A little bit of Can“eh”dia in Berlin

I think everyone in the world now knows who Canada’s PM is – it’s actually a bit strange the amount of times I get asked about him, as if we were close personal friends. I suppose I should just be thankful that people are finally aware that we are in fact, a country.  

Earlier this year, the PM came to Berlin to meet with Chancellor Merkel and well, I have to admit, I got a little fangirl about it. Lucky for me, I know people in important places – well have offices in important places and I was able to stalk, I mean SEE, him live in person! Though I will say the security looked really suspicious when I showed up and said I had a meeting and then pulled out an ON driver’s license . . .

The arrival - though it looks like we are watching this from prison!

You can see the Reichstag in the background

Lovely weather!

The press conference . . .

But sadly no selfies!

And just to top it off, the Canadian embassy . . .

A day at the lake

In Berlin it is very popular to head out to the lakes for the day – granted more so in the summer than the winter! They are easily accessible by public transit and are pretty much considered part of the city though you feel like you are million miles away while you are there.

A colleague of mine had invited me for a traditional Bavarian breakfast – Weisswurst (with beer of course!) – with his family. This traditional Bavarian breakfast, includes boiled sausages served with sweet mustard, freshly baked pretzels and a Weissbier (wheat beer, but be careful, weissbier does not mean the same thing everywhere in Germany). The sausages are white and you remove the casings before eating. Traditionally they were served as breakfast because the meat wouldn’t keep so you had to eat them shortly after they were made.

Following the meal, we decided some exercise was probably warranted so headed to the aforementioned lakes. We did the entire length of the bigger one before we paused for a refreshing beverage 😊 I have to say, I was completely surprised to see people skating and playing hockey. While the temperatures get below zero here I really didn’t think it was cold enough to freeze the lake the amount necessary to skate on it . . .or maybe the Germans are far more adventurous!

Maybe there will be a post on the lakes again when the weather is better!

Prepping for another event

Though this time, I was not actually working on it . . .

The finance track decided to have an art exhibit as part of their Ministerial in March – why still remains a mystery to me but when I was asked to contribute, I said sure - why not?! The concept was to paint rocks any way you wished and then an artist would display them in a museum (yes for reals) right before the meeting. Rocks were sent from around the world for this project. This was serious business:

My contribution – don’t worry I won’t quit my day job!

And the final result:

My friend, seen here, was kind of enough to search out all my rocks and send me photos of them. So if nothing else comes of my time here, I have proof that I made a contribution to at least one event!

Maybe one day I will make it to Baden Baden to see the fruit of my labour . . .

A weekend (or two) in Paris

To no one’s surprise I headed to Paris for a visit to catch up with friends. Since most of time in Paris is now just spent catching up with friends, I don’t take a lot of photos but I had a few to share so thought I would. In order to be more efficient (I’m so German now!), I have also included pictures from when I was there in January in case the weather looks different – though I doubt you could tell from these photos!

Finally made it to Angelina's which was once the favourite of celebrities like Coco Chanel. It's also famous for the hot chocolate :)

And then when the weather got better!

Vigeland Park

Vigeland Park is the world's largest sculpture park made by a single artist - Gustav Vigeland from 1939-1949. There are more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and wrought iron. Vigeland was also in charge of the design and architectural layout of the park.  

As you will see in the photos below, there are some very unique ones! (or as I called it, the weirdo statute park). Despite the fact that it was the middle of winter, the park was filled with locals and tourists alike.

City Tour

The other activity I had pre-planned was the free city walking tour. I have done these in many countries and generally they are better than the paid ones. This one was no exception – informative and covers quite a lot of ground. You start at the main train station beside a large tiger.

Back when Oslo was called Christiania it was nicknamed the city of tiggers or "tiggerstaden"  which actually translates to city of beggars by Danes and others that visited from the more affluent western parts of the country. The transition from "tigger" (beggar) to "tiger" is likely due to Danish pronunciation, or lack thereof and of course,  Oslo preferred tiger and thus became known as “tiger town”.

Then the tour takes you towards the opera house passing a few places on the way . . .

This newer opera house, opened in 2008, is the only one in the world that doubles as a public plaza, with a roof designed to be walked on. It also has a cool statue outside of it that is in the water which is open to interpretation.

During the tour you also pass the oldest building in Oslo - the Old town hall built n 1641 - which sits on Christinania sqaure.

Old town hall

Christiania Square

And then past the Akershus Fortress. Started being built in 1299 under king Håkon V. This medieval castle, which was completed in the 1300s, and had a strategical location at the very end of the headland, and withstood a number of sieges throughout the ages. King Christian IV (1588-1648) had the castle modernised and converted into a Renaisssance castle and royal residence.  

The Fortress overlooks the harbour and City Hall. City Hall is famous for hosting the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. There is a museum next door with some street art outside.

City Hall was completed in 1950 to celebrate the city's 900th birthday, the building is decorated by Norwegian art from the early 1900s. 

The guide actually took us inside to take a quick look at the interior rooms including where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony takes place.

 

 

 

The neatest part of the building is that every hour from 7am until midnight, the bells in the building’s east tower will play a short melody – known as a ritornello. The musical selections in the morning and at midnight may be as traditional as you’d expect are from the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg but the rest of the day’s hours are a truly eclectic mix of styles. The playlist ranges from video game music (e.g. “Super Mario Bros.” and “Minecraft” have both been featured) to film scores, pop and rock (while I was there they even played Prince!) and electronic acts like Kygo and Kraftwerk (which will come up again in a later post). The playlist can be found on Spotify.

The last stop is the Theatre which for some reason I cannot find photos of, not sure what I did with those and then on my way back to the hotel I swung by the Palace.

View from the park in front of the palace