From Aussie to Ossie

Location

It's cold, damn cold.

Living in Berlin has turned out to be pretty cool. I've been taking things pretty easy, mostly because after just a few days here I caught a horrible cold. People say it's a kind of right of passage here. Everyone gets sick in winter when they live here. It's not too much of a wonder the way people cram onto the U and S-Bahns. The boys will remember how stuffy and hot the cabins were during the heat wave. Well they're just as hot and stuffy in winter except you've got a horde of blank faced Berliners blowing their noses.

I've been spending a bit of time in Amsterdam as well where a 17-euro museum card is getting a good workout. I can't work out whether Berlin or Amsterdam is colder but Amsterdam wins in the rain department hands down.

I wouldn't be a real Berliner if I didn't speak Deutsch so three nights a week I'm sitting around a table with a few other foreigners repeating sprech-en, sprech‚ sprecht‚ sprechen.

As you can see from the photo my old GDR high-rise looks straight onto the Berlin Dom, which is rather smartly light up at night. The Mitte area near me is great for clubs and bars and eating out, kinda like Paddo in Sydney. Dante and Diva seem to be the pick for RnB while for just chilling out nothing has come close to the Beach Bar. Unfortunatly it has, like summer, has now disappeared in favour of ice-skating rinks and Christmas kiosks.