Our first day in Sicily looked a lot like this: Shall we go in for the close up? We had to wake up ridiculously early to take the boat from Malta to Sicily and suffered for it during the remainder of the day. Maybe you can’t tell from the fine details of his face, but this is sleepy-face, not queasyface (I feel, sadly, that I am at a stage in this blog where I would like to acknowledge the fact that I did not heave up my food on the way over). Possibly there’s some hunger in there too. Of course, at some stage in the morning, someone fed him caffeine, and he spent the rest of the day yo-yoing between super tired and super hyperactive. I’m not pointing any fingers here mother, but I’m pretty sure that someone wasn’t me. I know not to feed the gremlin after midnight. Anyway, we arrived back on Italian soil, and spent 20 minutes discussing with the taxi drivers the fact that it was Sunday. We wanted to take a train from …

One of my plans for this shiny new year is to do more ‘art’ to balance out the science. You know, because sometimes pippetting thousands of samples, and then lather, rinse, repeat unto infinity, just doesn’t feel like it’s fulfilling me in every way possible. The wonders of youtube taught me the most basic of basic stitches (behind, hook, pull through)- and how to stitch in a straight line. So here’s a scarf I made for Andy. Now to learn the stuff that requires actual skill!

The next day in Malta began with the traditional ‘coffee and proof of life photograph’. The coffee, which came with a shot of burnt expresso on top of syrup, was horrible. Perhaps as expected. I really wanted to try the one they had with pistachio syrup because a) odd and b) awesome looking coffee.. but they didn’t have the pistachio, and then I panicked. On the plus side, I was able to pull funny faces and force Andy to drink the rest of it. And here is Andy, proving to his Mother that no, we haven’t drowned or lost him. The morning began with full breakfasts, and-for some of the more decadent of the group- cake. Would you like to see some photos from a day spent wandering, posing, acting like lions and wishing we were Santa Claus? Here goes: Andy is Peacocking, but this Pigeon is doing it much better. Who’s a pretty boy then? This will be our Christmas card next year. Andy thinks I am taking a photo of him. He is …

Here’s why I wanted to go to Gozo. http://images.summitpost.org/original/325684.jpg I mean- seriously! Che Magnifique and all that! This, my friends, is the Azure Window- filled with prettiness and light. This is what we got instead… Man- it’s supposed to be Auzure! I’m pretty sure that Malta sees good weather about 364 days of the year. The day that we went to Gozo clearly coincided with their ‘wet season’. The trip to Gozo itself was fairly horrible if you are pathetically weak sea-dog like myself. The ferry ride from island to island was fairly simple- only about 20 minutes.. doable. But Maltese streets are some sort of windy horror out of the mind of Escher and Dante’s love child, and our bus stopped and started up and down all the little hills and all through the alleyways and… Well, to make a long story short, it was a good thing I didn’t have any breakfast, because not all of my contents made it to the smaller island. I am a delightful travelling companion. We got off …

On the only weekend during Mutti’s visit that we weren’t a) feeling very very sick to the stomach or b)Roaming through Rome, Meeting Malta, See-silianing Sicily and Visiting Venice, we headed to the Big City. And introduced Mother to some of Berlin’s ‘Cuisine’. We headed East to the gallery, to see the pretties and bathe in the sunlight. Last time we visited the wall with Andy’s fold we found this rather racist and hateful message: ‘We want the Wall back’. Classy.This time the word ‘don’t’ had been added, the whole message scratched out and the pleasing rebuttal of ‘you stupid meanypants, get the bumhole out!’. I am paraphrasing to make this blog ‘G for my Granddad reads this blog’ rated. But you get the point. Also ‘frigg you!’. For Adam: I spent about 3 minutes trying to work out what exactly this meant in English. Then Andy pointed to the left where they had the translation. Still, I was very proud of myself. ‘Those who want the world to remain how it is, don’t want the world …