Berlin overview

Day 1

Flights from Liverpool were fine. Once again Pauline and I managed to arrive in the car park at exactly the same time, astonishing! It was great as we were able to park next to each other. The trip through the new security area was pleasant as the airport was pretty quiet, so it was all good. The outward flight was fine and we got to Berlin without any problems. We took the double-decker airport express as usual to Alexanderplatz and the usual U5 trip to the hotel Once checked in, we met up with Amogharatna and Claudia at the Flying Table for a meal. It's hard to explain how much we were looking forward to this, especially Pauline who was supposed to be doing the half marathon last year but couldn't go due to her cancer treatment. We didn't linger long and retired to bed relatively early after the travelling.

Day 2

We woke up and left the hotel in search of food. At first we were at a bit of a loss and sat by a fountain in Alexanderplatz. It was quite funny to have spent so long looking forward to the trip and then end up sat there not sure what to do first. After a while we decided to head to the Hauptbahnhof, get some food and wander past the Reichstag to the Tiergarten. This we did, and we got delicious wraps from there and ate them in the park. We had intended to aim for Potsdamer Platz, but took a completely bizarre route that took us through the embassies in totally the wrong direction, then we took a random road to avoid a demonstation and eventually figured out we had emerged by the Zoologischer Garten station.

By this time we were hungry again so we went to a highly recommended pizza place not far from the hotel which was excellent and then had a rest. After that we headed out to the Stadtmitte U-bahn stop to go to Fassbender & Rausch to get presents for people and wandered up to the end of Friedrichstrasse to meet Amogharatna at DaDa, possibly the best purveyors of falafel in the city - and it fucking rocks. It was stunning. After that we went for a wander and saw the curious underground shopping place that links Friedrichstrasse to another place and back to Stadtmitte.

Day Three

We went in search of breakfast and took a nice long walk down a random road. We took a long and circuitous route across the mainline railways and eventually ended up at the Warshauer Strasse U-bahn station. Handily this is also the location of the East Side Gallery and the Oberbaumbrucke, so we had a good look at those before getting a U1 train. Due to maintenance work it terminated only a few stops later at Kotbusser Tor which was fine for us. The train had two drivers as it shuttled back and forth, we saw it pulling back out with the driver reading a paper in the back end, which was amusing.

Went to the Turkish market which was interesting. Saw a lot of cool things and got some rather nice crispy thin pastry snacks, very good but a bit greasy. Was hoping to find wasabi and chilli peanuts and wasabi cheese but no luck this time.

At this point we needed a rest again so we headed to the Hermanstrasse S-bahn station and got on a Ringbahn train - a trip round the ring takes exactly an hour and you can see a fair bit from there, so it was nice. After that we went into Tempelhof park and lay around on the grass for a bit, although it was quite cold, and then walked up and down the runways before meeting Amogharatna at the half-marathon show in the terminal buildings. There was a lot to see and Pauline got new running shoes, but sadly no cheap finisher shirts from previous marathons this time, which was a shame. Amogharatna signed up for the Potsdam half marathon while there, nutter that he is!

We went back to the hotel for a rest and then went out to a new Vietnamese place called Tonkin that Claudia had had a flyer about. It was really, really nice although I ordered at random since there was no english. The only word I knew was Ente, duck, but fortunately it was delicious.

Day Four

After not liking Potsdam a couple of years ago, we decided to give it another go. We got the train there and stopped off at the Wannsee on the way there. We saw the Wannsee Conference house on the map and walked there but it was rather longer than it looked. It was not good in there. It's a beautiful building but going inside is weird and creepy. We were able to get a bus back to the S-bahn and then headed into Potsdam.

Well, epic fail at this point. We thought we got a tram that took us to a big nice park but instead it sodded off to the suburbs and we got off and got the other one back. Then found the Brandenburg Gate (small one) and sat around there before heading back into Berlin. So no, we still don't like Potsdam. We got a regional train back to the city which was loads faster and one of the lovely double deckers.

Day Five

The day of the marathon. It was hot. Very hot. We started out at the beginning of the race and watched the various events kick off, which was great to watch. The inline skaters were amazing as they set off, incredible to watch, then there was the wheelchairs and the runners themselves. We went and got the train and watched them go past the Tiergarten station, the Ku'damm and the corner of Kochstrasse and Friedrichstrasse. This time we spotted Amogharatna and I was able to use the paparazzi mode on the camera to get some good pics of him going past, which was great.

Back to the hotel for a rest and then we met up again with Amogharatna and Claudia, heading to a nearby Indian place we went to originally. Very good food and we had curious bread that was all swelled up like a balloon, but delicious. Then along the road for ice creams in a curious square that was ludicrously peaceful given it was only a block from the six lane madness that is Frankfurter Allee. By this time everyone was feeling tired, especially Amogharatna understandably so we headed back to our respective homes.

That evening I went out and had a look at the nightlife, which was really entertaining and had a great time, won't go into details but really enjoyed myself.

Day Six

We headed out in an entirely new direction to have a look at the Olympic Stadium, which is well worth looking at as it's a good example of 40's architecture, and then took the S-bahn to Spandau. It was interesting to be somewhere that was so far out of the city and it had it's own feel that was really nice. We wandered around there for a bit until we got onto a train and headed back to the city to meet up with Amogharatna for evening meal. We went to a place that specialised in vegetarian burgers and I had a Mexican style one. Vegetarian it might have been, but it was one of the best burgers I have ever had. Really good. After that went to an ice cream place and went our separate ways.

That's basically it for Berlin. It was fucking great. One thing I did was try out a 3DS. Didn't like it. I could see the 3D OK but it made my eyes just feel...wrong. Now though I've read that turning the 3D down helps but I still don't think I'll like it. Shame as it looked pretty good otherwise. The AR game Face Raiders was surprisingly good fun too.

I've decided to try and put the stuff I've learnt about laptop repair to good use and have bought a load of untested laptops off Ebay. The first batch has arrived and out of five, four of them power up with no problem and should work fine once I've sourced some more RAM and hard drives for them, and then I'll put them back on Ebay. All are a few years old from the Pentium M era but they are still servicable machines. Two Toshibas, one HP, one Compaq and an RM, all of which run happily from the same PSU - looks like they standardised laptop power connectors when I wasn't looking! The best one, typically, is the one that doesn't power up, but it does show some signs of life so perhaps all is not lost, and it's a good source of parts if nothing else.

Glad it's the weekend. Off to Rob and Em's in a bit for a meal with them and Andy and Maz and to once again coo over Carter, the lovely white cat Rob and Em adopted unexpectedly while I was away.

Badminton was ace yesterday. There's a new guy who is really good. The last game of the match saw The Hagg team up with him against Rob and Em, obviously expecting to win but she played like a donkey with three arses. She got so frustrated she actually dropped the F-bomb which was absolutely hilarious.