Soon after getting off the train in the city centre we started trying to figure out what we were going to do. I wanted to go on a Segway tour where they take you around the city on Segways! I thought that would be a bit different but Janka wasn’t that keen and besides we missed the one and only leaving time of 10AM. So the second choice was an open top bus tour. We found one that looked identical to the ones they have in England and got ourselves tickets for that. The guide on board was OK he said his spiel in German first then in English. I got the impression that what he was saying in German was much better than the English translation as people seemed to laugh when he said something in German and yet it wasn’t that funny in English. He spent much longer speaking in German than English but we got the jist of what was going on but he was nowhere near as good as the Irish tour guides. One funny highlight of the tour was going past Tergarden which is a large park in the centre of Berlin. For some reason people like to sun bath there, close to the road, butt naked! It was actually quite disturbing seeing overweight Germans naked in a park. We decided NOT to go walking through the there during our stay.

After doing a complete 2 hour circuit on the bus we then started going back to the locations on the bus tour that took our fancy. After we got sick of walking we heading back to the hotel.

Once cleared we brought a travel card for 4 days for all forms of transport and made our way towards our hotel which is on the other side of the city to the airport.

The star ratings on hotels in Europe are very different to those in the UK which we already learnt from our trip to Spain; however Germany’s ratings I think are a step below that again. We booked a three star hotel which would normally have a double bed with nice pillows a jug for making your own cups of tea/coffee etc. This place looked like the Russians had built it, it was pretty drab from the outside the girl at reception was not playing with a full deck, the hall ways and rooms seemed quite dim and dreary, the room was very basic, and the doors hung on metal door frames so sounded like prison doors shutting. Anyway that is enough whining about the hotel.

We got to our room unpacked then went for a walk to check out our surroundings. We stayed in the Western most edge of the city called Charlottenburg but it was still quite populated and busy. There were plenty of restaurants and links to trains and buses. We got ourselves the necessary ice cream to combat the really hot sunny afternoon. I don’t know why it is that all of Europe has incredible ice creams that are very similar to Italy’s renowned Gelatos however England couldn’t sell you an eatable ice cream to save themselves.

Anyway that night we went to a nice Italian restaurant, yes we are in Germany and you are probably wondering why we didn’t go to a German restaurant, well that is because there aren’t any (well none near us) apparently authentic German food is very cheap and now that Germans have a bit of money they feel that the old food is beneath them so instead eat the food of the countries that kicked their ass in WWII, irony! The place we went to was really nice, the staff found us an English menu and we got pizza and red wine for dinner. The wine we had was excellent, so much so we brought another bottle from the corner shop on the way back to the hotel!

Our airport transfer was organised to pick us up late in the afternoon so we rang them to ask if they could simply pick us up in the morning instead. Unfortunately they decided to be complete wankers about it all and refused to reschedule, so we left the booking in place and organised our own way back to Barcelona. We took the bus which is actually a lot cheaper than the transfer bus and made our way in to Barcelona with all of our luggage.
We got to the central bus station and got ourselves a map of the city so we could start planning what we wanted to see. The first thing we had to get sorted was a place to store our luggage and the only options we had was the public lockers at the bus station or the central train station. The train station was the best choice as it was closer to the airport however it was on the other side of the city from the bus station. After looking at the map for a while we decided that we should just walk it as it “didn’t look that far”. After 20 minutes of dragging our suite cases through the city we decided to use the underground to get there. The first problem was that we had no idea what ticket to buy as their tariffs are setup on a zone system similar to England but the key is to know where you are and where you need to go in relation to the zones on their map. Luckily a lady came and offered to help us who worked for the underground but that was an effort in itself as she spoke very little English and was more concerned about telling us how to protect our luggage from muggers than actually helping with which ticket to buy. We eventually got our tickets and got our luggage dropped off at the train station.

We headed back in to the city and started near the centre of the city and decided to work our way down to the harbour. We got to see a lot of the sites we wanted to by following that path including the Temple de la Sagrada Familia, Las Ramblas, and the Barcelona Wharf.
The one place I wanted to see was the Olympic Stadium which was used during the 1992 Olympics. It was a bit out of our way but since we had time to kill before our flight thought it was a worth while trip. After a ride on the underground, an unattended train ride up a hill, then a short walk we made it. I must admit I was quite disappointed at what we found. From the outside it looked fairly nice however inside it was terrible! It was riddled with cats, and reeked of cat piss! They still use the stadium for concerts and football matches which was surprising considering it looked more like a cat sanctuary.
After our visit to the stadium we made our way back to the train station to collect our luggage then made our way to the airport to catch our flight. I think if we ever return to Spain it will be to a more remote and authentic part of the country so as to avoid the tourist ruined beaches and boring cities.

I am trying my best to get the certifications the courses prepare you for and have done a couple but time is always against me as you have to do 20-30 hours of study to prepare for the exams in some cases.

The best part of the job so far though is the variety. I have already had projects at some of the largest blue chip companies in Europe and got to see some pretty impressive data centres. Each week I am in a different location, a different office. It is going to be really weird going back to work in NZ after this. Having said that though I have just been put on a large project at BT so will be working from there for quite a while.

Janka has started a new job as well. She is working for a young family not far from us looking after their three children with specific attention to their autistic child. The best part is it is Monday to Friday so she has her weekends free now. This year is also her final year studying to become a play therapist. It will be a lot easier this year as she now has her own car so we won’t have to plan who has the car and when.

We got her the car in December. It is a little Ford KA 2000, just enough to get her to and from work and to the shopping centre on the weekend. We had it for less than a month and thought we would take it to Camberley to go shopping. We had just got off the M3 when the thing starting making a huge racket. I knew straight away we were not going to make it to the shopping centre. So it was The AA to the rescue and £720 later we had a new gearbox and clutch fitted as both had given up. Luckily we had a friend of a friend whose dad is a mechanic and managed to get a good deal.

The weather here this winter has been really out of character for England and has been quite mild. We haven’t had any snow worth mentioning yet and it has been relatively dry considering. I have been warned that when winters have been like this in the past that March gets really miserable and cold.

We are starting to plan for our trip to Egypt for September. Organising of time off work is the most difficult so far as Janka is only supposed to take holidays during school holidays and I need to make sure I take time off between quarters so as to limit the damage to my utilisation statistics which govern my pay rises. We will get there in the end though.

Well that is enough for now.