Do you know what these are called? I’m choosing to believe they’re super traditional Hungarian food- because they were in all the bakeries in many different incarnations- but frankly they were tasty enough for me not to care too much about authenticity. One of the best things about being in an international institute is that it’s fairly likely that someone has either come from or recently been to the city you want to visit. We hit the jackpot in Copenhagen- Joram had just frolicked in the city, and being the perfect Hipster, knew all the (soon-to-be) cool places to visit. This time we had it one better- and actual Hungarian- Szilvia, who spent her uni studies in Budapest. Szilvia spent time telling us which wines to drink, which of the baths to go to (more on that later), and which places were not worth our time. But her take home message was that Budapest (especially the inner rings of the Pest side) are really nice to just walk around. Which coincided neatly with our traditional …

Winter is Coming and the world is racing through autumn, so I’m assuming that you’re senescing for some pictures of Andy and I frolicking, interspersed with pictures of autumnal leaves (see what I did there- plant humour!)…     

Do you know what Kurbis is in English? Maybe I should give you some guesses… (photo from Pau). Last weekend we headed to Klaistow for the pumpkin fest- which rather oddly runs for several weeks (is it just me who thinks that one weekend full of pumpkin is enough for a year). Pau, Andy and I, and Aga and Alicja hopped on the bus and took the 1 hour + ride to the south west with high hopes for pumpkin frivolities. Apparently, you can also ride from Potsdam. If you take two houseguests who aren’t really regular riders, and get a little lost on the way and accidentally ride 35 instead of 20 km, it only takes about 3.5 hours. So I hear. I’m going to be honest- I was a bit disappointed by the number of foodstuffs with pumpkin. We all ordered pumpkin soup for lunch- except for Pau, who got some sort of fried pumpkin fritter- but it was generally watery and poorly flavoured. They had a few biscuits with pumpkin, and some …

One of the best things about living away from home is having friends from home come for a visit! El had a conference in England, and was lovely enough to stop by on her way back home… although in this case she got lost a little to the east of Berlin, so Andy and I had to make the trip out to Budapest to help her find her way back.   Another great thing about having friends visit is using it as an excuse to get out of Deutschland!   Elle and I had never been to anything describable as ‘Eastern Europe’- so we made Andy- who had visited Budapest back in 2009- the official hotel-scout-and-general-tour-guide/directions-man of the group. We ended up staying in something called ‘Design appartments’ fairly close to all the interesting stuff going down in on the Pest side of the city (I didn’t realize until 1 month ago that ‘Budapest comes from two parts of the city- Buda and (unsurprisingly) Pest, sitting across the Danube from each other). The place was …

I’ve been dying again, so y’all have to forgive me for not blogging much recently (incidentally, halfway up some mountain in Freiburg, Andy managed to convince me that we’re now going to use ‘y’all’ for the plural of ‘you group of people’ in English, if only because it’s slightly classier than ‘yooouuussee’) Anyway, back to Freiburg, which is very lovely, but also rather small. So on the third day we decided to escape to the countryside. We were headed to Titisee, but on the train overheard a fairly loud American woman telling her friends about some style of county fair near Baerental. We sneakily followed them off the train, onto another bus, and down the road: We peered at all the wares- skins and furs and honey and liquors and smoked pieces of animal, and I took up with the most amazingly invigorating (SOUR!!) plum juice that has ever passed my lips. Because the fair itself was quite small, we also roamed a bit on the moors.. It was quaint- the sort of thing you’d expect to see …

Day two in that foresty Jewel that is Freiburg. This, my friends and enemies, is Martin’s gate- one of the original entrance points into the Old City. Now also known, as a result of a beautiful salute to capitalism, as ‘McDonald’s Gate’ . Schade, but at least they didn’t put the golden arches on. Saturdays, like Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and also Wednesdays, are Market days in the Church square. I followed my nose to the berries, and Andy followed his to a spicy sausage. This is his guarded ‘get away from my sausage’ look: They had spices and fresh fruits and dried fruits and baked goods and cured meats and all manner of things that are pretty for the eyes and tasty for my breakfast. Including some very, very tasty raw bliss balls, made from dates and figs and cashews and a little bit of cocoa, which seemed to come with obligatory ‘eye contact’- the seller was the type who stares into your souls as he serves you his produce. I wasn’t allowed to …

This week I’m attending my very first out-of-town conference. Actually, it’s technically  a ‘Summer School’, but as it includes the exchange of scientific information, and involves the spending of the intitute’s money to send me ‘away’, I’m going to call it a win. The train from Berlin to Freiburg is only about 7-8 hours, but, as it turns out, no-one in Europe expects to travel for that long, so instead I was given an Easyjet flight to the quaint Swiss-French-German ‘Euroairport’ located on the edge of the three countries. I bought an extra ticket, grabbed my Andy, and we packed ourselves off to Euroairport (physically Switzerland but somehow either that, France, or Germany, depending on which bus you get into once you exit the airport). Somehow is somehow a very German word. Freiburg is an old university town situated in the (most) south-western corner of the country on the edge of the Black forest (Schwartzwald). The city itself is not huge, but it seems to act as a gateway to both the forest- for hiking and …

You can NOT go to Hamburg without going to the Sunday morning fish market. Or at least so said my mother-in-law, again and again, until the three of us agreed that yes, Mari-Anne, waking up at 5am to get the opportunity to smell fish by 6am was actually what we really, really wanted to do while on holiday. It turned out to be rather beautiful. Beautiful enough that I’ll tell the next load who come ‘You can’t go to Hamburg without going to the fishmarket’. You all know I love early morning crispness when it’s coupled with the selling of wares. Sure, in a perfect universe they’d be selling frocks and not fish, but not every reality can be one with a fleamarket. In the centre was the market hall, complete with cover bands and folks clearly still dancing from the night before- including at least one bride and groom set.  This was my favourite spectacle of the morning. The Flowerking, who would pack boxes with house plants and ‘backwards auction’ them. They were super …

Summer in Berlin is very, very beautiful. I’m sure you’ve heard me natter on already about how Perth has bluer skies, but Berlin has greener grass (possibly in part because you’re not allowed to walk on it)- and how the Deutsch really revel in the sunshine, unlike us wossy Aussies who are busy slip-slop-slap-wrapping* (slip on a T-shirt, slop= sunscreen, slap=hat, wrap=sunnies) and scuttling around in the shadows to really get our frolic on. *Side note- I just goggled it and realised that they’ve changed it to slide (instead of wrapping the sunnies on) and seek (for the shade). Anyway, let’s check out the east of Berlin, and this lovely old couple who seem to be basking: We visited the east side gallery, which has been described by one of my german colleagues as ‘the least impressive tourist destination in Berlin’, but which is so famous that I only realised I hadn’t been in 2009 when I saw the three or four out of the 100 murals which I am not already familiar with from …

Let’s get right on that. Day Two.Deciding to get a bit of culture, we headed to the art museum. The building itself was quite artsy, in an almost interpretative way that made it impossible to find the actual entrance.(This is not it:) You know what a snap-happy thing I am. I took quite a lot of photos of the art, but I’ll just show you a few. We were a little silly and posed with the art, which became creepy when I was posing as the girl in the painting above and sticking my bum out, and an old man wanted me to pose again so he could take a photo. We ran away. I think this is Rodin. Toulouse-Lautrec. These below are by Cezanne and Armand Guillaumin. The second copied by the first, and displayed side by side in the museum.  Spot the difference: The owl. A.K.A. the only cool piece of art that Picasso ever made. Ok, I only took a photo of this guy because he looks like he belongs in some sort …