Berlin & Potsdam

Heading off to Berlin on a weekend break, I just about ended up doing more flying than sightseeing on account of Easyjet delays there and back again! Six hours delay at one end....





Berln is a city of contrasts not much remains of its past and its future reminded me of something out of the Jetsons.







It was great to see the Wall and it was hard to appreciate what life must have been like when it was up with no man's land in between. What was East Germany is still much draber than West so its fairly easy to tell when you are in what was East or West Germany.






I headed out to Potsdam and checked out the Schloss Sanssouci, where Fredrick the Great resided and head of the Prussian empire, totally different than Berlin and not bombed! There is a whole area there which was known as the Forbidden City as it was occupied by the KGB during the time the wall was up, eerie place..

Scenes of London - Richmond Park

Hard to believe that somewhere this beautiful is in such a large city London is full of surprises!

Madonna - Sticky and Sweet Tour at Wembley

Ever since I first heard Madonna on tv I have wanted to go to a concert, she didn't dissapoint the best concert I have ever been too, more like a show than a concert! Seeing her at Wembley, priceless....Paul Oakenfold opened for her so it was like being in a club but with 90,000 other people!

Burghley Horse Trials and Soccer Aid Poles Apart

An action packed weekend, first up was the Burghley Horse Trials held about 2 hours out of London.





It was a great day and only turned torrential at the end of the day. Colina and I found it funny that there was a Dog Creche but there didn't appear to be a kids Creche, only at Burghley.


The house and grounds were gorgeous, although in some areas the mud was several inches thick, it reminded me of what Glastonbury must be like, albeit with much cleaner toilets!





I saw Zara Phillips, William Fox-Pitt, Mary King and Andrew Nicholson fly around a very demanding course. We saw about eight falls, seven of which were spectators falling into the mud and one was a horse and rider at the mushrooms, ouch...







Next up was Soccer Aid where all the money went to Charity, Chi & I got to see Gordon Ramsey (yes Rach I put a picture just for you!), Alan Shearer, Teddy Sherringdon, David Seaman, Gareth Gates, Craig David, Brian McFadden etc etc all running around on the Wembley pitch.





Great fun and amazing for me I didn't fall asleep, Chi threathened to put a photo of me up on face-book if I did.






Wembley is a awesome venue, it looks especially spectacular at night when its all lit up!

Mallorca es hermoso (is beautiful!)

You know that holiday smell the one that is really hard to describe but as soon as you smell it you know that you're on a break, Mallorca (Majorca) has that in spades....





It was the last bank holiday for the year so I thought lying on a beach without much sightseeing to do sounded like a very cunning plan. So I brushed up on my Spanish and in two hours there I was in 31c, six miles of beaches and in my accomodation.





There didn't seem to have been many Kiwis in Mallorca before me all the taxi drivers and hotel staff that I spoke to couldn't believe that I was from NZ as it was so far away. I had decided to stay in a part of Mallorca that was home to German, French and of course Spanish as I didn't feel like hanging in Magaluf, where 1 in 10 Brits aged 20 - 35 gets in a fight, consequently I spoke Spanish all day.

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I did do a small amount of sightseeing in Palma de Mallorca, beautiful Cathedral with the interior designed by Gaudi, and a spectacular view of Palma from Castle de Bellver.











Fantastic few days, although I blame a book I was reading for how red I got on day 2, I was using factor 30 and still got a little burnt, and they say that the NZ sun in brutal.