- Helpful shop assistant at Stansted's Curry's Digital
- Prosecco in Stansted's Frankie and Benny's
- Gurk's creepy padded, Josef Fritzl-style sound-proofed door
- Ikea, meatball eating Swedes named Abba
I'd intended on packing the night before, but spent that day doing a mega room clearout in preparation and then having an evening with my housemates eating Thai curry lasagne (weird but not unpleasant) and then watching a Michael Jackson live DVD. So I did some last minute packing, and then headed to the bus stop, realising on route that I'd forgotten to pack more than one pair of socks and my headphones. I fortunately checked my boarding pass last minute, and realised I was flying from Stansted and NOT Gatwick, as I'd been telling everyone.
I LOVE being at airports alone. No-one knows you, and as far as they're concerned, you could be going anywhere - to visit family abroad, going on a spy mission, or starting a new life somewhere. I went to Curry's to buy some earphones and was advised by the nice shop guy that the ones I'd been about to go for were awful, and he set me up with some equally-priced better options. I included myself in the banter he was having with his colleague about how it sucked to be at work, and he said it was even worse being at Stansted airport, knowing that everyone you served was about to go on a trip or holiday of some sort, while you just slogged away.
I'd given myself a bit of spare time to really enjoy the airport experience, and had time to have dinner at Frankie and Benny's and treated myself to a glass of prosecco with the tenner my Dad gave me towards the trip (I got a note of love and concern from Mum, and a tenner from Dad with the statement "If I had more in my pocket right now, I'd still only give you a tenner").
I arrived in Berlin at around 9.30pm on Tuesday. A pretty unpleasant RyanAir flight (awful), littered with non-stop, loud, Irish advertising of RyanAir sponsored products (I don't want a bloody scratchcard or smoke free cigarettes), but that's a small price to pay for a £26 flight.
From the airport I headed to the train station to get to my friend Gurkirpal's, near Schonhauser Allee. I jumped on a train but without a tube map couldn't tell if it was the right one. I think Germans must be pretty tall, as their inner-carriage tube map was about a metre above my head, so after a few failed, embarrassing attempts at jumping up to see it, that didn't help at all. I slunked back to my seat and hoped for some familiar, east to north sounding u-bahn stations.
Fortunately arriving at Schonhauser Allee, I headed to the bus stop to wait for Gurk to collect me. Again, I tried looking at the local area map to see if I could head to Gurk's myself to cut down waiting time, but the map was so bloody small I couldn't even find her street. Gurk said she'd be about 15minutes, but on the phone she sounded a bit drunk and like she was still in a bar. I spent the next 30minutes or so, dodging the local drunks by hiding behind the bus stop and various lampposts before Gurk arrived with a slow-motion movie hug.
We headed to Gurk's apartment, opposite the Cuban Embassy. She lives alone in what she called 'the smallest flat imaginable'. But seriously, the airbnb apartment I stayed in whilst in Paris would have fit into this apartment about three times. It's really cool - it's semi-studio, in that the living room is also the bedroom, but she's got enough space to have a double bed, a dining table, a sofa and a sort of high bunk bed where she has a rail for clothing with plenty of space below. The best part is undoubtedly the creepy, CREEPY brown leather padded front door, complete with studs around the edge and a small peep whole. I made a Josef Fritzl comment and Gurk said she'd made the same to the family she Au-paired with for a while in Bavaria, when they showed her to her room in their basement. They'd looked slightly blank in response.
I'm told Berlin nightlife only really begins around 12pm, so after an hour chilling at Gurk's, we headed to a bar to meet her friends, stopping off for a syprupy weiss beer to drink on the way. It's weird, and tastes a little of cream soda. On this trip, I'm planning on absorbing myself in as much local cuisines/drinks/traditions as possible, so am going to say yes to (pretty much) all local recommendations. We went to a bar in the only part of Berlin I ever seem to go out in when I'm there - I recognised a few of the local kebaberies from 5am post-night snacks. Since moving to Berlin last year, Gurk seems to have found all possible ex-Durham students living in the city. We briefly hung out with an English-born, but raised-in-France guy called Rory and his Swedish friends. No lie, but one of the group was a Swedish girl named Abba, who'd spent the day eating Meatballs at Ikea (and shopping in Primark, though I don't think this belongs to any Swedish stereotype). We got a taxi home, and drunkenly attempted to put Gurk's sheets on her bed. An awful idea.
End of day 1.
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