ann - great trip!! I was wondering what you mean by an exchange. I understand a similar group in Berlin and in your area exchange places so to speak, but is it just to visit each others work places and learn about law in different countries or is it to actually do legal work because you all have a legal specialty? I am very curious :)

aussie - i'm so pleased that you had blue skies over Beijing - i don't think that there are many who can say that.

nanabee - we don't swap places in the sense of doing each other's work [german and english legal systems aren't similar enough for that] but we have visits to courts, academic lectures on subjects of mutual interest, and social events of course!

I didn't feel short-changed, annhig! Will look for the Golding book, thanks.

Hi annhig! Just came across this trip report while surfing Fodor's on an icily cold New Year's Day in central Italy (it was minus 7C this morning).
Like PatrickLondon I also visited the DDR in the old days. 1971 I think it was. The Foreign Office was advising against it and said visas were impossible. The trick was to take the train to West Berlin and then the S-Bahn to Friedrichstrasse station in the East. There they would give you a one day permit to visit East Berlin. While you were there you went to the DDR tourist office on Unter den Linden and asked for a proper tourist visa which they gave you without difficulty for specified destinations in the DDR (In my case Dresden, Meissen, and Weimar). You then returned to the West and the next day presented yourself at Checkpoint Charlie with your tourist visa. I've still got some slides of the other side of the Wall, although one couldn't get very near it of course.

Btw I see you've also been to Iceland recently. Ditto but in 1965. Gawd!...that's 50 years ago this year! By sea from Leith to Reykjavík and back. Thinking about that makes me feel really old.
Cheers, Appia

Happy New Year, Appia! Sorry that it's so cold where you are, but being in Italy at any time must have its compensations.

I have left wing british colleagues who were able to visit the east before the Wende but for us ordinary mortals, it was never really a possibility. Interesting that you were able to organise this for yourself. One of the best parts of our recent trips to what was the east has been meeting "ossies' - they are very keen to make contact with people from whom they were cut off for so long, even though the Wall has bee down for 25 years.

how long did it take to get from Leith to Iceland? sounds like a hell of a trip!

re DDR: I think I found out somehow about the one day permit and the rest was just a try on my part. If they gave me the visa, fine, if not, nothing lost and at least I'd have had the one day there.

re Iceland: about 3 days each way I think. It was the year after the island of Surtsey was "born" and as the ship passed we could see it still spewing lava into a boiling sea.

Happy New Year to you too annhig!
I'm in trouble again on the Italy forum!

3 days! good heavens.

I shouldn't let the grumblers worry you, some will grumble about anything.