Potsdam This part of the tale involves a big-people sized playground, ginger-chocolate icecream, ‘The Brandenburger’ burger bar, a concentration camp and a Stasi prison. Given that the playgrounds and icrecream came first and the prisons second, you could say that upon moving to Berlin my innocence was shattered and I will never again return to those carefree days on the giant piratical climbing frame. But that might be taking things a bit too far. Let’s start with ...
History, Memory, Humour and Art: A WW2 Story This blog takes a turn off the main path to take a think about the past and ways of remembering. Prompted by a visit to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen where DDR displays had recently been ripped out and replaced by the modern versions of history (coming in the ‘Berlin’ blog entry), it occurred to me just how much things have changed over the last 50 years. People change how they remember things. History is constantly being reinterpreted ...
Updated 23rd September 2009 at 09:54 by Hanne (numerically challenged...)
8 September 2009 Mountains, road trip, skiing, hot pools and a twenty-first… Last weekend heralded my first Saturday back in NZ, and I think it may have convinced me that coming back to the end of winter was not such a bad thing after all. After half a week back home in which I slept, played soccer and joined the gym I was ready for more adventure. Simply sitting still just wouldn’t do. Luckily a friend of mine had organized a trip to the snow for her twenty first. Next challenge? ...
The last month is a little out of order, but I'm working on it! So here goes... I never thought that I would ever see a musical fountain or sing Hungarian karaoke until dawn, but it would seem that Budapest is full of surprises. Then again, I actually had no idea what to expect. With such a blank slate before starting, giant dancing paprikas carteheeling down the street probably would no have fazed me. (Just for the record, we didn’t actually see any giant dancing paprikas, but Budapest ...
27 July 2009 So tomorrow morning I have to give up my room and the next morning I will be on my way to Spain. I can’t believe that my time in Freiburg has gone by so quickly! In fact the thought of leaving is such a distressing prospect that I have just been in the kitchen baking one last cake in order to calm myself down. Pretty sure my flatmates are going to remember me as that random chick from New Zealand who was always knocking on their doors asking to borrow a cup of sugar or ...
24 July 2009 It’s Thursday night/ Friday morning, there is another tequila party raging upstairs on the seventh floor and it is time for another blog entry. My goodness, the events of today alone could just about fill up an entire attention spans worth of space! Onions, cake and peroxide all played their parts. And apparently I should really start learning Chinese…. This Thursday was not a black Thursday at all. In fact it was a most festive day, despite the thunderstorms ...
21 July 2009 My first Bavarian beer garden, a maze in maize, fresh blueberries, river-surfing and ice cream to die for. Plus to top it all off my two-wheels thirst was quenched by a joy ride on a scooter! Last weekend I visited a friend in Munich and, for want of a better term, had a roaring great time. First up, I am sure you will be glad to hear that this time no one proposed to me on the train. So that was a good start! I arrived in Munich on Thursday evening and ...
15 July 2009 Weekend uni, three innocent people condemned to death, a coffee machine that gives you a deposit back if you return the cup and a touch of sumo wrestling. All within one Saturday. And round and about I also had time to check out the Der Blaue Reiter exhibition in Baden Baden, cook a thai curry and act as the fairy of luck, drawing winners’ names out of a hat. Yep, it’s all happening at the moment! Perhaps the three innocent people condemned to death part ...
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