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The Berlin Affair
Nov. 8th, 2016 08:43 pmIt's becoming increasingly difficult being in Berlin these days, a city where I've wanted to live since ever first experiencing it. We were there again on Sunday evening as this was one of the main ways to get to Georgia, what with their being no cheap flights from the UK. We had driven to Manchester, discovering that the petrol and park and ride service was comparable in price to taking the train, which would have taken double the time. The Jetpark was incredibly efficient, even if it was a good distance away from the airport in Wythenshawe, but there was a bus waiting for us as soon as we had parked and we arrived at the airport bang on time. After breezing through security, we had plenty of time to experience the delights of Terminal 3, what with us usually going through Terminal 1. This was quite good as I've become quite bored of T1, and we decided to try the Tratorria Italia as it offered eggs Benedict, one of my favourites. Alas this proved to be a mistake as even though there was a beer we hadn't tried, the toast was chewy and hard to cut while the salmon (I actually went for the Royale version) resembled cat food. With service slow too, we left them a paltry one penny tip, only because we didn't have exact change. This is rare for me as I almost always tip, but this was particularly poor, particularly in a place where you were on a time scale due to flights.
The flight itself was largely uneventful although as we were boarding, we could see our car in the Jetpark. It was amazing to think that it had taken us two and a half hours to get a distance of just a few hundred metres. Anyway, the flight passed smoothly even though Ryanair didn't seat Wolfie and I together (a service I think you now have to pay for through the choose your seat option, before they still randomly allocated you seats next to each other but I imagine there's more money in it this way), and just over ninety minutes later, we had landed in Berlin and navigated customs quickly. The initial plan had been to stay with Arakin but he had dropped me a message on Friday saying he had come down with a fever. Not wanting to put pressure on him, we decided to book a cheap hotel the day before we arrived, discovering the Meiniger just near the airport for quite a low rate. The advantage of this was that it put us pretty much at the airport before our early flight the next morning, with us not needing to get up for a taxi from Arakin's. Due to not needing a taxi - the hotel was just one S Bahn stop from the airport - the hotel didn't cost us much more in the scheme of things. It was also very good, clean and friendly, perfect for our brief overnight stay. We found it pretty quickly as it was painted in rather garish colours and soon we were checked in and showered.
Arakin had dropped us a message earlier in the day saying he was feeling a little better and that we could go out for some food, so shortly after 5:30pm, we headed back down to the airport to catch a regional train to the Zoologischer Garten, near the restaurant that Arakin had booked. He met us at the U-bahn stop, one away from the Garten, which was a beautidul example of 1920s railway architecture with some concessions in a central atrium surrounded by a golden clock. Old advertisements still adorned the walls and this was clearly a showpiece station as it was a nexus for the U1, U2 AND U3 lines. With the rain starting to turn torrential, Arakin was about ten minutes late, but this just gave us time to marvel at the excellent period features.
Once he arrived, we made the short walk through the rain to the central gay district and the Cafe Elefant, a schnitzel place where his German "teacher" Derek was already waiting. Interestingly, Derek is from Ireland and has travelled the world teaching English and so had many interesting stories to tell, forming the basis of what was an incredibly good evening. We spent the first hour chatting over food, the schnitzel being incredible. I had the Düsseldorfer Art with cheese and sharp mustard and although the mustard could have been more evenly distributed, the meal was a good one. Wolfie opted for one with peppercorn sauce, which too was nice, while the side salad that went with it was also tasty, with a zingy dressing accompanying the colourful assortment of items. Even the entree, bread with a coleslaw-like topping was delicious and this was a top recommendation from Arakin. After this, it had stopped raining so we decided to go to one of the local bars, eventually settling on one which had a pleasant quiet atmosphere and not too smoky. Some of the other bars we walked past were either smoking bars or had loud music and so this was a nice balance as it enabled us to have a conversation. I'm not a huge fan of gay bars but this we a good one, and soon we had a round of drinks and some cracker-like nibbles and we could continue the conversations. The Irish in general seem to get up to all sort of shenanigans and Derek had a range of hilarious stories to tell, as well as fascinating insights into places such as the two times he worked in Perm. We hit it off quite quickly and he's definitely someone I would like to see again, hopefully when we move to Berlin next year. Sadly, due to our early flight the next morning, we could only really afford two rounds of drinks and we set off at around 10:30pm, needing at least some sleep as we needed to be at the airport for 5:30am the next day.
Alas sleep turned out to be at a premium as we didn't get back to our hotel until 12:30am after a massive pallava with the train network. On arriving at Zoologischer Garten, we noticed there were no trains back to Schoenfeld so we decided to go down the U9 then across on the S45/6. What we didn't account for was engineering works and Sunday night services, necessitating in three separate trains and a bus to get back to the hotel. With each passing minute and each subsequent train, I was getting more and more irate, not aided by the fact that we had had a wonderful night in a city I so desperately want to move to, but which the opportunity to do this is slipping through my fingers thanks to circumstance and Brexiters. I'm trying to find a solution but everything is so uncertain and although we vowed to visit again in the new year, it doesn't make my sense of desperation any lighter. Still, the metro debacle I could do without as by the time we got back to the hotel, we were both quite pissed off and the three and a half hours of sleep I did eventually get didn't really make these feelings of sadness any better, particularly as we were about to leave the city anyway.
