If you consider yourself someone who cares about fashion, I highly recommend making it out to Mitte in Berlin. It's an amazing scene - people wear outfits that would be quote unquote ironic elsewhere, but they make them work. There's a huge amount of style and styles - I saw many many different takes on fashion here. And at this time of year, stuff begins to go on sale as people start to make room for new stuff. Of course, I don't have the money or the space ...

Berlin is an odd city, to be sure. I've gone through thinking it was amazing, overblown, and then amazing again since I arrived on Saturday. Berlin's history is a massive cluster f***, and the city for the most part has tried to move beyond it. But so much of the city has been defined by what has happened here - the Strase des 17 Juni or the Brandelburg Tor - that it sometimes gives the city a schizophrenic feeling. I realize now that the right word would be ...

So, Leipzig - what can I say about the city? There's a big mix of culture here. I'm staying with my sister in a university residence - which includes balconies and full kitchens in the nicer buildings - and I've seen an ecliptic mix of hippies, doctors and Goths wandering around. We were out for a walk last night to get some groceries - at about nine, for various reasons - and we passed both some doctors going off shift and a few metalheads listening to ramm...

Here I am in Frankfurt, more importantly, here I am in Germany First impressions? It's a lot cleaner and better run, the food is cheaper and (here, at least) more international, and the beer is good. The French have one annoying habit of letting their dogs crap everywhere and only rarely cleaning that up. Well, they have better wine and bread (any disputes to be had over this issue will be had when I return); I can actually afford to eat in Germany, thoug...