Today the 3rd October was the 21st anniversary of the reunification of Berlin, so to start with it was a public holiday and also they had this lovely big fair in the park … 100’s of thousands of people attended but it was so well thought out and organized I swear the local country fair would have seemed busier than this place.
We caught the hop on hop off bus early to get our bearings and “hopped off” at the fair where we wandered around in the sunshine… drinking punch or beer if that is your preference and eating everything and anything even remotely German. I had my first ever Belgian Waffle and it was amazing but I have to say after the rocket fuel disguised as punch I left off any more eating … I don’t think my stomach could deal with much after that.
We then did the obligatory visit to check point Charlie (which is completely new, nothing original there at all but interesting all the same) looked at bits of the wall and really just followed the line where the wall used to be for a while. This is where I had another of those wonderful goldfish moments …. See by now you would all know I am ridiculously scared of heights … well when Ben saw that Berlin has the largest fixed helium balloon in Europe he was adamant that he wanted to go. I also at the time did the whole “sounds like fun … lets do it” thing. All was going very well until we actually got 150 meters into the air and with the wind blowing like crazy, the balloon rocking around like it was going to snap the cable I finally decided it might not have been such a great idea after all. However like always I survived… and I didn’t throw up which at this point with my stomach still not happy with the punch was a major victory to both me and my pride.
We had another dinner at a German beer hall and to be honest, if I never see sausage, pork knuckle, schnitzel or dumplings again it will be way to soon. It so heavy and there is always so much of it right now im stealing the salad of hubbys plate in the vain attempt to get somewhat of a balanced diet… hubby on the other hand is eating all of his meals and then ¾’s of mine in an attempt to eat as much of this food as is humanly possible.
A couple of little points I wanted to mention and I even noted down in case I forgot them … I love love love German street names. Not only are they super cute but they are also pretty damn obvious. Take this name for example Unter De Linden …. Translated it means Under the Lime Trees and it is the most lovely long boulevard with lime trees lining not only both sides of the road but also the middle too creating the most lovely space I have seen in ages.
Oh and we had a very cool taxi driver take us home tonight. We got in the car and told him where we needed to go and held leaned over the seat, held up his ipod and said … “now before I start driving … what type of tunes do you guys like.” That in itself is pretty damn cool but wait it gets even better. I told him just to press play because I was curious what he actually listens to when he has the choice… on came Dean Martin. Now I am a closet “old school” fan and we started talking about Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin Etta James and Louie Armstrong and hubby piped up “Hell yeah, I love old school” Obviously at this point I could have kept quiet and let him keep his pride but of course it was just way to easy so I asked him exactly who his favorite “old school” were? Hubby kind of stuttered a bit before going … “Well you know “Old School” like Jonnie Cash, Cat Stevens, Michael Jackson and U2” …. The remainder of the trip home was rather quiet because no one could really come up with a comment on how he had managed to put U2 and Frank in the same category. (Evil I know but hey … we are married)
One more day in Berlin before we are off to Warsaw and to be honest, there is so much to see and do here 3 days really didn’t cover it. It is definitely a place I would like to return to even if just to take a bit more time to actually look at all the old buildings and museums.
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