More Melbourne Cup photos

Melbourne Cup

Although we're all the way over here in Germany, we too have been caught up in Melbourne Cup fever (well not really, it was just a good excuse to drink free Australian wine and eat meat pies). We (Katho, Luke and I) managed to wrangle an invite to the Australian Embassy's Melbourne Cup party, which saw us getting all dressed up last night, ready to rub shoulders with all those prominent Aussie expats in Berlin.

Disappointingly, that Deutsche Welle newsreader wasn't there, nor anyone famous that we could recognise. I think it was fairly obvious that we were the only students in a sea of boringly dressed business people... you know the ones, young IT and management 'professionals' rubbing shoulders with pompous-looking, fat CEOs.

However, during the obligatory fashion awards, things started getting interesting. The third placed contestant was a lady who looked uncannily familiar; she has curly hair like Sam (from our German 5-6 classes), she has the same last name as Sam, and Sam said his mother was thinking of moving back to Germany... she must be Sam's mother! So after our third glass of wine each, we had gathered up enough courage to talk to her, and... she was Sam's mother, she's wonderfully lovely, and gave us plenty of dirt on Sam =)

Yes Sam, that's right, we met your mother!

How small the world is! And through her, we met a nice young Australian Opera singer and his wife, which means we might just have to go see him perform at the Komische Oper here in Berlin.

Anyway, here's a photo of Luke and I in our scratched together outfits;

I'll put one up with Katho in it when I find it...

Bis dann.

It's a good thing I bought that duck-down jacket

Because it's bloody freezing! Yes, that's right, it's freezing. When Luke and I picked up our bikes from the station last night, there was ice on the seats.

The weather here's been strange. Up until Tuesday, you could get around with a warmish jacket on. Then on Wednesday, it just hit; it started raining, and the wind that whipped around us was icy cold. The sort of cold that seeps in through the gaps between your new duck-down jacket and your skin, freezing your lungs and making your ears hurt and your nose feel like ice.

It was like the weather said, ok, it's the first of November, I think it's time to turn up the ice. And it's not even winter yet! For the last month or so, we've had the most glorious Autumn I've ever experienced. One thing I've noticed about Europe, is that you can really tell the difference between seasons; after the long winter, spring really did 'spring' with all sorts of flowers, blossoms and the greenest greens I'd ever seen. Then came the hot summer, and now the autumn. All of a sudden the leaves of the trees started changing colour, the full spectrum from yellow to orange, to red and even browns. Now the leaves are falling, and there are huge piles of them in the street. It's really beautiful... except for the cold!

Apart from that, life here's going along as it always has, except for a UTS assignment, which I'm studiously avoiding at the moment. The most exciting news is that we're (Luke, Katho and I) are going to a Melbourne Cup Day party at the Australian Embassy here next week! Get to rub shoulders with Aussie expats, including that yummy newsreader from Deutsche Welle =)

I'm sure I'll give you a rundown about it while I'm procrastinating next week.

Bis dann...