Berlin- East side gallery

Berlin- the wall - East side gallery

We went climbing on one day, and the gym here is even bigger than the one in Amsterdam with heaps of sport climbs.

One day we went for a walk along east side gallery, which is a mile long stretch of the Berlin wall that has murals painted on it. Alot of the murals have been painted over and quite a few of them are in pretty poor condiditon, but it was still really cool to see all this different type of srt form all around the world. The weather for our time in Berlin was really nice, and sunny most days so we indulged out tastebuds with icesreams most days.

Sprechen Sie deutch? Berlin

Germany- Berlin 26th July -2nd Aug

Berlin was petty cool, with really wide streets that bring in a lot of light. On one of the early days we did a free walking tour, (Mikes bikes walking tour) which was fantastic as the Guide was very enthusiastic and really knew his stuff.
We walked all around town and saw the Brandenburg gate, the Jewish memorial, (which was really good), Hitler’s bunker, the Berlin wall, checkpoint Charlie as well as museum island and heaps of other stuff. We stopped halfay through the walk for lunch and as it was a nice day i picked up an icecream, which was super!
We leart about the big ugly orange building (which they are now tearing down) and how David Hasselhoff played there before the berlin wall fell.

As we were watching the pennies and we easily get bored in museums, we had to choose which of all the museums to see. We were told that if you only see one museum in Berlin you should visit the Pergamon museum. Which is famous for its altar from Roman times. It was pretty impresive, but as its the first thing you see when you walk into the museum the rest seems abit boring.

We also went to the Stassi museum, which was hidden along a side street, and looked very run down. All of the description were in German, but we were able to borrow booklet which had some breif descriptions of the displays in English.

The Big City Lights- Amsterdam

Holland- Amsterdam

After a very relaxing week in Doetinchem
we went up to Amsterdam to see the big lights. Amsterdam has a very touristy
feel, it’s interesting that walking along the Dam everyone speaks English,
but if you walk into a shop 5 minutes walk away they don’t speak any English.
We spent a few days with my brother Pete and we didn’t know it at the time
but it was our last chance to use a kitchen for 3 months!

Went to the Rijksmuseum which had some
pretty cool stuff, although 90 % of the museum was closed for renovations.

Went to Nemo, a hands on science exhibit
which was pretty cool. Especially the bubble wall

saw and interesting car
park on the river,

After a week in Amsterdam we took an
overnight bus to berlin. That was a big mistake (turns out I get pretty car
sick at the back of a bus) and got almost no sleep, so when we got to berlin
we were exhausted. but more about Berlin in the next post.

In the Beggining- Doetinchem

In the beggining

Holland

Doetinchem

We spent the first week in Doetinchem, and it was heaps hot trying to get there, as we had to lug the bike and all our winter gear that we wanted to store. Then in the next day we walked into town (getting a lot of strange looks as hardly anyone walks) and meet Matt’s Great Uncle and great Aunt, (Mark and Erna). Then we hired bikes and spent the week riding round the area eating cherries which were sooo cheap compared to Oz. The weather that week was really nice and sunny (just right for a ride in the country.)

One day we went and visited Matt’s great Oma, conversation was difficult as we didn’t speak much dutch and she didn’t speak much English.

One night we rode into Doetinchem and ate pizza for dinner while sitting along the side of the canal watching some people put poles into the grass in front of the tourism windmill. The next day we came back to find that it was some sort of art.