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 […]
This morning, I resolved to go for a swim in a local outdoor pool. This would necessitate the purchase of an item I had forgotten to bring from home, namely a pair of swimming goggles. This is of course an item sold by many shops but trying to work out which would be my best […]
During my morning ablutions, I received a message from a very long-standing friend and one I had not seen in many a year. Michale Bryan and I were at Primary School together at Cuiken Primary and later on High School at Penicuik High School. He now lives in Berlin with his wife and two children […]
After a light breakfast on my balcony and some reading of Christopher Isherwood’s “Goodbye to Berlin”, I took myself on foot to what is probably the most visited area of this city, that situated around the Brandenberg Gate. This impressive monument dates from the late 1700s and was modelled on similar structures in Greek architecture, […]