Very quickly, we discovered that staying on the Island was going to be pricey - its a summer time destination, and it was summer so its popular. What to do? the very eastern tip of Usedom is actually in Poland, and there was a large town there called Swinoujscie which actually straddled the river mouth between Usedom and the Island of Wolin. To stay in Swinoujscie was much cheaper than staying on the German side of the border, and it was also possible to travel to the area by travelling by train through Poland instead of Germany. Very quickly, our trip to the German seaside became more of a trip to the Polish seaside - but with a heavy emphasis of doing the German side.
For some time, Sasha wanted to go to visit one of the Islands at the north of Germany at the recommendation of her work colleagues. One of these in particular caught Sasha's imagination more than the other - Usedom, because half of it is in Germany and half of it is in Poland. We'd also been talking about doing a trip to the seaside, as Sasha wanted to go swimming in the sea and we hadn't yet explored the northern coast of Germany. So we decided to go to Usedom, and picked out a weekend for it - swimming at the German seaside, with the ability to pop into Poland if we so desired. Very quickly, we discovered that staying on the Island was going to be pricey - its a summer time destination, and it was summer so its popular. What to do? the very eastern tip of Usedom is actually in Poland, and there was a large town there called Swinoujscie which actually straddled the river mouth between Usedom and the Island of Wolin. To stay in Swinoujscie was much cheaper than staying on the German side of the border, and it was also possible to travel to the area by travelling by train through Poland instead of Germany. Very quickly, our trip to the German seaside became more of a trip to the Polish seaside - but with a heavy emphasis of doing the German side. So on the Saturday morning, we made our way to Berlin's Gesundbrunnen station to catch the train that would take us almost 3 hours north of Berlin to Züssow. This was a little bit of a faff - we had to walk to Frankfurter Allee S-Bahn station, catch the S-Bahn a number of stops to Gesundbrunnen, get on our train which then travelled along the ring past Frankfurter Allee - but did not stop until another station well outside of Berlin! At Züssow, we changed to the Usedom BaderBahn Railway (UBB, which is a wholly-owned offshoot of Deutsche Bahn) and travelled the hour and a half on to Swinousjscie, travelling almost the entire length of Usedom in the process. After checking into our accommodation which was halfway between the train station and the beach, we then headed to the beach to explore and swim. There were a lot of people at the beach - Sasha was surprised how many there was considering that it was a warm day but not a hot one, but it was absolutely plinging with people. We started walking our way along the beach towards Germany. At the border, there is a sign on the beach and back from the beach there is a pathway along the border - with two border posts either side of the path, and an arch structure over this path where it intersects with another path. Naturally, we had a bit of fun here taking photos of the divide between two countries! Once we had our fun, we crossed over onto the German part of the beach. No sooner had Sasha remarked that she's thankful for not having seen any FKK (Frei Korper Kultur, Free Body Culture or in a single word, nudity) so far, than we spot it - there was none on the Polish side but quite a bit on the German! We found a beachside cafe where we got ourselves some fresh herring fish burger/rolls and a cider each and sat on the deck chairs at the cafe on the beach. We had our togs/swimwear on already, so we decided to go swimming at the border and had a great amount of fun going back and forth in the water between Germany and Poland leisurely. Perhaps my favourite bit was when Sasha was on one side of the border, and then suddenly swam over to the other side looking a bit guilty - she had peed in the water and was doing the whole "getting away from it" trick, just with an international element and apparently, thats the first time Sasha's peed in the ocean! After we'd had enough at the beach (and had been there for quite a long time, swimming in the ocean or sitting on the sand watching everyone else both in the water and on the beach) we walked along the packed Polish side looking at all the various bars, cafe's and the tattoo parlour that was on the beach (yes, really to that last one!), had a drink from one of them and then wandered back to our hotel to shower and get dressed for dinner. We went to a nice sounding place in the inner town area, away from the main street and took a table outside. We did not last here long however as very quickly some Mosquitos very aggressively started attacking Sasha's