Berlin dreaming

Wednesday 15 May 2024 – Leytonstone, London.

11 years ago today I arrived back in London after a month in Sri Lanka, a few days on a yacht theoretically scuba diving off the east coast of Malaysia* and finally a couple of weeks ‘back home’ in New Zealand. I’d left New Zealand late in December 2011 with the intention of travelling the world for a maximum of two years. However, I met London native Eleanor in Jan 2013, and decided that my trip wasn’t going to be a one-way return to Auckland after all so I came back to London instead. I’m still happy here.

Anyway, this quick post is about Berlin, our next holiday destination, and I’m very excited about it, I guess I wouldn’t be writing about an event before it happens for the first time if I wasn’t. We’ve been talking about Berlin as a holiday destination for a while, and though it wasn’t in the final plan for our Covid aborted holiday in 2020, it was part of our original thinking. The June 2020 plan had us flying to Olso and making our way to Amsterdam via various train journeys where we would meet up with a group of London friends to celebrate Deborah turning 60. In three and a bit weeks time  we are flying to Berlin and then wending our way to Oslo via various train journeys, including a 16hour sleeper from Berlin to Stockholm. We are doing this with Deborah and her husband John, it sort of makes up for the much missed holiday from four years ago. I’m really looking forward to the sleeper, it will be the longest single journey I’ve done and I love trains.

I’ve been to Berlin once since I’ve been living in the UK and that was in 2016 for a work trip where I didn’t really see much of the city outside of the hotel the conference was in. It remains one of the cities I’m most fascinated by; primarily for its music and culture, none of which I experienced in 2016.

I spent a few days there in November 1987, back when the ‘wall’ was still up and the city was divided east from west and the western part was completely cut off from the rest of West Germany. We crossed over to East Berlin for the allowed day trip, crossing via the (in)famous Checkpoint Charlie.

We had to change 25 west marks (the German currency pre-euro) to east marks to cross the border, and we couldn’t change what we had left unspent back into west marks on our return. There was nothing much to spend money on in the east, so roadside wurst (sausage) sellers were a popular choice with western tourists, and I assume, East Berliners. I don’t recall if they were good or not, but I remember we ate a lot while ‘over there’ as it was cheaper than eating in the west, and we had money to use.

I don’t have many photos left from those days, these images are scans of photos from an album I have from the 8 weeks I spent travelling around Europe. Selling and moving house and country means I have fewer possessions than I used to and photos and negatives are one of the many things that were ‘downsized’.

I enjoyed Berlin, it was one of the highlights of that trip, though we didn’t have much money and were sleeping in a tent on the outskirts of the city and someone did try to bottle me one night… Something I’m hoping will never be repeated.

This is a rare photo of me from those days and one I quite like. It’s pleasing to note that my primarily black based fashion choice hasn’t changed, unlike my hair colour.

As I said earlier, I’m excited about the trip, I’m hoping my slightly romantic view of Berlin is not left lying faded in the dust. I’m expecting to see a city with an edge, and I will be disappointed if its blunted. I need to make sure I get out and walk around and check out some of the fringe parts of the city, like Teufelsberg, if I need to hunt some edge down.

I guess with three weeks to go it’s time to start planning some sightseeing.