Amsterdam

After Berlin LC and I made our way over to Amsterdam to visit my cousin Rosanne. She was born in the Netherlands and has lived there all her life except a year exchange that she did in Sydney last year. It was so good to catch up with her last year (she is my only female cousin who is my age) and so weird that we have quite a lot in common. She reckons she is more like Sliuzas than her mums side and you can definitely see the resemblance in our faces! Anyway, she kindly let us crash on her couch for the weekend and was so lovely. Uncle Richard and Aunty Anita come up to amsterdam (from the other side of the country) to have dinner with us. We had such a nice family dinner. 

In Amsterdam there is this amazing thing called FEBO. Basically it is deep fried food from the wall. No social interaction required. And they even have souffle!

The canals. It was absolutely freezing but so beautiful. 

Family dinner! so nice to be part of a greater family unit after it just being the two of us for so long. Can't wait to see them again for easter. 

Rosanne invited some of her friends over and we drank wine and chatted all night. they were so nice and spoke in english the whole time even though its not their native tongue. We learnt about the weird christmas traditions (the biscuit things were so good) where santa comes from spain and has a black helper. that is so not PC. In these photos are Tom and Hannah (and Rosanne) who are all taller than I am. I was literally a midget. This has basically never happened to me before. 

The view from Rosannes living room. You can see the dunes just to the right of the far right but not in this photo. Everything here is below sea level. Amazing, huh! oh and there were heaps of people sailing on the lake during the day. I want to go sailing. 

Amazing Cinema!

Goodnight Amsterdam.

Anagrams

One night when waiting for a train I was so bored I decided to give anagrams a go. You know that episode of the simpsons where lisa is friends with the girl that is younger and smarter than her and when she goes to her house her Dad plays a game with them where you have to rearrange the letters of a famous persons name to make an anagram that describes them...

Natalia Vodianova

Viva La Doña a nota

Catherine Deneuve

Death in venue Clee

Dita Von Tesse

Save teen to di(e)

Gemma Ward

Mad War Gem

Minolo Blahnik

noon kill mah bia(ch)

I pretty much loose at this game. 

After this I moved on to playing the Fibanacci code. 

I got up to 317832

I HEART BERLIN

Berlin has something special about it. Its got a youth culture that is somehow different from other places. There is a level of humility, individuality, activity and forward thinking. The people don't just look cool, they act cool, they are cool and they put in the effort to make cool things happen. There were not many things in berlin that weren't good. 

The first night in Berlin we stayed in a horible hostel with this stupid french girl that was sick or something and kept making sex noises. We got out of there ASAP and started exploring Freidrichshain. Basically every cafe in the area was filled with people having what appeared to be a sunday morning buffet breakfast. For the cultural experience we joined them and for only 9 Euros enjoyed a delicious breakfast. We walked down to an area that appeared to be a squat/cultural hub/skate park. It was pretty cool. 

After that we had to find a our new hostel- A HOUSEBOAT!!!  It happened to be right next to a remaining stretch of the Berlin wall known as the east side gallery. It is the longest bit of remaining wall and is used as a giant canvas for artists to say something about the world we live in. Some of it is political, some is emotional, some is personal. All of it is a reaction to what the wall meant and all of it relates to what is important about being human. 

Here is one of the artists working on a new piece. 

West..........................East

The next day i spent wandering around the area. I found the best soy yoghurt ever. The berliners definitely have an excellent view on good food- they have 'bio-mart's everywhere. people seem to really enjoy eating healthily. and its all fairly cheap! I also got my hair cut. LC and I ran into each other at the cupcake shop where we both had vegan 'raspberry swirl's and cups of tea. we walked back to the hostel and on the way we both bought a pretty headband. 

Next day was a day of much needed retail therapy. Berlin is filled with an awesome array of excellent mid range boutiques. some of them are a little out of the way, but totally worth it. My first stop was California Select. Unfortunately it was POURING with rain and i soon discovered that my shoes had holes in the bottom of them. Oh well, i had to buy new shoes! 

I was so cold and wet and considering giving up when i saw a sign which said 'Adele' and pointed down the street promising waffles. I couldn't resist. 

I also went to pale blue eyes which is a store dedicated to scandinavian brands. I bought some black cheap mondays. sweet. 

VERY SERIOUS

That night LC met up with me and we went to 'hans wurst' for dinner. It is a cute little vegan place that Pixie suggested to me. Its kind of like Vego's (vintage mismatched furniture) but a bit more restauranty. Every table had a vase with fresh flowers. 

The food was to die for. 

Next day LC and I went on a tour. the guide was a totally cute, very smart british guy. He knew so much about Berlin and was really informative and funny. I had a crush. So did LC. 

This is the building of the famous MJ baby over the balcony incident. I think its the third window, third in from the left on the wall on the right. 

Holocaust memorial

This is the river and the bridge right near our houseboat hostel

it was really cold. I went and had soup.