When Australian writer Julian Tompkin first visited Berlin, the East German parliamentary ‘palace’ was still standing beside the River Spree, and Potsdamer Platz was very much a clamorous work-in-progress. Much has changed since then, and Julian has spent the last 15 years witnessing this once-divided city’s rousing transformation. He writes regularly for newspapers, magazines and broadcast media in both Germany and Australia, and divides his time between Perth and Berlin with his wife (a born-and-bred Berliner) and their young son.