ankles so we moved to an inside table. After dinner we decided to have a walk to the beach in the dusky light, possibly down to the Lighthouse and back - only to find as we neared the beach and the main promenade area that there were a few mosquito's around, and they were bothering us both (as well as many others). Sasha is a mozzie magnet, whereas they usually don't care to bother me (I often joke that I don't need insect repellant as I'm naturally repulsive) however these agressive and fairly sizeable buggers were even trying to have a crack at me. We kept beating them off until we approached the sand, found they were worse at the sands edge and then decided to make a run for the waters edge in the hope that they would not be so prevalent by the salt waters edge. This proved not to be the case - as we had discovered while in the water swimming, the sea here was not very salty at all and the mosquitos didn't mind it. So we beat a hasty retreat to our hotel room, beating off any mosquitos that tried to come along and making sure before we went in our room that we had not brought along any stragglers. We decided to stay in the room, free of mozzies the rest of the night! The next morning we checked out of our hotel, and made our way to the train station where we caught the next train. We went as far as Heringsdorf, the main German town on Usedom and walked around the town and down the Pier. At the end of the Pier was a cafe/restaurant where we intended to have a coffee, but got a chocolate sundae instead! after we'd had our fill we went back to the station and caught the train to Zinnowitz, near the western end of Usedom, and changed trains to catch the one to Peenemünde. Peenemünde was the location of a WW2 special weapons factory and launching site, and since we were "in the area" I wanted to go there. They built all kinds of stuff here, even non-weapon stuff - including Railcars - but it is most famous for the production of the V1 and V2 rockets. The V1, known as "The Doodlebug" in Britain was simply a glider-bomb launched on a ramp with a rocket/primitive jet engine attached. It would fly in the particular direction it was fired, and when the fuel ran out (typically over London) it dropped to the ground and exploded. The V2 was vastly different however - it was the first successful "true" rocket as we know them nowadays, much larger than the V1, launched from an upright position, fly in a high arc and fall on its target faster than the speed of sound. This meant unlike the doodlebug, you could no hear it coming and it could carry a far bigger bomb than the V1. The British even tried to cover up the first few V2 explosions and say they were caused by Gas main leaks in order to try and avoid panic amongst the population. As you can imagine they would, the Allies bombed the crap out of Peenemünde when they got the chance. The Nazi's then moved V1 and V2 production to an underground factory under a hill near Nordhausen, which I've also been to - and was right next to the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp whose prisoners were forced to work in the factory. A fair amount of the Peenemünde complex still survives however, particularly some of the storehouses and the Coal-fired Powerplant. It is now a museum which tells the story of these special weapon programs, and in particular the V2 because the V2 basically launched the Space Age. After WW2, the allies were super keen to get their hands on any German advanced tech, with the US, Britain and Soviet Russia particularly interested in the V2. Most of the scientists and engineers working on the V2 program managed to surrender to the US soldiers, and were spirited away to America - no one more so than the person who's brainchild the V2 had been, Werner Von Braun. The Soviets got a few scientists and the British did too - but the Brits concluded their interest after some trials involving the Germans launching the V2 rockets and seeing how the rockets behaved. The V2 technology form the basis for rockets which could reach space - with the Soviets and America both building on the tech, with the American program headed by Werner von Braun himself, designing the rocket which put Neil Armstrong and 11 others on the Moon. Peenemünde also does not hold back at von Braun - later in his career, when Von Braun started to be asked questions about the use of Concentration Camp labour to build the V2 rockets, he always maintained that he didn't know about it until after it started happening, and was not in a position to try and stop it. This was the official US Government position on the matter too, however in the last 20 years or so evidence has emerged which clearly shows he not only knew about the use of Concentration Camp labour before it happened, but actually advocated its use to build the V2 rockets - and the US Government knew this, but deliberately kept it quiet so to make it easier for