Today started out very eventful (see previous blog rant about travel sim) with Joy enroute to Berlin on her own and Nome and myself to go later. I had an excellent phone call with Dad (yay for Skype) to congratulate him on his birthday and then Nome and I hit the road.
A few hours later we landed safely in Berlin (no passport control which was disappointing because I didn't get a stamp) and headed out to meet up with Joy who had been sightseeing for a few hours.
It is BLOODY cold!!! Constantly raining with an icy cold wind that chills to the very marrow of my bones! Oh talk about miserable. On reviewing my wardrobe (which is mainly packed for a Mediterranean summer) I ended up wearing majority of my clothes, I looked quite bulky but at least I was warm.
We met up with Joy at the museum island and went straight to German pub and indulged hot soup (with several kinds of potatoes) to warm us up.
From there we headed to one of the suburbs to view the east side gallery. It's part of the Berlin wall that hasn't been torn down but instead turned into an outdoor art gallery with the walls covered in paintings by local and international artists. Some gorgeous artwork that serve as reminders of the isolation and lack of freedom felt by the East Germans post world war 2. We wondered along it for awhile but the cold and rain drove us back inside. (This weather is doing nothing for poor Nome being sick!). Back to our hostel then aptly called the Grand Hostel Berlin, red carpet up to the entrance and massive doors that take two people to open. It's a converted hotel and the rooms are huge, ceilings are distance and our room at castle in the corner (not sure why, think decoration).
We eventually ventured back out into the cold and rain and found a German restaurant in our area called The Atlantic! I had a giant Weiner schnitzel with tomato and onion stew and massive roast potatoes, love the German philosophy of everything being meat and potatoes!! And of course I had a big Berliner Pilsner for Dad in celebration of his birthday! Thus ended a cold and wet but good German day!
Review of the Katmandu travel umbrella
I bought this just before I left Australia at (surprise surprise) in Katmandu. It's a little pricy at around $30+ but I was taken by how thin and compact it was. It also had a large metal clip on it that you could clip to your bag. Also once I got to the checkout if I became a member they gave me 20% off which made it far cheaper than expected! So in Berlin I've used it for the first time all day. Now it is early days but so far I LOVE it! It's extremely light so I don't even notice it hanging on my bag and really light when using but it's very sturdy, we had some bone chilling gusts of wind that did turn it inside out but it never broke (again early days but I was surrounded by people with broken useless umbrellas) it also folded up very compact back into its holder and dried quickly. Even if I didn't have time to let it dry my lovely Grandmother (Gran Matthews) has made me an umbrella bag - artistically embroidered with a girl in the rain on it - that's waterproof, so I can throw it in that and none of my other stuff gets wet (can I also mention that bag that Gran made, she gave it to me prior to my first European adventure, so I used it for that entire 18 months -especially in Ireland- and then it lives in my work bag for the past 4 years and it has carried many umbrellas but never let my things get wet; so it gets a 10/10 in review but not everyone has a grandmother who can make these things for them!). So to sum up this is an excellent umbrella and I'm looking forward to a long relationship with it (but actually hope i don't have to use it again in Europe!)
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