What to see and do in Berlin - top 8

Berlin has many, many wonderful things to see and do - all achievable in just a few short days. So pack your travel plugs, water bottle, and euros and hop on a plane for a weekend of exploring! 

For more travel tips see my post on travel essentials here. 

My top 8 Berlin recommendations:

1. Charismas markets 

The best ones will be in the central areas like the Brandenburg Tor (Brandenburg Gate) and the one in Alexander Platz. They definitely get busier and have more atmosphere later in the day and are especially beautiful in the evening when all the lights are on (and are a great place for food and drink!!). So if you want to shop at them, I’d suggest early afternoon as the best time because it’s a little quieter, but if you want the Christmassy feeling then later in the day is better (but it will be busier!). Berlin can be bitingly cold at night so don't forget to wrap up warm, and take advantage of the Gluhwein on offer.

2. The holocaust museum and memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe 

Sounds a bit sombre, but it was genuinely fascinating and utterly beautiful. The museum is actually underground, but on ground level is the memorial sculpture made up of several concrete blocks all at different heights. Walking between them is an amazing experience. Each block represents a life lost and the different sizes are meant to disorientate and overwhelm you so you get lost in the feeling (which you do!). The museum then has letters and pictures from survivors and tells the story which is a big part of Berlin heritage. 

3. Parliament and the Reichstag 

I don’t recommend doing the inside of these as the queues can be hours long and it can take up quite a lot of time which it’s not necessarily worth doing if you’re only there for a weekend, but it’s still an impressive building to see nonetheless! The original building which you can see below has a modern extension made of glass which is quite iconic and is a standard Berlin landmark. 

4. Alexander Platz

The main square in East Berlin - you’ll see the difference between the east and west most clearly here with the communist influence strongest in this area. The main attractions are the uniquely designed world

 clock and the TV tower - iconic representations of the once divided city.

5. Brandenburg Tor - Brandenburg Gate 

Impressive by day and night - even if you just walk through it you have to see it! So many important historical moments have happened there including the final moments before the wall came down in 1990.

6. Berliner Dom - Berlin cathedral 

A beautiful building inside and out and worth a stop on the way from the Brandenburg Tor down to Alexander Platz in the east. 

7. Checkpoint Charlie 

Again one which is on all the tourist lists, but it is quite a fun little thing to see. It’s the main passing place between East and West Berlin which was controlled by the Americans. A lot of people tried to cross illegally here and lost their lives, so it’s become a bit of a memorial and they’ve kept it in the original as much as possible with a tank, sandbags and signs so you get a feel for how it was at the time. 

8. East side gallery 

One of the coolest things to see in Berlin!! It’s the only remaining complete section of the wall and it’s where you can get a real sense of what living in Berlin with the wall was like. As a tribute to its history many famous graffiti artists have decorated sections of the wall and you’ll recognise a lot of the artwork as it’s become very famous over the years. Definitely one to walk down! 

Top 10 items you need for travelling in Europe

After spending a year living in Germany for my year abroad and having caught the travel fever, I wanted to share my top ten items which have been my lifesavers while travelling throughout Europe.

1. Travel plugs / adapters

It may seem like one of the most obvious items on any travel check list, but you'd be surprised how many times it's the one thing which gets forgotten. For most European countries, your standard European adapter will suffice. I like to buy in multipacks like these. It's often cheaper and you can be sure you have enough plugs for all of your electronic devices! The only country you need to be wary of is Switzerland. They have slightly different sockets (just to make it super convenient!) so you'll need a different adapter. If you're going to be heading through Switzerland, I'd recommend one of these multi-adapters. I find them a little difficult to use, but if you have limited space, they can be a good catch all solution.  

2. Currency

Again, another seemingly obvious item but my top tip here is to always try and take cash with you. Most countries will accept card payments, but there are still a few exceptions. In Germany for example, the preference is still very much for 'Bar' (the German for cash). Shop around for the best exchange rates, there are lots of comparison sites out there - Money Supermarket is a good one, and don't rule out retail outlets such as Tesco or Debenhams as they often have travel bureaus in store which are super convenient and offer very competitive rates. 

3. EHIC card
Very important - all UK citizens are entitled to state healthcare cover when travelling abroad. This means that if you get injured or need medical attention when in a country like Germany where there isn't free healthcare like we have in the UK (Happy 70th birthday NHS!) then you're entitled to receive basic emergency care and the UK government will cover the cost. You can apply for a card here, it's totally free and could end up saving you quite a bit!