The procedure getting through security and passport control was surprisingly quick, although the latter we ensured we were near the front of the queue as people were leaving the Schengan Zone and we thought this would delay the passport checking. Between these two stops though we grabbed a snausage at the Irish bar, which was surprisingly desolate. Normally, when we come back from EF, Schoenfeld is an absolute nightmare and completely rammed, but not this time, even though there was a large number of early morning flights. Perhaps part of this is because EF is in the summer as our fight to Kutaisi, the second city of Georgia, was only half-full. After passport control, it was frustrating that the holding area in which we had to wait another hour had no toilets but soon we the boarded on the flight and had settled down, with me trying to catch up on sleep for most of it. We were sat next to each other but in an otherwise empty row, but alas without reclining seats and a neck pillow it all became rather uncomfortable so I don't know how much sleep I actually got. In the end I just wrote my journal and finished off learning the letters of the Georgian alphabet, feeling this would be key in terms of navigating around the country, as we anticipated our arrival in a country I've wanted to visit for years.
The flight itself was largely uneventful although as we were boarding, we could see our car in the Jetpark. It was amazing to think that it had taken us two and a half hours to get a distance of just a few hundred metres. Anyway, the flight passed smoothly even though Ryanair didn't seat Wolfie and I together (a service I think you now have to pay for through the choose your seat option, before they still randomly allocated you seats next to each other but I imagine there's more money in it this way), and just over ninety minutes later, we had landed in Berlin and navigated customs quickly. The initial plan had been to stay with Arakin but he had dropped me a message on Friday saying he had come down with a fever. Not wanting to put pressure on him, we decided to book a cheap hotel the day before we arrived, discovering the Meiniger just near the airport for quite a low rate. The advantage of this was that it put us pretty much at the airport before our early flight the next morning, with us not needing to get up for a taxi from Arakin's. Due to not needing a taxi - the hotel was just one S Bahn stop from the airport - the hotel didn't cost us much more in the scheme of things. It was also very good, clean and friendly, perfect for our brief overnight stay. We found it pretty quickly as it was painted in rather garish colours and soon we were checked in and showered.
Arakin had dropped us a message earlier in the day saying he was feeling a little better and that we could go out for some food, so shortly after 5:30pm, we headed back down to the airport to catch a regional train to the Zoologischer Garten, near the restaurant that Arakin had booked. He met us at the U-bahn stop, one away from the Garten, which was a beautidul example of 1920s railway architecture with some concessions in a central atrium surrounded by a golden clock. Old advertisements still adorned the walls and this was clearly a showpiece station as it was a nexus for the U1, U2 AND U3 lines. With the rain starting to turn torrential, Arakin was about ten minutes late, but this just gave us time to marvel at the excellent period features.
Once he arrived, we made the short walk through the rain to the central gay district and the Cafe Elefant, a schnitzel place where his German "teacher" Derek was already waiting. Interestingly, Derek is from Ireland and has travelled the world teaching English and so had many interesting stories to tell, forming the basis of what was an incredibly good evening. We spent the first hour chatting over food, the schnitzel being incredible. I had the Düsseldorfer Art with cheese and sharp mustard and although the mustard could have been more evenly distributed, the meal was a good one. Wolfie opted for one with peppercorn sauce, which too was nice, while the side salad that went with it was also tasty, with a zingy dressing accompanying the colourful assortment of items. Even the entree, bread with a coleslaw-like topping was delicious and this was a top recommendation from Arakin. After this, it had stopped raining so we decided to go to one of the local bars, eventually settling on one which had a pleasant quiet atmosphere and not too smoky. Some of the other bars we walked past were either smoking bars or had loud music and so this was a nice balance as it enabled us to have a conversation. I'm not a huge fan of gay bars but this we a good one, and soon we had a round of drinks and some cracker-like nibbles and we could continue the conversations. The Irish in general seem to get up to all sort of shenanigans and Derek had a range of hilarious stories to tell, as well as fascinating insights into places such as the two times he worked in Perm. We hit it off quite quickly and he's definitely someone I would like to see again, hopefully when we move to Berlin next year. Sadly, due to our early flight the next morning, we could only really afford two rounds of drinks and we set off at around 10:30pm, needing at least some sleep as we needed to be at the airport for 5:30am the next day.
Alas sleep turned out to be at a premium as we didn't get back to our hotel until 12:30am after a massive pallava with the train network. On arriving at Zoologischer Garten, we noticed there were no trains back to Schoenfeld so we decided to go down the U9 then across on the S45/6. What we didn't account for was engineering works and Sunday night services, necessitating in three separate trains and a bus to get back to the hotel. With each passing minute and each subsequent train, I was getting more and more irate, not aided by the fact that we had had a wonderful night in a city I so desperately want to move to, but which the opportunity to do this is slipping through my fingers thanks to circumstance and Brexiters. I'm trying to find a solution but everything is so uncertain and although we vowed to visit again in the new year, it doesn't make my sense of desperation any lighter. Still, the metro debacle I could do without as by the time we got back to the hotel, we were both quite pissed off and the three and a half hours of sleep I did eventually get didn't really make these feelings of sadness any better, particularly as we were about to leave the city anyway.
The procedure getting through security and passport control was surprisingly quick, although the latter we ensured we were near the front of the queue as people were leaving the Schengan Zone and we thought this would delay the passport checking. Between these two stops though we grabbed a snausage at the Irish bar, which was surprisingly desolate. Normally, when we come back from EF, Schoenfeld is an absolute nightmare and completely rammed, but not this time, even though there was a large number of early morning flights. Perhaps part of this is because EF is in the summer as our fight to Kutaisi, the second city of Georgia, was only half-full. After passport control, it was frustrating that the holding area in which we had to wait another hour had no toilets but soon we the boarded on the flight and had settled down, with me trying to catch up on sleep for most of it. We were sat next to each other but in an otherwise empty row, but alas without reclining seats and a neck pillow it all became rather uncomfortable so I don't know how much sleep I actually got. In the end I just wrote my journal and finished off learning the letters of the Georgian alphabet, feeling this would be key in terms of navigating around the country, as we anticipated our arrival in a country I've wanted to visit for years.
