Snowy St Albans- December 2010

The coldest winter in 50 years hit us in December. The snow fell and caused major chaos- Heathrow and Gatwick airports closed & the trains were not running. You would think the Brits would be better equipt to deal with these sort of things but apparently not. The ony blessing was that a lot of people could not get to work which meant some quiet days in the office. Below is a selection of snaps from our a little town of St Albans.

Above-St Albans Abbey

The local park was a winter wonderland, the lake was completely frozen over.

Above- Ye Old Fighting Cock- Reputedly the oldest 'Inn' in Britain

Above- Our Back yard

Above- The local park (Veralium) with the frozen lake

Above- One of the locals- The Hare and Hound.

Above- The main street with the former town hall, it was fair to say market day was much quieter once the snow came!

The St Albans Clock tower

Our new car which someone kindly named Francisco.... there was no way I was driving that anywhere.

The other side of the St Albans Abbey.

Berlin- August 2010

For my 30th birthday Nadia organised a trip to Berlin, somewhere I had wanted to go for a long time. Berlin is awesome, its got so much to see and do, it has 2 lots of massive history in Nazism and the East / West split with the Berlin wall. This is also combined with great eateries and bars and the whole place has just got an amazing chic coolness to it and I got to practice my extensive German language speaking skills- Das ist gut!

We left first thing on Saturday morning and came back on Monday having had a brilliant weekend away my birthday weekend. Our home coming was capped off by watching the ABs smash up Australia, doesn't get much better than that!

Above- Banderberg Gate

Above-Reichstag building

Nadia & Laura climbing to the viewing platform

Inside the Reichstag building- where you can look down into the parliamentary chambers

The Jewish memorial

2,711 slabs which are the same width and depth and vary in height. The meaning of this has been left to be interpreted by the viewer. Some theories are that the stones are representative of all the individuals, tall and sort, skinny and tall, other same it is conformity, others see the slabs as being similar to the train carriages that were constantly taking people away in.

The Berlin wall
As mentioned above the great thing about Berlin is the history. We did a free walking tour which tells you about all the major sights. Just when you have got your head around Nazi Germany, as you stand within an empty car park where Hitlers shot himself in the bunker below, you roll around the corner to the Berlin wall. I didn't realise how all the events of the wars were the major causes of the events that followed i.e. Nazi Germany spring out of WW1 defeat, WW2 Defeat caused the country to be split into 4 occupations. The most notably the split with the soviet union and the other western countries.

The Berlin wall doesn't look so big and scary these days but I suppose you need to imagine some extra barbed wire, human sewage thrown on the wall and the guard towers with snipers stationed every few 100 metres. It wasn't called the death strip for giggles I suppose.

Das ist ein grosse bier!

There are some crazy buildings around the place. This one looks like they literally slapped a silver porta cabin on the roof of the brown building.

Above- The former Nazi Headquarters building (seen on the movie Valkyrie) one of the only Nazi buildings to survive the allied bombing. The building was later used by the DDR hence the pictures of the random happy communist workers and where later a mass protest was held during the uprising (mural below). The building is now used as the ministry of finance.

The TV Tower in East Berlin is the tallest structure in Germany and was originally built in the 1960's to show off the strength of the GDR (German Democratic republic). The tower when the sun shines on it has the effect of causing a crucifix reflection a term called 'the popes revenge' which used to annoy the atheist GDR government no end.

Above- At the University which was the sight of the burning of books monument. The monument in the middle of the square is literally a room underground with empty shelves. There are enough shelves within this room to house all the books that were burnt on that day in 1933 by the Nazi's.

Above- The new guard house- Monument to victims of war and tyranny. The sculpture of a mother with her dead son. The monument is quite cool how it is exposed to all the elements, which is intended on symbolising the suffering.

Museum Island- you name it its here- I am surprised there is not a museum celebrating the history of all the museums in the area.

We stayed at the St Michel berger hotel in the Fredrichshain district, which is very close to the east side gallery- a graffittied section of the Berlin wall. The hotel is very cool and trendy, as demonstrated by the this pile of suitcases above and lamp shades made of books below.

Potsdam
On the last day we headed out to Potsdam for a change in pace. Potsdam is to Germany as Windsor is to England. You can reach Potsdam by the train in about 45 minutes from central Berlin. Like Windsor there are more castles than you can shake a stick at and the surrounding gardens and lakes are great to walk around.