4. A decent rucksack
This will be your best friend. My go-to brand here is Berghaus, they're waterproof, lightweight and have bags of storage space for all your travelling essentials. And they last for ever! 20 or 30 Litres will give you plenty of space for a couple of weeks roaming, whilst being small enough to take on a day trip too.

5. Food and drink on the go
Top tip for saving money is to take food and water with you as often as you can. Tap water is free and safe to drink in most European countries (double check before you travel if you're not sure). I love the Thermos water bottle because it has a handy meter so you can keep track of how many you've had throughout the day. For the hot drinks, you can take tea, coffee and milk sachets with you all throughout Europe. Then don't forget your handy Tupperware! It will come in handy, trust me!

6. Camera 
With all the wonderful places you're going to see, you will definitely want to be capturing those moments. Sony are my preference for cameras - I've had two which have seen me through all of my travels. The first was a smaller standard digital camera, but it was super handy as it fitted in my handbag and was super easy to pop in and out at all of the sight seeing locations. As a step up from this, I wanted to move to a bridge camera to start to get a feel for a more powerful camera. This one is much bigger and needs to be carried around in its own bag, but it takes amazing pictures and you can do a lot more with it so you have more flexibility. The choice is entirely up to you,

7. Scrapbook for all the memories
Now that you've taken all those pictures, you're going to want somewhere to keep them (definitely print them out - don't let them get lost in the digital abyss!). I kept all sorts from my travels: tickets, receipts, postcards, wristbands, coasters, napkins - everything! There are millions of different scrapbooks out there, but Paperchase is by far my favourite. Sometimes you can't beat the basics, and the Kraft square scrapbook is my favourite as it's literally a blank canvas for you to decorate as you please. For supplies to finish the job, head to Hobbycraft - but be warned, you'll be there for hours!

8. Travel purse
Putting my practical hat on, I always take a different purse on holiday to my normal every day purse. My travel purse is a Kipling as it zips and buttons down really securely. I streamline my cards and only take what I need for the trip, leaving the rest at home, transfer the money over to the new currency and pop £20 of sterling in there for emergency money. This way if anything did happen, whilst your still in a tricky situation, you're not losing absolutely everything!

9. Wrapping up warm when you need to
Germany, the Nordics and most northern European countries get super cold in the winter - well below zero without the wind chill, and the wind is bitterly cold! Hat, scarf, gloves and thermal layers are a must. As is a decent coat - preferably fleece lined and waterproof. I stuck to thermal lined items of all of the above and it saved my skin more than once!

10. Preparing for the sun!
Just as it gets cold, it also gets really warm - even in the northern countries. Germany in the summer is up to 35 degrees in the summer which was not what I was expecting! Sun hat, cream and proper walking sandals were summer staples when trekking through European cityscapes.

Top 10 tips for travelling in Iceland on a budget – how much money do you need to take?

It may be the land of ice and fire, with stunning scenery and traditional culture oozing out of every volcanic rock, but one thing’s for sure: Iceland isn’t cheap. Whether it’s a loaf of bread in the supermarket, or entrance to the world famous Blue Lagoon, be prepared to see several zeros ring up on the cashier’s monitor. But with all the doom and gloom around the exchange rate, the fact everything is imported and the general exploitation of the 2 million tourists that visit the island each year, we wanted to know if it was possible to travel in Iceland on a budget.

My husband and I visited Iceland in June 2018, the week after we’d just bought our first house so as you can imagine money was on our mind. We had a little brainstorm, and came up with some money saving tricks which helped us keep our week’s holiday in budget, without compromising on the experience we wanted to have.

Here’s our top ten tips for saving money while travelling in Iceland: 

1. Bring your own water bottle

Iceland has some of the best drinking water in the world, probably due to the volcanic rock which the entire island is made up of. It’s safe to drink and totally free from the tap, so bringing your own water bottle is a quick and easy way to save money on buying bottles when you’re there. And it’s better for the environment – less plastic. We found that everyone we asked was more than happy to fill up our bottles for us when we were out and about, so don’t be afraid to ask. 

Also, top tip: a lot of people throw away bottles on their way through airport security, but if you drink the liquid before going through the barriers, and keep the bottle, all UK airports provide water fountains where you can fill up your bottles for free – another way to save on overpriced airport water! The best bottles we’ve found are these ones from Thermos – they’ve got a meter on the top so you can keep track of how much you’ve had to drink in the day, or simply the bottles from the Breville blender we absolutely love.

2. Bring a thermos flask, tea and coffee

Overpriced coffee and tea has become part of our normal routine, but for that morning hit, or when you’re travelling nothing beats a good cuppa and it doesn’t have to cost the earth (Costa, Starbucks, I’m looking at you). Josh and I are as addicted to caffeine as the rest of the world, and to help shave a few pennies here, we brought our own transportable tea, coffee and thermos flasks with us (Josh is a Star Wars fan!).

