With the help of these instructions I moved my travel log to my shiny new travel domain. This decision was made for two reasons: One, because of LJ's recent problems, and two, because I'll be in New Zealand for a year, an adventure which deserves its own domain, I thought. :)

You will be able to follow my posts there (once I get it all set up) on your flist by adding inforeignparts.

Sibylle and I went for a 5-day vacation in Portugal's capital, which was much beautiful than expected. Honestly, I can recommend Lisbon to anyone, especially off-season, when it's not crowded at all.

The city center has great charm, despite the obvious signs of neglect with many houses. It's just really, really pretty, and walking up and down the hills was totally worth the effort of taking it in at a leisurely pace. Even at the beginning of March the weather was great - we spent Saturday basking in the sun on the nearby beach in Estoril (much prettier than the one in Cascais, right next to it). Another daytrip was to Sintra - trains are very cheap, and the traditional little cakes alone worth the journey, not to speak of the cute town and impressive castles. It's not for nothing a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Also, the people are very friendly, a lot of them speak at least a bit of English or French - if we looked lost for even a second, someone always came to us and helped us find our way.

. . .

You can find more photos in my Flickr album.

Oops, I seem to have forgotten to share the photos from my vacation with Sibylle! In June we went to Como in Northern Italy for a week, staying at a beautiful B&B in Erba (half an hour's bus ride from Como) and doing several excursions in the area. It was a great holiday - and I can heartily recommend Le Due Torrette, owned by the wonderful Adriana! :)

. .

Click for full size and see the rest in my Flickr album!

I planned on posting about the family trip to Berlin much earlier, but things (i.e., my thesis) got in the way. Now I thought it might be nice to share the photos I took before the ones from last week's trip to Northern Italy... *g*

My parents went earlier and visited Dresden together with my aunt Leona, before all three met up with my brother and I in Germany's capital. I liked it better than I expected, truth be told, although the weather was quite dreadful and I was cold most of the time.

Highlights, roughly in chronological order: visiting the Pergamon museum; meeting mata090680 and going to see X3 with her; yummy Chinese food in the historic Nikolai quarter; a boat trip along the Spree and the Landwehrkanal, past many of Berlin's sights including parts of the famous Wall; DVDs at good value; spending an afternoon with some distant but very nice relatives.

. .

More? Check out my Flickr album!

I took almost 400 photos over the course of the five weeks - visit my photo album to see all of them!

As I'm trying to find my footing here again, I've played around with something: Before I left, I created a 'good stuff' playlist - just random songs (74 of them) I enjoyed, some new, some old.

I actually didn't listen to as much music on this trip as I normally do, mainly because in Japan as a rule there's always a certain level of background noise, but a number of the songs did come to mean quite a lot to me, and I'll probably always connect them to this journey from now on. I thought I'd share this 'ultimate' playlist with you, including some words why I chose these songs. Hope you like it!

Japan 2005 - a travel soundtrack
1. Kaze Wo Atsumete - Happy End (From 'Lost in Translation', a movie that describes my experiences quite well.)
2. 99 Luftballons - Nena (German 80s hit song - first song I ever sang in a karaoke box!)
3. You're Beautiful - James Blunt (My current goosebump song.)
4. The Blood of Cu Chulainn - Jeff & Michael Danna (From the 'Boondock Saints' soundtrack, a song that never fails to make my mind travel.)
5. One Line - P.J. Harvey (Very intense - it has come to be my ultimate 'Professionals' song and I would kill for a fanvid using it...)
6. Und wenn ein Lied - Söhne Mannheims (Not normally my music, this song reminds me of hermine and traveling with her.)
7. Under the Milky Way Tonight - The Church (This was my New Zealand song, even before I knew that The Church are a kiwi band.)
8. Die Katze - Annett Louisan (One of the songs I sang to myself when I was walking in the mountains, although the voice of the singer takes a bit of getting used to.)
9. Jerk It Out - Caesar's Palace (The iPod song - I might have danced to it out in a field, when no one was watching. *g*)
10. I schänke dir mis Härz - ZüriWest (I felt the need for music in my own language sometimes, and this is an all-time favorite.)
11. The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice (Another goosebump song, for some reason I keep forgetting how beautiful it is.)
12. When Doves Cry - Ginuwine (After Baz Luhrman's 'Romeo & Juliet' I just adored this song - for this trip, I dug it out again.)
13. Sitting Waiting Wishing - Jack Johnson (Jack Johnson makes excellent travel music - and this song reminds me of the hours I spent waiting for connecting trains... *g*)
14. Your Song - Keane (I think thepsychicclam shared this cover just before I left and I kept listening to it on repeat.)
15. Good Life - Leslie Mills (Discovered this song a couple of years ago through a website that used the phrase 'raspberry sun' - I just love the lyrics, they're so me.)
16. W. Nuss vo Bümpliz - Patent Ochsner (Another Swiss German song that's been a favorite of mine for years.)
17. Ice Cream - Sarah McLachlan (Heard this song on 'Felicity' one time, loved that it mentioned chocolate - and it led me to discover Sarah McLachlan.)
18. Universe - Savage Garden (Will always remind me of a certain special morning in Southampton when I was 17 - one of the few songs that I find truly sexy.)
19. A Sorta Fairytale - Tori Amos (Probably my favorite Tori song.)
20. Almost Human - Voltaire (A chance discovery, this just speaks to me.)
21. Heimweh - Plüsch (This song is called 'homesick', and I listened to it whenever I missed home or felt lost in this strange country - it always cheered me up, strangely enough.)

Rightclick-save, please! I'll keep it up for a week at least, if my bandwidth allows it: Japan 2005 (zip of 21 mp3s, 97.3mb)

Back in Switzerland - the journey went well and I've had a shower and showed my mom and brother the things I bought. I missed them, that's for sure, just like I missed all my friends, on- and offline. Hope to catch up with you guys soon!

Thanks for sharing this journey with me - it's been a very special experience. I'll be updating here once more at least when I've uploaded the photos to my Flickr account. So stay tuned... :)

So now I'm on my way home and Japan is really behind me. Had a lovely day yesterday, though - karaoke in those little karaoke 'boxes' really is a lot of fun, and the National Museum was very interesting, too. I even managed to fit all the books and souvenirs I'd bought into my suitcase, yay! *g*

The first leg of the flight was uneventful, except that once more I had special requests - in this case that I wanted to cancel my special request: The nut-free/vegetarian meal they served me last time wats so flavorless that I decided to just risk it and eat the regular meal. There's always a choice of two meals, after all, so I shouldn't have a problem avoiding peanuts...

Now I'll hang around the airport for five hours or so. They have a lot of stuff here for passengers in transit, some of them even free - I might check out the movie theatre and grab a bite to eat, as luckily I kept 10 Singapore dollars. And my mobile is working again, how exciting! ;)

Well, enough for now, maybe I'll get bored later. If not, my next post will be from my laptop at home...

ETA: Ha, I found a TV where an episode of my beloved Gilmore Girls was showing - and fifth season, too! :D