Berlin, Germany
Friday, August 28, 2015
The blue LED light from the TV shone like a beacon all night, everytime any of us woke we made a promise to cover the light next time, but of course no one did and it blazed like a lighthouse all night. Combined with the snoring and general “hotel bed” syndrome, no one slept well. So at 5:00 three grumpy souls awoke and made their sleepy way, via checkout, passport control, baggage check and gate onto the aeroplane which flew us remarkably quickly to Berlin.
It was at the airport that the queue was discovered. A plane from the UK full of EU citizens still took over 30 minutes to get through passport control – its a disgrace I tell you, all these foreigners coming here taking out jobs, eating our pies, drinking our tea ! (sorry, may have got carried away there); anyway we eventually got a taxi which deposited us at the hotel superbly. The driver was very keen for us to phone him to take us back to the airport on Monday and we had to tell him we were planning on becoming railway enthusiasts at that time.
After checking in and unpacking we wandered to the Brandenburg gate where we joined our tour of the city tour. It was excellent with Mark, the guide, amusing and informing us in equal measure. We saw Check Point Charlie, the Berlin Wall ( or at least what is left of it ), the Jewish memorial… A ton of interesting places.
We had lunch in the Microsoft version of the Apple Store, full of “Surface” PCs and trendy young things selling hip coffees and cakes – we fitted right in !
There is a lot of building works in Berlin, a heap of new ones are sprouting up everywhere, some of them are quite magnificent and much more impressive than most modern buildings. Eventually we left the tour and settled for a cool beer outside the central concert hall.
The evening was spent wandering around a rather lovely area of the city only a few minutes from the hotel and then eventually deciding on a place to eat. We had previously tried a couple but they were full so we ventured into a less popular place.
The food was fine if a little bland but the desserts were nice and the espresso was excellent but the whole ambience of the place was rather dull. Still it filled us up and gave us enough energy to meander back to the hotel and collapse into bed. Tomorrow is planned to be a museum day, but plans change and ideas vary, so no chickens or indeed eggs are currently being counted.
