Chapter 24 - BERLIN!!!!!!!!!!

Monday 15th - Sunday 21st February

In case the title hadn't made it clear enough for you, I was in Berlin for this week! I had high expectations for this trip, and was about as far from being disappointed as it's possible to be! Refelcting on it, I would say that it currently holds, with quite a secure lead, first place in the list of my favourite pplaces I've visited in Germany! To revert briefly to my native westcountry - t'wer brilliant! 

 Now, an apology, for those regular readers of this blog, you'll notice this entry is slightly late (by about 5 days!). There is actually a relatively good reason for this; during the week in Berlin i had no access to internet, nor any will to do anything for school - I preferred spending the time with my parents and exploring a fantastic city. Consequently I have spent this first week back at school chasing my tail, trying to get on top of everything - which I have now managed!

So, my journey to Berlin started on Monday, at 15.45. I had to catch a bus to the airport, which runs every two hours and was free, seeing as I'm a student! The bus journey got be in about 20 minutes later, leading me to be at the airport at 16.05. The flight didn't leave for another two and three-quarter hours, but as people who know me will testify, I do have a rather annoying habit of turning up ridiculously early! So I was waiting at Saarbruecken Airport; which is Saarland's only international airport. It is effectively a barn with a runway! The terminal is a metal hangar-like construction, with 10 check-in desks; serving all four of the companies that use it, there are four gates; A-D, and one cafe pre-security, and one post-security! Check-in for my flight opened two hours before the flight, so  checked in and went to go through the security area. I, stupidly, forgot I had a pocket full of loose change which had to be emptied out into a tray! I still set the detector off, and had my shoes x-rayed too (maybe I was walking too gingerly!). Once through the security area, I sat in the gate and could see the plane - it was no more than about 200 metres away. Yet, when the time came to board, they sent a bus to collect us and take us the short distance from the terminal to the tin bird. 

The take-off and cruising of the flight were good, I'd forgotten how exciting it is to be taken up to 20,000 feet in a metal sausage with arms! We made good time too, we arrived in Berlin Tegel after 45 minutes, instead of the scheduled 75 minutes. Now when it came to the landing of the flight, I think the pilot forgot that he was flying a jet-liner not a harrier jump-jet, and that a Boeing 737 is not designed to land vertically. At least my spine thought that when it was bashed around! Maybe he was eager to get home to Mrs. Pilot - who knows!

At the airport, once I'd waited for my suitcase at the carousel, and then walked through the, obviously empty, customs (it was an internal flight, and whilst Saarland has had a checkered histroy as part of Germany, there are no trade restrictions these days!), where I met Sarah. Sarah is a friend from uni, who has the (mis)fortune to live in Calne, near Chippenham in Wiltshire. From there we headed back to her flat in the south of Berlin. (Tegel finds itself in the North West). I got the chance to experience Berlin's public transport in most of its forms; a bus, then a short trip on the U-Bahn, followed by a stint on the S-Bahn. I spent the night at Sarah's because the hostel was booked from the following night, when my parents would be there too! 

The Tuesday was the day of my parents arrival in Berlin, and the first time I would really see Berlin in daylight. The first thing we did was to go and find the hostel and get it sorted, so I could leave my suitcase there. This meant travelling right across the city towards Alexanderplatz, which lies in the shadow of the Fernsehturm (TV Tower). The hostel wasn't too far away from that, and was fit for purpose, once all the beds had been made up! From the hostel, we Sarah offered to show me the main sites of Berlin, after we'd had some lunch! So we headed back to Alexanderplatz for a pizza and then walked down the main boulevard in central Berlin, Unter den Linden. On this walk we saw a lot of historic and interesting buildings/building sites! The first thing that you notice is the Fernsehturm, unless your visually impaired or looking at your feet. The tower was built to wave, an almost literal, two fingers at the West Germans. It was a symbol of East Germany's technological advances. There is a viewing platform and a restaurant at the top, which was rather expensive to go up to! After the Fernsehturm, you notice the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall), so called because, rather unsurprisingly, it's built of red bricks! Walking along towards the Brandenburger Tor (the most obvious image of Berlin),we passed many other old and interesting buildings, like the Cathedral, the site of the Palast der Republik, which is being rebuilt as the original Berlin Castle. After crossing the, frozen, Spree we passed the Humboldt, the memorial to the Burning of the Books, the embassies of Russia, the UK, France, and the USA before arriving at the Brandenburg Gate. From there, we went to the Reichstag Building, with its dome designed by Norman Foster. After taking pictures of it in the snow, we headed over to Potsdamer Platz, and the Sony Centre, which is a remarkable new-age construction. On the way, we paused and reflected upon the Holocaust Monument, which is worth a look, just because of what it symbolises. After taking in the Sony Centre, we went for a coffee, before running an erand for Sarah. When that was done, it was time to head over to Schoenefeld Airport to collect Mum & Dad. Now, the hostel had provided directions on how to get from the Airport to Alexanderplatz,so I thought I would follow them in reverse, which turned out to be a bad decision, as a few days earlier, the Berlin Transport Group had re-routed one of their S-Bahn trains. This meant I needed to get a Regional Train to the airport. I caught a train which would give me plenty of time to get to the airport and find them, except that my train took it upon itself to stop in the middle of nowhere for abotu 20 minutes, just to add to the tension I think! Anyway, when I arrived, it turned out that their flight, too, had arrived in Berlin early and they were already waiting for me! So, we then caught the train back into Berlin and headed back to the hostel, where we put our heads down for a relatively early night!

