When £10 becomes £8

Ich bin ein Berliner

Possibly the least original blog post title for a visitor to Berlin, but hey, who cares?

Just a bit of a wander today, although this leaves me with a quandry: what to do with the left over travelcard I didn't use. I may just leave it in the room tomorrow, or give it to whoever I hand my key to in the morning. Should have bought them daily!

This old brewery is now a cultural centre.

This is the first water tower in Berlin, constructed by an Englishman in the mid-19th century, allowing fresh running water for the first time in Germany.

Some buildings are still waiting to be done up.

I got as far as a lovely, busy autumnal park in Friedrichshain (the Volkspark), although I failed to find the Prenzlauer Berg museum on the way.

Back via Konnopke's Imbiss, as predicted, for a currywurst and a Schultheiss. I ordered in German, but was floored by a question, a choice. He asked me again in English. At least I tried, which was appreciated.

Ornithologically speaking ...

... have you any idea what this is, please? I snapped it yesterday in Berlin. It looks like a cross between a crow and a magpie, only black-and-grey. It was quite tame, too, and with its mate liked to perch on car roofs.

(Full circle) burger

I have a very good Berlin guide book with me on this trip, and I have no hesitation in recommending the Time Out city guide (ISBN 978184670057-6); I will certainly want to buy others in the series from now on.

So this faith was again borne out last night in my (its) choice of restaurant. It's rather wonderful when you discover that somewhere you really like the look of on the page, turns out to be just round the corner. And so it was with The Bird. But first, I need to tell you a story ...

I'm sorry this is another of those stories that starts "When I lived in East Berlin ..." Look, it's somewhat inevitable that I know and relate the now to the history.

Anyway, having lived a sheltered childhood in Paris and rural England, I arrived in Berlin for my first summer holiday with very little practical understanding of Americans and their ways. I'd also never eaten a hamburger. Now during that holiday I discovered, sometimes with a colleague of my Dad's called Jim Brown and his family who had just come from a posting in Washington as Americanophiles complete with exported Pontiac Trans-Am ... so, as I was saying, it was with the Browns that I first discovered ten-pin bowling, Coca-Cola, and hamburgers in the American Air Force base at Tempelhof.

Now the British Officers' Club was a posh place, and the French one was, well, very French. But the Americans had what was basically a hamburger joint, and I loved it. Real US-style burgers and French Fries, Coke The Real Thing (the American stuff does taste different ...). It was all a revelation.

Steve reminded me the other day that I have a habit of demanding, when we are abroad, that we don't eat, say, Chinese food in Paris, or steak and chips in Spain, that we should eat the local food styles. I think I may be wrong about this, or at least I would like to modify this rule. In the great international cities of the world, there is a melting-pot of people, and cuisines. Who wouldn't want to eat Italian in New York? Or Caribbean in London? Or Chinese in Toronto? Or, as it turns out, New York burgers in Berlin?

And so we have come full circle. As an inveterate avoider of hamburgers and generally all things beginning with 'Mac', I enjoyed a wonderfully meaty, medium-rare, thick, cheese-covered, flame-scorched burger, and crisp irregular fries, along with half a litre of German beer, perched at the bar in a noisy, crowded, lively, happy burger joint, five minutes walk from where I'm staying. It was a million miles from a bland worldwide food franchise, and it was wonderful! Oh, and it's run by Americans: big, warm, friendly, have-a-nice-day Yanks, who speak little if any German. If you're in Berlin, especially if you're in Prenz'lberg, get yourself to Falk-Platz at the western end of Gleimstrasse. And if you don't really want to take a chance there'll be a table or even a place at the bar, you'd better book. They only take cash.

Today I'm going to spend quietly. I'm off for a walk around the bits of the Bezirke (borough) I haven't seen yet, including a museum, (and maybe wander as far as the next, Friedrichshain); I'm determined to get a currywurst from the hottest Imbiss in Berlin, which happens to be just down the road; and later on I'd like to find a cosy local café, and then maybe a cosy local bar, to sit and do some writing.

Hangover Pilgrimage

Bit of a late start, unsurprisingly. Walked to nearest functioning U-Bahn station. Took train into Mitte.

