Looking forward to yet another big OE to places I went on my first OE all those years ago. 1965 to be precise.
That time we got off the ship near Naples, worked our way though Italy, round the Riviera , all by train to visit some people in Madrid. I had worked with the woman's mother in a Herne Bay resthome where I was kind of cook and bottlewasher and she wanted someone to take a diamond ring and fur stole to her daughter, Diana who had just got married to a Spaniard, Ramon.
Mission accomplished and after a few days absorbing the day and nightlife of Madrid we trained to Germany for the First Holy Communion of my then 10 year old cousins, Gabi and Joachim.
This time Dieter and I are starting in Spain - Barcelona and going on a cruise round the Riviera, to ports in Italy where we can go on trips to Florence, Rome, Naples and then on to Dubrovnik, Venice and Split before returning to Barcelona.
We are going to fly to Germany, see the twins again, and go to Berlin which I also went to in 1965 in that snowy winter with the Wall dividing the city.
Now it is a buzzing international city iwith imany artists and writers making their home there. l Have just finished Nigel Cox's book Phone home Berlin, which is an account of his 5 years in Berlin where he was employed to set up displays in the then new Jewish Museum Berlin, along with another NZer Ken Gorbey. We visiited that istunning and sobering museum last time we were in Berlin. This time we are also planning museum visits, ,so watch this space.
Arohanui till we meet again.