Wednesday arrived, and was the first whole day my parents had spent in Berlin. For this reason, I thought it would be nice if I took them on a similar walk to the one me and Sarah had undertaken the previous day. Fear not, though, dear reader, I won't repeat it all again! So, it was going well until we got to the Reichstag building, where it turned out Dad's sugar was a bit low, despite having had a sugary drink not too long previously. We walked on slowly, after giving him some more high-sugar drink, where, after about 250 metres, he began to suffer from a hypoglycaemic attack (a hypo). This causes him to lose control of his muscles, and for them to spasm uncontrollably. We tried giving him more high sugar drink, and some "Hypostop" (basically a very sugary gel, which acts quickly and gets sugar into the blood). None of these were having the right effect, and people were starting to become concerned. At this point, when there was nothing more I could do, and the stuff we'd tried had had no noticeable effect, someone called an ambulance for him. The ambulance arrived after about 10 minutes, just before which a doctor on her way home passed by, to see if he was OK. The ambulance crew, who it turned out, were part of the army, gave him some clugose solution intra-veinously, and then needed to take him to hospital (it's a legal requirement, because the ambulance crews are effectively technicians and need their treatment to be signed off by a doctor). So we all went to one of Berlin's hospitals where we met a Captain. Dr. someone, who wanted to run a series of tests, which weren't really necessary, so Dad discharged himself, and we headed off to get some dinner. This was, needless to say, some excitement I hadn't planned on, and wasn't part of my itinerary!

So after the excitement of Wednesday, we decided to try and do a vaguely DDR themed day. The day started with a visit to the Soviet Monument, which is in Tiergarten. After the wall had gone up, two Soviet Soldiers would march out and stand guard over the Soviet Monument, which was in the American section of the city.  Following that, we climbed up to the top of the dome on the Reichstag building and enjoyed some fantastic views out across the city. Following looking at that, we headed over to the DDR Museum, which was quite interesting, but more so because I had my parents there, who were able to give me an insight into how similar living conditions were for them. Albeit without the threat of the Stasi and overbearing government control, but in terms of how the houses were equipped, they were pretty much the same to houses that the grew up in. After that, we had some lunch, before heading off to Checkpoint Charlie, which I know isn't the original one, but thought it would be a nice addition to the DDR Day. We took some photos of it, and then we headed off into the back end of East Berlin to visit the Stasi museum. This museum, I thought, wasn't quite as interesting as it could have been, it seemed to lack information on how the Stasi worked, and the sort of effect it had on ordinary Germans living within the confines of the DDR. Moreover, it was nigh on impossible to find, as it was in a courtyard, in a relatively anonymous building (probably the intention really!).

Friday was a day, in which my Dad wanted to be impressed by some sort of important building.  So, we started gently, with Museuminsel (Museum Island), which is largely under restoration, or scaffolding (naturally!). From there we headed over to Gendarmenmarkt, where there was an interesting exhibition about the journey to German democracy in  the Deutscher Dom there. The French Dome is used for religous meetings for francophone synods. From there, though I decided we would head out of the city a little, and we went to Schloss Charlottenburg, which was a very ornate, imposing, and impressive building both on the outside and on the inside. We spent a few hours there taking in the building, and some of the history of the building, which was interesting. From there, we headed back into more central Berlin, to see Schloss Bellevue, which is the Presidential Residence (rather like the White House). It looked quite impressive in the dusk light, when we saw it. Following that, we headed for dinner, and a beer or two, before contemplating our exciting trip to Colditz on the following day!

