Check-out Blues

Always get 'em. You know? You've handed your room key in, left your bag behind the desk (complete with mild theft anxiety), and wandered out for the two or three hours before your journey home starts. Not enough time to _do_ anything meaningful, yet you don't want to waste time, nor think about leaving quite yet.

Time to reflect and assess.

Love the 'dam. Could happily live here. The city's easy to get the hang of, and around; it's friendly; the boys are pretty; everyone speaks English, but Dutch is easy to listen to, and not too hard to translate, at least when written.

Missed Steve, here more than in Berlin. Berlin is _my_ city, but we have shared memories of Amsterdam, and there's lots I want to show him next time we come here together.

Barely thought about the school reunion thing yesterday, and not at all last night, which was partly the point. Good.

By the way, apropos nothing, sorry there are no pictures in this blog, but I haven't got the facilities. Travelling light, you see. Next time away I'll have my new MacBook Air - which I know is waiting for me at home.

Right. Coffee drunk, time for precisely two hours' meandering. Take a few more photos; only taken 78 so far - and three of those are of a cat.

Dammit - I mean Dam-it

Last night involved drinking etc. And choosing the wrong nightbus back, the one where you have to pay €4 instead of being able to use your tram multi-day card (hint: don't take a nightbus that has a number starting N - this ain't London). Dammit number 1.

This morning, breakfast, that meal where you get to see what your fellow guests look like. Uh-oh. Then wish you hadn't.

A planned meander with photo opps everywhere (there will be an album of the best sometime after I'm home), and a coffee outside the main theatre, people-watching, ended at what I now like to call "my coffee shop" (this is my second visit) to make a purchase for later.

Then a tram back to the hotel (no. 2 is better than no. 16, I find). After a short break, a wander into Vondelpark, very close to where I am staying. Heaving isn't the word. Well, ok, it is the word. Found a spot to sit and read and smoke. Would have loved Steve to be with me.

For some reason I then needed a nap.

After which I caught a tram again and visited a couple of bars. Very much like last night.

Except tonight, it started to rain. A few drops, then suddenly a full-blown storm, thunder, lightning, wind, the works. I'm wearing a t-shirt because it's been like 25 degrees all day, including when I went out for the evening.

I had bought a cheese and salami roll and a chocolate muffin on the way to the bus-stop, because I had forgotten to eat earlier (I have a habit of doing this on my solo holidays). I had researched the bus nunbering this time, and despite arriving at the bus shelter (and it was a shelter from the storm) just after a bus had passed so I had nearly half an hour to wait, I got myself outside my baguette, and listened to a bizarre conversation between two young Moroccan/Dutch girls who were sheltering with their bikes, and an extended Spanish family waiting for a bus. All in broken English. Hilarious.

Then, on cue, the 358 nightbus comes tanking down the road in the tram lane through the puddles. Hand out. Bus sails past into the storm. Bastard.

That was a 25 minute wait, and now I have another 30 minute wait. Bugger this. So I dash and find a taxi. That's €13 including the tip. So my 3-day tram card is working out quite expensive, all in all. Dammit number 2.

You may have remembered there was a muffin in the story earlier. I've just eaten it writing this.

Good night.

Had to be done...

Boats, trains and canals

There's a TV in the cabin showing more channels than I have at home, including views from the bridge, and a 'doggy-cam' from the kennels! And free wifi - after a fashion. The bed was comfortable even if the crossing wasn't completely smooth. Great shower as well.

At Hook of Holland it's again straight off the ferry onto a train to Rotterdam, where it's an easy change onto the Intercity to Amsterdam Centraal.

For £82 from Liverpool Street to Amsterdam, including a night's accommodation, I'm impressed and would recommend it to anyone.

The square outside Centraal Station is being dug up all over the place, but I soon bought a €15 3-day travelcard and found my tram stop. Shame I hadn't worked out where to get off the tram! Getting lost while being literally off the edge of the map, and relying on your sense of direction and a vaguely-remembered Google map from when you booked the hotel... is all part of the adventure!

Anyway, I found the hotel and was able to check in despite it being only 11 o'clock. The room is a bit shabby, but it's not expensive (well, ok, it's not cheap) but I won't be in it much, and there's free wifi.

Lunch and a coffee out, and much to see and explore!

Away to Amsterdam

Why am I going to Amsterdam? My decision was actually triggered because of a class reunion being organised at my old school - a boarding school in Bath - this Saturday. 1985 was my leaving year, so I haven't seen some of those guys (and gals - we had a few in the Sixth Form) for 26 years. After some initial enthusiasm, I started to realise what a terrible idea it was, to 'go back'. I've spent several of the intervening years coming to terms with certain aspects of my enforced life away from home. This is not the place for any more details about that, but let me just say, I am who I am in no small part through my time at Prior Park, and meeting a group of my classmates, deliberately and in those buildings, isn't going to do me any good. Going abroad seemed logical, plus Steve has his best friend staying at home over the weekend. Anyway, as you know by now, I'm rather partial to an Adventure!

Liverpool Street Station isn't the Gare de l'Est, despite being my gateway once again to Europe, but it's pleasant enough.

