We travelled to Stansted airport last Sunday morning, due to fly at 8 am but fairly inevitably we were delayed but no so predictably we were delayed until 8 pm. That still wasn’t it though the flight at 8 pm was delayed until 11 pm which meant that Tegel was closed when were scheduled to land. The flight was then diverted to Schonefeld which is open 24hrs.
We eventually arrived at the youth hostel at 3 am, tired and wired. We got up and had breakfast and started Monday’s Schedule:
Catch U-Bahn to Alexanderplatz but we had to change at Gleisdrieck due to construction works. We walked from the U-Bahn station to the TV Tower – Fernsehturm.
We went to the top in really quick lifts and admired the views over the city some of us went up to the revolving restaurant for a drink which was really cool.
We re-grouped and went to lunch in the Alexanderplatz area.
We caught the U-Bahn to Potdamer Plaltz and had shopping time in Potsdamer Arkaden.
We returned to the hostel and had our evening meal which was Spaghetti Bolognese and salad.
Tuesday
We took the U-Bahn to Ckeckpoint Charlie and had a choice of shopping or the Checkpoint museum which was all about attempts to escape into the other sector of Berlin which was good but a bit dull in places.
We then took the U-Bahn to Ku-Damm which is the US, UK and France’s sector. Which I really liked, it was great for shopping and eating out. We had lunch there.
The year 10s then split off to the Olympiastadion with Mr C, Mrs B and Mrs M. It was an awesome structure but it wasn’t just used for sport, we saw Hitlers Podium where he gave his speeches.
The evening meal was Schnitzel, potatoes, mushroom sauce and salad.
We took the U-Bahn U1 to Gorlitzer Bahnhof where we went to Bad am Spreewaldplatz, a swimming pool indoor lagoon. Which was great until the pool was evacuated due to a near drowning incident when a woman got cramp in her leg, whilst the dense lifeguard was talking to someone and a few minutes later heard screaming and only just saved her. I was on the slide and then the lights went off so I guessed that was a signal to get out!
Wednesday
A long trek on the S-Bahn to Oranienburg and then a long walk to Sachsenhausen which was a very weird experience because we could go out, the prisoners (if you can call them that) couldn’t.
I discovered a food wonder at lunch time – Crumble cake. A traditional German snack of Crumble cake and Cappuccino for me!
I was going to go to the Sealife but that got cancelled because it was miles away so I went in KaDeWe instead and I shopped until I dropped and had a cappuccino on 7th.
Dinner was ‘Red Dear’ Stew but it said it was beef, noodles, salad and a chocolate mousse thing.
Thursday
We walked to Brandenberg and the Holocaust memorial and then walked down Den Linden to Alexanderplatz and caught the U-Bahn to Ku-damm. Shop ’til ya’ drop time in Ku-damm I went to KaDeWe (my Favourite) for lunch and shoppping and I went to H&M and Zara.
Mr W and a hand full of us set off for the allied museum which was better than the Checkpoint museum. A huge U-Bahn trek back to Tiergarten which took an hour due to train changes because of works at gleisdrieck (suprise)
We had dinner – Chicken, rice, Mediterranean vegetables and salad.
The Youth Hostel was a bit old hat but it was very clean, it was in the region of Tiergarten – a leafy suburb with a nice park and the Rhine runs through it. My favourite shopping area was the Ku-damm or the Kurfurstendamm which is the UK, US and France’s sector of Berlin which is more upper-class than Alexanderplatz. My favourite store was KaDeWe or Kaufhaus des Westens.
KeDeWe has 7 floors and over 60,000 square metres of retail space, if you want it KaDeWe really does have it! I never new H&M was so popular in Germany either in Ku-Damm there are 3 H&Ms in 100 metres of each other! There are also 2 Zara’s in 200 metres of each other.
The Ku-Damm is the place to shop.
The History and Geographical side really interested me too, things such as the Berlin Wall, The allies and how the city has developed into the capital of Europe it is today. The city is absolutely fantastic, awesome, modern, brilliant, beautiful, excellent words cannot describe how great the city is.
I really enjoyed catching the U and S-Bahns, they are so quick and reliable on a few occasions the group were separated!
Berlin is the best place I have EVER visited!!!!!
I LOVE BERLIN
ICH BIN EIN BERLINER!!!!
3 Comments
November 4, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Sounds like you had a fun time there mate.
I’m jealous
Joshy
November 4, 2006 at 11:42 pm
A good little review here, some interesting photos on flickr as well. I’m going to do my write up over a couple of weeks. Still trying to recover from the experience!
Great visit.
November 6, 2006 at 11:23 pm
[...] I intend to write up the Berlin visit in installments. Stringy has already done a good job. First will probably be at the weekend, once I have got over marking, meetings and a day out on Thursday. I’ll also do a longer lesson review on Saturday. As a Berlin teaser, what is the image about? One of my best I feel. [...]