Berlin - im den Wasscher and fleetly on foot

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Berlin - the laundromat 8.30pm Friday 11 Sept.

given the state of Tokyo connectedness (well, maybe with wee fee it eez now possible) this might be my last msg.
I said earlier <<>
- well the answer is not at all organised (quelle surprise) - which is why having done nothing other than spending 2 hrs in the Pergamon Museum late yesterday (open til 10pm on Thurs. as are most of the museums on Museum Island) I decided I had better go on one of the walking tours of Berlin to at least see the bits I was otherwise going to miss out on (like, most of it!). So this picked me up at the Circus Hostel this morning - Terry Brewer himself (the founder) who leads some of them himself -a 60ish Brit who talks at a million miles an hour - he was just leading me to the rest of the main group who were somewhere else with the actual guide (Preston - also Amerikan - also talks quickly and being 2m tall walks pretty quick as well) who led us (all 7 of us - all Yanks other than moi) from 11am to 6pm on a pretty swift walking tour of Berlin - mostly in former East Berlin where one could say that most of the interesting sites are. Did you know the main way to tell East and West apart is that the East still has the tram tracks? - the West pulled theirs up in the 60's in the name of dubious “progress”. I haven't actually got one (a ttram - evn tho they go past the hostle) in Berlin but have used the U-bahn (metro) to go the 2 stops to Alexanderplatz (which you can go to a max. 3 stop ticket for 1.3E - otherwise it is 2.10E for a std trip- gee I wish my train had arrived there as the connections from Hauptbahnhof were a shocker as I already mentioned.

Anyway where did the walking trip go for all you old-Berliner hands? - well the New Synagogue (being literal they tend to call the original whatever building the Old and the New the New - simple huh?). Terry had taken us via some courtyards off the street on the way, which as he explained were relatively public places and not “private”. Then Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate - I was confused by the German word Tor thinking it meant “tower” - like in Celtic or whatever - but Gate it is. That much I now know. Then we meandered around the site of the original wall etc and had a Turkish kebab shop stop for late lunch about 3.30pm - at which I had a pretty reasonable pizza - way better than the joke that was the Vilnius impersonation - and as for Tallinn where yiu had to really try to avoid pineapple and blue cheese - often together! - on something often called Fiorentina (Italians have fit now) - this was a pretty reasonable Quattro Stagione with artichokes and ham - and with a middle eastern touch some Lebo style hot green small peppers. To be honest this trip was at cracking pace and certainly not the photographers dawdle I have been used to by meself - a power walk around the main inner Berlin sites indeed. And of course the site, now with a car park/apartment block over it, where Hitler ended his days in the bunker.

[side note: if you haven't - but pls do - check out U-toob with search for Hitler/Michael Jackson and you will find at least 2 hilarious klips with Hitler having a spazzy cos Michael Jackson died and he was booked to play at his big party (Adolf's that is) and also one about Obama being in town and not coming to visit Adolf and how Michelle was really Michael before and Hitler and he used to “play” before she “changed” - absolutely hilarious - same film footage but just revoiced and re-subtitled. The guy who does Hitler is obviously a professional at it - and its not even Bruno Ganz (I think not anyway) - who if you have seen Last Days or whatever it was called played der Fuhrer then.]

Anyway the trip ended just before 6pm at the Dom church near the Alte Museum. As I briefly said I finally got out yesterday Thursday which is “late nite shopping” nite on Museum Island and they are all open I think til 10pm - and also notionally free after 6pm on Thurs. Trouble was as the Pergamon had a special exhibition called Dionysos - mostly Roman sculpture etc which I did not think was that distinguished - they were still charging the normal 10E whack - but you do get a free audio guide (which in our blockbuster art exhibitions really annoy me - they just hold things up! - but I must admit they were pretty good in India and a valuable interpretation/explanation aid)- and 2 hrs barely scratched the surface there and I only had time for a quick dash around the Islamic section in the last 15 mins etc. It was good to see the Assyrian section - and I can imagine that after the fall of Iraq and all the looting of museums etc there that the Pergamon ended up being a treasure trove/one of the leading museum collections from that area of the world. Not objects I have really been able to see elsewhere so this was relatively new.

Anyway the walking tour went to the alleged Checkpont Charlie and all that tourist stuff and other places I cannot even remember - when it comes to the photos probably barely - anyway I have hopefully attached some with more or less accurate captions for youse.

When I got back to th ehostel I gad the travellers chore - laundry - pretty much out of clean clothes adn 3 days to go - and no way you can hang it out ina dorm room - but Scnell and Sauber - the aforementioned laundrette aroundthe corner - were not that expensive (options??) - 2.5E for 33 min wash up to 6.5kg - then 50 cents for 10 mins drying - 2 seshs - which all took an hour while I E scribbled some more drivel. So it was virtually 10pm before I could eat. Altho guy at hostel suggested a German style place, on teh way in that general direction found Vino e Libri (wine and books) - rec. by LP so decided to give it a bash. The chef who used to do wild boar and tagliatelle and strawberry flavoured pasta must have gone as not that weird/creative - but clearly largely a Sicilian/Sardinian seafood restaurant. So I had a seafood soup to start - chock full of seafood - then grilled fish with some grilled veges and potatoes - quite nice - with a small carafe of a Sardinian white. The restaurant did indeed have quite a few books lining the shelves so it was a bit like a library restaurant - and it was only 100m. ard the corner or so.

I have had to change rooms for tonight so now in a 4 bedder - and the current 2 other occupants already asleep - which I should be as well, as I have to set off around 9am for the transport to Tegel airport flight at noon to get to Helsinki, then Tokyo. Auf weidersehn, as one might say.....

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