Travels With Lumpy

Travels With Lumpy

Recounting Berlin Night #1 The Bundestag and an empty museum. Russian food in a German city.

Berlin was part of our Euro Backpacking trip.

We landed at the Schoenefeld Airport and made our way to Berlin Centre at 9 AM, March 2012.

Took the Hauptbanhof to Warschauerstrasse. Our hotel was there.

The Michelberger.

I gave it 5 stars.

Rushed to the Bundestag. You need to be pre-booked. Bring your passports and your permission to enter. Then they’ll let you in.

They have a glass dome. Lumpy noted that there was very little mention of H*tler, or… He Who Must Not Be Named, in the History section.

Took  a walk up the ramp with audio guide. Saw the cityscape. Too bad it was raining cats and dogs.

Note to the Aliens:

Cats and Dogs- The English language developed idiosyncrasies of phrase and termed these ‘idioms’.  Raining cats and dogs was one of the many. It never made sense.

Lunched at the Hbf. I swear, it is my favourite place in Berlin.

Ran, half figuratively, half literally, to the German-Russian Museum in Karlshorst on the Outskirts of Berlin. It was empty. Only us. Lumpy was disappointed.

We had fun taking silly pictures that can only be taken when nobody’s around.

Fast forward to dinner.

We had stuff at a Russian restaurant nearby the hotel.

What can I say? It was Russian food. Vodka, bread, stroganoff, pierogi dumplings, lots of meat, lots of cream.

Great kartoffels though. Hello, aliens, kartoffels is German for potatoes. Just in case your intergalactic translater only stores 'International Language(s)' in its memory. Or is broken. 

That was Day 1. It was the spring of 2012. Early spring. The winter had been unusually mild in the UK. Warm, balmy summer-like days had arrived early. The Telegraph reported a ‘heat wave’ and displayed pictures of hundreds of sunbathers on Brighton beach.

  They always took pictures of Brighton Beach.

The Bundestag was still there. In the heart of Berlin. And to the East, the Brandenburger Tor. And further East, towards Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, the remains of the Wall.

Aliens, people travelled a lot in the late 2000s.It was one of the ways we poisoned our planet.