Berlin - Don't Dream It's Over!

No, this isn't a message of hope to the closet communists still lurking in East Berlin, but in relation to the Crowded House concert which we drove to Berlin to see. And since we had to drive a whole 3.5 hours, we thought we'd make a weekend of it with a couple of our friends from Prague (Graeme and Michelle). Michelle wasn't too familiar with Crowded House beforehand so I gave her a copy of a CD to learn, and the threat of a test before she got in the car. It was a borderline pass, but a pass none the less! Regardless, our friends earnt their passage with the hotel they found us - it had the best hotel breakfast in the universe. I think I almost needed to be rolled out after I discovered the sausage balls(!) which I won't attempt to describe - I simply wouldn't do them justice. Mmm...sausage balls...

Obviously the highlight of the weekend was seeing the Crowdies, but I'll get to that. It was however almost overshadowed by this really cool walking tour of Berlin we went on. I know, sounds like geekville (and we've laughed at friends before who have told us it was cool) but it was fascinating. It lasted the best part of 4 hours, and took us from the Brandenburg Gates, to places like the Holocaust memorial, the remainder of the Berlin War, Hitler's suicide bunker, Checkpoint Charlie and many more - the whole time with stories of how the events of the last century unfolded. The guides work for tips so they have to be bloody good. Trust us, if you go to Berlin, do this tour!!!! (New Berlin Tours Website link)

We were exhausted after all the walking, and we decided to put Graeme in charge of finding somewhere for dinner. Which meant a lot more walking (mostly in circles) but dinner that night was fantastic. I would love to say "if you're ever looking for awesome Indonesian food in Berlin, then ask me" but truth be told, my chances of finding it again are next to zero :(

Sunday arrives - the concert is that night and we decide to drive to the venue and then catch public transport into the city. I won't regale you with all our attempts to get out of this suburb, but I guess unsuccessful attempt #3 is the most telling - waiting about 20 minutes for the N26 bus into Berlin. Yep - the 'N' stands for 'Night Bus' which in hindsight was unlikely to come at lunchtime.

Skipping forward to the concert - and yes it was FANTASTIC (see clip pasted at top of page). At first we were a little concerned that it seemed to be in a school hall (complete with mirror ball!), but I guess Crowded House are not as huge in Germany as Australia, and it meant it was much more intimate. The place was packed with Aussie and Kiwi expats (and with recent events, not one mention of the word 'Rugby'!) After a painful start (literally...my foot got run over by a crazy driver as I was dumping the jackets in the car!) things took off. We were standing about 2 rows from the front so had a brilliant view. The highpoint for me was a toss up between the acoustic version of 'Fall at Your Feet' and the final encore of 'Four Seasons in One Day'. My only dissapointment was them not playing 'Better Be Home Soon' which is one of my all time favs, but I read afterwards it's become a very emotional song for the band since they performed at the late Paul Hester's memorial (the original drummer).

So a quick, fun weekend. We arrived home at 3:30am Monday morning... so some serious sleep needed now! See you in Australia

Anth

PS Please insert 'Anthony and Graeme look for pubs to watch the football at' into all blank spaces...

PPS Assume there are a lot of blank spaces!! Steph

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Videos from "Berlin - Don't Dream It's Over!":

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