Bit slow to update the blog… apologies all!
Berlin day 4 was a bit slower to start than the others. We hadn’t planned much of the remaining of the trip, which isn’t unusual, however it becomes more of a problem when there’s still heaps you want to see, but not enough time to see it. So we spent a bit longer than we’d hoped to plan the remainder. Turns out it was time well spent.
From there, we ventured out into the absolute middle of nowhere west of Berlin to an outlet shopping mall. It was good for 2 reasons – 1 we got to buy a few things we were in need of (yes you do need more than 1 pair of jeans!) and secondly, we got to see a less seen part of Berlin and it really was quite a fun adventure. The train ride took probably 40mins and when you got off, all that could be seen was a forest encircling you with a single bus stop which took passengers to the outlet shops. Pretty good fun! Found some cheap Tommy Hilfiger jeans for myself (Glen) and Deb found some stuff too, so was quite enjoyable all round…
From there, we made our way back into the city. After getting slightly lost (train didn’t stop at the same places it did when going out), we made our way just near Friedrichstrasse where there’s a bunch of very popular restaurants overlooking the river. We went into the busiest one – a politically themed restaurant full of photos of old politicians back from when Bonn was the capital of West Germany. The food was very nice and we got chatting with an older German couple who were sitting next to us. They were keen to hear about where we’d been and they answered some of our questions. One in particular was why most of the men kept ordering 250ml beers and not larger pints or even steins. Turns out the local beer comes in a special size in a special glass – and it must be 250ml.
We got back late to our hotel and had a fairly early flight out, so half of day 5 just consisted of travel, stuffing around at the bloody airport with stupid airlines (another story there…).
Looking back – we probably didn’t get as much out of Berlin as we had with other cities. In some ways, we have probably been big-citied out too much… lots of travel, lots of working out how to get around and as a well known Australian song goes… “Every f’ing city looks the same”. (warning, some naughty words in the video below).
So time for some less big city-stuff for a few days… and fancy that, our next destination is Ireland and staying with friends!
Goodbye mainland Europe, you’ve been fantastic!