Day 5 - 23/06/23

 If I had one word to describe this day, it would be rain. Rained all morning, rained all afternoon and rained all evening too. Really wishing I had taken my mother’s advice and packed a raincoat. Not to be deterred by the rain though, we set off in the morning to go and visit Checkpoint Charlie. It was fascinating how there weren’t many remnants of the checkpoint there, in fact they had built a McDonalds right where it used to be. I’m sure many political scientists have made comments on the symbolism of a multi-billion pound company now being on top of a previously iconic representation of communism in Western Europe.

We then visited the Berlin wall, which was fascinating, however due to the heavy rain we did not stay for long.

Can’t have been a very good barrier with that massive hole in the middle, surprised more people didn’t cross. We then journeyed through even more rain and a confusing metro system for 30 minutes to yet another part of the wall, showing just how massive it was. We snapped some photos of the famous graffiti and took shelter in a burrito restaurant for lunch. I unfortunately overestimated my spice tolerance as I lathered the burrito in Belizean hot sauce and spent the next 20 minutes aggressively sweating and panting.

We then visited the Reichstag Building, which was slightly disappointing as there was so much security that it took 30 minutes to get in and you basically weren’t allowed anywhere except for the roof.

After a long day of walking and getting drenched, we made our way back to the hostel, where I swiftly had a hot shower and a snooze before our night began. Meandered over to Jo and Polly’s hotel where we were treated to a nice pasta dish, marking the first actual meal I’ve eaten since my German tapas on my first day in Berlin. After enjoying some drinks on the balcony we went out to a jazz club (sorry Dad), but unfortunately we were so late that we missed the music and it was basically just a normal bar. 

We then spent the rest of the evening bouncing between a couple of clubs, which were surprisingly quiet for a Friday night, before finally getting home for an early night at 5am. Now that I’m leaving Berlin, I’m still not sure what to think of it. I’m definitely not cool enough to fit in with the regular club goers, and I received many dirty looks when I had to tell the bar staff ‘Ich spreche kein Deutsch’. Kennedy definitely wouldn’t have said ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ if he was brutally rejected from a club like I was. Felt much more at home in Amsterdam, although I’m sure that’s partly due to the fact that everyone there was tall too! I realised that most of Berlin’s tourist sights are basically just them apologising for things they’ve done in the past. It was a very cool city though, perhaps I’ll come back if I’m with some more experienced Berliners!

P.S. starting to get really sick of trains now, which is a bit worrying considering it’s only day 5. Not looking forward to the 15 hour train across Romania from Budapest to Bucharest.