Leaving Berlin

Even the weather was upset today, our final one in Berlin. The sky was cloudy and rather threatening, there was an occasional roll of thunder to be heard in the distance, and we even had some rain(!). Our apartment host had arranged with us that we could leave our bags there until 4:00 pm if we needed to, and we took advantage of his offer. Our packing was finished and we had the place tidied and cleaned in plenty of time to go to one of our favourite restaurants for breakfast and to get back for a siesta before heading for the airport.

Carl insisted that we allow more time than I thought necessary, and he was proved right. We were retracing our week-ago steps in reverse, and felt completely confident that we'd get to Schönefeld with plenty of time to spare, but we hadn't reckoned on the effects of overnight storms on the German transport system. The so-called Airport Express stopped for quite a while at each station along the route and then ground to a complete halt at Ostbahnhof. Fortunately, another passenger enquired of a passing official after twenty minutes or so if we actually were going to the airport, and that's when we learned that we needed to get off, switch to the S-Bahn and find our way using out own initiative. That we managed to do, but the trip took over two hours rather than the one or so we'd expected, so we had hardly any spare time at the airport before heading for the boarding gate.

Ryanair left on time and got us back to Dublin ahead of schedule (cue annoying fanfare), we got a taxi to my place, Carl picked up his car and headed across the city to his. And that was the end of a truly wonderful trip. It was definitely one of the best trips the music group has gone on, both musically and socially, the weather was too kind if anything, and Berlin performed its magic in fine style. A wonderful break in a wonderful city.

The blip is just a few souvenir bags which were on display outside one of the shops on our way to lunch. There are loads more photos from the trip which I will put together on Flickr in due course, but now I have to knuckle down to work immediately and turn to the quarterly magazine tomorrow.