Visited the odd new Holocaust Memorial (Denkmal für die ermordeten Jüden Europas) near the Brandenburger Tor. There's a video on YouTube. Then walked to the western side of the Gate, and made another short video for reasons which will be obvious if you watch it. It's on YouTube. Then I walked along to the the Soviet War Memorial on Strasse des 17 Juni, for reasons which ... oh for heaven's sake, just go to YouTube.

After a quiet few minutes sitting on a bench in the Tiergarten, I decided to go and find the Stasi Museum. I couldn't, but I did find some impressive Albert Speer Nazi-era architecture.




Next plan was to go to Heinrich-Heine-Strasse. I could have walked, but I had a BVG (Berlin public transport system) ticket, and besides, it's quite a way. Remember, I'm still feeling delicate.

So I found the nearest U-Bahn, which is in Friedrichstrasse, and called Stadtmitte. Now when I was in Berlin back in the days of the Cold War this station, or at least the part of it on the line I was to take, south to Hallesches Tor, was closed. The line, you see, ran north-south from West Berlin, through a section of the East, back into West Berlin; if you travelled on this line, you were aware of dimly-lit stations at which the train slowed, but did not stop, and there were armed East German guards lurking in the shadows. All very creepy.

Anyway, I was rather thirsty, and was looking for a shop selling bottled water. After some meandering, I found myself unexpectedly at the Gendarmenmarkt and the back of the block of flats in which my parents had lived. Having done this particular bit of nostalgia back in 2007, it hadn't been on th itinerary this time. Still, here's a picture looking along Leipzigerstrasse, with the front of the block in question just visible behind the trees on the left. It has been tarted up since 1990, but it used to look a lot like the blocks on the other side of the road: DDR-utilitarian.

[I'm really pissed off that everything I originally wrote beyond this point has been lost due to some sort of auto-save balls-up by blogger.com, so what follows is probably only half-remembered.]

I took the U-Bahn two stops southwards on line U6. Back in the day I'd walk through Checkpoint Charlie, invariably get on at the first station the other side, Kochstrasse, and change at Hallesches Tor, as I did today. Now a weird thing happened, as I walked up the steps at the end of the platform and headed towards line U1. The corridors, the orange wall tiles, even the old photographs on the walls, hadn't changed in thirty-two years. It freaked me a little.

The reason I wanted to go to Heinrich-Heine-Strasse will be apparent if you watch the appropriate video on YouTube. Essentially I was looking for a hospital at which I was wonderfully treated (an East German hospital, mind you) back in the winter of 1978. I'll tell you the story another time, since I've already typed it in loving detail once today ... grrrrr.

Drinking in bars with boys

Too many half price Beck's. 4am. 'nuff said.

Managed breakfast this morning though.

Finally online

Berlin today is a bit cold and a bit foggy, but I have wrap-me-up-warm clothes, and at least it isn’t raining. I’ve wandered a few of the main streets of the neighbourhood (Prenzlauer Berg, in the former eastern part of the city), checked in to my clean, tidy but very compact room, had a refreshing shower, and bought a bit to eat.

If you’re reading this now and a slew of previously-written postings, then I’ve successfully sorted out my internet access. Which means my next job is to post a few video clips on YouTube (www.youtube.com/haymee) and then work out where I’m going to go this evening.

"Schnell!"

Berlin's new Hauptbanhof is an impressive, airy and light-filled building, into which I arrived some seven minutes late, which defied predictions. Unfortunately it's also filled with the same shop chains found now everywhere in the world.

Thinking it was a terminus and that there was no hurry to get off what was essentially an hotel on rails which would need a lot of maid service to be habitable again, I was in no rush. It turns out it's not a terminus. I nearly didn't get off in time before it pulled off on its way elsewhere. The friendly attendant, horrified he'd missed me, propelled me out of the door at speed.

Daily S- and U-Bahn tickets are more expensive than I was expecting, but I negotiated the system uneventfully ... until the U2 line from Alexanderplatz ended prematurely a few stops short. From the replacement bus it was easy to see why: the line, which is on stilts all the way up Schönhauser Alee, is being overhauled, with heavy machinery and hoardings; they're upgrading the line and stations, I imagine, from DDR days to a more modern system.

