Schwiney! The reason Germany beat Australia 4-0 in the World Cup. A pig in a German lei
I was very happy to arrive in Berlin on June 12. Two reasons – one, I got to be with Rish after a week apart, and two it’s freaking BERLIN. How cool is that???
Hauptbahnhof
Multistory, pointing in four directions, incredible awesome station
First stop, our accommodation, the Circus Hostel recommended by all.
Our first night we spent in a dorm, which was okay, bed was comfortable. Except it was a dorm. And I think I’ve learned that I don’t really do dorms :p
Circus had free wifi which we accessed in the common room/cafe. The lifts were being serviced a couple of times we were there, which included when hauling out luggage down… The only other criticism would be how often the ladies toilets ran out of paper :(
On the second night we moved to our own room, with this cool bed. Still shared facilities, but wonderful to have our own breathing space.
I’m not quite sure how I didn’t leave Berlin with a bag full of Ampelmann goodies! Buy Online!
We took ourselves on the Lonely Planet’s walking tour of Berlin, backwards.
Matchbox scenes
East German looking bike. And look there’s the border of the Berlin Wall behind in in the bricks!!
That’d better be East.
I read it made a shadow like a cross which freaked the Soviets out
We got given some stickers to help decorate the arts centre….
My decoration
Rish made maths
Some strange man started talking to Rish, and I wasn’t cluey enough to rescue him from him :( So he got stuck with him for awhile before Rish managed to end the conversation. Sorry!
Want to learn to be this cool?
This is chocolate. I know, it is, really!
‘spensive car
The Russian Embassy. How Welcoming, with balloons and all!
Do these carry water? What about the pink pipes?
Holocaust memorial
That evening, we went to the Berlin FanFest at the Olympic stadium to watch Australia get slaughtered by Germany. There were about 30 Australians in our little huddle, with 30,000 Germans surrounding us (plus Schwiney, the wonderpig)…
Aussie!
Currywurst. Wurst, with curry.
Not sure if I’ll see that again. You wave that flag!
Some conversions
Sea.
A common love of beer
Teenage pole-dancing, sponsored by Coke. WTF??
And Germany score. All downhill from there!!
Travelling back to the hostel was a slight ordeal…. mostly with the excited Germans jumping up and down in the carriages, singing the rif from Seven Nation Army…
Which may or may not have caused TWO trains to be declared broken.. how did they put it? Oh defekt heh. We all bundled out of one, into another which needed “Resetting”… oh dear.
Next day we headed out to the Stasi museum… which was interesting but not really enough English to understand everything!
Super secret spy stuff
This is how I want my breakfast laid out, okay?
Approved channels only.
Loved our trains in Germany…. I’m still curious about how they blocked off the subways during the division on Berlin…
Can I get a clock/calendar like this?
Shame it wasn’t in season for Strawberries yet
Cheap and very very salty noodles
At the Berlin wall and the Topography of Terrors
Still such a foreign world to me
Berlin Wall
Wandered into the Central park…
Rocks from all over the world
The lion and his lioness
Bunnies
How about the colour?
I just noticed that there’s a sticker from the Arts centre on this!
For dinner, we went to Nord Sud, a little French cafe with a choice of three set menus, for only €7,50 each! Rish and I tried two of these :)
Local photographers sold pictures from the walls
Red for me, white for Rish
Rish’s starter. ?Chili con carne, if I remember right
Pate for me
They kept us stocked with bread!
Stroganoff
Cous cous and sausage. Slightly sweet sausage, I think
Dessert!
We would have been so lost at times without the GPS on Rish’s phone.
Rish went for a second dessert – Vanilla gelato, which was, I’m told, not as good as the one in Vienna
Then, on our final night in Germany we headed out after a few drinks to Raw Tempel a cooler-than-thou electro/house/dance club in an old railway shed. We danced and danced, and things were just heating up when we had to leave around 3:30 to get back to the hostel to grab our things for the train back to Frankfurt…. then the flight to KL… *sigh* It was REALLY REALLY hard to leave Berlin. How long til we can go back?
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Wow, stay classy, coca cola!
Oh I know… we were standing there going “is this what we think it is?” .. 13 year old girls dancing (badly but) suggestively around cornerposts to win a prize from Coca-Cola. heh.
Yay, I recognise parts of this! Yay, Berlin! I want to go back too, and see more of Germany all up. Still can’t believe I got so sick in Munich… boo! I didn’t even eat currywurst…
Not quite a shadow on the Fernsehturm – but the way the sunlight reflected off it made a cross.
Check out one of my pics of it – down the bottom of http://kazza.id.au/europe_2008/2008/05/day-7-6th-may-berlin.html
Very comprehensive look at Berlin!
Do they just have rabbits hopping around the park like that?
yup! there were heaps in Frankfurt too.
I brought an Ampelmann t-shirt when I was in Dresden, but there was heaps of other cool stuff that I wanted to get. Love the Ampelmann.
*jealous* ahh well. next time.