Berliners

Trip To Berlin

Been looking forward to this so much since booking it way back in September. Finally the day is hereJ Dropped off wee Breagha at my brother’s place in Dunblane as her sister was busy with Cameron’s birthday celebrations, so couldn’t manage to look after her, much to Ben’s disappointment… She looked so puzzled as she sat in the middle of the lounge looking at us as we closed the door. I’m sure the minute we were away she would have been up on the very inviting fluffy cushions that were piled on one of the sofas to deter her from jumping up on that one rather than the one with the blankie on it (found out that’s exactly what happened!!).

Flight got blown over to Berlin with a tailwind and arrive there in 1 hour 40 saving 20 minutes on the usual time. Passport control was pretty jammed as the four German officials were taking a good look at everyone’s passport then their faces, even a little baby had to be held up to the glass to be scrutinised. There was a German guy on his own standing next to me (Stefan) and I asked him if this was normal and he said that no, it’s usually much quicker. I told him that we were getting a train in 5 minutes as meeting our friend and still had to get the tickets. As he went through he offered to wait and take us on a different train rather than wait on the one half an hour later as we were all travelling to the Zoo. Good chat from him on the 25 minute journey and we covered many subjects from a German point of view (including the Banks).

Met Gillian – so fantastic to see her again, it’s been over a year since we met, but we just slipped back into our comfortable ways as if it had only been last week we met.

Checked into our room, which was amazing. There was absolutely nothing I could moan about. Perfect everything and massive. London was 20 m2 and this was 40m2 – happy!

Area we were staying was Charlottenberg, big wide tree lined street with lots of restaurants to choose from. Decided to go Greek and it was good but not as good as the Greek restaurant in Manchester that we went to in 2013.

Gillian pointed out places of interest as we chatted and walked along the street. One place that she particularly wanted to show us was Paris Bar restaurant that had art covering the walls, and a couple of really rude ones! We poked our heads in to look but she was very disappointed to see that it had been taken down, although she had it on her phone so we saw it. Also there was also the possibility of seeing George, who seemingly had previously dined there, but he wasn’t there that night....

Funny how although I had my iPhone pressed right up at the window taking this, no one looked up at me:)