The hotel, friendly as the last time I was here nearly four years ago, have told me I can check in several hours early, at 1230, so a little exploring has started with a coffee and a Danish nearby.

The Night Train

I have slept on trains before, of course. I don't mean drifting off on the Southern service to London Bridge, I mean properly overnighting. Not long after I left school (I honestly can't remember the year, but somewhere around 1986 or '87) my friend Peter and I did the Interrail thing, for I think ten days or three weeks, all over France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the Low Countries, Denmark, but saving precious time and even more precious money by catching trains between distant locations overnight wherever possible, sleeping in couchettes, seats or even in the corridor, and waking up in a different country.

Last night wasn't what you would call 'a good night's sleep'. To begin with, I wasn't tired, and Stephen Fry's 'Chronicles' is not a great soporific work. But after an hour or so I could hear Erich gently snoring below me so I turned the light out. Lying across the carriage, and with little in the way of conventional acceleration/deceleration forces, it's a bit disorientating for a while. In fact you are more likely to be moved towards your head or feet by centrifugal forces as the train encounters banked corners. It's also completely impossible to have any sense of the speed the train is doing, as the predominant noise is the air-conditioning and a much less distinct sound from the wheels on the track. There's rarely any sustained 'clackety-clack, clackety-clack' either.

All this pseudo-physics going round in my head did send me off, eventually. To be woken later by Erich taking a trip to the loo, then a text from Steve. The compartment is very small, with a possible three bunkbeds on the back wall (only two for us: the bench seats flipped over for the bottom bunk, and mine lowered from the wall; the third, if needed, is lowered from the wall even further up, with the middle bunk slid down to make equal spacing). On the front wall two wooden doors open to reveal a washstand, mirror, light and so on, and to the right of that a tiny interconnecting door to use if a family or group have two adjacent compartments. There's an effective blind on the window, and then a hotel-style solid door to the corridor on the other, with one of those punch-card keys you must remember to take with you if you go to the loo so you can get back in.

The unusual movements of the train didn't aid sleep, and although I did go off, I woke a lot too. We stopped for prolonged periods at least twice, and various clunking noises gave me the idea we were changing engines. If we were ever shunted, and we may have been, those doing it were at least sensitive to the cargo in the wagons they were moving: starting and stopping were barely perceptible.

Erich is clearly not a quiet person in the morning, although to be fair getting washed and dressed in a small, dark, unfamiliar space isn't really conducive to allowing your roommate to sleep. I didn't. Anyway, he disappeared with his breakfast-in-a-box even before we arrived at Hannover. I contemplated a bit more kip, but as I could start to see hints of the outside world (lights flashing across the compartment from under the bottom of the blind) from my high bunk, I started to get a bit too excited to sleep. I climbed down, easily worked out how to turn the bottom bunk back into three seats with armrests, and plugged my phone in to charge. Quick wash and dress, and as the eastern sun, into which we were headed, was beginning to penetrate the low mist lying over the night-frost-covered fields, I started to write this piece, only interrupted by the attendant bringing in a clip on table and my breakfast. He seemed happily surprised I'd saved him the bother of putting the seats out.

As I write this we have just stopped outside Berlin-Staaken station, so it cannot be long before we pull into the Hauptbanhof. I shall have to put the laptop away and get prepared for the start of my first day in Berlin!

Jarheads and bunkbeds

It's 1910 in Paris and I'm sitting in a busy Gare de l'Est - a short walk from the Gare du Nord where my Eurostar arrived nearly an hour ago - anxiously looking at the departures board every few minutes. It is stubbornly refusing to display anything beyond the 2004 to Rheims. My Deutsch Bahn sleeper is due to leave at 2020. I have a delicious ham and cheese baguette and a pain au chocolat to console me while I wait. The place seems packed with young, off-duty, muscular, cropped, tanned, heavy-pack-carrying national service types.

Of course the train is eventually displayed, and is the DB train at Platform 5 I had already guessed it would be. I had to - for the second time today - walk the length of the platform to my carriage right behind the engine: the benefits of booking early are not just a cheaper fare, but a fast egress from the train at the terminus, not that that matters much to me on this journey.

