I think this month is going to be crazy. We just got back from a week sailing around Majorca, my cousin has rocked up on our doorstep, we have the festival of colours, it’s the Kreuzberg Culture Carnival, there are a couple of public holidays ripe for the frolicking, there’s an ‘Institute Day’ and Summer Party plus the world is going mad getting it’s Spring On! So let me finish telling you about last month. Back to Amsterdam: Day Three, and Andy and I headed to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam’s answer to the Tate Modern. They had some pretty amazing stuff there, including a room of ‘Scandinavian Art’ which was pretty much the prototypes of every single item Ikea has ever sold, plus a room just full of awesome and funky chairs- which made us think of Mr J. Russel and his soon-to-be chair fame. They had this, which reminded me a little of Mondrian:  and, low and behold- some actual Mondrians: Did I ever tell you that I’m passionately in love with Mondrian?  Two …

As it turns out, if you want to write about The Holiday have to write about The Holiday during The Holiday, or immediately after The Holiday. Because if not I guess the rest of life starts to happen, and the blogging does not. Two Fridays ago, Andy and I joined a gym.It’s something we’ve been talking about for a while- I’m terrified about my inability to breathe hard enough to even run for the bus, Andy’s terrified of his ol’ bones getting older- and we’re desperate to get into the habit of exercise before, as above, ‘life happens’, and we just don’t. So we’re trying to work out the new routine of work+German lessons+homework that comes with that+ exercise. Plus blogging. Plus sleeping: the sun is getting summery and setting after 8pm, and rising in the unholy hours, and what with our lack of curtains and our confused body clocks, out sleeping patterns are super-disrupted. But on to The Holiday.And the pictures.“Someone” recently complained about the picture to word ratio. I’ll try to get it …

I mean… this is just some sort of confirmation bias right? Right???? We are currently trying to navigate our way around the German genders- male, female, and neutral- which, for those of you playing at home, have to be applied to every single noun. A chair is male, a cat is female, luck is neutral. It is quite painful: lots of rote learning, and even for the situations where there is a rule (e.g. most words starting with ‘Ge’ are neutral), there are, of course, many exceptions. And of course, the four prepositions: der (masc.), die (fem.) das (neutral), or die (plural), (which all mean ‘the’, for those of you still playing), change (although of course not consistently), depending on the case (Nominativ- for subjects, Akkusativ- for objects, Dativ- for the word ‘where’, several verbs etc., and Genetiv- possessive). This Tuesday, we started on Dativ, and learnt to our dismay that ‘die’ (which is the feminine singular if the noun is the subject) becomes ‘der’ (still feminine singular, but now Dativ). Of course, ‘der’ is also …

Having woken up about 4am, reached the airport just after 5 and finally jetted off well past our 7 am scheduling (they had to de-ice the plane, seemingly removing the last 3 months of weather from it), we arrived in Amsterdam after 9.Like every capital city that is not Perth, Amsterdam is pretty simple to get to (from the airport) and around. On arrival, we bustled around the tourist information area near the (very beautiful) Amsterdam Central Station, before committing to buying the ‘I amsterdam’ city card.The card includes travel on public transport, and free access into most of the major museums and art galleries. You also get 25 % off at various restaurants and theatres, and similarly cheaper rates for things like bike and scooter hire. Finally, they throw in a river cruise, and a couple of free giveaways at selected shops (we didn’t bother with this, as we assumed it would be cheap tourist tack, but I guess you could turn the whole thing into a bit of a treasure hunt). http://www.iamsterdam.com/en-GB/experience/deals/i-amsterdam-city-card/benefits-of-the-i-amsterdam-city-card We bought the …

