Berlin, designer capital

For our 2nd 4-day weekend away minus kids we chose Berlin. Jac: "This time we had 2 wheelie carrier bags & a laptop, we so felt like the frequent flash fliers, that is of course until Phil reveals his Levin opshop green permanently stained TShirt, with Sport Manawatu written across it."
This fitted right in with the Taihape tin-shed feel of the city's Schönefeld airport. It clings on to its former East German bus-terminal style, so you get to queue for customs down the steps that lead to the tarmac.















Some of the best beer in the world, one of its most famous gates and surely one of its shortest tube lines. As for the Berliner's favourite takeaway, currywurst and frites, a bit of brown madras chucked on some red ketchup sort of sums up the rough-ready-damn enjoyable feel of the streets. And you need fortifying for the grim history tour to come.









3 euros gets you a photo with the fake guard at the fake Checkpoint Charlie. This though is the only touch of Disney in what otherwise - whether its via the 5-hour free walking tour we did, or just dropping by the numerous history-and-gut wrenching sites of war and woe - is a flint-hard reality experience.




Long time since we saw a cigarette ad.

Cheap nasty phone on a nasty formica desk in a seriously nasty place - the former East German security (Stasi) prison that no one outside of Communist honchos, knew for sure existed till the Wall came down. The phone was a useful tool of interrogation (no physical torture with the Stasi - no need when the pscyhological will do the trick). And, below, the Stasi version of the KGB's Black Marias, which picked up the citizens destined for prison.




Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe - stunning stuff, and the information centre underground under it is even more so.





A parking lot outside a 2nd-rate apartment block, pretty standard. But under our feet is the bunker where Adolf and Eva Hitler (they got married in the final days) did themselves in. You wouldn't know it but for a small sign nearby.





Inside the Stasi prison.





The Wall, the Berliner Mauer. Seemed fitting to visit what little is left of it - and the wall of pictures of the 130-plus people killed trying to cross it - on a grey, wet day when East Berlin was looking its ugly best.























Jac: "Our one so called ‘German meal’ out was quite unforgettable. The only thing we found on the menu that looked German was pork schnitzel. Phil ordered the 'XL' special & I kid you not, he got half a pig. The meat was the size of 2 dinner plates, unfortunately despite being fried it was quite dry & even the human rubbish disposal had to admit defeat













Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis church near Kurfurstendamm, Berlin's Oxford Street, bombed in the war and left as is.

Even the traffic light signals are designer specials: The little green guy is called Ampelman, and when they tried to replace him after reunification, people chained themselves to the lights in protest. He now has his own designer accessory shop in flash Hackescher Markt.















As you can imagine, Jac excelled at pronunciation of German compound nouns.

Inside the actual church space next to the bombed-out one. We popped in for a gander and ended up in a mass or some-such.

The blurry price-tag on the gourmet blinis with caviar at KaDeWe, Europe's largest department store, reads 112 euro. For lunch.



If you've seen Tom Cruise in Valkyrie you may recognise the name of the street.

And here the courtyard where Stauffenberg and a handful of others were executed after the failed July '44 plot to blow up Hitler.

Even the formica panels on the S-train back to Schönefeld airport have funk.