Werner to build space rockets for them. Its a bit conflicting to know that the success of the Moon Missions was built partially upon the use of Concentration Camp labour, and a large portion of the success of those Missions was due to the man who advocated and authorised the use of that labour to build the V2 rockets. After we'd had a good look around through the Museum and complex, we caught the train back to Zinnowitz where we went to a supermarket to get supplies for dinner - as we would be travelling on various trains for much the rest of the afternoon and evening. We then caught the train from Zinnowitz back to Züssow, where our connecting train was about 15 minutes late; and then we had a 3ish-hour ride back to Berlin, eating dinner on board. This train, unlike our other one stopped at a more convenient station for us to get off at and so it was not much of a trek from Berlin Lichtenberg back to home. In all it was a great trip - we swam in the sea, played along the border between Poland and Germany, and had a great time. The only downside was those insanely aggressive Mosquitos - I have never seen mozzies so large, fly in swarms or attack with such determination and aggression before. Poor Sasha was a bit of a pincushion by the time they were done - we had not thought to bring any repellant with us, but it was a very timely reminder that perhaps it might be needed in our future trips! Will it be our only trip to the German seaside while we are here? quite possibly actually - and definitely our only visit to the Polish seaside! But it would not be our only opportunity to swim in the sea during the summer...
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So often in this blog I refer to The Rules. Thanks to my sister drawing attention to it, its become apparent that it might be confusing to people reading this blog as I don't mention what The Rules are. "I know that you came up with these rules with Jeremy but I don't know what they are, so what are they?" she said. I explained that I'd mentioned it in my blog somewhere earlier on, but it occurred to me enough time has elapsed that it would be easy to forget what they were if you were even reading this blog from the beginning.
I did go back and have a look where I'd mentioned it and outlined what they are. Do you know what? I never did. I thought I had - and I figure I'll be referring to them in the future again, so it makes sense if I reference The Rules again that I provide a link to a post which states what they are. Welcome to that post! So. The Rules came about as a conversation I had with Jeremy one day, where we were discussing what counts and what doesn't when you claim you have been to a place as sometimes, its not clear. After some thorough going over, we settled upon what we both thought was a robust, and thorough definition/guidelines which I have forever after referred to as The Rules. The Rules are: That in order to claim a place, or country as having been visited or "been to", you must have left the means of transport, or transport terminal in which you arrived. So if flying, you have to leave the Airport itself - being in transit does not count, and even entering the border for the country would not count unless you leave the airport terminal. Changing platforms at a train station also does not count - you need to exit the station. For a bus, its exiting the bus station or bus stop; for a car, it would simply be getting out of the car and wandering away from the carpark it is in. its just that simple. The Rules do not provide any kind of time requirement - having "been to" a place is not the same as having "seen" a place for instance, but it provides a handy and easy way justify what counts and what doesn't. It does however create a few "grey areas" because some things you might think count, don't; and other things you might think don't count, do. Some examples from travels: - Sasha and I recently flew into Geneva from Portugal, and flew out again to Berlin. We saw Geneva's pretty lake and mountains from the plane, saw the city from the aircraft and terminal windows. But we never left the airport - Geneva doesn't count. - Similarly, Sasha and I both transited for 4 hours at Stavanger Airport in Norway, and 5 hours in Brussels Airport in Belgium. We might have ate local food, drank local beer and saw a lot from the airport terminal, but we never left it - so they don't count. - At Lille in France, Sasha and I spent nearly 1.5 hours sitting on the Eurostar at the station, and a further 2.5 hours in the station before rebounding the train. We call it the "Ordeal at Lille", and involved a lot of queuing and wandering around the station. However at no stage did we leave the station - therefore, despite being a fairly notable (notorious) part of or trip, Lille does not count as a place we can say we have visited. - Upon flying into Zurich for my first time, I left the airport