In an attempt to snuffle out that rare and valuable thing in this city: a good Asian restaurant, Jerry from work has been organising for the past couple of years ‘group hits’ on promising-sounding locales. The idea being that if you have 10 or 20 people choosing one or two dishes each, you can cover a large portion of the menu, and thus fairly conclusively decide the value of the place, with a single visit. This time, the group, including two Australians who have been whining non-stop about missing proper Asian food for the last several months, headed to Ming Dynastie, which is rather promisingly situated right next to the Chinese embassy in the centre of Berlin.  Our party consisted of two Chileans (or one Chilean and one Columbian): Plus a French man, a German: Another German and another French lady. Plus our Chinese leader:  Two more Germans, two Japanese, and two Aussies: (I should apologise here about the quality of the photos- the settings were totally off and my autofocus was spazzing, but for the most …

A couple of weeks ago, my dear friend Ashlee posted an episode of QI from the G season on my facebook wall: G is for Germany. (You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CldlRZ9Xew) I was amused by the discussions about ‘Nasty Germans stealing all the deck chairs from the lovely Brits when on holiday’. Apparently, one of the biggest stereotypes about Germans from the English point of view is that they wake up early, and, while the Brits are still gorging on the Breakfast Buffet (and the Aussies have presumably not yet rolled out of bed), they lay out their towel on the sunbeds, thus reserving them for the day. (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3565419/Slump-in-the-number-of-Germans-taking-beach-holidays.html) How DARE they be more organised than us!? I’m going to be honest: hearing about this did more to ram home the ‘winging pom’ stereotype than any about the Germans. But looking into it, I’m actually a little worried. Here (http://metro.co.uk/2007/05/29/brits-cheer-as-german-towels-burn-403192/), is a story of a Welsh coach driver who first dumped all the towels into the pool, and then, when those Germans didn’t learn their …

Look, I know I’ve been crying wolf a bit lately.. but I think it really might be happening this time. We went for a walk today, and for the first time since my I arrival, I didn’t have to wear my ‘winter’ jacket!It was NINE degrees.I only had a thin jumper on.I actually rolled up the sleeves at one point! People! I think this may actually be it: (of Winter). Behold! The (fingers crossed) last remnants of snow: We went for a nice walk in the sun, and it was really exciting to see all the bulbs emerging, and the flowers frolicking. Take that, last of the snow! (Look! the joy of actual snow being replaced with little snowdroppy flowers) I mean! Really! I know you doubt my (ab)use of the English language sometimes, but that is most definitely what I would call ‘A Frolick of Flowers’. Hangin’ with my Pony. Ever since watching Veronica Mars (probably the second best show ever), I have had a slight obsession with the idea of asking people to …

There were bikes: There were flowers: There were pretty little houses all in a row: and there were canals: But, apart from the very touristy visit to the sex museum and a tour in the red light district, no sex (*ok, I just re-read that and realised that sounds sad for me and sounds ‘too much information-y’ for you. What I mean to say is ‘no public/financially facilitated engagement in sex’.) Also no drugs. And very little rock and roll. Going to Amsterdam for the weekend had the weird quality of making me feel both more aligned with Germany, and less German at the same time. I remember when I went to Holland in ’09 with Ashlee and Lauren, we felt (admittedly at least partially because of the amazing hospitality of Lauren’s extended family), that Holland was more ‘homey’ or ‘Australia-y’ than London, Paris and various German and Italian cities that we had visited in the previous 2 months. This time, I felt that again to a certain degree, but now it was in very sharp juxtaposition with all …

Hullo! It’s been a while since a blog, mostly because Andy and I ‘jetted’ off to the Netherlands for the long weekend.This statement makes our life seem more glamorous than it really is. Please try to imagine me saying it in the poshest, toffiest accent possible.Is it still classed as ‘jetting’ when one is in a vehicle not much larger than a biplane? It was a really nice trip, and we got to see many amazing things (although only about 1/63rd of what Amsterdam has to offer, and thus probably about 1/3478900 of the Nederlands). *Sigh*.. now we just have to go back. One of the fun things was remembering all the times from when I eurotripped with the lovely Ashlee and Lauren. Here’s a quick visual: Lauren and Tegan in Shoe, ’09. I think Ash refused to get in… I feel I can still pull off the shoe. More furious blogging during the week.

 … have decided to accessorise Hair with Car.