Day 5: Berlin

We headed to the Guggenheim first thing (around 12pm) which was on Unter Den Linden (Under The Linden Trees). Compared to the Eastern Block style that Berlin is mainly known for, this street has a much older style of architecture, and as one end is headed by the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor), it's quite a touristy area. Gurk says the area is like the Oxford Street of Berlin, and the only place worth going is the Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus, which is a huge book, music and magazine store that stays open until midnight. It was near Friedrichstrasse, and so we got on the U-Bahn from Bornholmer Strasse. I'd seen some graffiti under the bridge the day before which said 'PENIS' and 'GIGGS'. I joked that this was a display of German anger toward Ryan Giggs but Gurk said these were local tags, and we spent this train ride spotting loads of different 'PENIS's.

I've been to the Guggenheim in New York, and I thought it was overpriced and boring, and the only redeeming feature was the architecture of the building itself. The Berlin Guggenheim was only €3 though, and was showing an exhibition by Gabriel Orozco. This guy had collected things from beaches and the sea over several years, and had photographed every item and categorised them by colour, and groups of 99 photos were framed and hung on the wall, whilst the items themselves (buoys, workman helmets, whole light bulbs etc) were laid out in the middle of the room. The best part was undoubtedly his collection of small items (we're talking the small bits of plastic you pull off bottles of water to release the lid, and tiny bits of foil) which had been laid out in a cabinet, and arranged in a way that made the collection look like a painting. Things were arranged by colour, but not in an obvious rainbow style, but so it almost looked like some sort of landscape. Really cool.

From here, we went to Treptower Park, which Gurk had mentioned a few times as being a really cool place where you could take good photos. We'd planned on spending the afternoon exploring Kreuzberg, so this took us in the right direction. It was lovely. Lots of tall trees, and wide paths, and so peaceful (Gurk said despite it being close to the centre, tourists don't often find their way out to it). I think it was built by the Russians and so everything was very symmetrically laid out, and it's definitely worth a visit if you go to Berlin. We'd stopped off for another Fritz Cola (Fritz Lima) on the way, and as there's a 5cent surcharge on bottles that can be redeemed if you take them back to a shop, it's generally a done thing to leave your empty bottles next to bins so the homeless can collect them and make a little money. As you're allowed to drink in the street in Berlin, there are going to be a substantial number of empties left for them to collect.

So Kreuzberg is like the East London, Hipster part of Berlin. There are lots of clubs here (including Club De Visionaire) near the river and Badeschiff, which is a floating public swimming pool. We stumbled by a Flea Market and had a quick look around. Oddest place to hear Carly Rae Jepson playing in the background. German apartments are generally let un-furnished (even doors! Gurk had to pay to buy the inner doors off of the previous owner, and her housemates from her earlier flat actually had taken the doors from their last flat, where the new tenants hadn't wanted to buy them off of them) and Gurk had bought all of her crockery from flea markets. Apparently if you go early enough, you can rummage through the belongings of someone recently dead and get some quality stuff...

We wandered up through town, passing a sort of canal which was lined with party sheds and at 3pm there was some sort of House music pumping out, and got a U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor to an area which Gurk describes as painfully, PAINFULLY cool. It reminded me slightly of Whitechapel in that it was clearly poor, and as such was a real draw for immigrants and artists. Gurk pointed out a club which seemed to be within an actual block of flats, which was supposed to be the coolest of the cool. I loved the area - it just felt very normal, and had a real sense of liveliness and art. So it was around 3.30pm and I was about to faint with hunger and exhaustion, so we went to an Italian that Gurk knew down the road. It was sort of like Vapianos, where your pizza or pasta are cooked to order, and so aren't necessarily served up at the same time. Best €6 I've ever spent. (Gurk forbids me to mention the name of this restaurant, in case all of the 10 readers of my blog come and start making it all touristy and popular). 

It was a Saturday night. We stopped off some Bubble Tea (ice tea with pods of fruity juice, which you suck up through a straw and then pop in your mouth) and then headed back for a nap at about 5pm. And then we both woke up the next day at 7am....

End of day 5.

* So I'm pretty sure we're allowed to use fisticuffs. Ignore yesterday's comment. We're definitely not allowed to use bomsitit, when meaning 'Bomb's Hit It' though.