terminal to go across the road to by some things at the supermarket before going back to the airport to catch my train. I was at the airport for no more than 1.5 hours, and in the supermarket for no more than 20 minutes. But because I left the airport terminal, Zurich counts. - My train arrived late at Hannover Station and I missed my connecting train. I had to wait for the next train, and spent some of that 40 minutes wandering outside the station looking at the Christmas Market outside and some of the shops, before going back to the platform. Hannover counts because I left the station. - On the bus to and from Oktoberfest from London, we had to hop off the bus at Dover and Luxembourg in both directions. At Dover, we hopped off in the ferry terminal area and visited some shops for approx 45 minutes, and we could see the white cliffs. At Luxembourg, we had to hop off so the bus for 30 minutes could refuel at the petrol station, so we went across to some shops and had a Dunkin Donut each. Dover does not count because we didn't leave the Ferry Terminal; Luxembourg counts because we left the terminal area and went to some nearby shops. That last one, Luxembourg, is contentious between Sasha and I - Sasha does not count it, but I do. By the definition of The Rules, it counts - but by the barest minimum definition and only because the shops were not a part of the terminal but next to it. It was the middle of the night - we never saw anything of the city. This is an example of where I have "been to" somewhere, but not "seen" somewhere. Most people try and suggest that there should be a time requirement or activity requirement - that on top of whats already outlined, you should have to be somewhere a minimum amount of time, or you should have done something like eat, drink or buy something. On the surface this seems reasonable, but drill down and this becomes problematic. How long should the time period be? I have heard suggestions anywhere from an hour, to half a day. For example, I visited Stonehenge - I spent an hour there. If your time minimum was an hour, then it counts. If it was half a day, then it doesn't count - even if I spent 2 hours at Stonehenge which would be more than enough. In fact, 30 minutes would be sufficient at Stonehenge - which is less than an hour. Suppose someone had only spent 30 minutes at Stonehenge, walked all around it, had their photo taken with it - would you dare suggest that "It doesn't count"? Maybe you might try and mitigate this by saying you have to spend at least an hour there OR you buy/eat/drink something for it to count. But what if there is nothing to buy, eat, or drink from that place? Stonehenge does have a cafe with a museum and souvenir shop nearby but this is a recent development. What about in the past where there wasn't one? What if you drop the time requirement and just have an eat/drink/buy requirement? That might work in most instances, except what happens if you spend 6 hours in a city and don't buy a thing? does that not count now? And bringing this last point back to Luxembourg - we did buy something to eat there (the donuts), so even if that was a requirement, we satisfied it. Perhaps instead with the time requirement you split it somewhat. Half a day in a country for it to count, and a lesser amount of time in a place? Sounds reasonable again on the face of it. However, Sasha and I for instance visited Liechtenstein and we were in the country no more than 3 hours - definitely less than half a day. We were in Vaduz, the capital for about 2 hours so as a place, you could say that counts no matter what measure you put on it. But then we have a problem because we've visited Vaduz in Liechtenstein, but we can't claim to have visited Liechtenstein because we weren't in the country long enough - which is patently ridiculous (how can you have visited a place within a country, but not visited that country?). And does anyone dare suggest to my Mum that her visit to Neum in Bosnia, which would have involved a roughly 30 minute stop there does not count by any measure - that she can't claim Neum nor Bosnia as places or a country she's been to, even if say she brought an Ice Cream there? Its for these kinds of complexities why The Rules don't have any time or other requirements - they are too hard to quantify and do not reflect the reality of the fact that you were there, even if you stepped outside the station for 30 seconds you still walked on the ground in that place, in that country. So, if I list a place and say I've been there, then The Rules is the criteria how it counts. Generally most places would count beyond most definitions, but it is handy to have a line in the sand for the tricky ones and in particular some definition for those transit situations and where they stand. So those are the rules - take them or leave them, but they are how I define what counts and what doesn't! Every so often we