My alarm awakened me with a “start” at 7.00am. I showered before taking Metro line 2 to Brussels-South railway station. I had coffee and a cinnamon danish before checking in. I passed without incident through French and UK border control and the “Eurostar” security check. The train left at 9.51am and arrived at 10.43am at […]
The breakfast provided at the hostel was surprisingly good. It was buffet style with toast, ham, cheese, jam, scrambled egg, bacon pieces, and cereal. I helped myself, poured a coffee and enjoyed. To describe the weather using the wonderful Scottish word “driech” would be an understatement. The drizzle seemed to simultaneously hang in the air […]
I slept fairly well on the train. I think. It can be very hard to tell as it feels a lot like you’re wide awake the whole night but at the same time, it all passes and before you know it, 8.00am has arrived. A very polite steward brought a coffee and a breakfast bag […]
Today was to be another non-day, with my train to Brussels not due to leave until 10.56am. This being the case, after a short workout and a shower, I dragged my case to the Hauptbahnhof and deposited in a locker. I then bought myself a cinema ticket to see “Oppenheimer”. Now, obviously I am not […]
This was to be my penultamate day in Berlin and my last night, as my train to Brussels was to be at 10.56pm the following night. After breakfast and a workout, I took the U8 line and M29 bus to the Schwules Museum. This was advertised as the first LGBT-orientated museum in the world. Inside […]
After a very lazy morning and early afternoon a really had no particular plan to do anything specific. However, a browse of the “Pride Month” brochure revealed a tour that sounded very interesting indeed: “Berlin’s History of Sex in Augmented Reality”. Money paid, I ventured to the meeting point. On the way I took coffee […]
I had a lovely breakfast at an establishment called “Capuchino”. I had some trouble figuring out exactly what I had ordered but it turned out to be a bread basket with a selection of cold meats and cheeses, tomato, avocado, and some apricot marmalade. There was nothing not to like and it felt quite authentically […]
After breakfast, I had a date with the underground of Berlin. Thankfully, this did not require me to agree to any potential espionage activities or to learn any passwords. Instead, €19 were paid to the very above-board and well-advertised “Berliner Unterwelden” and a meeting point communicated by email. This turned out to be 20 minutes […]
Today, after breakfast on my balcony I decided to stock up on literature. In particular, I was looking for a copy of “Christopher and His Kind”, the autobiography written by Christopher Isherwood that gives more of an accurate account of his life in Berlin than his more fictionalised “Goodbye to Berlin”. My first stop was […]
Today I was on a mission. My destination was the town of Groß Glienicke, situated to the South West of Berlin and North of Potsdam. This required careful navigation of the Berlin transport system, sometimes called “BVG” after “Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe”, the company that manages it. At this point it is worth a mention of how […]