I had read both The Auschwitz Volunteer and Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account in the weeks leading up to our trip to Europe, to reacquaint myself with some of the facts and background leading to the most effective and brutal genocide attempt in human history. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the scope and enormity of the horror we felt as we wandered the snow encrusted paths of these awful museums of indescribable human suffering.

Our driver got us to Auschwitz main camp before anyone else arrived and it was eerie and confronting to stand under the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei gate upon entry. We didn't feel like taking photos, but I'm glad we did in the end, as they go part of the way to describing our feelings on this day: shocked, cold, stunned and almost in a trance-like state for the majority of the time. We opted to self-guide, as we do at every opportunity we are afforded, but it was an especially good decision here. As the tours began to fill the place, we were able to cut out, skip a few sections, then head back later in peace and silence.

I remembered that the phone had a black and white function on its camera and thought that as the day was struggling to be more than monochromatic anyway, it would be a good choice for most of the photos. The main camp was barracks after barracks of horror. We were so shocked by the mountains of hair behind glass that I forgot to take a photo and we only properly regained our senses by the time we entered the next barracks. The well-known and written about "killing wall" was almost the most shocking thing in the camp, where many thousands of innocent men, women and children were slaughtered at this spot. We spent more than two hours at the main camp before we decided to rejoin Peter, our driver at the front for a ten minute drive to "Auschwitz II" the vastly superior killing machine that morphed into being after the evil genius of the Nazi brains trust realised that their goals could never be met at the original camp.

The main camp is very well preserved and is a physical monument to the millions who died there. Birkenau is more of an emotional tribute. While the famous train entrance and the tracks along with many of the wooden huts still stand, it is the vast acreages that are the most stunning and the stark chimneys against the horizon left by a panicked SS trying to burn the evidence of their atrocities as they fled further and further west in the end. We walked though some bitter snow flurries and wondered how anyone could survive harsher weather, dressed in rags, maltreated, worked almost to death, beaten, fed on nettles and water, all with the prospect of near-certain, horrific death hanging over their shoulders every single day and night. We walked though the outer camps few huts that were open to the public and were confronted by beastly smells: could the rank smell of dying humans permeate the wood of these bunks to this day? The ruins of the ovens were more evidence of fleeing, panicking guards and we witnessed the spot where people were selected to go "to the left", which meant directly to baths, death then ovens, or "to the right", where they would live short, tortured lives until they could work no more, whereupon their fate was the same.

We'll never go back to these horrific places. However, we're both glad we went: it feels almost like it is a human being's right of passage to witness it. This is the album link.

I'll try and publish a final instalment tomorrow about Krakow: it will be cheerier.

5 p.m., freezing cold and night was falling rapidly like a heavy blanket over what looked like a ghetto in the backstreets of Kreuzberg, Berlin. I powered up the phone and texted Karsten who assured us he'd be there in a few minutes. Our luggage was propped against a crumbling, graffiti-scarred wall outside what looked suspiciously like a crack den's oversize, creaking front door which had seen better days, when Karsten rolled up, led us into a tagged-up stairwell, up 5 flights and ushered us inside our "communist era style" apartment. Central heating units not dissimilar in size, colour and consistency to 1960's style Volkswagens dominated the two rooms, yet seemed to be throwing out the heat of a disposable lighter. Four huge arched windows, unadorned with coverings of any kind, boldly looked into the inner courtyard and all the surrounding apartments. Karsten commented that we could, "Walk around naked in this heat if you like..." Welcome to Berlin!

Although taken aback a little from this less than auspicious beginning, we quickly found the groove of this hippest neighbourhood of modern Berlin. Once the Turkish quarter, real crack dens and squatter buildings are nesting side-by-side with gentrified apartments, retro communist pads (like ours)and tiny studios hidden away in pretty, but crumbling pre-war blocks. Looking beyond the graffiti, we saw uber-mod restaurants and bars, young families walking the streets in safety and galleries and boutique shops dotting the maze of backstreets near the Schonleinstasse underground station from which we'd make our many forays into another new city.

