I use wasn’t in the past tense. Despite my lack of interest in Germany, for whatever reason, I’m not one to pass up a cheap flight. I had five days holiday and the flight from Manchester to Berlin was convenient. Well as convenient as an international flight leaving at 6.45am can be.
I met my Couchsurfing host, Annika, about 12pm and by 1pm it felt like I’d known her forever. After lunch and my introduction to German bread – which, by the way, is amazing – we headed into the city.
Our first stop was Brandenburg Gate. It’s a landmark in Berlin and I'm sure I was meant to be excited at the sight of it, but there's only so many European grand structures one can summon enthusiasm for. It’s only a short walk from there to Berlin’s distinctive parliament building, the Reichstag. The Reichstag is a building I can get excited for. The newer part of it (the glass beehive) looks a little odd, but it beats Parliament House in Canberra. Inside is meant to be equally as impressive, but you have to book days ahead to secure a time to go in.
We walked back into the city centre, to the Hackescher Markt area. Knowing I was keen to see some of the city's famous street art, Annika took me to some wonderful little courtyards and alleys I never would have found on my own and then we visited some great art bookshops (some of the photography books were incredible).
On the way home we stopped at the supermarket to get some things to dinner (I had to help Annika cook something with pumpkin - she'd bought one, but had never cooked with it before). We ended up roasting the pumpkin and having it with pasta and a sun-dried tomato pesto. Yum!I love visiting supermarkets in other countries - sometimes finding the similarities is just as amusing (and enlightening) as the difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment