Everyone, meet Melvin.

Melvin is from the popular travel blog TravelDudes  and has agreed to pick the winner of my competition announced yesterday.

Traveldudes.org is a community of travelers that want to share insider information, tips and recommendations with other travelers to help enhance their travels. It is a great site for travelers to get local knowledge about places they are about to travel to and also connect with travelers already out exploring the world.

Thanks Melvin for helping out and I look forward to seeing which winner you pick!

I have never been a fan of set tours, but I think it’s because of a mixture between the price and the thought of being stuck in a bus all day that keeps me away. But when the price isn’t (really) an issue and there are far more interesting tours than on a bus, I’m quietly interested.

So I have a little competition for you. GetYourGuide has sponsored me 500€ to run a small competition for bloggers and entry is pretty simple.

Here is how it works

• Go to GetYourGuide.com and choose a tour anywhere in the world up to 250€ that you would love to take with a friend. ( total for two is 500€).
• On your own blog write a post about why you want to go on this tour and why you above all the rest should go.
• Link to the tour from your site.
• Link back to this post so I can monitor who entered.
• Like TravelGlam on Facebook.

Conditions

• Competition closes on June 15th
• You have till the end of 2012 to use the tour.
• Unfortunately the contest only includes the tour. No flights, accommodation or transport is included. So best not be choosing some far off land you will not be visiting anytime soon.
• A soon-to-be-announced travel blogger will be the judge.

But wait there’s more! (corny I know, but hard to let the opportunity pass)

There will be a sub competition on Twitter. Tweet your favorite tour into the twittermospher and be in to win a 50€ GetYourGuide voucher to use where ever you please. Just use the hashtag #travelglamcomp in your tweet.

And that’s it! Any questions let me know. Here is a little inspiration…

Camel Trekking in Egypt

Ziplining in Mexico

Paragliding over Switzerland

Yesterday though, I got the closest to my memories than ever before. Some friends and I rented a small yacht at Müggelsee and spend the afternoon lazily basking in the sun and remembering the ins and outs of sailing. It was  one of the best Sunday afternoons I have had this year and with the sun strongly pushing winter out of the way, I think it shall be a grand Summer indeed. Fingers Crossed!

Location: Elsenbrücke

I remember last summer riding over this bridge a few times in the early morning hours of a Sunday and hearing music but not seeing anyone, anywhere. But yesterday it was hard to miss  the large amount of bikes lining the bridge barriers, left until the tired dancing feet could take no more. The weather was divine, music was grand, whats more to ask for on a Sunday? And there are only more days like this to come!

We took bikes on the train out to Spandau, then proceeded to ride around 15km out to the village. I was hoping for a picturesque journey through the Brandenburg countryside but to be honest, majority of the ride was beside the autobahn. The drone of cars speeding past isn’t the most relaxing background music but it was good to see the fields being toiled for new crops and buds appearing on the bare trees.

In our research of the place we had read that there are guards at the main entrance with the possibility of guard dogs. I’m ok with human guards, they can be out run, out talked or just ignored. But when it comes to dogs that have been trained to guard something, have two more powerful legs than I and a natural instinct to protect, I start getting a tad nervous. So with a casual ‘just out for a sunny Saturday bike ride’ look about us we had a quick search for these possible inconveniences. Nothing was spotted, so through a hole in the fence we jumped.

To my disappointment, due to the fact that they now run tours through the village, a lot of the buildings were boarded up freakishly well and because I forgot to pack my ladder, we had no chance to get into the Speisehaus der Nationen building, the Jesse Owen house or a cool looking building that apparently housed a theatre. But we did make it into the swimming complex which was definitely worth the whole journey and one of my favourite places to date.

I’m not sure about how I feel about them renovating everything. On one side it’s cool that they are keeping history alive and only charging one euro for entry is awesome, but I was a little gutted not to be able explore a totally abandoned complex. The tours start in April, so who knows they might take down those boarded windows, but I’m sure that will only result in more guards. Oh well, it’s still friggn’ rad!

 My favourite part was actually just the buildings themselves and, oh, I finally found the rad underground walk way I have seen so many great photos of! So, I shall not bore with trade fair woe and proceed straight to the some photos of my days.

A very happy Brazilian woman

A skirt of roses

A queue of girls were waiting for one of his pretty bracelets

Egyptian sand art

Busy busy busy

Underground walkway

The Etsy Labs work space is pretty darn cool and I got studio jealousy from the moment I hop through the door, escaping the drizzly rain. Two large exposed concert rooms provide plenty of space for creations to come to life; my favourite aspect being the giant cardboard shelves showcasing Etsy work. I do love cardboard creations.

We got to screen print our designs on canvas bags and T-shirts with a choice of black and red paint. Here a few photos of the night provided by the Etsy.de team and have a look at their Facebook site for the events coming in the next couple of weeks.

Designing Stage

Busy drawing and cutting out our creations

To the printing press

Two of my favourites

My finished bag.

When I first moved to Berlin everyone was telling me how amazing Berlin is during the summer and how absolutely horrible it is in winter. I had already survived two German winters in Bavaria, so I thought maybe they were over-reacting a little. December and January came and went and were surprisingly warm and bearable, so I found myself entertaining the thought that this year maybe winter wouldn’t come. Alas I spoke to soon! Hello minus 18 degrees, nice to meet you.

So two Sundays ago after the -18 degrees had reakedI joined the mass of people who jumped the fences and took to the Landwehrcanal. People were out for romantic walks; young children were demanding their sleds to be pulled by tired parents, a group was caught in an intense game of ice hockey, dogs were giddily running around and the brave were cycling.It was like being projected into a surreal world where everything was familiar and functioning like normal, except it was on ice.Being able to walk under bridges that I walk over daily was a treat and provided me with a different point of view of my neighborhood that I have never seen before.  It made me forget about the cold and enjoy the happy atmosphere.

Every year, whether I have a “Valentine” or not, my best friend always sends me a cute, funny, weird Valentine’s Day card. I don’t know anyone who loves Valentine’s Day as much as her, which is scary for a non celebrator like me, but I do love how she remembers her friends not just her special someone. The first card she gave me had a boy in a Hotdog suit if I remember correctly, saying something along the lines of “You’re a Hotdog”. This year disconcertingly saw the return of meat products with a Germany inspired one. Check it out below along with some other ones I stumbled across.

All pictures from Karen Horton

My goodness he was an interesting character who lead an incredible life. He was addicted to heroin, always had a loaded gun on him (even in bed), accidently killed his wife while trying to shoot an apple off her head and was one of the first openly gay man in the public eye. I think even if people don’t agree with the life that he lead or even don’t like his writing, you have to give him credit for being himself. He never changed to become what the public wanted him to be. The media labeled him one of the founders of the beat generations, he rejected this. Then the punk movement called him the “Grandfather of punk” which he also dismissed. He just did what he wanted to do and had the guts to do it.

I’m rambling.

The movie was showing at Moviemento, the oldest cinema in Germany and you know what? It was rad. With three tiny cinemas and a bar, it has a nice relaxed, noncommercial feel to it that made you just want to hang out there. They left the doors open to the projection room that captured my attention for a very long time.

Here is the trailer to the movie, so you decide for yourself if it’s up your alley.