Above- The new palace.

Above- Orangery Palace

Above- Sanssouci Palace

The main shopping strip in Potsdam

Laura showcases that classic German family name famous for having the best strawberries in all of Germany- Driscolls.

Above- The Sony centre- my new 'happy place'

The National Gallery- Berlin.

For 'my' birthday Nadia decided it would be great to go and have some big ice creams from Hagan Daas as a treat for 'me', such a thoughtful act - so selfless.

Above- Berliner Dome

The famous East German (Ampelmannchen)- these were originally just on the east German side and was a good way of knowing what side of Berlin you were on, but they are now so popular with the tourists that they are popping up all over west Germany as well. There are variations on these with a girl with pig tails apelfrau and a little guy on a bike as well. There are now tourist shops with little green men paraphernalia available from mugs to undies.

Great City! Great Birthday! Thanks Wifey :-)

The Scottish Highlands- July 2010

In late July we headed to Scotland for 5 days. We stayed with our family friends, Jill and Colin McColl in Fort Augusta. Fort Augusta sits just at the bottom of Lochness which is about a 45 minute drive from Inverness. We had a great time, so much of the scenery reminded us of the South Island and the weather reminded me even more of Invercargill. We literally had 4 seasons in one day, most days. Over our time there we visited may spots, including heading south to Fort William & Glencoe, East to Avimore and all the way west to the Isle of Skye.

You can never be too old to take advantage of this little gem it seems.

A top the Cairngorms mountain range- a popular skiing location just out of Avimore.

The highest red telephone box in the UK- what better time for Nadia to check in with Donna

The little wooden fences is how they collect all their snow- if they don't have fences the snow tends to just get blown off the mountain.

The Fanicular railway up the mountain.

The Foyers waterfall

Above- Plokton- A little off the beaten path to get to (literally a beaten path for a road!) but well worth it once getting there, you are greeted by a quaint little town with a splendid little bay.

The beach on the Loch just out of Avimore in the Cairngorn National Park - it was a pity for these optimistic beach goers that within 50 minutes of this picture being taken there was horizontal rain practically blowing them off the beach. But hey they were probably prepared, becauseas we learnt, that's a typical Scottish day.

A lovely night out with Jill & Colin at the local pub in Fort Augusta.

The Highland cattle (Kyloe) are not shy. I spent much of my time honking on the horn to try and move these beasts along- it seems the Scots don't really believe in fences so it is not unusual to see the wild life just parked up on the road.

Dalwhinnie Distillery- if I was a whiskey man this would be my drop.

Above- On the east coast of the Trotternish peninsula on the Isle of Skye Kilt rock and waterfall.

The gravestone of Flora MacDonald right at the top of the isle of Skye just out of Kilmuir- to say the road around the top was dicey would be a huge understatement, it was only one lane for 95% of it and you had to just pull in to little bays to let traffic through or go off road, this included the tourist buses up there!

Above - Portree on the Isle of Skye - generally regarded as the capital of the Totternish Peninsula on the Isle of Skye.

In the western highlands lies Eilean Donan Castle which was originally build in the 13th century by the vikings, demolished in the 1700's and then rebuilt in the 1920's.

Just out of Spean Bridge lies the war memorial dedicated to the fallen commandos who died during the second world war. The hills that lie behind is Ben Nevis the tallest mountain in the UK.

The monument at Glenfinnan has an unknown Scottish highlander on its top and is dedicated to the Jacobite rising. Directly behind this lies the Glenfinnan viaduct which is famous for featuring in the Harry Potter films.

So much lush greenery in Scotland!

One of the walks we went on took us into the hills of Glencoe which once up high enough gave great views of the valley.

Above- Walking around Glencoe and overlooking the island cemetery where many of the MacDonald clan are buried.

Our rental car - the Ford Focus was so good at dodging sheep, cows & other cars it has inspired me to looking into buying one.

Above- nestled on the shores of Loch ness lies Urquhart castle.

This was as close as we got to spotting the Loch ness monster- hilarious exhibition centre though.

Above Inverness- This is a great place to fly into as it is accessible to all parts of the Highlands.