Hallo everyone!
We took a (horrible) Ryanair flight from Edinburgh to Berlin on Monday morning, but it’s been easily forgotten by the great time we’ve had in Germany’s capital. We’ve spent the past 4 days exploring the city and both know we want to come back- it’s an amazing place.
We did a little of everything, trying to cram as much touristy and non-touristy stuff in as possible: Brandenburger Tor, the Jewish memorial, Unter den Linden, the Tiergarten; visits on ‘Museum Island’ to a few of the amazing antiquities museums; drinks at a Bier Garten; a bike tour of Potsdam; swimming in Schlachtensee, and much more. It’s been great, if only we had more time!
We’ve been lucky enough to stay at good family friends’ apartment in the city, which made the trip even better. We cooked dinner for ourselves for the first time in 3 weeks Tuesday night. Very strange.
Tomorrow we catch an early morning ‘InterCity’ express train to Amsterdam. So until next post(card), auf wiedersehen!

A photo essay featuring Josh in Great Britain’s iconic phone booths.

Enjoy.

Well, neither of us are technically ‘real’ New Yorkers, but we’re close enough.
Before leaving the Cotswolds area yesterday we stopped by a lavender farm in Snowshill for a bit of pre-roadtrip frolicking (pictures below), then made our way up to The North (as all the road sides so aptly put it) with a quick stop in Stratford-upon-Avon for lunch. We got into York in the early evening and went for a stroll around town. Most of the old medieval city walls are still standing, and you can walk along many sections – which of course we did.
Today we took a lengthy free city-run tour of the City which ended up running over two hours (but was very interesting – there’s a lot of history in the city). Next stop: the National Rail Museum (free admission). To end the day, we attended Evensong at York Minster, an amazing old cathedral rivaled only by Westminster in scale. Also, Eddie Izzard is totally right about the Anglican Church. With all that music and singing, you’d think things could be a little more upbeat. I guess the Church of England is the emo scene of the religious world.
Tomorrow we head up to Edinburgh, with stops at Hadrian’s Wall and wherever else strikes our fancy!

We spent a rather care-free (though I suppose this whole trip is care-free, really…) day in Bath today. It’s a small city, packed in tight with beautiful Georgian-age buildings, and of course, several baths – including a Roman bath dating from around 70 AD. As if we hadn’t gotten in enough walking the past two days, we took two walking tours – a free city-run tour, heavy on Georgian-age history, but very well led by a volunteer named Jack; and a ‘tour’ in the evening put on by a company called Bizarre Bath, which is really more of a walking stage/comedy/magic show, which was a ton of fun and a great way to end the day. Tomorrow we pick up our rental car and see how well I fare driving in Britain…

An absolutely amazing (though thoroughly exhausting) day! We hiked 16 miles, almost 7.5 hours from Sparsholt Firs to Ogbourne St George along The Ridge Way (or Ridgeway Trail), a pre-historic path through southern England. It passes by beautiful open country and farmland, rolling hills, and a few Iron and Stone Age monuments. We had the trail almost entirely to ourselves except around the monuments and a cyclist here and there… our feet, legs and shoulders are achy and tired, but what an experience! And there’s more tomorrow, stay tuned…