I settled onto the 1900 out of Liverpool Street - eventually as I hadn't initially noticed I was in someone else's reserved seat.

I found another seat, facing backwards which for some reason I don't like though I'm not quite sure why.

The man next to me got out a gigantic laptop and started watching the film Captain America. I was slightly distracted out of the corner of my eye by all the shifting in and out of focus as the 'cameraman' tried to line up properly on the cinema screen.

As we passed the building site which is the new Olympic park, I thought "wow" at a great red steel twisting structure.

On the train I misread that the wifi was free, and after a convoluted registration process, decided against paying £2.95 for the journey - or what was left of it by then.

Off the train at Harwich (after an easy change at Maningtree) straight into the ferry terminal, and on board the Stena Hollandica after very little wait. This is essentially a floating hotel across the North Sea, very spacious and comfortable. My cabin was set as a double but I'm a dab hand at getting rid of unwanted bunks now. There wasn't much to do, so after a drink and a bite I retired. Well, there is quite a lot to do if you want to eat and drink and play slot machines. There's even a cinema.

Last post from Berlin

Sorry, in note form. Packed up, sad, pleasant hotel, efficient, friendly. Coffee again at favourite place.

U-Bahn running (only closed nights as found last night). Trip left over from yesterday to Stasi Museum at Normanenstrasse ... huge complex - not in correct building (refurbishing) - apologised not enough English signs - fascinating anyway - chatted to staff, explained about Dad and his job/post, all staff were ex-DDR.

I later wondered ... would it possible to explore my own, or his, Stasi File? Must research this possibility.

Back to hotel for bags, Schönhauser Allee by S-Bahn to Flughafen Schonefeld, too crowded (new BBB airport will open sometime on same site) but smooth through airport.

Last day!

Well, I'm all checked out, bags are stored for later, and it's time to head out on another little adventure. Flight is at 1830, so I have a few final hours to enjoy Berlin. I'll update once I'm home.

Four out of five ain’t bad

The waspy café a few doors up from the hotel (where I had a less waspish pasta – indoors – at lunchtime yesterday) had its doors open, but wasn't open – as I was rudely told when I wandered in. So they didn’t get my breakfast business, not will they ever again.

Instead I strolled the other side of the hotel, to an altogether more pleasant establishment, where coffee-making is clearly a passion. In fact, I had two – and a croissant - the while planning my day. After breakfast, I managed to time leaving the hotel with the heavens opening – rather wide – and a gale blowing. In the two minutes it took me to walk up the road, realise how stupid I was, turn round and run back, I, my jeans, jumper and hat were soaked.

I swapped wet jumper for dry jacket, and tried again, just as it was easing. In point of fact, my coat was essentially a nuisance to carry for the rest of the day, but life is perverse like that.

Where I was heading before the abrupt wardrobe change was Bernauer Strasse, which in 1961 found itself on the front line, as it were. The houses on one side of the street were in the East, and the pavement was in the West, as the border was enforced overnight. People jumped from windows, three to their deaths, here. The houses were later bulldozed by the DDR, but there is still waste ground where they stood.

I then took a stroll to the old Schultheiss Brewery, now a cultural centre called – perhaps unsurprisingly – the Kulturbrauerei, but there wasn’t much to see. Architecturally interesting, but that was about it.

My third point of call was some unfinished business from last year. You may recall I went to the site of one of the checkpoints in the Wall, and tried to work out where the hospital was where I had been treated in the winter of 1978. Only thing was, I got the wrong checkpoint. So today I was off to the right one, which is to say Invalidenstrasse. Which I found, and I’m pretty certain the large building which is now a Federal Ministry was the hospital. Back in the day it was for Party officials and other privileged people, including, it luckily turned out, the children of British diplomats who happened to have an abscess in their middle ear.

I then did one of those unfortunate things … not being completely certain I’d got the right building, I took a picture and thought, “I’ll show that to Dad and ask him, he’ll remember,” until, of course, I remembered myself why I couldn’t. This still catches me out, once a week or so.

No video this time.

From there I took U- and S-Bahn trains to Orianenburger Strasse, to visit the Synagogue. It was a cutting-edge modern building when it was built in the nineteenth century, with under-floor heating, clever illumination of double-glazed stained-glass windows by means of gas light and reflectors, and a beautiful and innovative onion domed-roof. Burned and smashed about in 1938, it was more or less finished off by Allied bombing in the war, and what was left was demolished by the small Jewish community that still existed in the East during the Cold War years. But since reunification the front third or so, including the façade and dome, have been restored using as many as possible of the recovered original parts (some of which were found buried in new floors). It reminds one a little of Pompeii, inasmuch as there are original bits held together by plain modern bits: for example a ceiling painting will have patches of original, with the outlines of the rest drawn in; or there will the base and capital of a column, with a plain modern column between.

It seems rather sad that there is a permanent armed police guard outside, and that to enter you have to pass through a complete airport-style security check.

However, the building contains a must-see exhibition of the history of the Jewish community in Berlin, and of the building itself, including tapestries, lamps, scrolls and other religious artifacts. The remainder of the structure, the important worshiping bit towards the back, has not been – nor ever will be – rebuilt. It stands, or rather doesn't, as a constant reminder.

