Berlin is the s**t!

Staying in the old East of Berlin, right next to the East side Gallery (the largest remaining section of the wall) and camping on a boat deck sounded like a good way to begin our Berlin experience and we weren't wrong. We spent four nights in Berlin and had a whale of a time.

Arriving on a Sunday afternoon we took it easy heading to a German restaurant for our first schnitzel in Germany, boy was it good. And big. Huge in fact. Food here is not measured on the normal scale.

The following day we hoofed it to a walking tour (10:30, who's ready at that hour?) and spent all day being guided around by the lovely Victoria. By the way if anybody is after a walking tour in Berlin - and there are a few on offer- we highly recommend Brewar's. We were on the road until six that evening with perfect sunny weather accompanying us all the way. We took in all the sights having the chilling Nazi era history (yuk) balanced with good suggestions for nightlife spots and East side/West side jokes and anecdotes. It is difficult to go into detail about the sights in Berlin as we figure half of it you already know and the bits and pieces are just too horrible, but to be there was amazing particularly the pieces of the wall left standing and that to look around the majority of the buildings are no older than 1950. We crashed after yet another HUGE meal that night swearing never to walk again.

We had a day of rest (and laundry and bad weather) where Adam had to communicate with a hairdresser in his best German, still doesn't look like a punk though!

That night we headed out to see some of the bars in our area near the hostel. The old East has gotten kinda trendy recently and we didn't get much further than a really cool little gay bar called Barbie (actually quite toned down despite the name) with a two for one happy hour (2 1/2 hour) including cocktails!!!! The best bit was you could lay down and get a massage - not as dodgy as it sounds- and pay what you thought it was worth at the end, and you got cake at the end of it! Eva committed herself to a €5 massage and Adam disappeared into the night in search of an ATM. When we met again we had both relaxed a bit, only because Adam met a bunch of Turkish kids firing fireworks at pedestrians and was invited to join in. BANG! Poor pizza delivery driver.

On our last day in Berlin we went for a wander and ended up at the zoo. This led to another massive day of walking (we are slowly getting fitter) around one of the best zoos we have seen. Some of the highlights being the Indian Rhinoceros, Knut the baby polar bear, the gorillas and orangutans, the porcupine and loads more. Adam was very disappointed in the panda.

That night we returned to Barbie for a quick cocktail before heading into town for some of the recommendations from our walking tour. This included a bar in an old WW2 bunker that had free live jazz, that whiled away a few hours and then an ex-squat come artists retreat/venue that is housed in a half bombed out shopping centre. It was a great night just scratching the surface of what Berlin nightlife has to offer.

The next day we headed out of town on a now or never sort of mission. It was the type of place that if we stayed much longer we might not leave, as seems to happen to a lot of the ex-pats hanging about.

Photos: Eva in our first night's cabin, Blue skies in Berlin, In the ghetto (squat cum bar), The east side gallery (longest part of the wall), Brandenburg gate, Cool jazz club, Our tent on deck with the wall in the background.

What a city.