They say they have had the most snow in December in Berlin for 110 years, but we have had a great time despite the cold. We arrived on Monday and Mikaela's friend Calum met us at the station. After finding the apartment we are staying at we headed off into town to get our bearings. We went to Alexanderplaz to see the big TV tower and had bratwursts from guys who carry them around on mobile BBQ's around their waists! After a yummy Vietnamese lunch at very popular Monsuier Vuongs, we headed down Unter din Linden, the main drag, which ended at the grand Brandenberger Tor, the old city gate. The Reichstag was closed due to terrorist threats so we couldn't climb the dome, so we settled for amazing apple strudel at Einstein's Kaffee an looked through the Mercedes and VW show rooms.

The following day we went on a walking tour around Berlin, taking in a lot of the sites and learning a lot of it's interesting history. Highlights was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of concrete blocks that look a bit tomblike. It has a great, but chilling, museum underneath that we visited later that day. We also saw bits of the Berlin wall that had been kept as monuments and the building that was the Nazi Luftwaffe building and later the East Berlin headquarters, where terrible massacres had occurred. We also visited the site where the Nazi book burnings occurred, which has a memorial of sealed empty bookcases underneath and the site of Hitler's bunker- now a carpark.

That evening we headed to a Christmas market in Gendarmenmarkt, which was the best one we saw. We had fantastic food and there were many great crafts for sale.

Wednesday was a museum day, we headed early to Checkpoint Charlie, the old American checkpoint and the adjacent museum, which wasn't very well set out and very crowded, but did have some interesting escape stories. After visiting the Sony Centre at Potsdamer Platz, we headed to the technical museum which had lots if trains and planes, was great!

Yesterday was quite a relaxed day, we strolled around Charlotenberg with it's fancy shops and spent quite a bit of time at KaDeWe the big department store. Here we had the best currywurst we have tried on their massive food floor! That afternoon we headed to Schloss Charlotenberg, one of the old palaces, and explored the new wing, built largely by Frederich the Great, interesting but very lavish!

After a quiet night we have now just arrived in Venice, bring on 2011!!