Berlin Day 6 : Heroes have bad days too...

Another dull and chilly day, but at least the rain had stopped. Not having done well yesterday with out intended shopping expedition, we decided yesterday to worry later about that and do some sight-seeing today. A decision made ate last night was to go to see the Jewish Museum, a plan which for me at least was as much to do with the architecture as the museum content. We worked out the best way to get there using Berlin's wonderful transport system, and set out around 3.00 pm. We'd been kept up to date by the others about their revised travel arrangements because of the closure of Irish air space, and found that everyone had managed to get seats on the Aer Lingus flight on Thursday (the same one we'd booked our return on originally). In fairness to Aer Lingus, everyone felt that the situation had been dealt with well, and that the switch had been relatively painless.

It was a bit of a walk from the U-Bahn to the Jewish Museum, and our route took us through a part of the city which wasn't anywhere near as attractive as our own base. This jokey sculptural outside the Museum helped brighten things up a bit, but what we encountered inside the Museum door didn't at all appeal to us and we ended up not going inside after all. What out us off was a full-blown airport-style security setup which we found uncomfortably intimidating. A sign which assured us it was for out own safety and security did nothing to change improve how we felt, and we just turned around, went back through the revolving door and made do with a walk around the exterior of the building (the one which made the Libeskind name).

We consulted our map and decided to do some more exploring around the area we were in, retracing our steps to the U-Bahn and making our way to the Oberbaumbrücke. We actually did quite a bit of walking during all this, which made me realise that all the wandering over the past few days would make my cardiac rehab physioterrorists really proud of me. Mind you, it was also just a little bit tiring. Still, we'd heard from most of the others that they'd be joining us at tonight's concert in the Philharmonie, so we had a bit of an unexpected reunion to look forward to.

The Philharmonie experience was a fine performance of Beethoven's Missa solemnis, with Marek Janowski in charge of the the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. This was a big thing for me all along, as maestro Janowski is to my mind one of the really great conductors in action today. The five of us went to the nearby Sony Centre afterwards. Unfortunately, we opted for an Australian-themed place which treated us to the worst service we'd yet received in Berlin.