Ich bin ein Berliner

Hi everyone.
I hope you are well!!!
I am in Berlin and wish I was here for much longer it is such a great city!! So full of history and culture. I have met some really nice people at the hostel and on the bus and have hung out with them for the last couple of days. One of them, in fact, is a guy from Melbourne, he lives near Eltham and went to Eltham College (which is not too far from Warranwood). He has just finished high school and is taking a year off to travel through Europe for a year before going back to study Science at Melbourne Uni....... but check this out he is doing a Physics major with Engineering electives!! Sound familiar? How bizzare to randomly meet someone from just around the corner who is doing the same course as me at a petrol station in Holland on the way to Berlin!! I thought that was great!
I went to the Checkpoint Charlie museum which houses some of the contraptions that people used to get over or under the Berlin Wall. Things like makshift flying machines or cars with secret compartments.
We also went on a massive walking tour of Berlin for 4 hours yesterday in the hot hot weather. My brain is so full of politics!
We also hung out last night with the real Germans in a big beer garden, it was such a great night for sitting out all night.
gtg love Acushla.

Hi,
this is just to keep you updated. I spent yesterday afternoon wandering through the Van Gogh Museum. It was great, such amazing colours and dramatic lines. I really enjoyed myself!! I also went to the Rijksmuseum where I saw the one and only "Night Watch" painted my Holland's most famous painter (well of that time, and probably ever.... versus Van Gogh) Rembrandt. It is an amazing painting - there is so much movement and the contrast of light is so dramatic. It really looks like the Captain of the Watch (the man in the front) has his hand coming out of the painting. It is so big as well - to hang it in the palace they cut off three sides of the painting so it would fit above a door!! Now you would build a new house just to make sure it fits!! So the composition is really interesting..... sorry enough art talk. I had a good day.
Then I took the train out to Almere and my relatives took me out for the night. We had a great time! Lots of fun and dancing.
Now we're going to sit on the "beach" by the lake for the afternoon.
xoxo Cush

Holland

I am very well and in Holland meeting all the lovely family! It is great to see them and they are all so lovely.
I spent a few days with Marcel and his daughter Lana (who is soooo lovely! ) and his girlfriend Marian. It was really nice to live with them. Marcel took us out to Amsterdam for the day and we went to see Anne Frank's House and then went on a canal boat ride - a really nice way to see Amsterdam. Lana and I would go bike riding in the evening before dinner around the lake or walk the dog Jessy. It was really nice.
I spent yesterday on a walking tour of Amsterdam. It went for three and a half hours. It was great to learn a little about the history of Amsterdam.
Today I really want to go to the Van Gogh Museum so I'm off with some of my cousins (somehow we're related:)).
Ten days is nowhere near enough to do justice to this beautiful city or the really lovely and hospitable family.
I send lots of love to everyone. But I'm thinking especially of my close family this week and the Dutchies that we have in Australia. I send huge buckets of love to my Oma whose birthday it is on Monday - lots of kisses and best wishes galore!!!
Acushla.

Bruges - Belgium

Hi all,
I'm in Belgium now eating chocolate and drinking beer. They have raspberry beer here - how strange!!
Went for a big bike ride today (40 k's) to a small town then to the beach by the North Sea. It was really nice riding by the channel with the path lined with trees...... but I am sooo sore now...... I don't want to sit on a bike again (well not for a while anyway).
Bus About is really good - you get to meet some really great people and everyone's so friendly.
I'm off to Amsterdam tomorrow which should be good - catching up with all the Dutch rellies.
Love ya lots, Acushla

I love Paris in the Fall

Hi guys,

I'm well and I hope this finds you the same. Apologies for not writing sooner but I have been so busy roaming Paris. It is a wonderful city. Today I went back to one of my favourite spots in Paris a little bookshop caled "Shakespeare and Company". It is soooo lovely. It is a converted house so upstairs it has books over the bathroom sink and under benches. There are even beds still there so that you can sit and read. That's what I did this afternoon, I just sat there for a couple of hours and read an entire book. It was great. I then went to a park and sat by the Seine and just watched the world go by.
The weather is gorgeous - hot, sunny, lovely blue skies..... fantastic. Because I'm lazy I am going to put here a part of an email to a friend because I really don't want to write this all out again... so here is what I wrote after my first full day in Paris.

