University Gardens

Today was a public holiday (Boze Cialo or Corpus Christi) so we took advantage of the beautiful sunny day to take a trip to the Warsaw University Library Garden. The garden, which is situated on the roof of the university, was opened in 2002 and gives great views over the Vistula River. There is also a lower part of the garden where you can actually sit on the grass! This is a rarity in Warsaw where it is usually forbidden to sit/lie or even walk on the grass.

London 2012

Costing 400 grand,to design, the logo for the London 2012 Olympics was launched yesterday. Let's face it, it's embarrasing (and must have cheered the French up no end!). If you want to sign a petition to try and change it (or at least return to the one used for the campaign) then click the following link;

Online petition - Change The London 2012 Logo

Truskawki!

Which translates to Strawberries! It is such an important word at the moment as Warsaw is deluged with strawberries. From old ladies running small stalls outside of the metro stations to supermarkets... everywhere there are strawberries. The fruit are so sweet and it is possible to buy them in huge quantities for not very much money. I managed to buy a kilo of them last week for zl 4 (about 80p), so me and Amy have been enjoying strawberry shakes and generally gorging ourselves on them for the last couple of weeks.

On Saturday we went to some friends Pene and Mike who work at the N.Zealand embassy and had one of the biggest BBQ's imaginable (and MORE strawberries). We spent Sunday mooching around the Old Town in Warsaw and visited Saski park which has just renovated it's (huge) fountain.

We've also spent a bit of time sorting out our spare room. It doesn't look like we're going to be able to move to a bigger place now, so we've had a general tidy/sort out so to make our spare room suitable for our impending new arrival!

Even more good news is afoot - it'll soon be cherry season!

Shopping for Prams

On Saturday we embarked on our first venture to choose a pram/pushchair for our baby. We visited a place called Jupiter Centrum which is a small (somewhat haphazardly laid out) shopping centre on the outskirts of town.

The shop (Świat dziecka) came recommended to us from our maternity class and we were totally overwhelmed by all of the shapes, sizes, constructions and features of the (literally) hundreds of prams/pushchairs/strollers/buggies on show!

In addition to all of the variables you could also choose different colours and mix-and-match the colours that you chose!

We spent about 10 minutes looking round open-mouthed until a friendly assistant helped us. Fortunately he spoke excellent English and so he walked us through the pros and cons of various models (although we were still undecided on the colour!)

On Sunday we also took a trip to Mothercare which is not very far from the apartment, but their pram range was smaller (but equally confusing!). We're hoping to order one this week as I think it will take us a while to understand how to take it apart/change the tyres/fold it down etc!

It's been a lovely weekend weather-wise with every day in the high 20s/low 30s so on Sunday afternoon we went to nearby Wodny park, which is a huge sports centre, for a swim. Amy has got a very fetching new swimsuit so she got to try that out (although not on the water slides!).

It also looks like we're not going to move from our apartment, which is a real shame as we were looking forward to a bit of extra space. As a result this week we have to work out how best to re-arrange furniture in order to make space for a cot and baby trappings!

Katrina, Amy and Pip in Pip's lovely apartment!

To see more pictures of our trip go to

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/5654590

DFAT conference in Berlin

Amy was at a conference with DFAT in May, so I tagged along for the trip as well. We stayed with Amy's friend Pip, who has a lovely place really near to the heart of Berlin. Both me and Amy were impressed by how lively and vibrant Berlin is as a city. There are a plethora of bars and cafes and we had a great 4 days there.

While Amy was in her conference I explored the sights of Berlin. It's quite spread out as a city, so you had to get your bearings and some idea of the geography. I visited the Bauhaus museum - which contained a fair amount of original furniture and architechture and also did a guided walk around the city.

It was fascinating to see how the city has 'merged' since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. A trip up the Reichstag dome (designed by an English architecht!) was possibly the highlight of things that I saw. We did go to a couple of things from the Cold War - a Stasi museum - interesting, and yet chilling(!) as well as a nuclear bunker built in the 1970s in West Berlin (still 'active' today). The bunker had 2 weeks worth of air in it following a nuclear attack - but no plans what you did when your time ran out!!

On a much brighter note Amy got to catch up with a lot of her work colleagues as well as having a splendid Thai meal on Saturday evening...yum!

To read about the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin see this link http://www.bauhaus.de/english/index.htm

Pre Natal Classes

We went to our first pre-natal class on Friday. There were 4 other pregnant ladies besides Amy - from France, Germany, Scotland and Poland! Luckily the classes are in English. Magda, the midwife who runs the course, made us do a series of panting exercises - very amusing! Much laughter from Amy who couldn't then do the panting while making noises exercise. We also did some physio/yoga exercises which showed how inflexible Trevor is (ha ha!) but at least he didn't fart like the French guy which had us all in stitches! The course runs for 7 weeks, ending with a tour of the hospital where Amy will have the baby. It's made us realise just how unprepared we are - the French couple have already decorated a room for the baby and have all the gear - and her baby is due only 3 weeks before ours! Eek!