get invited to events and friend's birthday parties back in London. Most of the time the dates don't suit or the flights are just too expensive, but sometimes they aren't. The latter was the case for our friend Al's toga themed birthday party that he was sharing with his friend Jeff in London. We looked up flights, they were quite cheap to fly out on the Sat and back the Sunday, and then Sasha checked the flights on the Friday night - much the same, but Friday morning was €9.90 each on Ryanair! We leaped on them and got the Friday off from work, the idea being that we could easily fill the Friday in with all of what we still wanted to do in London, surely and make it a 3 day weekend while spending less money on the travelling. When we actually sat down and gave some thought as to what we still wanted to do, we kind of came up short - had we actually done everything we wanted to do in London already? we did come up with a few ideas and pre-planned some of it, but as it was a busy time around then with trying to find a new place to live and then moving into our new place those things were a bit less than important. We were offered accommodation at Al's house where the party would be, and at our friend Nat's place at Cahary Wharf where we stayed last time - after a little consideration we opted to take Nat up on her offer as it could be awkward at Al's if we wanted to sleep and the party was raging on. Sasha suddenly also had a work trip to London for the day the proceeding Wednesday, just for the day. This kind of trip is not unusual, but it was kind of ironic that Sasha would be going to London twice in the space of a week. After I had finished work and was at the supermarket I got a message from Sasha saying she might be spending the night in London - her and her colleague had missed their flight back to Berlin because of a signal failure on the track that their train to Heathrow (the Heathrow Express which takes about 15 minutes) and there was no other way for them to get to the airport in time. After a bit it became apparent the soonest available flights were Thursday afternoon - she would no sooner fly back to Berlin than we'd be off back to London first thing Friday morning. It made no sense for Sasha to fly back, especially since she could work remotely on Thursday in London so we decided she'd stay in London and we'd forgo her flight (it was only €9.90 after all!), and I would try and shoehorn all her stuff she needed with mine in my bag and take it across to London. Sasha had in the meantime made arrangements to stay at Al's because it was on the Piccadilly Line and so easy access to Heathrow - this was arranged when she thought she was still flying out Thursday sometime. She could have gotten a hotel which her work would have reimbursed her for but considering she could stay with friends and we didn't have to spend money and claim in back later, that was the better option. The only real thing was Sasha needed some clothes for Thursday but a quick shop to Primark solved that for her (and she picked up some rather nice stuff for dirt cheap too). There was less to pack and take than I had imagined, which was good - I took a small collapsible bag inside my main bag so that Sasha could put her stuff already in London in that plus my bag for the return journey. All that remained now was for me to get to London and join her! Day 1 - From Berlin to the ZooFrom our new place, the journey to Schoenefeld Airport was fairly straightforward and I nominally had two options - although the S-bahn to the airport would not start running for a while (since this was very early in the morning!) so I took the bus to the Ostbahnhof station and caught the airport express train. Got my visa check (since I was flying Ryanair), went through security and wondered whether I should get something for breakfast or hold on until London. I would get into London city about 9am their time, which would be 10am Berlin time and considering it was about 5am I figured I needed at least a little something so got a bircher muesli thing from one of the food places. Boarding of the Ryanair flight was all pretty usual, I had an aisle seat and knew the aisle seat across from me would be empty because that's where Sasha's seat had been allocated. Ryanair have an infuriating new policy of placing anyone on the same booking who does not pay extra for a seat far away from each other in order to force them to buy a seat - Ryanair say this is not true but the wealth of evidence suggests it is. Certainly all other times on Ryanair we've never paid for a seat but been seated next to each other, but upon checking in for our flights we were placed quite a way away from each other and on the return flight, the seats all around us were empty. So we'd paid to move one of us in the seat across the aisle from the other as that was the cheapest way of doing it, although one seat now would go