Rain! Proper rain!
We haven’t had that in the UK for weeks, so it’s kind of nice to get some even on holiday. Sat under the glass restaurant roof, having breakfast, laughing quietly to myself at the ice buckets strategically deployed to catch leaks through the roof. Oops.
My plans for the day were delayed by the rain. I went for a second coffee instead. The coffee machine is back to ‘barely more than half a cup’ functionality but using my new-found skill in stopping it mid flow I now ask for two cups in the same mug and just stop the second one before flooding occurs. I’ve also discovered the issue with the water supply: It’s a 4 gallon bucket in the back of the machine that needs replacing/refilling every twenty minutes or so. Because plumbing in your coffee machine wouldn’t make any sense at all..
I’d been thinking of visiting Poland today – it’s only a couple of hours away by train. They run only irregularly though, meaning a 6am start or just a couple of hours there. Worse, it would cost me more than the trip from Nottingham to Berlin. Low cost flights have a very strange commercial basis. So I opted to skip that and go somewhere else instead.
Still raining as I bought three train tickets. Literally 2 minutes from walking into the station I had all three, from a ticket office, and guidance on trains, platforms and changes. A minute later I was on the train.
No interminable underground walks through dim passages smelling of urine, no queues at ticket barriers, hell, no ticket barriers. London, learn how a transport network should work.
New station, the guidance “up the stairs” turned out to be four floors and my knee died midway to the first one. I found a lift.
A stop later I was inside the Hauptbahnhof of which the bus tours had been so proud. Sorry Berlin, I’ve been to St Pancras too often to find your glass and arched roof special. This is the route I’ll take tomorrow, except instead of taking the train this way I’ll take it the other. Same line, from the same station.
I’m visiting part of Berlin I’ve never seen before. The main source of my historical interest no longer even exists but what’s still there is reputed to be a quiet part of Berlin’s history, bereft of the crowds of selfie snappers. In the rain I suspected it’d be mostly bereft of Berliners too. Not quite, I found a few locals.
On the train I dropped my mobile phone case, stretched out my leg to steady myself as I leaned forward to pick it up, my knee malfunctioned and I nearly fell off the seat responding to the resultant pain. The poor German Mädchen sat opposite panicked, looked ready to flee the carriage. She got off at the next stop.
The train grew quieter as we moved further from the centre of the city. The scenery was generic urban rail line, tree lined banks, tall buildings, small dismal stations and of course the graffiti. It’s less of an artwork here, a crude tag the commonest sight, only the occasional bridge showing creativity or artistic merit.
A small girl, taller in feet than old in years, distressed her father. She was happy but wanted to share it, loudly, and also use some energy instead of sitting trapped by her parents and the pram holding her younger sibling. At one point she tried to duck through his arm as he pre-empted her escape attempt and ended up being hoisted accidentally by his hand covering her neck, her chin, her mouth. A moment of silence. Her mother looked startled, her father semi-shrugged, the little girl just turned, used her new found height to stand on the seat and made excited noises as she pointed out something passing rapidly by the window.
Then I got asked by a ticket inspector for my ticket. I took out all three and he rifled through them, seeming unhappy, then let out a fast quiet torrent of German. I had no hope so just looked at him and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” Turns out I was meant to stamp the ticket before boarding. I hadn’t seen the stamping machine and thought the man in the ticket office had told me to stamp tomorrow’s, not today’s. He corrected my understanding and told me not to do it again, then got off the train.
Finally I reached my destination.
By 1pm I’d walked over 6km (out of over 9km for the full day), seen a 16th century fortress, an art gallery, four fortified towers, a medieval museum, a Nazi chemical weapons research facility, an Italian courtyard, an industrial museum and a 19th century citadel. Or as they’re collectively known, Spandau Zitadelle.
It also contains a Jugend Kunstschule where presumably German children learn how to be.. wait, they need to be taught?
The rain was heavy but stopped before I walked back to the train station through the Altstadt. It was a big let down, you could interchange it with any of dozens of generic damp town centres, anywhere in Germany, Holland, the UK.
Spandau is the industrial side of Berlin, large factories and big belching chimneys filling the skyline. It’s a more relaxed place, feels real when you compare it to the centre. No attempt to attract tourists, no fragments of the wall, no street performers or students handing out flyers. Even the citadel charged just €4.50 to enter. I was though fascinated by the encouragement to play in traffic.
I didn’t stop, just carried on to the station with its surprising selection of destinations. Koln, Dusseldorf, cities the other side of Germany. I’d been there in April though so went to the other platform instead, found a train back to Mitte. It arrived 4 minutes early, sat there, doors wide open, plentiful seating waiting invitingly inside. I obliged.
This time I stamped my ticket; it makes no difference to me but might avoid causing distress to a conductor. Naturally I didn’t see a conductor through the entire journey.
Changing again at Friedrichstrasse I cheated on the final leg of the trip. The stop prior to my hotel is Potsdamer Platz with its selection of restaurants, cafes and bars. It was time for a schnitzel.
The schnitzel didn’t look very special but that was a nice sized and tasty bit of veal for just €12. Can’t really argue with that.
Of course being in Potsdamer Platz meant I was near to..
Judge me all you want, I like this place.