Living it up in Berlin

Sunday was our second adventure to Europe. We nearly didn't make it due to some very poor navigation skills on my behalf. London at the best of times can be impossible to find yourself in, but combined with it being 3.15am and operating on 3 hours sleep it was even worse. But by sheer luck, we were just able to get to Stansted and make our flight to Berlin.

After an uncomfortable nap on the plane, we both awoke in Berlin and decided to head straight to the zoo. I don't know if it was just us being useless or if it's intentional, but you don't get given maps when you get in and the zoo is deceptively large. So it was a case of us wandering around and stumbling upon various animals. We managed to waste most of the camera freshly charged battery in the zoo just because there was so much we wanted to take photos of.

Knut had his Italian girlfriend Gianna there (on loan from Munich) so we were spoilt by two polar bears. It was great to see elephants and these crazy penguins (where most of the battery went). All the zoo signs were in German and sometimes I don't think the translation to English was particularly correct or what we know them as in New Zealand so a lot of it was a guessing game but we saw heaps of animals and creatures we had never seen before and probably never would again. For lunch we had chips and shared a beer, it would be typical of Germany that beer was cheaper than buying a cola.

Late afternoon we headed to our hotel to check in. I had found this hotel online by random google searching and the use of a travel review site, and it was good as people said it was. Seriously, usually I have nothing nice to stay about hotels other than it's a place to sleep, but this place was part of the experience in itself. If you're ever in Berlin, come to the Michelberger.

We then met up with my friends from Düsseldorf who were also staying at the hotel, Tina and Kate who were the main reason we had decided to go to Berlin. We were happy to see them as well due to our very limited German (read: none). They made sure to take us to experience Berlin the proper German way by having currywurst, the local delicacy and Berliner Kindl Weisse, the local drink. Basically the currywurst was a sausage in a spicy tomato sauce topped with curry powder and served with chips, and the Berliner Weisse is an unusual beer drink which tastes nothing of beer and in this case was flavoured with a cherry syrup. It reminded me of those little flavoured ice packets we used to suck on as kids. Afterwards we found our way to a cafe which had a huge menu and did lots of different...well, everything. On the coffee front they claimed to do a flat white but disappointingly for Oren, it was mostly milky foam on the top. Which is the way they do coffee in Germany anyway. That night Oren and I had a gig just down the road for the American band The National which was absolutely fantastic before we finally got into the most comfortable bed ever (c'mon, just check out that photo!) for some well earned sleep.

In the morning we headed towards the city centre to Hackescher Markt where we had a big breakfast that meant we didn't even require lunch later on. Both times I've been in Germany I've had the most amazing large breakfasts, I love the importance they place on it. Kate navigated us through the various tourist traps in our next two days in Berlin and we took touristy photos. The bonus of having them there meant we could get the token couple ones in.







As you can tell, the weather was not kind to us. I'm starting to wonder if the hemispheres have mixed up their seasons. But weather aside, I just loved the feel of Berlin, it wasn't as overwhelming as Paris and felt more welcoming in a sense. It amazed me that all the graffiti everywhere just felt a part of Berlin, like art, where is everywhere else it's seen as something that must be eradicated as soon as it's been completed.

Dinner that night was at an Indian place near our hotel, which was pretty delicious. In our first week in London we went out for Indian which was quite a different experience to New Zealand Indian, and this was different again. The onion bhaji was very different visually but deliciously familiar. Tina and Kate had already told us German's don't do spicy so we knew the dishes would be fairly mild for their tastes.

That night was the reason our Berlin trip happened as Tina and I must be able the only Third Eye Blind fans still left since 1997 and once we heard they were playing, thought we MUST go. We were not disappointed, I don't know if it was just the nostalgia value or having Tina with me, but it was absolutely awesome. Seriously I felt like I was a teenager again. Now I understand why all those middle aged people go see these bands that had one single 30 years ago.

Sunday was another delicious breakfast and touristy wanderings, and pizza at our last dinner together before departing our seperate ways. The pizza was massive but so delicious.



With hugs to Tina and Kate, and promises of meeting up soon, it was back to London (well nearly, we spent a miserable night in Stansted first). On our return we moved into a temporary flat in Tufnell Green yesterday, one tube stop from where we've been staying with friends. We're here for a month and hopefully in that time will try sort ourselves out! At this stage, I'm already planning our return trip to Berlin what with it's International Beer Festival in August...