On board the attendant points me to my compartment. I am slightly disappointed that the bunks are already down. Do I feel sleepy yet? Nope. As I'm sitting gingerly on the lower bunk, wondering who my roommate will be, in comes a white-haired gentleman in a check shirt. He is Erich, a retired German living in Paris. He will be getting off at the only stop on the way to Berlin, at Hannover at 0700, so at least I will have the last two hours to myself, hopefully in a seat if I can persuade the attendant to rearrange the compartment when he brings breakfast.

We talk a little - in English, as my German is rubbish - then after the train gets under way, bang on time, there's not a lot else to do but get ready for bed. I've taken the top bunk, so there's an amount of arranging of stuff to do in a confined space. If you've ever slept in a tent, you'll know what I mean.

It's a bit noisy and a bit rocking, and some people next door are obviously planning to stay up late talking, but I think I shall sleep well.

Tomorrow ...

Quite excited! It's tomorrow I travel inter-continentally by train.

Keep your eye on this blog, and Facebook, for updates and photos; and YouTube (my channel is 'haymee', naturally) for short videos.

The Adventure Begins ...

The tickets are booked!

St Pancras to Paris Nord leaving at 1502 on the Sunday afternoon, two-and-a-quarter hours; then a 10-minute walk to Gard de l'Est, and a two-hour wait (I might find somewhere for a bite to eat on the way); then it's the night sleeper leaving at 2020 to Berlin Hauptbanhof, arriving twelve hours and thirty-nine minutes later, at a minute to nine in the morning (and I bet it will pull in at one minute to, as well!)

Then I'll need to make a prompt dash for the hotel, because I think I'll only have until 11 to leave my bags (check-in doesn't open until 4).

All of which is brilliant because I will have a full day on Monday, plus Tuesday and Wednesday, and indeed most of Thursday before my flight from Schoenefeld at nine in the evening, arriving at Gatwick at 10.

The whole train booking business has been made immensely easy, I have to say, by The Man in Seat Sixty-One website. Oh, and less than £120, London to Berlin.

The whole flight booking business has been abysmal: it's Easyjet. Initial delight at a sub-£20 flight has been somewhat tempered by the £9 charge for the hold bag, then the £9.90 charge to pay by credit card. That's a 35% surcharge to pay by the card which will protect me if something untoward happens. It would even cost me a 14% surcharge to pay with a debit card (every other retailer charges no extra for this). The only way to avoid any charge is to pay using a Visa Electron card, whatever one of those is. So my £19.27 seat is costing me £37.17. Still, I suppose forty quid is a cheap flight, however the total is arrived at.

And finally ... I have a theme song for the trip. There will be regular blog updates, possibly some vlogs and certainly a few pictures as I go along, and a video at the end.

When am I going? Oh, sorry, didn't I say? Sunday the 10th October. Tschüs!

Ashamed

A few nights ago, staying in Edinburgh, I was standing outside in the street having a last smoke before bed. It was around 2 in the morning. A young couple, who had been snogging fairly energetically nearby for a while, approached me, clearly rather drunk. But they were friendly. The man asked me if I knew where a certain street was. I told him I was sorry but I didn't. Could I at least tell him which direction was north? Nope, sorry, not from around here, can't help. Now this was all while my hand was on my iPhone, in my jeans pocket. You know the iPhone, the one with Google Maps and a compass built in.

I have simply no idea why I didn't offer help. None at all. They weren't aggressive, and actually he was very, very sweet. I'm quite ashamed. They wandered off, happily enough, but I went to bed a bit sad with myself.

What a Drag It Is To Get Old

Mick was singing about something rather different, I know, but I refute that sentiment. This blog posting will be available soon as some sort of podcast too, for variety.

I absolutely refuse to accept age as a limiting factor. I might be 40-something, but I've never felt like I've ever really emerged from my twenties. Other people - people I know and love - choose to allow their actions, choices, attitudes and philosophies to conform to the number printed on their last birthday card. I just can't. It's really that hard-wired in. I don't believe there's anything I can't do. I want to try new stuff. I want to have adventures. I don't just remember what it was like to be a kid: I still am a kid. Life experiences shape and hone what those new, fun things, will be, granted. I'm not taking up skateboarding. But I want to tell you about two things to illustrate this idea further.

