This was a busy day, I had a last minute internship interview,a dissertation meeting and I had to pick up my friend to stay of mine as it would save her money and be safer to do so. All this finished by 9pm and we had to be up by 3am, so after trying but failing to get a decent amount of sleep for our flight we went on our way, in the dead of night. Waiting at the station for our train to Gatwick, a station master approached us and after eyeing our luggage asked us where we were going ? ‘Berlin’, ‘Oh really I heard Berlin is really..um...decadent and stuff...you know Cabaret and all that’.
Only when arriving at Gatwick were to-do lists made, mainly from looking at friends handy tour guide. I brushed of any of my personal snobbery regarding tour guides seeing as I had no time to make my own. The flight passed without of hitch, and was mainly spent giggling, gossiping and holding our noses at guy infront who seemed to have a personal vendetta against personal hygiene. It was so bad. As we were leaving the plane, Easyjet thought it was festive to play merry x-mas on what seemed like a child’s keyboard. HALLO BERLIN! I must say Schonfield airport is not the first thing you would want to see on your arrival. I struggle to find a word to appropriately describe it other than ghetto. The Customs officers weren’t much better; mine looked a very famous leader in German History, who I won’t name for the sake tired stereotypes. My chirpy ‘Guten Tag’ received a passive bemused face. Getting the hell out of the airport was a bit of a struggle, there were no information offices and coming to terms with the u-bahn/s-bahn system on 3hrs sleep was trying. As one other tired tourist said, ‘all this talk of efficiency, it’s not really true is it?’ Finally we got on the S-Bahn to Pankow, whizzing past the suburbs we tried to keep our tired spirits up by saying, ‘at least we get to see the whooooole of Berlin’.
We got off at Schonhauser Allee, an even more toe up station and got lost again. Our spirits we cheered up by trying our first ever bratwurst from a stall nearby. It was deeeeelicious. The sausage guy gave us directions and after a long walk through a rundown neighbourhood, we got to our hostel. Inside it looked like that spacey arcade in Toy Story and when we got to our room and looked out of our window, we realised that not only were we directly opposite a train station (woe) but that was the one we should have got off at (double woe).
We left as quickly as we got there and headed into Unter den Linden to see all the main sites. On the way there we got were confronted by the in again out again walking system of the S-bahn/U-bahn, staring Germans, a busker badly singing Johnny Cash, ‘ I got a rinnnnn o fhfyifgf and it BURNS, BURNS, BURNS’ and the poor weather.
The Bradenburg Gate
The fake tourist soldiers at the front of the Gate provided more entertainment.
The one on the left claimed he looked like Snoop dog (YES! They have the same bone structure) and was fluent in x-number of languages. The one on the right was from Russia, only 17(we guessed so much older) and wanted to marry me. He even let me where his hat, a privilege he has given to no other tourist, as the shocked Snoop Dogg said. This romance short lived as random guy dressed as a wizard commented , ‘ah, so this is your neeew girlfriend’. With a broken-heart, I went onwards to the Reichstag. The pouring and my flimsy ballet pumps occupied my mind, rather than the building this building which has been mentioned a great deal in my history life. We had to wait an age before being allowed to get a lift to the top of the dome thing through the Reichstag. There was a mini exhibition of its history and foggy panoramic views of the whole city, as well as this hypnotic cone...
After we took refuge in Kafer Restaurant nearby to warm ourselves up with over priced hot chocolate. For 4.50 euros, we also got to rinse our socking socks (under the table, the elegant clientele around us were hopefully none the wiser).
Potdamer Platz came next as we went to the Jewish War memorial. It was pitch black by this point making the memorial of blocks of back stone difficult to see, much to our dismay. Furthermore, the museum for it was UNDERGROUD, hence why after walking up and down and around Potsdamer Platz several times and getting the same directions we couldn’t find it. Once inside, we found the museum to be a very personal take on the holocaust, focusing on Jewish families in Europe. The dark room which projected on the floor the testimonies of Jews before death was very harrowing. Apparently there are two main Jewish museums in Berlin, with one not as good as the other. I have no doubt that this was the good one.
For dinner we headed back to Unter den Linden, the Linden trees were all lit up so it looked lovely...
We headed past this creepy baby to Dressler, a French/German restaurant that promised decadent 1920s style Berlin cuisine. I had my usual safety food of steak and frites. It was soo good, the sauce for the steak had been delivered from the Ritz in Paris and the frits were the best I've ever had. Once again there was shoeless -under the table action. After a good dinner we went to see the Berlin Opera house, which my friend said looked like the inside of Titanic (you may have noticed but our comparisons tend to stem from random shitty movies). Ppromises were made of a night at the opera before the end of our trip, particularly if tickets were only 13.50 euro for students! After a long day we headed to our much needed beds.
