Hi y'allI know I haven't written a blog in ages.....apologies! It's been Xmas, it's been my bday, and a hell of alot of other things too! Firstly Merry Xmas to all and a prosperous 2008 (im only 3 weeks late!!)Secondly, happy 24th bday to my little sis Kate!!!! Again only 5 days late and it will show me if she actually reads my ramblings! Better go on order I spose. Went to Stockholm back in December. it feels a lifetime ago. We flew Ryanair or as I prefer to label them Ruinair; alarm bells should have been ringing when the flights were booked £40 return flights that something was amiss. Now labelling our airport 'Stockholm' when in fact it was 110km out of town was not a great start to the trip but things did get better.Checked out the countryside (which was magnificent) on the BUSRIDE (that's right not even the train went to our dump of an airport) into town and found our hotel. We cruised around town, met a bunch of great ppl (both local and backpackers) before loosing most of our tour party prior to dinner. After a couple of local delicacies (Swedish meatballs and reindeer) we set off on a quest to find Abba look-alikes. Our trip was fruitless but we did go to 6 great bars and nightclubs again meeting some cool people and a midget bouncer.Following day went back and looked around Stockholm some more. The architecture is amazing and quite grand. The streets too are magnificently paved and clean. The welfare state lives on strong!Ruinair however managed to put a downer on things on delaying out flight 2 hours. 2 hours we could have checked some more of the city out but what more can you expect from Europe's worst carrier.Now onto Berlin……Bron and I along with Shaun and El, friends of ours spent last weekend in Berlin, a city steeped in tradition. It was fundamentally the birthplace of the cold war following on from WW2 where Berlin was divided into 4 sections. The USA, UK and France took control of half of the city and the USSR (Russia) controlled the other half. Given what followed with the the East Germans building the Berlin wall and attempting to cut all supplies coming from the West the cold war was born. Just a few facts about this period·Communists cut off all train and road supplies coming through the East from 1948 till 1950. During this time the allies flew 200,000 flights into Berlin delivering supplies.·Only 4 small sections of the wall remain·5 times as much wall has been sold as souvenirs as would have ever existed.Berlin was an amazing and eye opening place. Visited too many places to go into detail about all of them but the ones that really stuck in my mind were the topography of terror (a collection of pictures in an outdoor gallery depicting the Nazi regime and its brutality, the site of the 1933 Nazi book burnings and newly opened Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The Memorial to Murdered Jews is especially touching given its made up of 2700 odd concrete blocks of varying heights but identical diameter and the rolling ground. Walking within them you don't cant see whats around corners and its said the designer has attempted to recreate the feeling of nervousness the Jewish people would have felt during the Nazi rule. What is especially ironic is the memorials site itself, 300m from the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag (German Parliament) as well as 100m from Hitler's Bunker.Anyway enough of my history lesson. Berlin has other great aspects apart from its history. Great nightlife, beers and food! Bratwurst, Currywurst, frankfurts, schnitzels and Pilsner were also top of the list of attractions. As for the idea of the abrupt, rude, German it was all a myth on my travels. Not only were they curtious, polite and helpful some even managed to crack a funny from time to time in their dry German manner!Enough from me!BXP out