The problem we had was milk – hot water we were pretty sure we would come by, but milk is a little different. But after some internet research, we found that as long as it’s pasteurised, it’s ok to bring milk in to Iceland so it was back to the world wide web for some transportable options which were small enough to pack. Result: hot drinks every morning for a fraction of the price of finding local cafes!

3. Plan for some home catering – and shop at Bonus Supermarket

The most obvious way to save money is to not eat out for every meal. Restaurants and cafes are expensive in Reykjavik, as owners make the most of the tourist trade, but they are a little cheaper the further North you get. That said, shopping for groceries in Iceland isn’t exactly cheap either. It’s a bit of a balancing act, but we found that planning for breakfast and lunch to be self-catered every day and then two of our five nights to be home based saved us an absolute fortune.

To do this, we brought some snacks from home (you can bring up to 3kg of food into Iceland as long as it’s all cooked – so no raw meat etc. but crisps/chocolates/biscuit bars and dried fruit for example are all fine), our trusty tupperware and then made a trip to the supermarket on our first day. Hunting out a Bonus is well worth it as they are by far the cheapest supermarket around. A loaf of bread, some butter, cheese, pesto, some filled pasta, 2 x ready meals and a few extra nibbles came to around 3100 Krona - roughly £25 - and whilst in the UK that would be an insane amount of money for what we purchased, it did set us up for the week and saved us splashing out on eating out. 

Another top tip is to try and find out if there is a particular discount day. In the North of the island, deliveries are only once a week and the day before the delivery, prices can be up to 70% reduced. Ask a local to see if this happens in the area you’re staying.

4. If you do fancy a bit of a treat, order a takeaway and go collect it

We had a night stopover in Reykjavik but with an early start and a packed day behind us, we didn’t fancy cooking, or heading out to a restaurant. After a little help from our good friend Google, we stumbled on Castello’s. We couldn’t get the online ordering system to work, so we braved the phone number and ordered 2 twelve-inch margaritas to collect. The total came to 3150 Krona which is roughly £25 and they were delicious! And it was packed with locals picking up their orders too (it was a Friday night) which is always a good sign. We were slightly out of the centre, so this worked perfectly for us, but I’m sure there are other similar places all over the city. 

5. Fly WOW Air rather than Iceland Air 

Kinda like flying Easyjet or Ryan Air, WOW Air is Iceland’s equivalent to a budget airline. Yes you have to pay more for luggage etc., but you still get a screen, plenty of leg room and save a fortune in the process! 

6. Drive when travelling around the island, don’t fly

There are many ways to travel round the island and the most obvious way might seem to fly – it’s quicker and with direct transfers from Keflavik to destinations such as Akureyri in the North, it can be a quick, hassle-free way to get to the more hard to reach areas of the island. The problem is Islanders know this and the prices of internal flights can be up to double of the cost it takes from the UK to Reykjavik. We were visiting Husavik up in the North and drove up from Reykjavik – a trip which took 6hrs, a third of a tank of fuel and gave us the opportunity to see some of the stunning scenery on the way. We took the slightly more direct route on the western side of the island, but for an even more scenic route, you can go round the western road, stopping off on the way in around two days. Don’t worry about getting lost either – I put the 500km route into google and it came back with 3 instructions – get on the route 49 to route 1, follow route 1, arrive in Husavik! 

7. Car hire – hunt out local deals

The big brand names will hike up the prices so it’s well worth spending time hunting round for a good deal. The cheapest deal we found was with Lava cars. They pick you up from the airport after meeting you at arrivals, take you to their offices round the corner and give you your car. Ours was a Dacia Duster which was functional, but did the job! Top tip: take out gravel insurance. Yes, it’s an extra expense, but on Iceland’s roads – it’s well worth it!

8. For single night stays, look to Air bnb rather than hotels

This might be second nature to most people out there, but it’s worth reiterating. Air bnb offers a wide range of accommodation and on our first and last nights, we needed to be close to the route up north and the airport so it was perfect for a place to crash before our onward journeys. 

9.Want to get the Blue Lagoon experience but want to save a few pennies? Try the Myvatn Nature Baths instead

Just as glorious, but much less touristy, the Myvatn Nature baths offer the same experience of bathing in naturally heated bright blue water, but without the extortionate price tag. Located in the north of the island, it wouldn’t be worth the trip there alone but if you’re in the area, they’re well worth checking out. Prices range from 4200 ISK in low season, to 500 ISK in peak season, but they do offer lots of discounts for students and senior citizens so take your ID with you. 

