Berlin, done.... for now!

Well, I did it... I went to Berlin!

For the first time in almost 3 years at easyJet, I used my staff travel for me!  It was all arranged rather last minute, with my outbound flight booked a matter of just over 2 hours before departure.  An hour of rushed packing, finding travel insurance, ordering euros, and excited madness later and before I knew it, I was at Gatwick, passing through passenger security, picking up my €130 and rushing down to the gate.  Despite missing the start of boarding, I still managed to get a seat in the extra legroom rows, and before long I was in the air and enroute to Germany, excited and a little bewildered about how just a few hours before, I'd been sat in my room wondering what to do with the day!

Just before takeoff, I'd quickly downloaded the TripAdvisor app for Berlin, so got down to writing a few hostel details down during the flight.  On arrival, I got the train into town and found an internet terminal at the Dunkin' Donuts shop in Alexanderplatz (one of the main areas of town).  I searched for places to stay and narrowed my list down to a few hostels.  Luckily the first one I visited, the Aletto hostel in Kudamm, turned out to be really nice, so I ended up staying there.  The receptionist was originally from Yorkshire, so checking in was really easy having someone fluent in English to help and advise me.

After settling in, I popped into the supermarket inside the nearby Zoologischer Garten train station, and bought myself some drinks and a pack of white chocolate Twix's, before heading over to the Olympic Stadium for the first night of the fireworks.  After taking ages to work out that stehplatz and sitplatz meant standing and sitting respectively, I opted for a standing ticket, and made my way into the stadium.  The fireworks were pretty good, but the skies opened up at some points (I didn't have a hood or an umbrella), and the wind was blowing towards us so some of the displays were clouded in smoke!  Still, it was pretty impressive.  Afterwards, I headed back to the hostel and considered going out clubbing, but as I wanted to do lots on the Saturday, I decided to get an early(ish) night.

"ooooooooooh, aaahhhhhhhhh"

Up and early on the Saturday, I had my breakfast at the hostel and then headed to join a walking tour.  It was about €10 and involved lots of walking (obviously) and lots of points of historical importance including some of the museums, the location of the Nazi book-burning, Hitler's bunker, the Royal Palace, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, one of the former East Berlin's 'ghost stations', the Brandenburg Gate and lots of points relating to the Berlin Wall.  Our tour guide, Kristin, was excellent and her hand-drawn map of the divided Germany after WWII finally helped me to understand what the Berlin Wall was all about - I had it all wrong in my head up until then!

It all makes sense now!

Afterwards, I headed back to Alexanderplatz to decide what to do with the rest of the day.  I saw that there was a miniature world exhibit at the 'Alexa' centre, so headed there.  Turns out the Alexa centre was a massive shopping mall with a big food court, tonnes of shops, a gym and the model world on the top floor.

Despite being weary, I headed inside the miniature world and was a little disappointed to find it wasn't quite what I'd expected.  The main room was a massive model railway, with some areas built as miniature replicas of parts of Berlin.  Lots of new areas were still being built so it looked like a bit of a construction site.  There was also a smaller room set up as an airport, which was pretty cool.  I was expecting the one I'd seen on YouTube, but it turns out that was in Frankfurt, and this was a little less advanced.  Still, it was fun to watch, and I'm glad I went.  I got a few videos to put on YouTube too, so perhaps that will help me work towards my goal of having a video with 1 million views (highly doubtful with these ones!).  I'll stick the link on a later post once they're up.  After leaving, I realised I was low on money, so reluctantly drew €100 out of the ATM.

In the evening, I headed back to the Olympic Stadium for the second day of fireworks.  I left it a little late and they'd started by the time I arrived, so I just watched them from outside along with a thousand or so Berliners.  The weather was much drier and the displays seemed bigger... in hindsight I should have probably paid to go in, but I still got to watch the whole thing, albeit from a distance!

I headed back to the hostel to get changed for a night out clubbing but on arriving back at my room, I realised that one of the other residents of the dorm had nicked my towel... he actually stole a damp towel!  It was the only thing I didn't lock away as, well.... who would want a used wet towel!  But he clearly did as he'd taken it and left!  Sadly that put me in a right mood, and after trying with great difficulty to find out from the night receptionist whether the cleaning staff might have taken it, I decided to call it a night and head to bed.

In the morning, I spoke to the receptionists again, who advised me the cleaning staff hadn't taken the towel, so I decided to try forget it and make the most of the day.  I packed, left my bag in the storage room, and headed into town.  I had a look around Hauptbanhof, the main train station in Berlin and, after a wander in the then glorious sunshine, stumbled upon the German Parliament building or 'Bundestag', which happened to be holding an open day where the public could have a wander inside.  I got a free bag of goodies, had a quick look around and listened to the youth band playing outside before catching a train and tram over to part of East Berlin for the English tour of Hohenschönhausen, the SS Stasi prison museum.  

The tour was really interesting - we saw the 'Submarine' (the horrendous underground wing), the more sanitised cells above ground, the room were prisoners were registered, and heard stories about the prisoners' experiences and things that went on.  It was really weird to think that this place was still in use as recently as 1989, that this was happening during my lifetime.

Om-nom-nommmm

After leaving the museum, I headed back to the Alexa centre to use their free wifi.  Having not yet booked a flight home, I checked the passenger loads to Gatwick and, having realised that no staff travel seats were going to come up, I decided to book the staff seat to Luton that evening.  Although most of the shops in the centre were closed, there was a bakery open so I indulged in some 'healthy cuisine' and headed back to the hostel to grab my bag.

On the way to the airport, I stopped off and bought a ticket to the viewing platform of the gigantic TV Tower.  My 'slot' meant I got up there just in time for sunset.  Sadly, my camera battery died just as the Sun was disappearing below the horizon, so I missed a few good photo ops, but still got a fair few nice ones.

I headed back to the airport, checked in, and just as I approached the queue for security, I noticed that the person in front of me was none other than a good friend from a few years back, Kevin.  We sat together and caught up on the last couple of years during the flight, before heading our separate ways at Luton.  I got the train back to Gatwick, arriving home at about 2am.

All things considered, I had a fantastic weekend, am really glad I booked it, and have now got the travel bug, so can't wait to go away again.  My days off in October are all Saturday to Monday, so I have plenty of opportunities for 3-day trips, I just need to get some willing volunteers to come with me!  My bestie, Adam and his other half are hopefully gonna come away with me for one trip, and we'll hit the clubs of some unsuspecting European city... stay tuned for further developments!

Bye for now :)