thanks to Brett and Helen who got us some tickets and Kris for letting us stay in his parents flat in Berlin.

Missing youse all..
k

Back Blog 1 - London calling

Phillip and I have settled into our little love-nest in chalk farm.
Its a cute little pad right near the chalk farm tube. A close stroll to both Camden markets and Primrose hill.
I like the area as its really crazily full of people sometimes and especially now the weather is ace! Its easy to get to most places from here and feels pretty safe considering its reputation. Its not Newtown but it will do for now ;P
k

Begin-Start-One

Thanks to Tina for the inspiration to start our own Blog. This might be a better way to keep track of our travels and keep everyone updated on what we have been doing.
I might do a "Back Blog" of what we have done so far. Sounds like a plan!
I just need to figure out how this thing works.

The title of the blog is relating to the purpose of this trip - to air out our lives a little and get some freshness in there (sounds like a tampon comercial but hey).
k