10. Plan to visit some nature

The most spectacular sights in Iceland are part of the natural landscape. Fortunately for visitors this means most are absolutely free to visit. There will more often than not be a decent car park, a visitor’s centre with a shop and some toilets which may or may not ask for a small charge for use. If you have a hire car, simply drive, park up and follow the trails to the sights. The Golden Circle tour in the South is a must-see trip taking in the hot springs of Geysir, Gullfoss waterfall and the Þingvellir National Park where two continental plates meet and you can walk between then in ‘no man’s land’. Most tour companies will offer day trips ranging from around 5hrs to slightly longer full day trips and my top tip would be to get there early. The route is very popular and everyone is doing the same thing hopping from one place to the next so the locations fill up very quickly as more and more busses from the city arrive. 

In the north east of the island you have the Diamond Circle and again most tour operators will offer trips from Akureyri, but to get the full benefit of these sights, we would recommend hiring a car and exploring for yourself. The Circle describes some 260km of land, covering the towns of Akureyri (Island’s second largest city with 18,000 inhabitants after Reykjavik’s 240,000) and Husavik (a hotspot for whale watching) as well as a wealth of natural phenomena. Our favourites were the Dettifoss and Goðafoss waterfalls, the geo-thermal area of Hverir, Myvatn with its massive lake and natural baths, the hiking area of Dimmuborgir and finally the stunning horse shoe shaped canyon at Ásbyrgi. 

All in all we took around 70,000 ISK with us for a 7 day stay, and came home with around 35,000 ISK which we were pretty pleased with! In GBP terms this equated to roughly £500 at the time, and coming back with a few spare pennies really helped us in the coming months. 

Got any other tips for saving money in Iceland you want to share? Comment below and I’ll add them to the post!

German Theatre Experiences

In the past few weeks I've had the chance to experience two very different forms of German theatre. The first was a French tale told through puppets and speech, while the second was a retelling of the Grimm brothers' history, coincidently also relying heavily on the use of puppetry. I'll give a short summary of each experience, both were wonderful and challenging and something new for me! 

On Thursday the 30th of January I went along with Laura and Rhi to the PuK museum in Bad Kreuznach to experience puppet theatre for the first time. The theatre is located in the puppet museum in Bad Kreuznach which I vaguely remember visiting when I was here in 2006. The auditorium is small but was sold out for this first viewing and the stage offered the actors the chance to be both characters in the play as well as the main puppeteers. There were two actors, a man and a woman who served as the framework story. The woman became an Esmerelda parallel, selling her wares in the form of tourist souvenirs in front of Notre Dame in Paris. The Quasi Modo figure was then portrayed by a priest who came to her stall every morning to buy the newspaper without ever saying a word to her. At first this scenario appeared strange but then after the introduction the actors shifted roles and began expertly controlling a series of puppets across the stage to tell the Quasi Modo story in full. Below is Esmerelda and Quasi as they meet for the first time. The illusion of seeing the puppeteers and hearing their controlled voices didn't at first work, but then I realised that you have to focus on the puppets themselves and ignore what the humans are doing behind them. Once I'd figured that out, I began to appreciate the skilful control of their movements and just how realistic the =y appear when they move and express themselves. The destructive end of the framed narrative then foreshadowed the conclusion of the framing narrative and whether it was due to a lack of linguistic comprehension or just a general lack of comprehension, I was a bi baffled by the sudden jump to the 'real world' and the kiss which abruptly ended the play. I asked the German students we were with and there seemed to be a general confusion so I felt a bit better after that! All in all for my first full length puppet play, I was very impressed and enjoyed the experience! 

Notre Dame

On Thursday the 13th of February (clearly Thursday is the day to go to the theatre!) I saw a play called Grimm, das erste deutsche Maerchen: Ein Theaterprojekt von Jan-Christoph Gockel, roughly translated as Grimm, the first German fairytale, a theatre project. The theatre itself was wonderful; we were in the Kleines Haus of the Staatstheater Mainz and for the smaller of the two auditoriums it was a pretty decent size! We were very near the front, about 5 rows back and I was glad for the slight distance as the play turned out to be a little bit interactive! When we arrived the actors were already on the stage and as people were taking their seats they were running around the auditorium and taking unsuspecting audience members by surprise. The openness and willingness of the play to connect with the audience, allowed us to become much more involved in what was being portrayed which in a sense echoes the Grimm principle of involving us as individuals in something larger by way of comparison and moralising. Also from a language point of view it was rather useful as it helped to understand what was going on! Overall I think I understood around 70% of what was said, the rest was either spoken way too fast, or was in a local dialect or was in an accent too hard to understand when spoken quickly. There was one point when they were rolling around on the floor that I had no idea what was going on and felt completely lost! It came back, however, and overall I loved the performance as it made me much more curious about the lives of the Grimm family and I wanted to know much more than the confines of the play could tell me.

