So today marks my first travel birthday. One year ago today I boarded my first flight of this trip, leaving my home in Melbourne and headed out to see the world. Actually, because time zones are always a pain in the ass, it was actually more like 1 year and 16 hours or something but one year rolls of the tongue better. It's the longest period I've ever been away from Australia by at least a few months now.

Even in winter the weather is Barcelona is lovely. As soon as I landed and got through customs, I put my heavy winter jacket away and was quite comfortable in just a T-shirt. It seemed like the warm weather would be great for helping me kick a cold that had been hanging around for my last few weeks in Berlin, which had left me sniffing and congested for far too long.

One very cold a miserable morning I went to see Sachsenhausen concentration camp, out at Oranienburg. The camp was about a two kilometre walk from the station in literally freezing cold mist.

I did a huge amount of exploration around Berlin appreciating the street art, probably at least 4-5 days whole days worth in total if you added it all up. I did a few "self guided" walking tours (as in I had an itinerary or stuff to look for that I found somewhere online), A ton of randomly wandering after spotting a cool piece by chance, and a "Real Berlin" free walking tour that turned out to be quite heavily street art focused.

Once I'd gotten into Berlin and checked into my hostel I got in contact with my friend Erin, an American who I met in South Africa who lives in Berlin on a semi-regular basis. We arranged to meet up for dinner and she offered to give me an introductory tour of the city. It was pretty lucky timing as Erin was leaving Berlin for a month just a few days after I arrived.

We walked all around the city, past the museum island, Potsdamer Platz, Brandenburger Tor, The Jewish Memorial, and loads of other sites around the city. It was quite the whirlwind introduction to the city, we even visited a small Christmas market that was up and runing very early and got to have some gluhwein! Delicious spiced wine served hot, perfect for the cold nights leading up to Christmas. It was lovely to see Erin again and it felt like a really nice way to get to know the city being shown around by someone who obviously loves the place.