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Published: February 28th 2007
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Ok, so this isn't exactly during my round the world trip but I have just come back from a fantastic weekend in Berlin, and this will give me a chance to try writing a real blog with photos and things. So here goes:
Arrival
Up at stupid o'clock (2.30am) to get to stansted in time for our 6.30 flight. Thankfully, thursday's snow had abated enough for the airport to be running smoothly again. Unfortunately, unforseen engineering works meant that the stansted express was delayed. So we arrived at the airport 5 minutes before the check in closed, and 45 minutes before our flight was due to leave! Luckily, everyone at ryanair was extremely helpful and we got to the departure gate with enough time to get comfortably settled on the plane.
We arrived at Berlin Schonfeld at 9.30am, and after a brief tussle with the ticket machine managed to get ourselves sorted out with tickets. The train system was simplicity itself to understand, and we arrived at the hostel around 12. Cue 4 hours napping! (The hostel was called John's cozy backpacker hostel, there is another one as well called David's. They are both very central in Tiergarten, very close
to tubes, cheap, friendly and highly recommended!)
Snow Patrol
The real reason we had come to Berlin-to see Snow Patrol at the Columbiahalle on the last night of their European tour. We found a very nice Indian restaurant to have dinner at, and then headed down to the Columbiahalle. A worthwhile note to anyone who is used to going to gigs in England-in Germany they do things differently! We arrived about 20 minutes before the support started, and it was already heaving. Everyone had bagged their place at the stage and no-one was pushing in. No-one was leaving to get drinks, and there was no mass exodus to the bar when the support ended. A bit of a shock when i'm used to a big free-for-all for best position, with constantly shifting crowds!
But the gig was wonderful, they performed fantastically, even without their normal drummer. The German fans on the whole didn't know the words (or any songs that hadn't been released as singles) which was a shame, and a tragedy for Run, but the band obviously still had a blinding time and Gary kept the fans entertained between songs with Frank Sinatra and tales about his
(7) nipples (Gary's, not Frank's). There was a hefty dose of Final Straw songs, but also a lot from Eyes Open, including The Finish Line, which sounded fantastic, Make This Go On Forever (one of my favourites) and You Are All That I Have which was probably the best received of the whole night.
East Berlin
On Saturday we headed out to East Berlin to visit the TV Tower and the area around it, which we had heard good things about. It is a fantastic part of Berlin, very like Shoreditch (for those of you who know Shoreditch) but there is much more of it. Lots of art galleries, loads of little clothes shops and hundreds of cocktail bars.
We found a building on Orangienburger Strasse which had been recommended by a friend: A very dark, dingy entrance takes you up 2 flights of stairs, covered in graffiti and generally looking very derilict, with strange opera music wafting out at you. However, if you can stick it without getting too freaked out, you come first to a bar with two cinema screens (showing, of all things, Borat!) and then art galleries on each floor. A very wide range
of paintings, graffiti art, sculpture and paper aeroplaned! One of the galleries belongs to a very nice man who originally hailed from Bristol, so we chatted to him for quite a bit.
All of the cocktail bars seem to have extended happy hours, so that was the next stop, followed by pizza with wine, ending in an underground club that seemed to be below someone's back garden! A very surreal and enjoyable night, concluding with the obvious-falling asleep on the train and ending up in Spandau (although Chris has absolutely no memory of this and it was up to me to get us safely back to Zoo!). We got back to the hostel at about 5am, with the snow just starting to fall.
the Zoo
Time to visit the attraction that gives Zoologischer Gardens its name. The snow had continued for what was left of the night, and seeing camels and elephants trying to cope with a couple of inches of it was surreal, and very funny. Berlin Zoo is very large, with the emphasis on ditches rather than cages to prevent the animals getting out, so you get much better views than you would normally. It takes a
long time to get round though, especially in the snow, and we found it closing just as we arrived to see the monkeys 😞
the TV tower
Our flight on monday wasn't until the evening, so we had another full day in Berlin. Back to the east, for some more shopping (successful this time, although expensive!) and a trip up the TV tower to see Berlin from the air. It is obvious from here which areas were hit hardest during the war-there are some parts where none of the buildings are more than 40 years old. A lot of Berlin is ugly skyscrapers and building in progress, but you can pick out the domes of the churches, the Brandenberg Gate and the Jewish Museum, and Tiergarten Park breaks up the urban feel to an extent.
and home again
A wonderful weekend in all, we didn't get to see even half of the things we could have seen. Berlin is definitely somewhere I could spend a long time and not get bored, there is a huge amount of stuff going on and it may just have been the time of year, but very few tourists on the whole, which
was nice. They make good wine too!
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Nayan
Mumbai Indian
welcome to india
hey do let me knw whn u in india me frm mumbai webdesigner hope to see u in india