The structure allocated a fairytale to each member of the Grimm family (a mother and six children, 5 sons and one daughter) and as the story of their lives progressed interjections would be made and suddenly we were following the path of Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstilskin or Hansel and Gretel, all sufficiently dark and horrifying when in context of the Grimm family history. The play then moved on from the fairytales into the dictionary which was the first complied on such a scale in the German language. It was never published in its entirety in the brothers' lifetimes, taking up until well into the 20th century, circa Berlin Ball era, for all volumes to reach the shelves. This massive linguistic undertaking effectively killed off the Grimm brothers but what was clear in the play was that they never gave up on their imaginations and dared to dream that something so unthinkable as a record of every single word in the before broken up and divided German language, was not only achievable but was central to the continuation of the aim of bringing unity to a divided and disjointed culture. They sought to unite Germany under a sense of national heritage and cultural history in the form of their fairytales, taking well-known word of mouth stories and writing them down and then their dictionary continued this unification by adding the solidity of language to the fantasy of ideal.

This is taken from a wonderful scene in the play where the audience is looking at the house as it stands through the roof effectively and the actors are either standing or lying on their side to give the illusion that we are looking down on them. This demonstrated the wonderful construction to the play and added to the overall excitement. 

In terms of puppetry this clip and this image give you a sense of the play's use of smaller figures to demonstrate the whole and the building of the larger puppet figure became a parallel for the brining together of a nation in their "fairytale workshop". 

 

Overall I enjoyed both my theatre experiences and I intend to head back as soon as I can! 

Women in Society

To continue my more cultural related musings, this post is dedicated to the perception of women in German society. Like the smoking issue, this has been something which has slowly crept on me throughout my time living here and it only gets more noticeable the more I explore of the society around me.

Again this may be specific to my region, I don't know how far it stretches and if anyone has any experiences of other Bundeslaender in Germany it would be great to hear them!

For a society so advanced technologically as the Germans it seems strange that some aspects of their culture can be so traditional, especially in terms of gender roles. They have extremely set roles (again speaking generally of the average population, there are of course notable and wonderful exceptions) in terms of what the man and what the woman in a relationship, and in society as a whole, is responsible for. These crop up in a number of ways and result in many throwaway comments which aren't actually as women friendly as they pretend to be.

There are two main areas which I've noticed especially : children/childcare, and in the working world.

As far as my experiences have been, chatting with mothers here and working in two major schools in the town, the mother in a family is expected to not only give up her work in order to look after the children, but to then continue to not work until the children are past 14/15 years old in order to pick them up from school at 1pm. Even past that age they are expected to be home to cook the lunchtime meal which here is the main meal of the day. Outside the school gates at 12.30/1pm will be only mothers. School here finishes early and the younger ones can't go home on their own or cook for themselves and as it's the middle of the day and the father is working, it falls to the mother to fulfil that role.

Having spoken to women who do work, they said that they feel a lot of pressure from the society around them. Their choice to work has attracted negative attention as other mothers declare they are "bad" mothers for not dedicating 100% of their time to the children and consequently the children are viewed as worse off and disadvantaged. There is a thing called the "Ganztagsschule" here which is very similar to the school day that we have in Britain in that it lasts until 3-4pm with an hour for lunch in the middle. The children in this class are then open to being perceived in a negative light for not only having mothers who aren't able to pick them up at 1pm but also for not then receiving a main meal of the day cooked by their mother. Often this is bound to casual racism over the presence of children of foreigners whose culture is much more supportive of an active working mother and for whom it is more natural to have their child in school till the end of the day to allow them to return to work.

In professional environments too the 'glass ceiling' is more than evident and when asked to explain this phenomenon it's always related back to the role of the mother as principal child carer, stating that women can only reach so far up the career ladder before they decide to have children. When that happens they effectively can progress no further as they are reduced significantly in terms of hours they work and responsibility they are given. This isn't necessarily meant in a negative way at all, in fact in terms of accommodating a mother in the workplace Germany is fantastic and there is a lot of respect for the mother figure, it just appears to come at a cost. It's simply the expectation of the society that the mother will want to fulfil this preconceived role and it is this expectation which pressurises some women into following this path and giving up the life they were leading: career or family, very rarely both at the same time.