unused! Stansted was quite busy when I arrived, and for the first time in a while that I can remember I had to queue and wait a while to pass through the border at Stansted rather than rock straight up to the immigration official. The agents on duty were really grilling some of the people - one guy was not giving a straight answer about when he was leaving the UK and eventually admitted that he had not booked a flight out of the country yet, that's why he didn't know. The lady took him to task and pointed out that its a condition of entry to the UK that he have a booked flight to leave, and I thought she was going to send him away to sort it out, somehow. But after more grilling, she eventually stamped his passport and let him through. I had the usual few questions and then I was on my way towards the train. I missed the 8am train to Liverpool Street Station which was just leaving as I got into it but the next one was in 15 minutes, and I managed to get myself a good seat. I also messaged Sasha - the train takes an hour so I knew what time I was arriving now, it was pretty close to what I'd estimated and Sasha began her travels to the station. The Stansted Express proved to be not very express this day and was very slow in the latter half, taking an odd route and we pulled into Liverpool St about half past 9. Sasha had troubles with the Piccadilly tube line having major issues, and so she'd been delayed also. Time for breakfast - Sasha suggested Ed's Diner, a place I liked a lot for their milkshakes and I readily agreed. An American style diner, I'd never had breakfast there but it was really good - and yes I got an Oreo shake also, but Sasha got a Chocolate one which was quite delicious. We then headed towards Al's place to get Sasha's belongings, but did a detour by going a bit further to Hammersmith in order to check out some of the op shops there for brooches which might go with our togas and help pin them together (we got two, both were cheap and really good) as well as look for other accessories (Sasha got a wicked headband which looked the part). Then to Al's, where we caught up with him over a cider while awaiting Nat's response and then we went to South Kensington to Nat's work to collect her house key. From there we trekked further on the tube and DLR to Nat's place, and dropped our things. We had an idea that we would visit the British Museum (we have been there before), but all the other stuff had taken quite some time already and we were going to the late night at the Zoo that evening, so we decided to put off going to the Museum. After re-arranging our things and had showers (it was a fairly hot day for London in the high-20's) and doing research about how we would get to the Zoo - I had the idea of going to Camden Lock and catching the Canal boat there, but turns out the tickets we had wouldn't let us ride the Canal boat so we flagged that idea. We headed out towards the Zoo via the tube, arriving not long after opening. We had been to a Science Museum "Lates" before together and I'd been to an additional one with some Britbound friends, so we had some expectation of what it might be like - but it wasn't quite the same as those, there wasn't much additional activities or exhibitions being put especially on, some of the enclosures were closed because of the animals night times but there was wine, beer and ciders to drink and in the heat we over-indulged in the wine. Al met us at the Zoo a bit later also, Nat was supposed to come but had forgotten to buy a ticket and when she remembered it was all sold out! It was good but not great on the whole, I'm glad to say I've done it but I wouldn't do it again and the Zoo itself, while it is definitely no longer the concrete jungle with too-small cages for animals (there were no pacing tracks in the tiger enclosure - so they are not bored at least!) there wasn't a lot of different animals there really and its not that big of a Zoo. We had fully intended to get some of the food on offer in the Zoo but that never happened, so we had dinner at a Pizza Express. I will admit that because of the aforementioned wine my memory is a bit patchy - I have no idea where that Pizza Express was, and afterwards on our way back to Nat's Sasha and I became separated on the DLR and we ended up at different stations (neither of which were the one we needed). Somehow I managed to get myself to Sasha's station, we found my Uber app would not accept any of my payment cars (no idea why) so we caught the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf and discovered that a lot of the bus stops were not operational. Wandering to find a bus stop buses would stop at took a long time, there were no taxi's floating around either and I think we ended up back at Nat's about 5am - certainly it was getting pretty light outside by this stage! Day 2 - Markets and The PartyWe didn't get a lot of sleep before we got up and went