First off, a couple of days ago I was driving from the southern Lake District in England, to Glasgow. A sensible driver might have elected to cut across to the M6 and get on that motorway at the earliest opportunity. However, my sat-nav had other - and, as it turned out, rather better - ideas. It wanted me to follow the road up past Windermere and Ullswater to join the M6 much further north at Penrith. I was happy to oblige … the road was phenomenal! A switchback black ribbon laid out across the countryside - For My Pleasure!

Now I drive, for work purposes, a Skoda Octavia estate. Diesel. This isn't the slickest, fastest or most responsive car on the planet. And it's not helped by being fairly heavily laden. Oh and then there's the roof-bars. And the ladders on the roof-bars. But tell me, honestly, what would you do, faced with that road ahead? I gunned it. I zipped up that road, I climbed the hills, I marvelled at the views as I cut yet another corner. Don't worry, when there were pedestrians, I slowed down. I'm not completely reckless. I want to live another day. But I had about as much fun as I legally could.

And, in fact, there was a limit to the fun I could have. Why? Other cars. Driven by 'sensible' people. Old people. Or people with an 'old' attitude, at any rate. The worst two, I have to tell you about. The first was a TVR. Now TVRs are taut, racing chassis, with lightweight carbon-fibre bodies on. And a powerful, responsive engine. Exactly the sort of car you can throw round Lake District roads with ease and pleasure. But not this one. Every time the road opened up ahead, I expected the driver to do the same. Once or twice - no more - he half-heartedly did so. I felt annoyance - partly because I wanted to get past him and not waste the road ahead, but also because I could see and sense the waste of his car. I got past him in the end. Bye-bye old man number one.

The second was some codger in a Golf Plus - itself a rather pointless car (who needs a Golf to be taller?) - and he was not so much annoying, as dangerous. I'd already overtaken - patiently and with plenty of margin for safety - several other cars, including large Jaguars and the like. Most were happy to assist my manoeuvre. But as I went to overtake the Golf, on a straight road I could see clearly ahead, he moved across to block me, and blared his horn. I could barely believe how stupid he was. Dangerous, and a kill-joy. Once I'd started to get past him, he swerved petulantly back onto his side of the road. Then flashed me as I got ahead of him, for good measure. Dick. Bye-bye old man number two.

The rest of the journey was, more or less, glorious. I so wish I'd been driving something more fun, but never mind. One day, I'll have another car as entertaining as my old Golf GTi Mk 1 …

Now onto the second example. For various reasons we haven't booked a proper holiday away this year. We went to Paris for Steve's birthday, of course, and we're off to France again in November for a long weekend, but though we both have a week or so of leave left, Steve wants to stay at home, and I'd like an adventure! So for the first time in a long while, I'm going abroad on my own. I'm going to Berlin, one of my favourite cities, and one I know quite well. But, as someone once said, the travelling is all part of the adventure.

And so the plan is to get a train into London, and take an afternoon Eurostar from St Pancras to Gard du Nord, then pick up the overnight sleeper from Gard de l'Est, travelling through the night to arrive in Berlin around nine in the morning. I'm going to try and stay in the same place Ian, Steve and I stayed back in January 2007. It was very friendly, the breakfasts were great, and it was in the kind of laid-back, artistic district of Prenzlauer Berg just off the Schönhauser Alee, which was very appealing.

Things I don't want to do: the Pergamon Museum; Checkpoint Charlie; the Fernsehturm; our old flat in Leipzigerstrasse.

Things I do want to do: a pilgrimage to the hospital where I was so well treated in 1978 - if it's still there; a visit to the Holocaust Memorial, which I understand to be visually stunning, and which we failed to get to three years ago; pounding the pavements and re-learning the city as it's changed since the Wall came down; hanging out in bars and meeting people.

Sounds like an adventure to me. I'll let you know how the planning goes.

Stay young!

... hello Holyhead

Goodbye Dublin ...

Glorious Twelfth

Whilst it's still - just - the 12th August, I thought I'd mark the 25th anniversary of the day I started work.

Just a test

Just a test. If succesful this post will be deleted.