At the silvester party, Paul and I discovered that we are both fans of this series of recorded lectures on German history, by Margaret Anderson at Berkeley. They're a really good overview; if you have any interest in that kind of thing, put them on an mp3 player for when you're bored or traveling! There are also some reading lists and topic summaries

[this isn't the first time I've met somebody who loves the Berkeley lecture recordings; I'm somewhat scared to imagine how huge the audience must be, around the world]