Alexanderplatz became our hub for the next 5 days. From here we ventured far and wide, catching the U bahn, the S bahn, trams and lots and lots of walking. After a few days, we had the layout of the inner city pretty much nailed down in terms of geography and transport links, and found ourselves asking, "Should we take the 'U' or the 'S' to get to Spandau?"  After the unexpected success of our Alternative Budapest tour, we decided to try the original, Berlin style. This was a fantastic journey over 4 and a half hours where we walked through alleys and back lanes, through postage-stamp parks and building sites, under freeways and in and out of train stations, hopping on and off different trams and walking a lot, all in the cause of discovering some of Berlin's most surprising and hidden gems. We stood on great mounds in the exclusive suburbs where Nazis first detained citizens in concentration camps, explored acres of re-vamped brewery buildings, marveled at cutting edge street art and ate currywurst in the shadows of the S bahn at the original stand where it was invented (and stood on the spot where the very first short moving picture was filmed, of a train leaving the same station). We saw sections of the Berlin Wall that most never see and saw incredible, historic buildings, sites and art that are not in any guide books or maps...our guide was young, energetic, smart and knowledgeable and it was a real treat.

We traveled out to the Olympic Stadium one morning and this was yet another reminder of the sick genius of Hitler and the Nazis. Berlin still resonates with all sorts of reminders of the war and it is encouraging to see the way Germany deals with this delicate issue: there are monuments, memorials, museums and exhibitions of all manner of atrocities, yet somehow they have made them all accessible without watering down the real and horrific history. The stadium had an amazing museum which captured the mania of the time, and the stadium itself stands as a monument to the image of strength and vitality that Hitler sought to instill in the populace: in fact, it is a gorgeous piece of modern architecture that takes your breath away even today.

Wandering Under der Linden on the way to the Brandenburg Gate, we could eat Brandeburger sausages or see bubble shows on the street along the way. Back on down, Cass was particularly taken with the subtle memorial in the ground at Bebelplatz commemorating the book burning that occurred there in 1933 at the instigation of Goebbels. Back again to the imposing Reichstag and all it's associated history and across to the Holocaust memorial, a haunting and unusual piece of open air art. On other days we travelled out into the suburbs to visit Berlin's answer to Versailles, the Charlottenburg Palace, and we both agreed it compared favourably (I actually think it was better, but my resident Francaphile does beg to differ!). I spied a Knights helmet amongst other things!(see above). It's just so European to be wandering back to the subway and stumble across an exhibition by Goya, Daumier and Toulouse-Lautrec on the way, a coincidence as we'd become new fans of the French satirist artist, Daumier, after seeing a colossal exhibition of his work in Budapest the week before. The Jewish Museum was a confronting visit, yet gave so much background of which we were unaware. We left having a much better picture of how they have been unfairly and unmercifully persecuted for many hundreds of years, culminating in the WWII genocide attempt. 

Of course, we managed to eat our share of German cuisine, and I must admit I was in heaven in this land which worships both meat(sausages) and beer. Cass managed to find other delicious options everywhere we went, however, and we also managed to sample a lot of fine cakes and coffees Deutschlandstyle! We discovered that sugar portions are called "zucker sticks" and discovered that you need to know some German to buy coffee in the supermarket...fun times!

The German capital is ablaze with independent thinking, avant garde style and exciting life. We loved the feel of this very different European city still struggling to come to terms with its past, while triumphant in its resurrection from the ashes of the allied bombing in 1945. Our minds filling up with the echoes of war atrocities and horrors perpetrated, we were ready to travel to Poland and face them head on in the most uncompromising setting of all. Photo album slideshow above for a time, then here.

Deep breath. Here goes! I'm back in the writing seat, out of practice and in a bit of a rush. I plan to do three entries, maybe even four, to include Budapest, Berlin, Krakow (and perhaps a separate one on Auschwitz). The plan is to get the first two done this week, with the first installment today (Budapest), second by Wednesday(Berlin) and the final one(s) done next Sunday-Monday in the regular weekly spot. Sound like a plan?

