Day 2: Berlin

Highlights: 

• Frozen Yoghurt near Mauerpark
• Grunewald, a forest in Zone 2 of Berlin
• Sweet Turkish lady, who kept her cafe open to feed us Brotchen und Kase

I awoke at a shocking 12.30pm on Wednesday. It was a Bank Holiday in Berlin (mid-week?! Mental Europeans). We'd had loads of plans for the day but those were clearly abandoned as we slowly got ready (made even slower by my complete and utter flooding of Gurk's flat - we're talking entire bathroom, hall, and parts of the kitchen - the only benefit of this being that it gave Gurk her first ever opportunity in life to use a mop). But we eventually left, heading into a really nice warm and sunny day. 

Gurk took me to Mauerpark (translation Wall Park), stopping off for some frozen yoghurt nearby. We walked through Mauerpark, past parts of the Berlin Wall, a tantric sex couple (it looked like this anyway) and some swings. Gurk mentioned that an Irish guy often holds Karaoke in this park. It has gotten so successful that people around the world put in requests and come to sing. From here we walked to the place where the Berlin wall first fell. This is in Prenzlauerberg, which is now considered a pretty gentrified part of Berlin; a lot of the Eastern block style buildings now have Parisian/Hausmann facades making it look a much nicer area than the rest of Berlin. 

From here we took a few U-Bahns to head to Grunewald. Gurk had heard about this old American spy tower called Teufelsberg, in the middle of Grunewald (translation is Green Wood, I think?) where you were on slightly higher ground than the rest of Berlin, and could watch a sunset. We headed into the woods using Gurk's iPhone map, but spent the next few hours, and about 10km (according to my iPod) getting completely lost, and never actually finding the tower. It was still a really cool afternoon, and the woods were beautiful and really peaceful. Slightly dehydrated and exhausted, as it got dark we eventually escaped the woods and found our way back to the U-Bahn. We saw a cafe which was closing, but the owner kept it open to make us some cheese sandwiches. I'd been about to pass out, so this was such a relief. Gurk speaks decent enough German, but when she went to the loo, I tried my half English/German sentences on the owner. She was a nice, grey-haired Turkish lady, who said she loved England and the English, but disliked Germany and Germans. She liked Grunewald and the piggies (her word), but only from a distance. We paid up, and this sweet lady gave us some free mini-croissants and pain-au-chocolat. 

End of day 2.