After a delicious coffee and cookie nearby, it was now a little too late to visit the fifth place on my itinerary, so that can wait until tomorrow.

Coming back through Friederichstrasse Station, I recalled that this was essentially another border crossing in the Wall, although very much in the East, because, with the right papers, you could travel from here to the West by train. The catwalks high above the tracks at either end of the station canopy or roof are still there, and I can remember seeing armed East German Grenzpolitzei, or border guards, patrolling up along them. Back at my hotel, it’s cooking up a storm again outside.

I’m going to have a little sleep before dinner, and see if it goes away.

Je suis flâneur

After last night's interesting excursion, any vague notion I may have had of getting up in time for a hotel breakfast was wasted. So my restorative strong coffee and selection of breads with wasp-attracting strawberry jam and Nutella was taken a few doors up the street, in the sunshine.

My work routine back in the UK usually means very late to bed, and very late up; it so happens this really suits having a lively time in Berlin, which is the original twenty-four-hour city.

I had a plan: go to the big shops of West Berlin. The U-Bahn chucked me off several stops early (cf last year's holiday blog - this is becoming a habit). So I emerged into the dazzling sun right where just over twenty years ago was no-man's-land and the Wall: Leipziger Platz and Potsdamer Platz. It took me a couple of wandering minutes to get my bearings and work out which way to walk.

I decided on a meandering route along the southern edge of the Tiergarten, Berlin's great urban park (think Bois de Boulogne, Central Park or Hyde Park). This took me past a number of new embassies, specifically those of South Africa, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. The architecture of embassies are a great way of expressing your country's style and character abroad. Shame Great Britain, then (see last year, again). Sadly I missed the Scandinavian complex.

I was somewhat taken aback on reaching the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche to discover what should have been the bomb-ruined remains of the old church (irreverent Berliners call it "the hollow tooth", next to the "powder box and lipstick" modern church and bell-tower) appeared to have been replaced by a monstrously ugly block of flats, which on closer inspection seemed to be some sort protective cladding, presumably whilst restoration works are underway.

The Kürfurstendamm was just too packed with tourists to make for any enjoyment, and the shops are the same ones you can find in London or Paris. I came, I saw, I was disappointed.

So I walked up the smelly edge of the zoo towards the Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten, then followed the train tracks through the Tiergarten again, up towards the Strasse des 17 Juni, but keeping inside the park. Berlin is sandy, and the ground often keeps the moisture, so from some recent rain there were muddy puddles to avoid in the shady areas, despite the heat of the day.

I skirted round the Siegessäule, the Victory Column, and headed straight for the Brandenburg Gate, that great, glorious, powerful and historical symbol of Berlin, through which armies have marched, which has been fought over, claimed by the Russians, and is now the happy centre of the city once more. But before reaching it I stopped as a noisy procession, or series of floats and followers on foot, was escorted past by police. I don't know what the protest was about; I suspect a political faction, possibly anarchists from the state and attitude of some of the participants, a few of the younger members of whom I witnessed, at close hand, square up to impassive, body-armoured police parked nearby. It never seemed dangerous, but thrillingly close to danger. I'm reading Isherwood* at the moment; there were faint echoes.

And so to Pariser Platz, the new-built square just on the western side of the great Gate, at the edge of which I remember in 1978 standing, behind steel barriers, to observe the Brandenburger Tor at a distance, and through it, the white strip of the Wall. But today, in the sunshine, it is teeming with street artists and dancers, tourists with cameras, horse-drawn carriages ... and life! Zest! Zing! There's a video on YouTube, or will be shortly, because I was one of those tourists with a camera.

I toyed with the idea of visiting a Kennedy exhibition in one corner of the square, but there were no admission prices on display, and besides I was tired, and had walked a long way already. I wanted my hotel bed for a nap! So I popped down the new underground station and onto Berlin's latest U-Bahn, the U55, just three stops to the Hauptbahnhof; then the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz, and my line U2 to Senefelderplatz, a couple of hundred metres from my hotel.

I did indeed nap, fought the netbook to get some photos loaded, Skyped with Steve, then headed off to The Bird for a very late meal.

Please, if you come to Berlin, visit The Bird. If you're on your own, sit at the bar, chat to the American and English staff, get talking to strangers. I spent a happy couple of hours next to two Americans who were engaged in a half-hearted drinking contest with great 1.5 litre glass boots of beer; and then chatting at length to Dara, a young Dubliner doing the Interrail thing. Imagine the voice and mannerisms of Father Dougal crossed with one of the hairier Avett Brothers (for looks).

Then burger and fries consumed, off for a drink or two ...

Upon returning to my hotel, I discovered that I couldn't get online, so this is posted a little late.

*I brought Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Novels with me: Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, partly because my long-held desire to read them was recently re-ignited by the BBC's Christopher And His Kind, and because the time seemed just right for this trip.

Ow

I have a headache this morning, which isn't surprising. 2-4-1 drinks ... nicht so gut.

Going to have a look around the big shops of Westberlin this afternoon. But I definitely need to find some coffee first. Catch you later.