So we arrived into Berlin late afternoon on Wednesday and made our way to the hotel in the north east of the city. We then made the mistake of walking into the Center - Alexanderplatz. It took fucking years. Didn't do that again.
Alexanderplatz is a large central area, completely covered in concrete. It's overshadowed by the TV Tower, and has lots of shops, bars and Market stalls. We stopped off into a bar for some food and drinks.
The TV Tower
Once the sun set we headed off to look for somewhere new. Following "The Book" aka our Lonely Planet Berlin guide we wandered until we stumbled down an alleyway and found Eschscheloraque - a small cocktail bar, with some quite freaky statues/art works dotted around. We had 4 different cocktails here, Nic kept orderring ones containing milk/creme by accident. And we all know how that one ends.
Eschscheloraque
When we left and attempted a move back to the hotel we got lost. Very lost. I hadn't realised quite how drunk I'd got. I remember getting to a tram stop and just staring at the screen and saying, "But WHY is there no M5? WHY is there just M2?" couldn't work it out. In the end we gave up and got a taxi home.
Breakfast was free at the hotel. However, we woke up at 11 after it had stopped. My head hurt. My head hurt BAD. 2 glasses of wine, followed by Long Island Iced Tea followed by 3 different cocktails = mixed drinks = baaad.
We managed to get out of bed around midday and made our way into the centre in order to "do culture." We went to see the Brandenburg Gate, then walked over to The Reichstag. Unfortunately to go inside and tour the Reichstag you have to book online. 3 days in advance :/
So we looked at the outside of it.
Brandenburg Gate
The outside of The Reichstag
We then visited the Holocaust memorial, which is hundreds of grey concrete blocks, of varying heights, placed over undulating ground.
Holocaust Memorial
We also went to the gay memorial in the park, which is another single large block with a peephole in one end, which when you look through shows two men kissing.
Gay Memorial
We carried on south to Potsdamer Platz, a new development area and visited the TV& Film Museum. Was alright. Had a coke in The Worlds Most Expensive Cafe in The Sony Centre.
The Sony Centre
Purdy but expensive cafe
German dessert. I.e. giant muller corner youghurt
Thursday night was possibly the best night of the trip. We made our way to Prenzlaur Berg in the north. On the way to the bar we got prepositioned by a gross man who was literally DRIPPING in sweat. He shouted something at us from over the road whilst wheeling a bike. We ignored him a bit, his mate sort of shrugged as if to say, "Yeah, he's wierd," before the man crossed the road, then mumbled something incoherent and gestured over his shoulder. Ummm right mate, cos CLEARLY we're going to both go and have sex with you in an alleyway somewhere, with your gross sweaty face VOM.
Anyway
We went to a bar called Klub Der Republic. It was on the first floor, un-signposted, with the stairway up to the entrance down an alleyway. You could very easily walk past and not realise it was there. Once in it was a medium sized room, bar on one side DJ on the other. Minimal decor, what I would describe as "GDR chic," mismatched chairs, old TVs looping footage, funky light coverings.
The outside of KDR, i.e. a window, and signless.
The bar.
We were at the bar ordering drinks when a girl came up to Nic and said, "Nic! I was at your flat last weekend!" her name was Amy, and she was friends with Nic's housemate! Now living in Berlin and working as a teacher, small world eh?
It then turns out that Amy is in a band with the DJ who is from....Liverpool. Mental. said DJ is called Chris and is, quite frankly, one of the best DJ's I've ever seen play. I loved literally every song he played. Perfect Indie Disco. Think The Cure followed by The Smiths followed by Blondie followed by Hot Chip followed by Vampire Weekend followed by Human League. I had such such SUCH a good time.
We didn't leave until it got light at about 6am. First train home and all that. There were definitely commuters on that train.
Getting home
We very nearly slept in over our checkout time. We obviously missed breakfast again. We crawled over the road to KFC. I'm not proud of this. I barely go to fast food places in the uk, feel even worse about doing it when I'm on holiday. But my god, were those chicken nuggets good.
We'd been checked out of the hotel but we couldn't go to the hostel yet so we went to a park and slept. Mmm trampy.
Park Nap
More chips/houmous was consumed and we did more culture. This involved going to the big Synagogue at 4pm on a Friday. FAIL. It was obviously closing for the sabbath. So again we had a nice look at it from the outside. Further down the road was a place called Tacheles.
Bit hard to describe - it was a large warehouse type building, concrete with 6 or so floors. One of the last remaining squats, every square inch was covered in graffiti. Lots of floors with people selling artworks, displaying pairings and art installations. V cool.
Tacheles
We then had to go back to the hostel and sleep. The other people in our dorm made an appearance, they were 2 girls and a guy from Limerick who were inter-railing. They also came in, chatted for a bit then passed out.
