Jetzt geht's los!

Thursday, 12 July 2007
One would think that getting from London to Berlin would be much simpler than getting from, say, Melbourne to London. It is, after all, just across the water (and in a bit).

The problem can really be summed up neatly with a single word: Stansted.
If you ever see this word on any of your travel documents, I strongly recommend you seek help. It is code for "Guaranteed to get you're trip off to a bad start".

Well, I suppose I exaggerate a little, but as airports go it's woeful. It didn't help that a week earlier someone had tried to drive a burning car into Glasgow airport, so I had to go through 2 security checkpoints (one just for my shoes!).
My lovely sister (the elder) drove me there in pique hour traffic (including roadworks) Fortunately she wasn't on until the 2nd act of Carmen, so she had a few hours to get back in time (and needed them).

The highlight of the journey was certainly the Black Wall Tunnel. This was, I believe, the first tunnel under the Thames, and at the time of building (1897) was the longest underwater tunnel in the world (1.344km). It looks like no work has been done on it since it opened, but that could just be because it carries a lot of traffic and therefore gets pretty filthy.

Anyhoo, I'm sure you don't want to hear me rabbiting on about 19th century feats of engineering.

On the flight over to Berlin I met a lovely chap by the name of Marcus. He thought I was German (buy that man a beer!) because I laughed when the German translation of the safety demo thing added the extra phrase along the lines of 'if you don't do what we say, you will be severely punished!'.
It turns out Marcus is from Berlin, and is setting up a City Walking Tours business in various European cities. And having now been around a bit, I can see this is certainly a growth industry.

Arriving at Schoenefeld (German for Stansted) I took the train into town, but not before getting a currywurst from the only imbiss open at that late hour. Here's a tip. If you find a good currywurst place, stick to it. Don't get it anywhere else. You'll only be disappointed. This was quite honestly the worst wurst I'd ever had. And late at night after 6 hours in transit, anything tastes good - or so I thought.

Still, I survived, and made it to the Hostel before they closed for the night. I strongly recommend this place to anyone who needs a place to kip in East Berlin. The owner/manager is a Kiwi, and a top bloke to boot.
I settled into my double bed (bonus!) and fell asleep thinking about what I'd do the next day...