We'd selected the three countries/cities on our route as we'd never visited before and they all seemed to offer an exotic and different experience from ones we'd had on previous trips: there was not much more planning than that. Normally we'd make use of highspeed rail around Europe but the trains into Poland, in particular, are notoriously unreliable and slow. We had an 8 plane interchange for our 17 days!

Straight after school on Thursday, to Hong Kong, then Frankfurt and onward to Budapest, we arrived early Friday morning through the magic of erasing time zones, and taxied through a flurrying sky and snow kissed landscape to Budapest city. Ensconced at the gate to the old Jewish quarter we met the first of our hosts for the private apartments we would stay in all three cities. After a quick orientation session of the quirks and features of our very comfortable space, we were able to set out on a first foray into the city.

Cass had armed herself with a guide book and I had various apps and maps electronically, but our first mission was to grab some cash in "forints", nail down the metro, then get some supplies to stock our little apartment's larder to ensure we didn't need to brave the snow to get some breakfast. We worked the ATM, then worried over the rather confusing metro instructions for a while before buying a book of ten tickets, getting them validated then diving onto a very "communist era" looking train to travel a few stops down the line. We disembarked in a very un-communist looking sparkling mall where I sourced the right electrical adaptor I was after (come on, iPad, iPod, phone and camera all needed some help by now!)then we braved the underground dwelling masses to get some Hungarian foodcourt food: even that was delicious! It was -6 upside and we wondered how our Taiwanese down jackets were going to cope when we trained back and emerged into a bitter flurry. Scarf swathed and hats on, we were surprised to find they were coping really well!

Over the next five days, we had some of the most magical experiences you could possible imagine. Our second afternoon and evening was on our only organized tour, one which turned out to be an eye-opener. The Alternative Budapest tour was a walking one over 3 and a half hours and we saw street art, crumbling synagogues, yarn bombing, dead drops, hidden corners and the coolest bars and venues we've ever seen anywhere in the world. Our trip culminated in a trip to the A38, a massive Ukranian container ship moored on the Danube and a visit to the VIP bandroom out the back, deep in the working bowels of the ship. It's the number one bar in the world!

Our visits to the twinkling nighttime Christmas markets were almost too magical to believe: the snow wafted down on steaming cups of mulled wine and skaters danced on tiny ice rinks set up in the central courtyards. The wooden stalls sheltered wood and wool, marzipan and leather, pottery and paintings. We walked and sampled and marveled. We soaked up delicate  and perfect concerts of Hungarian maestro Liszt in churches on Christmas night and feasted on local delicacies in late night suppers just off the main square in toasty restaurants. During the day, we crossed the Chain Bridge, explored the Buda Castle hill and warded off the cold by ducking into restaurants and bars to sample more Hungarian coffees, wine and food. We traveled by underground to visit the magnificent Heroes' Square and in the shadow of the thousand dancing ice skaters were delighted to stumble on a major Cezanne exhibition....what does this city not have?!

One day, we boarded a bus for a tour of the city which, remarkably splashed straight into the Danube itself and continued the tour! The River Ride bus/ship was a unique engineering achievement and it was exciting to experience the splashpoint with rousing music as accompaniment. Check our little video here. We caught trams all round the city from Pest to Buda and back again, in the morning and the fading light and later at night. The double city split by the Danube is a perfect little gem of crumbling Gothic architecture, a thriving little metropolis pulling itself ever so slowly from its recent communist neglect and austerity. Even though cold and stark for much of our visit, Budapest is a succulent bud pushing its way out of a neglected garden bed, and we want to return to watch it blossom. Here is a link to the Budapest album once it disappears. Berlin here we come!

We've now attended our third Taiwanese wedding and I must report that they are remarkably similar to one another, yet remarkably different to what we might consider a "regular" ceremony and reception. Our neighbour and friend "Bessy"invited us to her daughter's wedding reception which we attended this weekend and it was quite an experience.

Firstly, we arrived after quite a rush in a taxi to Neihu, on time, smack on twelve noon, to find the garishly decorated reception area almost deserted. After being ushered with a distinct lack of subtlety to our seats, Bessy introduced us to the few other guests that were around. They subsequently noted that "Taiwanese people don't come till about 30 or 45 minutes after the scheduled start time": lesson number one learned!