Saturday 12th July
I am loving Paris!! Its great. I just walked around the whole day (11 hours on my feet, they don't like me anymore). I went to the Louvre which is ok but not really my sort of art. A little too old. I really want to go the Impressionist's gallery!! A bit of Pisarro and Monet that will be great!!!! I only just got up (11:45 am) - we went out for dinner (sorry 'we' are the girls I'm staying with - distant family friends). They are all girls who are working in Paris after the end of ther Uni courses. They are sooo lovely . The house is crazy - six of us in a three bedroom house but it all works and it is great fun to hang out with some great girls. So we went out for dinner then went to the local square and because we live in the student quarter every one was outside drinking. It is so good, they have such a long twilight here in Europe during the Summer. It lasts until 11pm or so. So everyone is outside and the weather is nice. Lots and lots of fun. We then went to the Oz Bar (an "Australian" bar that really isn't Australian..... it just has Fosters, which is not a great beer, and digeridoos and Aussie flags around the place) but it was still really fun. I met lots of people (none of which were Australian!) so that was good fun. But the Parisian boys are quite sleazy. Ohh well. We got home around 5am and went straight to sleep. So that's my yesterday.
Paris is very beautiful when the sun comes out. You know those paintings with Roman palaces (pillars and such) that people like Leonardo and Botticelli (the Renaissance) painted that have amazing cream buildings with perfect looking clouds and big blue skies and you think that's inpossible?! Well that's what Paris looks like when the sun comes out. The buildings are soo lovely and the streets are soo wide and there are little boulevards down by the Seine..... it's all marvellous!
I also went to Notre Dame which has the most amazing carving on the front and gorgeous stained glass windows. I also went to the Opera House which inspired the book and play the "Phantom of the Opera". It is sooo grand! Red velvet everywhere! And down below is a room with mirrors on the roof and on the walls - it is really cool - so of course I had to spin around in the middle crazily!! He he. Ok I had better go and do some more exploring!


It is now Tuesday and I am still having a brilliant time.
Yesterday was Bastille Day so I went to see the military parade on the Champs Elysee. I couldn't see a lot of the marching from where I was but I had a grand view of the flyover by the great big planes in formation. It was great! And the tanks rolling down the Champs Elysee were really amazing. I then chilled for two hours just sitting on the grass waiting for the massive crowd to spread back out around the city. I then just wandered the city.
I sat on the banks of the Seine for a little while as I wrote in my journal. I had some French guy come up and we chatted away until he asked me to go to a club with him that night. I said no that I already had plans to meet Kasia (and I didn't want to go out with some stranger). In the afternoon I went to the 11th Quarter and listened to music while I waited to meet Kasia and her friend Ollie. The music was all jazzy and everyone was up dancing. "Everyone" being the locals - there weren't any tourists around except maybe me -but then I see myself as a "Traveller".... it's completely different :)
So Ollie, Kasia and I then wandered around the streets of Paris, bought some wine and headed towards the Eiffel Tower where the fireworks were. We found a good patch of dirt to claim and sat there talking until the fireworks.



THEY WERE BRILLIANT!!! So good and set to music and everything. So amazingly lovely, they really out did themselves this year. The tower itself is spectacular. I intend to go and climb it tomorrow and to marvel at its construction.
We then walked all the way back to the 7th Quarter and stayed up chatting at Ollie's girlfriend's apartment (sadly she was in Germany which was a shame that we couldn't meet her). We spent the night there. It was so much fun just talking and watching fireworks in Paris!!! YAY!!!!!!!

I also went to the Musee d'Orsay which has more modern art especially a lot of work by the Impressionists. So lovely.... in fact I loved it so much that I spent the whole afternoon there!!

I spent Sunday with Karsh. We went to Montmatre and visited the amazing cathedral Sacre Coeur.... it is so amazing! A mass was being celebrated at the time and the singing was lovely. We also wandered around the 6th and 5th Quarters going to the Jardin du Luxembourg, a lovely garden which used to be part of a stately home, and also having a look at the outside of the Pantheon.

I'm totally out of breath (so to speak) I hope you like the massive post.
All my love, Acushla.

PS: So to put it shortly - I'm having a brilliant time. Lots of love to all of you back home.
If you don't send me an email after that essay I don't know what I'll do :)
xoxoxoxoxox

I love Paris in the Springtime

Well here I am just about to embark on another adventure. I'm off to Paris this afternoon. I wanted to write to you all and let you know what I'm up too and that I'm thinking of you all. Having spent a couple of days in London and having experienced its chaotic nature I am happy to be leaving it for a while.
I am excited and anxious about traveling to yet another country, this time to  some that don't speak English (but you could argue that the Scottish and Irish don't speak English...... even the Geordies up in Newcastle don't because the accents are so strong :) !).
I love you all
I hope you haven't forgotten about me.
your Acushla.

Newcastle II

Hi all,
I am still here in England. I went for an explore today and got myself completely lost about 8 times! I ended up circumnavigating a lot of the coast near Newcastle. I'm going back down to London tomorrow!! But first I am going to Durham to explore a new city.
Love you all.
Thanks for the emails.
xoxoxox cush