There is a prominent politician in Germany at the moment who used to be the Families minster and was promoted by Angela Merkel to Defence Minister not so long ago. Many have interpreted this move as an attempt to train her up as Merkel's successor and in terms of results she is efficient and a credit to the government. So far so good. If she has proven success in one cabinet position, why can't she be as successful in another more demanding role? When she was promoted there was outrage in the German press. The problem? She has 7 kids. Nothing more, just the fact she has children. Surely that shouldn't matter when accessing the capability of someone in a new role? As Families minister she was acceptable, because it was 'only' families (which in itself is an attitude which is problematic!) but defence minister apparently is a role too far for a woman with 7 children. I wouldn't have expected this from a country with a female Kanzlerin. But then Merkel has no children.

This kind of brings me on to the working world where these gender roles are much more subtly reinforced. In German society it is commonplace to get virtually all of your bread from the bakery every morning  and they are everywhere on every street. You will also only ever see women working there, cooking the bread on site and serving the customers. I once asked a German friend why and they said that it was because only women are deemed to be able to bake anything worth eating which was a compliment on their skills but does also assign the traditional stays at home and cooks for the family role. It is the same in the school canteen which is only run by women and almost every day I am reminded that they are mothers of children at the school, therefore it's ok for them to work there in the kitchen and it's ok for me to eat there.

Cleaning is also another profession which is more than predominantly women and whilst that may also be the case in England you will see male cleaners or janitors in school in the same way female engineers, plumbers or craftsmen exist. Here the roles are distinctly separate with much more prejudice and less acceptance of a woman wanting to train in these practical courses.

I don't really know what conclusions to draw from my experiences. I am naturally drawn to interpreting these instances as being restrictive of women in  society, if not in practical execution at least in perpetuating negative stereotypes and creating an atmosphere of pressure and expectation. However, I do understand how they can be seen as supportive of women, particularly mothers in allowing them and giving them room to be with their children and care for them. It just surprised me how traditional the attitudes remain in such a forward society, especially in comparison to the extreme consciousness of British society to gender equality, which doesn't appear to be a topic here at all, or at least nowhere near on the same level.

This is also based on my own experiences and what I've personally seen and heard which in terms of the scale of the whole of Germany renders little exposure and like I said above could be unique to this area or my particular situation. I hope I haven't offended anyone, that certainly wasn't my intention and if anyone has any experiences they'd like to share then please do comment underneath, thank you!

Put That In Your Pipe and Smoke It!

Anyone currently living on the continent will be experiencing this phenomenon and it's something which makes me kind of glad to live in Britain, even with its ridiculous Nanny State laws.

Smoking.

In principal I have no problem with it, so long as those who choose not to smoke are not affected. This appears to be the line that countries like Britain and New Zealand have taken in banning smoking "in enclosed or substantially enclosed public or work places" since July 2007. This prevents non-smokers from experiencing the dangers of passive smoking and retains their element of choice over the whole situation. The Germans and Austrians have other ideas, however, and it wasn't until living here that I actually began to seriously notice the difference.

In basic day to day life, smoking here takes a much higher place in normal public activity. Everywhere you go it can be as much as every other person who has lit up and is smoking their way down the high street, into a restaurant, in a taxi or at a football game. And when the street happens to be empty of real life smokers, posters and adverts everywhere are promoting the tar enriched products at reduced prices through images of beautiful looking women and perfect happy couples.

Here this seems completely normal and what really gets me is the number of people smoking around very young, or young, children. Mothers pushing prams will stop, light up, and then grab the hand of their toddlers before continuing, pram and cigarette in one hand and child in the other. It's been a long time since I've seen that in Britain and certainly not as often as I see it here.

Amongst students too there is a growing smoking epidemic and no wonder. The constant exposure to advertising and the ease of purchase makes them easy prey for the tobacco companies who recognise this growing sector as a massive profit margin. Playing with lives to make money. There are cigarette machines on many streets and at the supermarket the tobacco and cigarette sections are right by the till, all you have to do is push the button of your desired brand and it drops right onto the belt ready to be paid for and I have never seen an ID been shown, or any questions asked. Ok at the machines outside you need to swipe a valid 16+ ID card but with no one there to control or oversee the machines all it takes is one friend over 16 or one fake ID and you can get your hands on as many cigarettes as you like.

I guess it's only because I am a non-smoker that I notice these things as after sitting in a smoke filled restaurant or cafe, I notice the smell on my clothes and in my hair for days afterwards even after washing. Or even when my 11. or 12. Klasse arrive for my lesson I can smell it on their clothes as they walk past to their seats.

