Day 6: Berlin

Highlights:

• Bauhaus Archiv
• Lambrusco
• Photomat - best €2 I've spent so far

€€

So Gurk took us to Charlottenburg Schloss in the morning, which is near the West End U-Bahn. I've generally avoided the Charlottenburg part of town since being in Berlin because it reminds me of Kensington/West London, and just feels a little too posh to have any character. When the Berlin Wall was up, it was actually part of the British Quarter, so it's architecture and style makes sense, but like Kensington etc, it just seems a bit bland. But the sun came out as we arrived, and the palace looked pretty cool. You can look at the gardens and the lake for free, so we had a wander through and took some photos. Gurk stopped for a bratwurst at the station, and looking at the horrifically colourful sauces  on top and the sweet sausage smell, I had one of my first meat cravings since giving it up in June. Pretty sure this trip is going to challenge my vegetarian willpower as I go further East.

From the Schloss (Castle) we took a U-Bahn to Zoolischer Garten and then walked to the Bauhaus Archiv. Public transport is really good in Berlin; on the weekends, the U-Bahns run all night and with weekly/monthly travelcards, you can take one guest with you for free after 8pm during the week, and all weekend. So, my U-Bahn costs have been pretty minimal since being here. 

The Bauhaus Archiv had been recommended by quite a few people/sources and cost €3 entry (Museum costs have been pretty low here so far). The Bauhaus was a German Arts School which covered a range of fine arts (tapestry, painting, etc.) but I think everyone would mainly recognise its architectural style. There were some models of the building designs that had come out of the school, and a few reminded me of 70s style posh pool parties in California. Large houses built on one level, with a lot of glass overlooking a pool area, that you can imagine rock stars owning. There were also some cube houses which aimed at perfecting use of a small amount of space for single occupancy, which looked similar to the cube houses in Rotterdam. It was a cool exhibition, and explained how the core studies of the school were about colour and balance and it sort of made me abandon my idea that art school was a bit pointless. I finished looking at the exhibit before Gurk (she'd paid for an audioguide so was trying to get her extra euros worth of the display) so went for a beer in the cafe.

From here we took a bus and then some U-Bahns to the Neukoeln* area (Gurk - 'It's more Kreuzburg than Kreuzburg'). We got off at Gneisenausstrasse and then wandered through the neighbourhood for a bit before finding an Italian bar/restaurant called Vicolo on Bergmannstrasse. Gurk is looking for a new area to move to, and this might have been my favourite area of Berlin so far. Loads of restaurants and cafes, and yet it seems quiet enough to be a good place to live as well. At the bar, we had Lambrusco, which we didn't really know what it was, but may have been the best drink of the holiday. I mean it clearly is just a red wine version of Lambrini, but somehow being served up in an Italian restaurant gave it some authenticity as a drink? It was amazing. The second best thing about this bar were the signs on the toilet doors; for the men's it had a cartoon stick figure standing up thrusting its hips forward with a line indicating direction of wee, and for the ladies' it had a cartoon figure crouching down, again with the dotted line indicating direction of flow. After a few lambruscos, this really hit the spot. 

I figured a classy way to end my 6 days in Berlin was to have some chips in a place called AraBBelly, and then a little walk from there, Gurk and I both found ourselves looking back at an elaborate looking bar called 'DRAMA'. There was a sort of comedy moment, where we both turned to each other and almost wordlessly agreed that we had to go in. I'm not sure if it was a gay bar (the only other people in there were two men - on a date, we thought - and two ladies, who seemed to get unnecessarily close to sniff each other's perfumes) but the walls were lined with photographs for sale (Nur €50!) that were all of artistic shots of sex. Gender wasn't an issue in these photos, but they were all relatively (give or take) artistically done, with the one exception being the guy wearing a bunny suit, minus the head, and his male partner wearing the bunny head. Weird. Anyway, it was Gurk's 1 year anniversary in Berlin so we celebrated with some final red wine and the Baklava we'd bought in AraBBelly.

From here, we finally got around to going to a Photomat; they're one thing you've GOT to do if you come to Berlin. It's a relatively straightforward old-style photobooth where you can get four different shots of yourselves in black and white, but at €2 it is well worth it. The finest photos that I think will come out of this trip.

End of day 6.

*I just googled Neukoeln, and apparently Bowie and Eno wrote an instrumental piece with this name, so its coolness as pretty much been cemented.