Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
On Thursday the weather did a complete 180 again, & it was bright & sunny! Nigel even got sun burnt! I know, I know, how did I, the albino Queen of sunscreen, manage to let that happen?? Well I did remind him several times but to no avail! Plus we were walking around in bright, hot sunshine for about 5 hours non-stop so the elements were against him :P We went on a walking tour around Berlin with the tour company who'd taken us out the Sachsenhausen the day before, because Carlos had been such a great guide (& he was only a newbie to the company!), & we loved the walking tour in Munich so much, that we figured it would be a good way to see the city, seeing as we only had 3 full days there.
Turns out it was money (& very little of it) well spent! Our guide Torben seemed to know even MORE than Carlos, if that's humanly possible, & was a very entertaining guide to the city. It was a great way to get around & see all the main sights like the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag building, and the remaining parts of the Berlin wall in one hit without having to rely on our own somewhat sub-par map-reading skills. Plus you get so much more out of it when there's someone there explaining all the ins and outs of the city to you & showing you places you wouldn't have found otherwise. For example, Torben took us to a random place on a street where there appeared to be nothing of note at all, but turns out we were standing 10 metres above the bunker where Hitler ended his life in 1945. It's still there actually, but it's been filled in so that nobody can ever get inside again.
Three stretches of the Berlin wall are still standing, despite people's constant attempts to steal bits of it ever since it came down over 20 years ago in 1989. You can actually buy bits of the wall in tourist shops that are inside key- chains or postcards, but frankly I'm always a little bit suspicious that someone hasn't just gone to a construction site, picked up a bunch of rubble, & started charging people an arm & a leg for it…hmm…We did however bow to our touristy instincts & buy a little traffic light guy ice cube tray. If you ever go to East Berlin (just the East, not the West) you'll notice that the little stop & go traffic light guy (who does have a German name, but it directly translates to "little traffic light guy" pretty much) has more character that your average traffic light guy. He has a groovy little hat, holds his arms out for you to stop, & really seems to walk with purpose. We developed a game of putting our "hats" on & off whenever we crossed a street with a traffic light so we felt it was only right to buy a tacky souvenir to commemorate this awesome & totally ridiculous past time :P
By mid-afternoon, Torben had talked more than I thought any man could in one lifetime, & we had walked a long, long way! We were pretty knackered but still had to move hotel rooms, as the lovely Miss Kelly Venables had very generously (& stubbornly!) insisted on putting us up in a hotel room across town for a couple of nights as a thank you to Nigel for coming to our rescue when we were in Nice. Completely unnecessary & TOTALLY wonderful of her, we stayed in the beautiful Mark hotel, on the West side of Berlin, so we got to spend a few days seeing how the other half live :P We flopped down onto our soft, white, cushy beds (our pillows topped with complimentary candy!) & napped for an hour before dinner. What lucky, lucky people we are! :) Once again we had ambitions to go out for the night, but unfortunately I was quite sick that evening, so Nigel put his hospital training to good use & ordered food to the room for us, while taking Sterling care of me! :)
- comments
loz if u see a beer tour on a massive bike the dude who takes the tours it is my friend jon from perth!