The tide is changing, however, and now most restaurants for example will either out-rightly declare they are non-smoking or they will at least sit the smokers together, away from the rest of the room as was normal pre
2007 in the UK. But the figures are still high. Germany has one of the highest numbers of smokers in all of Europe with the number of cigarettes smoked per adult per year (average) standing at 1,045 compared to Britain's 750. These vending machines I mentioned earlier are also demonstrative of the phenomenon as Germany has the highest number of cigarette vending machines per capita with 800,000 per 82 million people. In a comparative survey of medical students in Goettingen and London, it was found that around 23% of the German medical students smoked compared to the 10% ratio of London medical students.

This is one of those things that moving to another country teaches you. It's not something you're going to read in a guide book or even a text book but it's evidently a much bigger part of their culture out here and probably says more about the hyper-sensitive and over-protective Britain than it does about the more relaxed Europeans. For my part, it's an aspect of the culture here which baffles me as for a nation so obsessed with their health and good living, to be so dependent on things which are not only expensive but have serious medical drawbacks, feels a little non-compliant and will probably remain so until I leave in June. 

Holidays are coming....

So after promising a more regular update, this post comes almost exactly one month after the last one - sorry!

Since Josh left I've been here there and everywhere, exploring more of the areas within reach of my free travel card and meeting more wonderful people.

On Friday the 8th of November I nipped over to Muenster-Sarmsheim for the afternoon to catch up with Maike who I'd met earlier in September. She was doing a work experience placement at my school when I arrived and made the long staffroom hours pass a whole lot more quickly! I hadn't seen her in a while so we had a good old catch up in between playing with her cat and planning Christmas market adventures!

Work experience students!

Maike :)

Saturday then marked the beginning of a wonderful little weekend break with Alison and Alie from Frankfurt as we met in Mainz for the day. Alison and Alie both study German with me in Oxford and it's been wonderful being so close over here too! We met at the train station and began our day sightseeing starting at Schillerplatz before hitting the cathedral, altstadt, neustadt and exploring the river front with a lovely Italian and Kaffee und Kuchen in between!

Alie then headed back to Frankfurt ready for a trip the next day and Alison accompanied me back to Bad Kreuznach where my flatmate was having a games evening which was actually really helpful for our German! Some Flammkuchen and potato smileys and the evening was well under way.

The next morning I dropped Alison off at the train station and headed back home for some admin and lesson planning before walking over to my teacher's house to spend the afternoon baking Kekse and Plaetzchen which are like biscuits and are a German speciality at this time of year! We made two good batches and after decorating the whole lot sat down with a cuppa and munched our way through the lot of them!

Full of tea and biscuits I cycled into town and met Birgitte and Erica to grab a few cocktails in what was left of Happy Hour at Kornchen before Erica introduced us to one of the best Italian's in the town, Da Vinci's,

which serves not only amazing food but at a very decent price!

Monday school began again and as per usual the mini holiday of a weekend seemed a distant memory. This particular week however, had plenty to keep me occupied!

On Tuesday I was invited to a Sankt MartinsFest which is a festival which happens every eyar on the 11th of November. This year, however, the service was on the 12th and we all gathered in the church listened to the children sing songs and show us all their lanterns before hitting the streets for a lantern lit procession! We were all following Sankt Martin himself dressed in a long red clock accompanied by a red-cloaked rider on  the back of a Shetland pony!

The procession ends in a field where a massive bonfire is lit and everyone eats Weckermann, a huge sweet bread baked into the shape of a man with raisins for eyes and coat buttons. They're delicious!

The afternoon of Wednesday the 13th was spent in a lovely little bakery in Bad Muenster am Stein for some Kaffee und Kuchen with Birgitte. I'm slowly working my way through their selection as this is the only bakery open here on a Sunday afternoon so it becomes a little bit of a treat to walk down after lunch and grab a little afternoon snack!

Thursday saw the beginning of a three day travelling bonanza with an afternoon trip down to Worms to catch up with Georgina  from the induction course. Worms is a beautiful town with loads of history, there are dragon statues all over the place and after having puzzled over it for a while Georgina and I finally figured out that there was a dragon slayer who came from the town and killed the last dragon to threaten the land and in the legend he was regarded as a hero so the town honours hum and the beast he destroyed! There are also very important links to old German as parts of the Nibelungenlied, which is a staple German medieval text, is based in and around the city so it's got a very historical feel as well as a modern centre with loads of shops!
It also has an ice rink at the moment for its Christmas market which is definitely a plus!

Straight from the train on Thursday evening I then met Erica for some more Da Vinci sampling and to catch up before her trip to Berlin which sounded amazing, I'm so excited to be going in January!

