New Years Day saw a late start to our activities. The sun doesn’t rise until about 8:15am over here so places are not operational until later anyway. The Brandenburg Gate was on the agenda so we walked to the Ubahn station. While roaming around, there was debris from spent fireworks scattered everywhere.

The Bear is the animal emblem for Berlin. It is a pun on the city’s name – ‘little bear’ in German is Bärlein.

We navigated the Ubahn and Sbahn to arrive at our destination.We started at Rathaus Neuköln (Townhall) station. The train was clean and they have screens in each carriage that informs passengers about upcoming stops plus a screen displaying the latest news.

The Brandenburg Tor train station has an exit near the Russian embassy. It is an imposing building with many people congregating outside. One young man was seen to be doing the one finger salute into the air to express his opinion of the embassy. A tribute to Ukraine has also been set up on the land strip in the middle of Unter den Linden Strasse (Grand boulevard lined with Linden trees), attracting much interest.

The Brandenburg gate was obscured by a stage and cordoned off so workers could break down the structures. The place was teeming with tourists as expected.

I wore a high neck T-shirt under a light dress, 120 denier stockings and my green skirt. No scarf or gloves needed. Always take a warm coat in case there is a cold breeze. The expected temperature for today was cloudy and a high of 15C.

The Hotel Adlon is next to the USA embassy. It is the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his son from the window.

We wanted to see if we could get a meal here but they were only accepting reservations. So further down the road we found the Lebensart restaurant and sat inside. It was busy but the wait staff were efficient and friendly. I chose the Currywurst which was served with chips and Scott ordered the Club Sandwich. Chosen beverages were beer and gluwein. An Apple strudel was also consumed.

The area attracts a lot of tourists so this area is maintained and kept clean.

A popular ice cream in Germany is called ‘Spaghetti Eis’. It basically is ice cream forced through small holes to form ‘spaghetti’ which is then topped with berry sauce to represent Bolognaise pasta.

The Ampelmann is an icon of Berlin. When the wall came down in 1989, the city was reunited and one of the items that differed were the walking symbols on pedestrian crossings. The Ampelmann was the symbol used in East Berlin.

After our meal we continued on foot to FriedrIchstrasse. We walked past the Galeries Lafayette where the Accenture Berlin office is located. Further down the road is Checkpoint Charlie which used to be a Berlin Wall crossing point between East and West Berlin. Of course the place is now surrounded by American fast food stores and souvenir shops. There was a tree decorated with Ukrainian flags erected beside the checkpoint.

It was evident that we were in the old east by the architecture in the area. We kept walking to Gendarmenmarkt which held the Christmas Markets but although they were lit up nicely, the markets were closed and being dismantled.

We continued onto Alexanderplatz which is where the Telekom tower is situated. There is an interesting clock sculpture that you can walk around and look at the location times around the world.

It was time for an early dinner before heading home. Scott took us to the Hofbrau Munchen Wirtshaus which is a Bavarian Inn serving Bavarian food. It is designed as one of the beer halls you would find in Munich during Oktoberfest. Scott chose the Goulash soup of beef with paprika, sour cream and fresh farmhouse bread. I enjoyed the Sausage plate with a dunkel beer. It was delicious and we had left overs to take home.

We travelled home on the Ubarn from Alexanderplatz and completed another day of a lot of walking.

Guten Nacht.

I awoke to the lovely tunes of sparrows congregating outside of my bedroom windows.

The expected temperature for today was 15C …. In the middle of winter!!!

We took a walk to explore Scott’s part of Berlin. We walked along the canal which unfortunately had rubbish scattered around and apparently is not collected by the authorities.

When we got to Hermannplatz there was even more rubbish scattered through the fencing.

First stop was the local Aldi. It was similar to ours in Australia but some of the products like the Nordsee pickled herrings are not stocked in Australia.

Lunch was a Dürum Dönet (doner kebab) at one of Scott’s favourite Turkish cafes.

We then went into the Ubahn to catch a train to the Eastside Gallery. The Ostbahn is the train station to alight from for this site. It is spacious and clean. The station is obviously maintained for tourism, a major contrast to the other stations used by locals. If you want to use the WC make sure that you have some 1 Euro coins ready. This ensured that the toilets were clean.

We walked out past the taxis and Police cars to join the throng of people admiring the artwork on the remnants of the Berlin wall. It was eerie standing in the death strip and reflecting on how tragic it was for the poor people. New information columns have been recently added to inform people about the history of this place. There were many tourists taking photos of the wall.

I always wanted to walk across the Oberbaum Bridge as it is an interesting structure once separated by the Berlin Wall. This was also in the direction we needed to go to walk back to Scott’s place.

There are lovely little trendy establishments selling drinks and food in this area, so we decided to get some Gluwein and watch the world go by as we ate a chocolate treat.

Görlitzer Park is an area that we had to walk through. It was bordered with people wanting to sell clandestine goods and did feel a bit intimidating but we were just polite and walked on. Of course there were people letting off fireworks in the park too. In this park was a small animal enclosure where we sighted goats, ponies, sheep and a donkey.

Once home, the Sydney Fireworks were on the TV and their New Year’s Eve was over, when we still had to prepare for ours. Sydney is 10 hours ahead of this time zone.

As is my habit I like to book a Friseur (hairdresser) to wash and style my hair when I am travelling. It means that I don’t have to pack any hair products. We had made an appointment a day earlier for 4pm today. She was a lovely Lebanese woman who spoke little English but we managed to communicate with a combination of our broken German and English. She gave me a book to read, while she was working, about Lebanon, in the English language.

So, salon ready, it was time to go to a friend’s place for dinner in Mitte, Berlin. The taxi ride was scenic for me and there were fireworks going off everywhere! Scott had marinated some chilli and garlic in olive oil in order to preserve them while he was away in Cape Town around Christmas. He decided that he would gift the oil to his friend who enjoys cooking. The poor cab driver was going to be smelling garlic all night because the container had a small leak and left an aroma in his cab 😬.

Our destination was Mitte which is in the old East Berlin. The home cooked meal was superb! The company, bubbles and conversations flowed while eating a French Endive salad for Entree, Beef Roulades served with Knödel (potato dumplings) and braised red cabbage for the main course and then a perfect Creme Brûlée for dessert. Thank you Sebastian and Kenny for a lovely night!

Still the fireworks continued and continued …. We took a taxi home and listened to the fireworks continue for hours after midnight.

Guten Nacht.