Nikolas kindly put us up for our remaining three days in Berlin. He lives in Wedding (a Berlin district, not perpetual nuptials) in an amazing top floor flat that he’s been evolving for almost ten years! Wooden floors, wood burning heaters in every room, and the best selection of spices I’ve seen outside of mum’s nuclear fallout preparation pantry. We quickly discovered where the spices came from as the shop down stairs stocked them in bulk alongside hair extensions and coconut milk. I (will) attempted to create a classic english dish and succeeded in making a suitably bland pumpkin curry.
We could see much more of Berlin when it was actually daylight and made the first proper use of the bicycles that we’ve been carrying around with us. Ben learnt all recorded German and central European history in a large museum whilst I explored Berlin’s corners and entirely rebuilt neighbourhood of consulates. Saudi Arabia wins my vote for the architecture prize, although that’s not counting the Norman Foster dome on the Reichstag which was well worth the queue in the cold for. You can look down through the glass and see the politians making decisions, signifying the transparency of democracy and the openess of the German paliament. Very honourable. The free heavyweight pamphlet/small paperback which describes everything from the material of the seat covers in the debating hall to the percentage of people in parliament with Kenyan grandmothers almost makes you realise why politians don’t tell us everything. ITS BORING.
The extensive queue to the dome introduced us to another Berliner, this time someone under 25 actually living in the West of the city. She took us to a brilliant example of the annoying German habit of taking an idea from somewhere else and making it much, much better. Italian food that you pointed at the ingredients for and watched being cooked. Ben especially liked the swipe card we were each given to bill us for what we were eating, and the flashing, vibrating disc that when brought back to the table magically told him his pizza was ready.
It started raining a couple of days later, so after I’d quickly done the Bauhaus archive we decided to head for the famous German coastline…
On nights spent in the van in the middle of nowhere, when it gets dark at six in the evening, when boardgames become bored games, when even the new games you made become old, when the extensive limits of the ukelele have been reached, we have found ourselves in bed asleep at ever earlier hours. Quarter to eight if its raining… Bearing this in mind, when we arrived at a (bloody) student flat in the trendy area of Berlin at past eleven o’clock being greeted by a flat full of electro, cold beer, cartons of wine and “we’re going out, are you coming?” was exactly what was required.
After being led through an unknown dark city in circles to ensure we definitely couldn’t back out, the second “club” come warehouse came good and we saw the night out to some techno – Mr. Oizo was there and so was some good sound and some inventive german dance moves!
Unfortunately the couch was taken and the flat floor was full so we slept the day in the van before making use of the bathroom facilities and the in house Berlin tour guide. Avril from Ireland is a good tour guide and we did her four hour walking tour in hyperdrive on bikes, I’d swear she was even talking faster, learnt a lot about the buildings and understood some of the reasons for bits of the city! When the second nights entertainment was aimed at surpassing the first nights our plans of seeing all the corners of Berlin in daylight didn’t look likely. Satisfied that we’d confirmed that Berlin is indeed party capital we executed an escape to somewhere with a better toilet to person ratio and a different city quarter.
