Travelling for a year is an absolute luxury, but catching a flight at midnight from the middle of nowhere and arriving in Berlin at 3.30am brings it all back to earth! Sometimes it just isn’t glamorous.
Nevertheless, we make the most of being in Berlin by sleeping till midday and finding Starbucks for a bad coffee and free WIFI so that Richard can listen to the semi final of Parra vs the Bulldogs. It must be love. In fact, I’m sure it is, as I endure an hour and a half of Ray Hadley recounting the game and Richard punching his fists in the air, biting his nails and yelling out in the middle of the lounge area “YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”. This was not what I had in mind.
Parra make the finals and we leave Starbucks with a big smile and coffee high. We hire some bikes from our hotel to explore the city. With no guide book and no directions, we wander aimlessly trying to get a feel for the place. In the evening we head out to the canals where we’re told there are some groovy bars and restaurants. We arrive at a bar which can best be described as Nimbin meets Venice. The owners haven’t invested too much in the decor (you don’t need a fireplace, when you can do the same thing in a disused oil drum!) but it still manages to have a cool feel and an eclectic mix of visitors.
We’ve heard amazing things about Berlin, but we find it difficult to get to know. Perhaps we were ill prepared (?), so we sign up for a free walking tour of the city. After two hours of poor story-telling and bad historical descriptions we decide that though it was free, this tour was way too expensive. In the evening we meet a Canadian couple - Monica and Stu who are in Berlin for the weekend. They’re great company and we enjoy a fun night out with too many beers and pork knuckle!
The next day we head an hour out of Berlin to Potsdam which is the German answer to the Loire Valley. Built by the Prussians, this small area has a high concentration in beautiful palaces and we spend the day walking the grounds and taking in the majesty. Our evening is spent in complete contrast, walking around raw studios of modern, grunge art (while sipping our travellers).There’s no rest for the wicked... so at midnight we hop on an overnight train heading to Amsterdam.
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