Hey to all! There's a fair bit of catching up to be doing now, I havent written since before christmas.... I've chucked in another rather nice photo of Porthleven - taken on one of the many days of sunshine. and also a picture of the advent calendar/christmas tree we had this year. But sadly we have left there now...
One of the places we went to see before we left cornwall (apart from going to the Eden project again...) was St Michaels Mount - it's a castle on a hill whichis primarily and island - only at the lowest tide is the strip of land connecting it to England exposed so that you can walk over there. But walk over there we did, through the pouring rain (since it was our last chance to see it) all the way to the impressive looking castle/town, only to find that it was shut. So we walked back in the pouring rain, slightly crankier.


The other thing we did that was soooo cool, but sadly i forgot my camera, was checking out the Minack open air theatre, which is a theatre carved into the cliff face right down on the bottom tip of Cornwall - it was amazing. We'd really like to go again in summer when they're doing performances there.
So after Cornwall came to a close, we headed straight for Germany (after a mammoth day driving all the way from the southern most tip of Cornwall to Stansted airport, north of London) and landed in Freidrichshafen (after a stupid bloody 2 hour delay thanks to ryanair) with strict instructions from uncle andy to get the train to Ulm. So we go to the ticket machine, and discover that there's 4 stations in Ulm.
So, after spending a while puzzling about it, a helpful stranger (who was waiting to also use the machine, that might have had soemthing to do with it) showed us how to use the machine, and explained which station we needed to get to.
Ulm is very pretty, we spent the first few days checking out christmas markets, buying last minute christmas presents and wondering whether the weather would ever be clear enough to make it worth while to climb the mother-of-all cathedral towers (there's a cool photo in here of Munster cathedral and the top is obscured by mist. Its a whopping 162m tall).

The houses there are really quite cute, and very very old - so most of them are crooked. This is one of the oldest in town, uncreatively called the 'crooked hotel'.


All the normal christmassy things (church, presents, too much food) was done on christmas eve rather than christmas day, and the meal we had was so good! Its called "Raclette" and its like fondue but better - there's a table top grill thing, and everyone gets their own little fry pans so everyone cooks their own food - its delicious! And it means no one is stuck with cooking for a million people! Brilliant!

On christmas day the only thing open was the aquarium and zoo, so we checked those out - check out the photos of the GIANT salamander - that was a tank that caused a lot of excitement... and the pufferfish, now forever known as the happiest fish in the tank - that's just its normal face!



OOh, and we also went and had spaghetti icecream! Its less exciting than it sounds.




Boxing day we went skiiing in...hmmm...cant seem to remember the name of the town - it was about an hour away from Andy's place, so Luke and I had a drive on the Autobahn, and had a go at cross country skiing. Its not as full on as downhill skiing (there's hardly any hills) but i still managed to fall over. Once we were done with the hard work (and had found andy again) we went off and built snowmen. :-) Luke also tried to write his name in the snow, he'd been talking about it for ages. I dont know if you agree, but I dont think i'd be able to tell it says 'Luke'.


We then went off to Munich for a few days, leaving Andy and Kerstin behind, and met up with another friend of mine for a few days of beerhalls, food markets, and lots of walking. The highlights were probably the overrated Glochenspeil in the town square, getting a tour of the beerhalls by a Munich resident/Kate's cousin, a cathedral made ENTIRELY out of chocolate and wafers, a scary taxidermy shop, and Luke (the bastard) hooked up with someone on the main street.


And I've got photos of it all. Luke also managed to get some shopping done at his favourite boutique.
There are many more photos to be seen, but that's certainly the highlights. So we flew back to London on New Years eve, and spent the night with some friends in an apartment in Mayfair we had rented for the night, and walked down to the Thames at about half past 11 to watch the fireworks over the London eye - nice.
But, now we're in Bournemouth! I started my new job last week and it's working out pretty well. Luke starts today, he's working for an offshore drilling company as a design draughtsman, and he's pretty psyched about it. Accommodation has worked out great, church has worked out great - Bournemouth is pretty cool.
So that's about all for now! Please do let me know how you all are, I love hearing from you all!