GUTEN TAG EVERYONE!!!

sorry it has been a while since our last blog update so far we are over a week behind in our adventures so lets see if we cant catch you all up!

When we left off last we were leaving Amsterdam on Sunday after a weekend in SIN city on our way to Germany. We took an Afternoon train and instead of heading straight to Berlin we decided to make an overnight stop in Düsseldorf to visit some of Chloes family living there, for all those who dont know Chloes omi's (grandma) sister Mia and her daughter Michaella and their family live just outside of the city in a small town called Monheim :) When we arrived in Düsseldorf feeling quite exhausted we decided to head straight to our hostel grab some dinner and just relax for the night it was GREAT!!!!!!!! nowalking no drinking just sitting in a room with food and TV! even the fact that we were watching Dirty Dancing in German (much to Adams disappointment) did not matter for the first time in ages we got to relax :)

The next day after getting up we headed straight to the train station on route to Monheim!.....well... first that would require getting on the right train...SO after heading ten minutes int he wrong direction lol we got off the train and we headed back to the station, once on the correct train and we were on our way! haha when we arrived in Monheim in was like arriving in old germany, just a little quiet town lots of elderly people on their way around town and very few english speaking people but a very pretty town :) Now Tante Mia as chloe calls her does not really speak much English 'HALLO' and 'goodbye' is about as good as it gets and Chloe, well, its 'Gütentague' 'Katoffle'' 'shinken' 'duncopf' and 'Was es los' so for all you non german speaking people thats hello, potato, pork, stupid and 'whats happenin' hahah so needless to say we were a little worried/curious to see how well this would play out haha im not sure 'hi whats happening potato' was going to go down so well!

For all that worrying, when we arrived it was as though the fact that we spoke completely different languages did not matter at all! we all sat around, chatting, looking at photos having coffee and cake as all germans do and just havng plenty of laughs. It was so great to finally meet family you've Heard so much about, recieved birthday cards from every year and spoken to every christmas and easter and tante mia seemed so happy to meet us, She even put on her walking shoes (which for anyone that knows Omi will be surprised to know are actually walkingshoes, not liike Omis which are her 4inch heels as apposed to the regular 6inch hahah) and she walked us back to the station later that afternoon :) After a big hug and goodbye we head back to Düsseldorf to catch some sights of the city and enjoy lunch by the Rhien before making our way to Berlin!

BERLIN! where to start... when we arrived, continuing on from our amazing navigation skills we set off from the station to our hostel...in the wrong direction...again. haha after about 40min of walking with full packs on we gave in and waved a taxi down who took us straight to our hostel (in the other direction lol ) Our hostel in Berlin was Fantastic! it was Clean, Huge, had a great atmosphere, Good people, with a bar and out door decking, computer use, security lockers, big breakfast even a big blow up pool! Like i said it was GREAT! haha the catch.......we were sleepimg in a mixed 30 bed dorm: thats right a room with 30 people for the next 3 nights: now over our travels we have estimated that out of six people the average is that one will ALWAYS snore. SO with a 30 bed dorm even if you can reach the evil snorer or 'Snore-lax' as adam likes to call them with a good pillpw wack to the head to stop them from snoring, you stil have 4 more to go! haha lets just say that afetr that we could sleep through anything! anywho the next day we were up and ready to go! we got some delcious german pretzles and we set off to the Brandemburg gate the famous German gate into Berlin where we met up for another free walking tour :) The tour was great, our guide (who happened to eb Aussie) took us everywhere! we saw some amazing sights in Berlin, the city itself was so badly bombed in WW2 that nearly every part of it was destroyed so alot of what we did see were relatively new buildings that had been rebuilt exaxctly as they were before. pretty amazing to see and pretty quickly we fell in love with the city :) One really interesting thing that you will see all through the Berlin is a line of double bricks in the ground that run through the city, these lines represent where the Berlin wall once stood. its amazing to think that 20 years ag we would not have been fortunate to see 90% of what we did see because almost all of it lied on the east side of the wall. After a great tour we went with some people we had met in our group with our guide to get a Snitzel with Potatoes and a .5lt Beer for 8 euro not bad for a snitzel the size of a plate! after our late lunch we did not stop there! our next stop was the Reichstag..it is the German Government Building where the officals meet. It is shaped really strange in that there is a huge glass and mirror sprial centered above Parliament so that when they look up they can see the poeple they are representing. It was also a great place to get great 360 views of Berlin with a an Audio guide that told you everything about the building and its history :) the best part is that it was free, geeze we are getting good at this backpacker thing! lol we finshed our night with some Icecream and some Currywurst (which is a new style of bratwurst) and headed back to our Hostel.

Our next day in Berlin was BIG. once again we met at the Branderburg Gate to jump on another tour that would take us to Potsdam. Potsdam is a mini city 30min from Berlin whose claim to fame is its place in history as the home of the German Monarchy. Almost every German KIng, Queen, Prince, Princess lived in Potsdam and so its where you will find their Castl's! Most Famousy King Fredrich the great! known as King Fredrich Willheim the 2nd, now there were about 5 King Fredrich Willheim's that were in the German Monarchy, so if you dont already know Chloes Opos (Grandpa) who is german is called Fredrich Willheim! so shes is claiming to be an heir to the throne ahahah come on its completely possible!!

Now even though it was a VERY hot day (about 38degrees) we are both so glad we did the tour, potsdam is pituresque! just absolutely beautiful, everywhere you look is a castle, a royal garden or another castle haha the only downside.. the people in potsdam like to swim in the lake....Butt Naked. ARGH! on a day of 38degrees it was harder to spot the person in bathers then the ones without! hahah it was pretty funny though! But really Potsdam is relatively unkown as a tourist destination but being as beautiful as it is we doubt this will be for long, we got to see it in all its amazing beauty with its grand Castles and enourmous gardens and it felt completely 'un touristy' :) On the tour we met some more great people, (more americans and Canadians lol) and after hanging back in Potsdam for an extra few hours after the tour had finished we thought why not go out and have some good German beer! SO WE DID! we arrived back in Berlin just after 7 so we got changed and head out to a place that served over 300 beers!!!! what a great opportunity to sample a couple...then a couple more... and hey why not a few more! haha Adams personal choice just so happens to be the one Beer that the Pope has shipped into the vatican for himself, im not kidding its the popes favourite beer so hey if the Popes drinkin it it cant be a bad thing!!! we ended up having a really good time and it was pretty dam late when we got back to the hostel but hey with 5 Snore-lax's in our dorm we werent sleeping anyway lol

The next morning was our last Day in Berlin so we decided to catch a train to the very famous 'East Side Gallery' This is one of the Only Remaining stretches of the Berlin wall still standing and it has been covered in the most amaazing art work you'l ever see! people from all over the world have come and painted their work on the wall and all of it is protected by law, it was a really really great way to spend the morning just storrling along admiring the Art:) After our little Art session we went traight back to the hostel to grab our bags and jump on a 5:00pm train. This train was our ride to Krackow in Poland which is where our next blog entry will take off! so for now Aüfwiedersein and lots of love from the two bad navigators on the other side of the World :) xoxoxo