East meets west

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29 January- Thursday

I just want to apologise in advance for any spelling errors and lack of spaces as this keyboard sucks.

Was up bright and early to get the first tube to london victoria. Made my way to gatwick - significantlyeasier for me than stansted and got there with heaps of time to spare. Went through security and had a breakfast favorite - maccas egg and bacon roll before meeting up with soma and boarding the flight to Berlin. Having had a very earlz start we both pretty much slept thewhole flight.

On arrival we made our way to the train station and struggled trying to work out what ticket to buy!! Got to hostel at around 2pm or so and checked in before heading off.Went to Berlina dom and got bugged by gipsy kids and wandered the general area around Friedrichstr. After that wejust keptwandering and eventually came across brandenburger gate.Spent a while there trying to get some night photos before we kept walking along the river and eventually found our way back to the hostel. Was a very long walk!! After that we headed to a nice little german wine bar close to the hostel and had dinner and a VERY nice glass of wine before calling it an early night.

30 January - Friday

Having had a good sleep we were up and out by about 10am. First stop was a cafe for breakfast where we sat and did somepeople watching before getting on one of those hop on hop off bus tours. Live commentary and the bus was nice and warm. Went to Charlottenburg where we stopped for lunch and a look around before stopping off at the terrors display, a fragment of what is left remaining of the wall and of course, Checkpoint Charlie. Despite the fact that it is off season there were still heaps of people around and the sightseeing buses were all pretty full.

Next stop was then back to Brandenburge gate to get some day photos before going to the holocaust memorial. Basically it is all these pillars of varying heights. Looking from a distance they all looked really shallow, but they are quite deep and walking around through there was quite eerie. After that it was off to the parliament building to get some views over Berlin. After lining up in the cold for about half an hour we went through a security checkpoint and up to the viewing platform. Funky design, after you could then walk up this dome where there were no stairs but instead a gradually increasing ramp leading up to the top. Needless to say I wasn't that impressed.

Back to the hostel where we quickly changed and headed off to the theatre to watch a musical dancing singing show which was good fun until the trapeze thing started! Again, my fear of heights showed. After that it was dinner across the road at a small italian place before heading to a bar called AM PM. There were way too many tourists there so we decided to check out a place called Bang Bang which was round the corner. It was an indie pop evening and at some point not longer after we got there they had this performing artist come in and do this show which ended rather freakily with blood coming out of her mouth, her strangling herself, tieing herself up with black packing tape and then pouring beer over her head. Everyone there was slightly stunned!! Anywayended up staying there pretty much all night and got back to the hostel early hours of the moring.

31 January - Saturday

Slightly later start this morning. I didn't get up until about 1030am and since Soma was still dead to the world I headed for a walk down to Alexanderplatz to look around and see the TV tower. Decided not to go up it though. But, while I was in the area I had a chicken kebab which was quite tasty. After that I had a bit of a stroll around before heading to the museum. History Museum and it was huge. Soma ended up joining me there but it was the sort of place there was never any hope of being able to see everything there. Quite well laid out though.

Then it was souvenir shopping before grabbing a light dinner on the way back to the hostel. I had a very tasty but very filling gnocchi. Back to the hostel to get changed and we headed out again. Ended up at a pub called Ostzone which was quite an odd place before heading back to Bang Bang club which wasn't nearly as good, or as busy as the night before. Grabbed a falafel kebab in the early hours of the morning on the way back to the hostel. Yummiest kebab ever I think as well, heaps of salad, the falafel was good, really hot chilli sauce.... mmmmmmmm

When we got back to the hostel we found our irish roommate asleep in the kitchen - curled up in a little tiny ball. So we woke him up and he moved.

1 February - Sunday

Another slightly later start again this morning although we had seen much of what we had wanted to see already. After getting lunch at a Spanish place (essentially toasted sandwiches and fresh orange juice) we got the metro to the castle out at Charlottenburg. Got out there at around 3pm and went through the main hall and new hall. We had also hoped to go through the new wing but rang out of time and they closed 10 minutes before we got there. So we wandered (freezing mind you) through the enormnous gardens.

From there we grabbed dinner at a restauarant not far away before heading back to hostel and then to pub where we joined a pub crawl. Quite a decent sized group of people - predominantly Irish who were well and truly tanked by the time it started. Ended up going to about four pubs and had a run in at a kebab place about a dog that kind of adopted us. Quite funny really...

Next stop: Poland!!

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