After an uneventful week with a couple of château parties, Leo and I boarded the Lufthansa flight to Berlin on Friday morning. I was very fortunate, as Leo not only speaks fluent German, but also knows Berlin very well. We arrived at Tegel airport and took public transportation to our hostel, which was pre-opening. The room was spacious and brand new, with our own toilet! We dropped the bags and walked over to Tachales, an abandoned building which has been used by street artists since the end of WWII. It was in very bad shape until a few years ago, when they refurbished a little bit to make it safer. Inside, artists of every style paint, sculpt and create. In the yard, others solder and spray paint. We looked around for a short while before having a traditional German lunch: sausage, sauerkraut, and potatoes. It was……….. ok. We then visited the Pergamon museum, which is a “civilization” museum, where we saw actual structures of “stolen” temples from all over the world. We then went for a one-hour cruise on the Berlin waterways, which helped me discover both pre and post war buildings. There has been considerable construction around Berlin, such as the new train station and outstanding government buildings. We then took the subway over to the center of the West side, where we had traditional red and green (disgusting) beer overlooking the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtnis-Kirche (cathedral). We then walked over to a nearby “Biergarten” where we watched the opening match of the World Cup 2006 taking place in Munich. Deutschland was playing Costa Rica. The crowd went totally wild every time Germany scored. There were huge parties on the street everywhere we went. They closed down a major boulevard in the middle of the city and filled half of it with sand. We met a German couple and talked with them for 3 hours drinking cherry wine. Around 11pm, we figured out that it was too late to have dinner, so we kept walking around. I sat amongst the garbage on the very spot where the Berlin wall separated East and West and pondered about what it must have been like to live here 20-30 years ago. After catching a quick kebab, we couldn’t find the bars we were looking for so we went home and called it a night.
The next morning, Leo and I walked over to the Reichstag and explored the area until noon, when Tapan arrived from Paris to join us. We had lunch in a Singaporean restaurant for old times sake. It was very Indian inspired, and the food was colourful and delicious. We then went inside the Reichstag and climbed to the top of the glass dome, where we had a decent view of the city. We then watched part of the Sweden game at the Sony Center, where they set up animation, entertainment, a stage and several huge screen TVs. We drank a couple of Beck’s and Berliner Pilsner, the two popular beers in the area. We then walked to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, where I learned a lot about the cold war and the attempts to sneak from East to West. We then walked all the way to Alexanderplatz, and watch part of the evening game in a biergarten. We had lunch on a terrace watching the end of the game. I had a fish platter which was ok at best. We then walked to a shisha bar where we drank mojitos and smoked apple-flavoured tobacco. We then went to “The Matrix”, probably the largest and best-known club in Berlin. It’s located under a U-bahn (subway) station, and is large. It has several rooms, an indoor poor, tons of bars etc. I felt tired so I called it a night around 2, while Leo and Tapan got kicked out around 6am. Before going home, I had one last drink at Tachales, which is active 24/7.
On Sunday morning, we lost our deposit at the hostel because we didn’t leave before the 10am check-out time. By noon, we were having lunch at some touristy restaurant before taking the 200m high elevator to the Berlin TV Tower ball, where we enjoyed a beautiful view of the city. We drank Singapore Slings (again for old times sake) at the Ball Bar while overlooking the city. We then walked along a preserved part of the wall, where we appreciated the graffiti on both sides of the wall. Unfortunately, it was already time to fly back to CDG via Dusseldorf.
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