Only four days and not enough time to do everything I planned. Must come back – Berlin is an edgy place but it’s relaxed too – everywhere you go there are people sitting drinking beer outside cafés and talking together – it’s a social place, there are people from all over the world – it seems to be a magnet for young people especially, the universities must be popular. Around every corner is a surprise, and that Hauptbahnhof (Central) railway station is an engineering masterpiece.
Now on a train that just departed from Koln and heading to Paris Nort. This Thalay French train not as fast and new as the Duesche Bahn DB that reached 199km/h for a while. An hour in Koln to eat bratwurst – there’s hot food everywhere as well as all the pastries you could want. In Berlin I used the urban public transport but I think bike is the way to go – it’s so flat. An E-bike would be ideal although the hourly rates would soon mount up. By absolute co-incidence my school mate Bill, his wife Bettina and their daughter Saki and her baby Arthur were in town – Bettina was origionally from Berlin, we had lunch at the Mokkabar in the nice part of Kreuzberg. They suggested I go to the Jewish Museum afterwards, it was nearby so I did, only to find there’s hardly anything in it, except the gift shop which had a ton of stuff – the architecture is magnificent . Finding I’m getting tired around 3pm because I’m getting up so early. Sharing a 4 bed dorm with 3 other women, two from Mexico one from Germany, they get lower cost rooms in a mixed dorm than in a female dorm, and end up with me. Everyone’s very polite and considerate.
The highlight last night was seeing the musical Cararet in a Tipi Am Kanzleramt, a stretch-tent venue complete wth a chandelier, we all sit at tables, it was a full house, very glamourous and the show was really superb, all in German, of course. I enjoy any music production if it’s done well. The band wandered around at interval playing like a gypsy band. Talking to the cast after the show I was encouraged to go to the real Kit Kat Klub – that would be something to see. But I never went to any of the big famous clubs nor any of the big galleries – maybe next time.