We were regaled with high definition, massive sized images of the happy couple projected onto numerous screens around the walls as we waited for any real action to start. These wedding photos are taken many weeks before the main event and usually portray various cute shots from "romantic" locales, such as rowboats on lakes, on the seashore or in dimly lit restaurants. After some electronic intrusion from the professional master of ceremonies, an actual blasted fanfare announced the arrival of the wedding party. Huge double doors swung open to reveal the entry of the party to the accompaniment of strobe lights and a gush of bubbles from a bubble blowing machine. The bridesmaids and partners were followed by the parents of the groom, then Bessy with the groom and Bessy's husband with their daughter, Nicole, the bride. It was all pomp and splendour with an avalanche of silk, taffeta, hairpieces and false eyelashes. The couple then poured the cascading mountain of champagne (which no-one drank) for another photo opportunity, until the fuss slowly died down and the feast began.

We were served so many courses of "special and delicious" food, that I quickly lost count! Cass was served her own vegetarian fare as we were at a "meat" table. Unlike many years ago, I was able to sample all the foods, except perhaps the soup which seemed to be reminiscent of the soup ladled up in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", full of mysterious elements in murky depths, and I'm sure I spotted an eyeball bobbing around in there as well. The one bottle of red wine (for a table of 10!) was supplemented by sickly sweet "juice" although the guy next to me was sculling the vino, necessitating a couple of re-fills.

Halfway through proceedings the groom erupted into a karaoke version of some contemporary Taiwanese love song and paraded through the tables, smiling and waving as he sang, to be joined by much further fanfare, spotlights and bubbles as his new bride re-entered in yet another outfit. Some time after this, the wedding party en masse visited each table in turn, toasting the guests and thanking them for their attendance followed by scurrying still photographers and videographers all with their own paraphernalia.

Another announcement a short time later heralded a mass exit with a great line up of people exiting the venue via taking a photo with the newly wedded couple. The bride was in yet another fantasy style princess dress complete with massive train and she had a basket full of lollies to give to the guests as they posed with them.

Exhausted from all this, we ditched the glad rags when we got home and watched a bit of Twenty20 cricket as an antidote!! We have a slightly truncated week this week and we finish on Thursday afternoon. By the evening we will be flying to Hong Kong, and from there onwards to Frankfurt, then Budapest. With the magic of flying against the various timezones, we'll arrive in Budapest on Friday morning and begin our European Christmas/ New Year white adventure. No blog till at least January 14, a Happy Christmas and New Year to all our family and friends who may be reading.

A short video clip of the wedding appears above. Photos: Lovely Christmas chocolates from one of Cassy's kiddies, stylish mannequins in a new Tienmu cafe, neon reindeer nibbling a well lit pasture, and various wedding shots as described above. I'm reading Michael Connelly's The Black Box at the moment and Cass is reading...?

The "40s" brigade, whom I've mentioned before quite recently, had another event this Saturday when our good friend Shaun celebrated his birthday in some style.

Katie had been organising for some weeks for a surprise gathering at a new cafe downtown on the Saturday after the big day, so we were all sworn to secrecy, yet tasked with producing a photo with an associated sign. The Polish Nation boys decided it was a particularly sombre occasion and posed as such, while Cass and I tried to replicate the look and feel of Katie's original photo while posing in front of the god of martial arts.

Unfortunately (as it turns out), a group of golfers decided to go out and consume a zillion cans of beers while on the course during the day, so they were starting from a very sensitive point at 7.30 that evening! It had been drizzling non-stop through the day, so Shaun, Wol, Brandon, Ivo and others had been consoling themselves with more than a few beers as they made their way round the links.

We arranged to meet Gurecki and Wal to get a taxi downtown to the Maya cafe for the surprise, but Wal already smelt like a brewery and was getting a headache after his long day! In the Saturday night traffic jam combined with the rain, the trip was long and slow but when we eventually got there, and all the other guests arrived, it was easy to start getting in the swing of things with some margaritas and enchiladas.