Later that evening after food, we had some drinks in the hostel's (cheap) bar and ventured out with the Irish guys, plus a fairly random Australian called Luke who seemingly appeared from nowhere. Went down into Friedrichstain and ended up in a fairly hardcore techno club. I sat outside in the narrow garden by the river and chatted to the v cute Irish boy.
Outside in the garden
We rather stupidly didn't get any of their surname though so no keeping in touch :(
We stayed out again til it got light (recurrng theme). The Irish were meant to be leaving on the first train to Prague. They failed. Lots of alarms went off and were ignored. Haha.
We missed free breakfast. Again.
Saturday was BOILING. we went to the zoo. It was boss. Much bigger, much better, and also a lot cheaper than London zoo. Here would be some of the animals.
Stinky llama face.
Sloth
A ver ver ver hot bear
After we passed out a bit longer with our feet in the canal, again more daytime sleeping. Are you catching the general drift here?
Very pretty
Saturday was...surreal. We traveled fairly far into East Kreuzberg to Amy's flat. Which was gorg. In a scummy doorway into a scummy courtyard, but inside flat was bootiful. Wooden floors, gorgeous decorations, very cool. Her German flatmate and French best mate were there, and then a lesbian film maker from St Albans turned up wearing knee high socks and sandals. See what I mean about surreal? We got a bit more drunk there, then the scouse DJ from Thursday turned up with 2 Geordie mates. We listened to Jennifer Lopez on instruction of the shaven-headed lesbian.
We left the flat and went to a small pub round the corner, where we were the only punters. The bar was a wooden table, and the till was a big leather purse. The only barmaid was a cute blonde girl with a cropped pixie haircut. A guy Amy knew started playing the guitar so she went back to get her violin to join in. They played a song or two, a few more people came in.
That would be the bar
Then, THEN it all went wierd(er). A guy came in, who I can only describe as a pirate. He had shoulder length dreads, a tricore hat on, sparkly leggings covered with a shawl. He was followed by an equally hippy girl, and then....A FILM CREW. One guy with a proper camera another with one of those furry mic things.
He then took his turn to sing a song and the girl played a flute. I just remember sitting on the barstool, in a smoky room, with about a dozen or so people watching this utterly bizarre act unfolding before me, fairly fucking pissed, and thinking, "I am going to remember this for the rest of my life as one of The Most surreal, downright wierd, but kind of amazing experiences I have ever had." Then some dancing got started, there was a bit of a fight, but the vodka was having a real effect on me by now.
Look closely and you can see the "pirate"
At some point, (god knows when) Chris the scouse DJ and his mates rocked up and were like, "This place is wierd and shit, we're taking you somewhere good," which actually turned into a lot of walking, going into a tiny cellar for ten minutes, watching a northern irish man do some amazing 70s dancing and then leave, then walk some more, buy disgusting fake red bull drinks, walk even more, have an abortive attempt at using a photobooth, then end up in a scary as hell hardcore punk bar, where once again, it started to get light. At this point I'd started feeling decidedly dodgy, and refused to get a drink, which I got massive down the banks for. Wasn't having that, so kicked off a bit, before running outside because of the smoke.
Seriously, the smoke in Berlin! God knows what the smoking ban actually is out there, I don't think anyone there knows, but the rules seems to be "If someone else is smoking inside you can too." And yes, I KNOW we used to have it here as well, but it came into place pretty shortly after I started going out, so I am used to being able to BREATHE in places. It just got to me in that punk place, I genuinely felt like I couldn't breathe. That cut short the end of that one really and we traipsed back to the hostel to pass out again.
Sunday morning was bad. So wretchedly hungover. Of course no breakfast. Got up around midday, undecided whether I was going to be sick or was so hungry my stomach was in pain. We went into central town and took probably a good hour wandering around looking at restaurants deciding what to eat. At about 5pm I felt human again, and we did more of that culture thing at the Berlin Cathedral, climbing about a gazillion steps to get to the top. Wandered through some markets, watched some acrobatic street art.
Berlin Cathedral
Street acrobats
Went home. Early night. Four nights of coming home in the early hours, followed by not enough sleep, with too much booze, too much passive smoking and eating utter shit definitely took its toll....Completely broken.
Yummy thai food
Monday - WE MADE FREE BREAKFAST. then went to meet Amy for lunch in a backstreet pizza place. Inadvertently ordered an entire pizza by accident - which was 3 euros! I thought I'd only get a slice for that! Had a really nice chat with Amy about why she moved out and why she loved it so much. To be honest, could totally see where she was coming from, Berlin is an attractive and fun city. We had a few hours before our flight, so we tootled down to The East Side Gallery, which is about a kilometre of the Berlin Wall - the longest stretch that is left remaining. It has been completely covered with paintings/murals:
And then it was hometime! Back to England. Back to the rain. Back to the riots and the mess. The whole thing has made me really re-consider living in England once I qualify. There are just so many other amazing cities and countries and I've hardly experienced any of them. Bloody LOVED Berlin