So, Saturday arrived with a bite! We left the hostel quite early and armed with a Schoenes-Wochenende Ticket, we began our journey to Colditz. The first journey involved a train to Falkenberg, from where we had a connection with a train to Leipzig, from where wed had another connection to Grossbothen, from where there was a bus to Colditz! The journey itself was relatively uneventful going this way, it took just over 4 and a half hours in total, but it was worth it as it was one of the few places I really wanted to visit during my time in Germany. When you arrive in Colditz, you have to walk a little bit before you can see the Castle. But when you get to the river, you can see it standing rather imposingly above the town. From there, all that's left to do is to walk up to it! When we got there, we went in and had a look around the museum, which was genuinely fascinating. It detailed the majority of escape attempts from the supposedly insecapable POW camp. It is something I would highly recommend. Along with going on the tour, which the lady in the ticket office didn't tell us about. On the tour, you got taken to to different areas of the castle, which are not normally open to the public. After we'd finished at Colditz, we headed down into the town, and had a coffee before heading back to the bus stop to begin our journey home. The first part of the journey to Leipzig was OK. When we arrived in Leipzig we went to an italian restaurant and had a very nice pasta meal together, before returning to the Hauptbahnhof for the train to Rosslau (Elbe). This train was double decker, and seemed to have real difficulties going over points; indeed, the first time it went over them I wasn't sure it hadn't become derailed. It was juddery, very noisy (almost like it was falling to bits!), and slightly concerning too! The journey back from Rosslau suffered from a similar ailment! Still, at least it stopped me falling asleep! We arrived back in Berlin at about half eleven, when we returned to our Hostel and put our heads on our pillows!

So Sunday, the last day of the Berlin Extravaganza. We had to be out of the hostel by 10, which wasn't too much of a problem. We packed everything up and then headed to the station, where we left our luggage in the locker, and headed off to Berlin Zoo. It was only, originally, planned to spend the morning going around the zoo, however when we got there, it was plain to see why it would be easily possible to spend a whole day there. We spent the morning looking around some of the animals, for example the gorillas who seemed to have fallen out with each other, and the lions who were sleeping (quite senisbly!). But for me the highlight of the zoo was seeing Polar Bears, which I don't recall ever having seen before The afternoon we spent looking around the aquarium, which was equally as interesting. We left the zoo about half three, and headed back to Alexanderplatz, where we partook in a coffee, and reclaimed our luggage. Mum & Dad then got on the train to the airport, and I headed off to the bus to Tegel (which went from about 200 metres away). I estimate we probably arrived at about our respective airports at roughly the same time, but they had to wait another 1 after me until their scheduled departure time. At Tegel it was all very easy, I checked in almost as soon as I'd had something to eat, and went through the security checks without any problems at all. Then I had to sit and watch for my aeroplane to arrive, which it did in due course. We boarded and left punctually (very German), and on this plane there were computer screens which told you where you were, how fast you were going and when you would arrive. It also provided computer generated images of what you could see out of the windows on both sides, which I thought was very interesting and far more advanced than anything I remember from previous flights. The flight itself took about 1 hour, we seemed to have more of a headwind, which took us a little longer. The landing, this time, was, to quote the Air Stewardess, "Enthusiastic" - which is a euphamism for too fast, and bouncy! From the airport, I had to get a taxi, seeing as the buses had stopped running some four hours before. I was home by about 11 and in bed by half 11. 

So, what about Mum & Dad, well, they weren't quite so fortunate. Because of snow in Switzerland (!) they hadn't left Berlin by the time I had made it home and was on my computer. They arrived very late the following morning, and my sister had to wait to pick them up from Bristol Airport. 

To conclude this rather epic blog entry then, Berlin is a fantastic city, and a week definitely isn't enough time! There are soooo many interesting things to see & do there, that I had to prioritise as it was - as such Berlin is definitely on my list of places to go back to (although not this year, it's too expensive to get there again - it's, ironically, cheaper to fly there from Bristol than Saarbruecken.

So, now the blog is done, I can get up and have a shower and some breakfast! The next blog entry concerns itself with the first week back at school, and me chasing my tail to try and catch up with everything! I'll try and make it a little more puenktlich!