Only when arriving at Gatwick were to-do lists made, mainly from looking at friends handy tour guide. I brushed of any of my personal snobbery regarding tour guides seeing as I had no time to make my own. The flight passed without of hitch, and was mainly spent giggling, gossiping and holding our noses at guy infront who seemed to have a personal vendetta against personal hygiene. It was so bad. As we were leaving the plane, Easyjet thought it was festive to play merry x-mas on what seemed like a child’s keyboard. HALLO BERLIN! I must say Schonfield airport is not the first thing you would want to see on your arrival. I struggle to find a word to appropriately describe it other than ghetto. The Customs officers weren’t much better; mine looked a very famous leader in German History, who I won’t name for the sake tired stereotypes. My chirpy ‘Guten Tag’ received a passive bemused face. Getting the hell out of the airport was a bit of a struggle, there were no information offices and coming to terms with the u-bahn/s-bahn system on 3hrs sleep was trying. As one other tired tourist said, ‘all this talk of efficiency, it’s not really true is it?’ Finally we got on the S-Bahn to Pankow, whizzing past the suburbs we tried to keep our tired spirits up by saying, ‘at least we get to see the whooooole of Berlin’.
We got off at Schonhauser Allee, an even more toe up station and got lost again. Our spirits we cheered up by trying our first ever bratwurst from a stall nearby. It was deeeeelicious. The sausage guy gave us directions and after a long walk through a rundown neighbourhood, we got to our hostel. Inside it looked like that spacey arcade in Toy Story and when we got to our room and looked out of our window, we realised that not only were we directly opposite a train station (woe) but that was the one we should have got off at (double woe).
We left as quickly as we got there and headed into Unter den Linden to see all the main sites. On the way there we got were confronted by the in again out again walking system of the S-bahn/U-bahn, staring Germans, a busker badly singing Johnny Cash, ‘ I got a rinnnnn o fhfyifgf and it BURNS, BURNS, BURNS’ and the poor weather.
The Bradenburg Gate
The fake tourist soldiers at the front of the Gate provided more entertainment.
The one on the left claimed he looked like Snoop dog (YES! They have the same bone structure) and was fluent in x-number of languages. The one on the right was from Russia, only 17(we guessed so much older) and wanted to marry me. He even let me where his hat, a privilege he has given to no other tourist, as the shocked Snoop Dogg said. This romance short lived as random guy dressed as a wizard commented , ‘ah, so this is your neeew girlfriend’. With a broken-heart, I went onwards to the Reichstag. The pouring and my flimsy ballet pumps occupied my mind, rather than the building this building which has been mentioned a great deal in my history life. We had to wait an age before being allowed to get a lift to the top of the dome thing through the Reichstag. There was a mini exhibition of its history and foggy panoramic views of the whole city, as well as this hypnotic cone...
After we took refuge in Kafer Restaurant nearby to warm ourselves up with over priced hot chocolate. For 4.50 euros, we also got to rinse our socking socks (under the table, the elegant clientele around us were hopefully none the wiser).
Potdamer Platz came next as we went to the Jewish War memorial. It was pitch black by this point making the memorial of blocks of back stone difficult to see, much to our dismay. Furthermore, the museum for it was UNDERGROUD, hence why after walking up and down and around Potsdamer Platz several times and getting the same directions we couldn’t find it. Once inside, we found the museum to be a very personal take on the holocaust, focusing on Jewish families in Europe. The dark room which projected on the floor the testimonies of Jews before death was very harrowing. Apparently there are two main Jewish museums in Berlin, with one not as good as the other. I have no doubt that this was the good one.
For dinner we headed back to Unter den Linden, the Linden trees were all lit up so it looked lovely...
We headed past this creepy baby to Dressler, a French/German restaurant that promised decadent 1920s style Berlin cuisine. I had my usual safety food of steak and frites. It was soo good, the sauce for the steak had been delivered from the Ritz in Paris and the frits were the best I've ever had. Once again there was shoeless -under the table action. After a good dinner we went to see the Berlin Opera house, which my friend said looked like the inside of Titanic (you may have noticed but our comparisons tend to stem from random shitty movies). Ppromises were made of a night at the opera before the end of our trip, particularly if tickets were only 13.50 euro for students! After a long day we headed to our much needed beds.
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