Friday was then earmarked as a day to explore a new and very popular town which I'd heard so much about and been told to visit by so many people! Koblenz was the destination and Rhi and were back at our travelling again, meeting on the train and heading North to see the sights and re-unite ourselves with another friend from the Induction course (we're everywhere!). We made it into town where we met Naomi before wondering a bit through the main centre and grabbing some lunch in a wonderful little French cafe (I know we're meant to be experiencing typical German culture but the smell of a good French cafe is just so inviting - so many wonderful cakes!). Unfortunately the Seilbahn was closed fr the low season so we didn't get the chance to ride the cable cars and see the castle at the top but we didn't get a good Titanic pose off the Deutsches Eck which is the meeting point of the Rhein and the Mosel rivers and is a pretty amazing sight to see. Koblenz also has some lovely churches and after exploring a few we also managed to grab a quick look at the massive palace near the river front. It was absolutely huge and provided a perfect photo opportunity!

My weekend wasn't over yet and after two decent trips number three was in the pipeline for Saturday. I met Rhi once more on the train but this time we were heading in the opposite direction, a direction that neither of us had been in before - uncharted territory! And for the second time this year we broke out of the Bundesland and explored pastures new in the wonderful city of Saarbruecken in the Saarland!

Thankfully there's a direct train from Bad Kreuznach and to make the whole experience even more wonderful we met up with a whole group of people from the Induction course who are living in Trier. Trier is one of the oldest cities in Germany and looks amazingly beautiful, one day I hope to visit it's just that as the crow flies it's really not that far away but for some reason there are no trains which go West from Bad Kreuznach! They all go either North, South or slightly East so to get to Trier takes a long time by train when by car it's so close! As a compromise we met up n Saarbruecken as it was about equidistant for all of us. Catherine from Kaiserslautern was also in Trier visiting Flo and everyone the day before so we had an even bigger group from all over Rheinland-Pflaz all converge on the capital of the smallest Bundesland.

Sunday was then a very nice and relaxed wind down day!

The following week was spent in anticipation of my parent's arrival which was on Thursday the 21st of November. I met Rhi in Mainz for a quick spot of lunch (loving the free travel card it's so amazing!) before getting the train on from there to the airport to meet them. It was so lovely to see them again and we had a lovely long weekend of catching up and sightseeing ahead of us. On the Friday my dad had to go to a meeting for work down in Mannheim so he left early Friday morning and I joined my mum for breakfast before we wandered into town and did a bit of (totally necessary) shopping and Christmas planning. he market in Kormarkt was on and mum got to experience how Christmassy the Germans can be as every single stall was decorated and lit up ready for the festive season!

Mum and I then had an adventure with the trains to head down to Mannheim to meet dad there, and despite literally walking out of the station and into the car I can technically say I've been to Mannheim which is another Bundesland ticked off the list. Only 13 more to go! We then drove up back towards Bad Kreuznach, stopping off along the way for another meeting which potentially needed some translating skills hence the trip down to Mannheim. We then crashed back at the hotel and had dinner before walking around the town centre and exploring the altstadt lit up and night, discovering the Christmas market which had appeared over night!

Saturday was a full on tourist day with no work or agenda, only holiday and sightseeing. We hit the town for a bit of early morning shopping (we were literally the first people in the shops outside the door at 9.30am) before getting in the car and heading to Bingen to catch the ferry to Ruedesheim am Rhein, one of the prettiest towns in Germany. Again the cable cars were closed but that didn't matter as the small, narrow, cobbled streets and typical German houses and inns were breathtaking as was the Christmas shop which had every type of Christmas decoration possible, all hand made and carved by hand! Before we left my parents also sampled a Rudsheimer Kaffee which was an elaborate recipe of burning a tiny amount of liqueur ont he table in front of you and caramelising some sugar before adding the coffee and cream - it looked amazing!

Next we headed on down to Mainz so my parents could see the town I always seem to go about! We walked through the altstadt and had a look at the cathedral and Schillerplatz before grabbing a Ditsch pizza on our way back to the car to get back in time for dinner.

They left on the Sunday and to stive off the inevitable homesickness, Erica and Birgitte came over for a pizza and nibbles evening which was lovely.

The next week was largely spent in bed with the flu but it ended lovely with a trip to London to see Josh one last time before Christmas. We hit the aquarium which is something neither of us had done before and then had a wonderful dinner at the foot of the London Eye! It was so lovely to be back home for a bit and now there's only 15 days before I fly back for Christmas - the time's gonna fly by!

Hopefully I'll post again before then ;)

Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Cara x