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 …

Once, many years back now, my family on my mothers side squatted on the Island of Malta for a couple of generations. Which, really, was our sole reason for traveling there. Since that time, possibly only in the last few years, Malta has been trying to reinvent itself. It wants to be the cool hangout for the super (or at least moderately) rich. You can buy yourself citizenship (for just over 600k plus extras), and will be rewarded not only with a passport to the EU, but also rather pleasingly low tax rates. The magazine on the airlines (Malta Airways of course) was all about pimpin’ the Island. Which came across as slightly desperate, and just a little bit tacky. Not what they were looking for at all. We were looking for this: As my people (kind of) come from Malta, certain things have leaked into our fantastically Mongrel Aussie-hybrid customs. Example 1: Mushy Pea Pies Firstly, let me say that it is amazing to be in a country that understands the concept of a …

On our final day in Rome, we visited the Vatican. We didn’t prebook tickets (which I hear you can do online), so it took us about 40 minutes to get inside. Which was not too upsetting- Andy read, I pretended I was a dinosaur who like to eat fruit- and was much less time than promised to us by the assorted men trying to sell us overpriced guided tours (‘2 hours’).  We spent a bit of time flouncing around the courtyard. It was pretty cold: So we headed into the museum. First stop- slightly creepy creepy room filled with heads and busts: My sister was really into Greek myths when she was younger. Ella chose Artemis- the hunter goddess, as her goddess, a slightly odd choice for one who has possibly not owned a flat shoe (and definitely not taken to running) since forced to do so in high school. My goddess was Athena- goddess of wisdom, and goddess of war (she had a temper that I respected and could identify with). We’re practically the …

Sometimes, when I start writing this blog, it feels like coming to confession. Not that I’ve ever, to my knowledge, been to confession, but because they always start it (in the TV shows and movies) with ‘it’s been six weeks since my last confession’ So. ‘It’s been four weeks since my last (Roman) holiday’. Rome day 3 started in the Piazza del Popolo, and with honest intentions to get a bit of culture into ourselves by visiting museums, art galleries and the like. But the sun swayed our souls, and we ended up swanning through the streets, marching through marketplaces, and checking out cats. Plus there was some magnificent fence leaping thrown in there. There was supposed to be a market ‘just around the corner’ from the Piazza, but of course, we couldn’t find it. So we wandered the lands instead: The wandering of course involved some eating and posing. The icecream was of the ‘ok but not fabulous’ variety, which means I’m not entirely sure what the top flavour I’m chowing down on is. Possibly …

New Year, New Blogging Resolution. We’re 9 days in and it’s not looking great eh? This last week has been filled with the type of exhaustion that can only come from coming back to work after getting a little bit too used to holiday life. Luckily, we’ve been pleasantly surprised on return to The Deutschland to find that Autumn is lingering (which frankly seems deserved after it stubbornly refused to get into Spring for so long last year), and the weather is hovering at a rather pleasant 10 degrees. But shall we travel back to Rome anyway? After the trials of the colosseum, the Man and I needed some meat. And what better place to eat said meat, than at Ducati? (which after a quick google I can very confidently say ‘is a company that sells motorbikes’). We both opted for beef burgers, because a) there is no beef in Deutschland and b) Germany burgers tend to be ‘American style’. Oh yeah, and c) mine came with blue cheese! I had such high expectations, I mean, just look …

It turns out the ‘Roman Winter’ is pretty similar to ‘German Summer’ at least in terms of light and colour. Andy and I, whose eyes have become small and molelike in desperate adaptation to our natural cloudy Berlin habitat, were confused and overwhelmed by this bright shiny glowfullness.Nonetheless, we decided to brave the outside world in an attempt to stockpile Vit.D and of course see the sites.Mother, who has seen and done it all, went to a museum. We spent a fairly decent amount of time just wandering around, poking our heads into museums and glancing at the sights. Rome (made up) Fact 1: The trees are super odd little things, which are probably so twisted and warped because of the pure weight of birds continuously alighting, departing in swarms, and returning to roost. Here’s Andy in front of some ruins. Note the extra birds scattered on top of the building. Possibly it is only in ruins because of the excessive bird usage. Not a bird: Some more ruins, with magical ‘Godzilla’ tree in the …

Christmas at the institute rather generously involves ‘free holidays’ on Christmas Eve, Day and Boxing day, as well as New Year’s Eve and Day. Last year I hung around work on the days in between, being semi productive but feeling like a bit of a Chump for being one of only about 10 people remaining in the whole building. This year, we took one look at the calender, realised we could get about 16 days freedom by taking just five days official holiday, and hit the road! With my sidekick (Mother) and faithful gadget man (Andy the Android) in tow, I flew to Rome… … The Eternal City. We quizzed our Italian friends on what to do, and more importantly what to eat in the country. The list was long: Sfogliatelle, Gelati, Cannoli (things which you’d better believe are turing up in a later postings)… and of course Pizza, pasta, foccacia, seafood…All things we should try.But not in Rome. Don’t Eat the Pizza In Rome! I’m sorry, we caved pretty early on. We flew in …

Monday morning in Paris was, rather surprisingly, the day in which I turned a quarter of a century old. To celebrate this grand and unpredicted aging, I lay in bed for half the morning while Andy fed me nibbles of macaron. Which I suspect is how all birthdays happen if you live in Paris. We played ‘guess the flavour’, and discovered that Andy, who may have just been letting me win because I was birthday girl, was incapable of differentiating between ‘wasabi’ and ‘lychee-rose’. We eventually rolled out of the apartment, stopped for a brief moment of posing with the grandness of our foyer, and headed into the world… Where, as birthday girl, I was allowed to have second breakfasts. Which was so filled with sugary almondness that I felt a strange desire to climb some mountains…. … the closest option for doing so in Paris seems to be Montmatre… We headed up to Sacre Coeur past a bunch of men who seemed insistent on tying things around our wrists. They blocked both the entrances …

I’m not feeling particularly into the writing today, so it’s mostly just photos. Plus, this post consists mostly of pictures of the tower from various angles.  You have been warned. So on the Sunday morning of our great Parisian adventure, we gorged on macarons, which you may or may not have already heard about.  Later on, we rolled on over to the tower- after realising that we’d been remiss in missing many-a photo posing opportunity. Look! Andy is the tower! And now I am! Amazing! Tall Andy is Tall. And my favourite photo of me plus tower that I had to beg Andy to take: We headed over to some sort of Modern Art Museumy thing which was not the Pompidou Centre. It was truly beautiful and breathtaking and … and then Andy mentioned that in the whole mural, only one woman was present. There she is. Madame Curie: Which made me a bit sad, even though we can blame ‘history’ and all. They also had dresses by ‘Alaia’ which I want so so badly. …

We spent the last couple of hours of our museum days in Paris eyeing off the modern art at the Centre Pompidou. As you can see, the Centre itself is something kind of artsy. Walking up, you pass by these beautiful old-school apartments and are suddenly hit with this crazy controversial pipe-covered structure that from the back looks not entirely finished… .. You walk into a huge ‘warehouse’ and waste many minutes gazing around, feeling a little lost, before wasting many more eyeing the price tag of all the fancy artsy things in the gift shop.. .. the cat seems to know what the haps are, so you continue your journey up the escalators to the galleries and museums… …which, if you’re the kind of boy or girl who always wanted to go to the moon, feels a little bit like some sort of space journey… Unfortunately, the museum pass doesn’t cover the gallery exhibitions, but there’s more than enough to keep you interested in the permanent exhibitions. Plus did I mention that the view …