The guest of honour eventually rolled in, but Aaron's gift of a super-large Margarita was the eventual undoing of the birthday boy. I took a shot at the start and the end of the drink and you can see the difference! We had a great time talking to lots of people who we like but don't get to see so often and thoroughly enjoyed the night.

The weekend was a shocker weather wise and we were glad for the invite otherwise we may well have not left the house at all. It was a wind-whipped dreary time, although we did decadently just lie around in bed for most of Saturday afternoon accompanied by two heavily purring cats and lulled by a gentle tinkling of rain on downstairs' verandah's tin roof.

I spent a good deal of time on Sunday organising our trip. We're making a Sasquatch style carbon footprint over the holiday break with a total of 8 separate flights! We are limited in time and couldn't rely on the Polish and Hungarian railways to get us around Europe within our schedule. As is our habit, were also eschewing regular hotels and I've booked us into apartments in Budapest, Berlin and Krakow we're we'll guide ourselves around what is shaping up to be a cold and snow-filled winter break. Anyway, we'll be in Budapest for Christmas and Krakow for New Year's Eve with Germany in between, so it should be lots of fun! I'm making massive use of the very useful application Evernote which is synching all my notes, comments and clippings between my phone, iPad, work computer and home computer with lightning speed and perfect accuracy.Here's a video of my kiddies doing their thing too.  Peace out!

To any readers out there, my apologies. This blog is rather late and will be more than mildly hobbled by my continuing malaise. I woke up on Saturday morning with that dreaded feeling that I'd been weakened by some bug or other, as yet indeterminate. I'm always the opitimist, so insist for a day or two, that it's "just a cold", but when the body and bone aches begin, the chest gets heavy and the general fatigue makes it hard to keep your eyes open, I usually admit I've been flu-struck. It's not a version of man-flu either: in fact, if I do (rarely) catch anything, I tend to go the whole hog, bypass the cold and head straight to virulent flu land. Anyway, that's my excuse for tardiness, and I'm sticking with it!

Cass has undertaken her usual round of sterilizing anything that I touch or even waft past or look at! It's actually a great technique, because we rarely catch anything that the other has come down with. We both relinquished the chance to get a flu shot again this year, as is our practice, but I might re-consider next year. It's just so rare that one of us gets sick, that it always takes us by surprise and we live in denial for a day or two. We think it must be the antibodies built up over decades of charming kiddies hacking, coughing and spraying rank particles all over us; sometimes, my little charmers give me a full face shot!

We stayed in most of the weekend after both having a full and interesting Friday night with our respective book clubs. The "girls" went to a new vegetarian place in the general neighbourhood and rated it extremely highly, including the nectarous Chilean Shiraz which was consumed with gusto in some quantity! Each course as described by Cass sounded quite delicious: what's wrong with me, have I turned? They discussed their reading material and caught up with all the latest happenings. It's contract time at the moment, so there is plenty of "movement" and intrigue surrounding just who will go or stay. I heard that our old mate from TAS, Coomba, will move from associate principal at Hong Kong to the MS principal's job at The Hague....pretty cool!

My lot traveled down (eventually) to the "Roxy Rocker" to soak up the atmospheric guitar rock of a local group of ex-pats. They were smooth and professional and could play some serious guitar riffs. After that, we retired out the back to spin some of the Rocker's famous vinyl, records lining every wall, floor to ceiling, for punters to browse, select and listen.

With my dread kicking in on Saturday morning we had a very low key weekend, but Cass walked all over the neighbourhood lugging product, first to Wellcome for the shopping, then Carrefour, then Wendel's and finally over to Part Time Su to get some vege pizzas for tea. I was eternally grateful as I don't think I could have even dragged myself onto the scooter on Saturday.

Photos: suited up with a perplexed Virgil ready to go to a parent presentation last night, a crazy class shot of my fifth graders, moon rise over Tienmu, and a taxi driver with every gadget known to man on board: I don't know how he kept his eyes on the road!! As I had a dearth of shots this week, I stole one from the Rocker's site, showing the famous "back room".