Berlin

And for once the arrangements were perfect - I left the house at quarter past eleven, got the X39 shortly thereafter, got off at the bus station and straight on to the Bristol Flyer, which got me in to the airport at 12.25: Kai's flight landed at 12.30, though it was another twenty minutes before he appeared through customs. He had a great time, but was hungry and very tired (actually fell asleep on the Flyer) so had to flop for an hour or so before he felt like talking. I took advantage and dived over to Tesco to get his photos developed while he recovered.

The page of photos is here. Not bad for a cheap disposable camera!

There were fireworks going off somewhere in the city when they arrived at 21.35 (local time: Berlin is an hour ahead of us), which was a nice welcome. The Hotel Steps (so called because there were steps and staircases everywhere, it seems) was comfortable and pleasant, although I don't think the meals were quite the size Kai is used to...

They got up at 8 am, had breakfast then headed out to Checkpoint Charlie, which was, by all accounts, very interesting. Then it was onto the Berlin Wall ->
and the Topography of Terror museum.

After lunch they spent the afternoon at the Jewish Museum (Kai commented on the 'void' and the 'missing exhibition': I think he found them evocative and maybe disturbing).

They headed back to the hotel for dinner via the shopping mall (pix on the photo page). (Later edit: it's the Sony Centre, according to google earth.)

Berlin street photo. The red bit in the middle of the road is the pedestrian area! ->

In the evening they all went to the TV tower (ticket on the left). This was amazing, by all accounts, with gorgeous views over the city from the panoramic floor, but Kai's camera couldn't cope with the darkness so no photos, unfortunately.

Yesterday it was the Story of Berlin exhibition in the morning and a trip down into a nuclear bunker. (This is twelve metres underground - around 36 foot in English money, which I can envisage far more easily than this new-fangled metric stuff - and there was a list of reasons on the wall as to why it would be pretty much a deathtrap unless you had two weeks notice and the bombs were more than 2 kilometres away...) Then after lunch it was off to the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, then through the Tiergarten to the Soviet War Memorial: back to the hotel for dinner, then the last event of the trip, a visit to the Reichstag.

Brandenburg gate ->

[boggled] I can't believe they crammed so much into a short trip! No wonder Kai's tired. His overall comments are interesting though - the two things that stood out for him are the smell (Berlin is built on swampy ground, apparently, and smells like it, especially when the wind is in a certain direction) and the frightening efficiency of everything (the subways in particular)! But yes, he had a great time, and used his German a lot, which hopefully will help him when the spoken part of the GCSE comes around.

I can relax now. And in case anyone wondered, it wasn't just normal worried parent syndrome - this was also a matter for concern...

We're all chillin' tomorrow!

Labels: adventures, Kai