and had breakfast with Nat, I think we were both feeling a bit under the weather but I certainly was. It wasn't super bad but certainly enough to be annoying! We did snooze a bit more after breakfast before getting up and heading out into London, possibly for the British Museum but definitely to check out the Maltby Street Market Nat had told us about and recommended. We found it, we bought one of the Goat Cheese and Honey sandwiches that Nat had recommended and it was brilliant - so much cheese! We also shared a chorizo scotch egg from another stall at the market, and had a Pims. By this stage I was feeling much better and the market had been very nice, definitely a hidden gem! We were rather close to Tower Bridge so we decided to wander there and then across it, and while we were walking across it the bridge started lifting and we watched a faux paddle boat go under the bridge. After walking across and having a sit down near the back of the Tower of London, we planned our next moves which was to go back to Nat's and get some drinks for that evening in the process. We had a few options - DLR from the nearby Tower Gateway (as the DLR from Bank was not running), go back across the river and catch the Jubilee Line - or, we could take one of the Thames Riverboats from Tower Pier to either the pier near Nat's flat or one stop further on to Greenwich which we reasoned should have better supermarket options. We opted for the latter, never having done it before. We needed the RB1 which was the only boat which stopped at Tower Pier - but it stops there in both directions so we needed the right direction. Turns out the very next one in a few minutes was in the right direction, and was also express to North Greenwich. We were the last ones on, and the boat was at full capacity so we stood on the rear platform in a spare spot. The boat was a fast ferry and had a lot of speed, which it kicked in with spectacular fashion a sufficient distance after we'd past under Tower Bridge and the wash from the jets started flicking back at a lot of the people seated at the back, dousing them! Sasha and I both got splashed a few times, which would have been fun except its dirty dirty Thames water. The trip from Tower Pier to North Greenwich was only about 10-12 minutes which was far far quicker than the half an hour it would have taken on the DLR or tube - however there was ferry congestion at North Greenwich and it was 10 minutes before our boat was able to berth at the pier for us to get off. It was quite hot, particularly for London and so we started going in search of supermarkets and ice cream - and found neither in Greenwich, most surprising. So we caught the DLR to Mudchute and went to the ASDA supermarket there, got the drinks (plus some safety pins for our togas) and caught the bus directly from the ASDA to Nat's as Sasha's feet were killing her in the sandals she was wearing. Not too long after we got back, Nat got back from the Library and we started talking about our plans for the evening. For dinner, Nat suggested we could get food from this cheap Asian restaurant in Greenwich and we could go to a park across the river and have it there. Sasha wasn't keen on walking through the tunnel so we thought we would have it on the Greenwich waterfront instead. So we caught the DLR to Greenwich, got our food at the Asian restaurant to take away and because Sasha and I were on the daily limit with our Oyster transport passes we talked about catching the DLR back one stop across the river to the park. In the end we walked through the Thames tunnel to the park, and ate our really tasty and filling food in the park at a picnic seat. Then we caught the DLR to Canary Wharf, changed to the Jubilee line and at Green Park changed to the Piccadilly line to get to Al's place for the toga party. We had a bit of a walk from the station at Baron's court as the cemetary was no longer open to cut through but this was ok. At the party, Sasha and I got changed into our toga gear in the lounge (where we were barged in on by 3 girls who wouldn't take "We're getting changed, don't come in" for an answer as we made the final adjustments to our outfits) and then we started mingling. The areas for the party were the small kitchen area and the outdoor space - we spent the majority of our time in the outdoor space as the kitchen was over-packed most of the time! There was also fireworks which Al let off about half ten, and even then only the big ones which were essentially skyrockets - the small backyard space was practically evacuated and everyone was standing in the side alley to the kitchen lest something go wrong, but it didn't. They were very impressive fireworks though! Somewhere around 1am Nat, Sasha and I decided to call it a night and we headed back to Nat's place using the night tube on the Jubilee line and then a bus as the DLR is not a part of the Night Tube scheme. It was quite pleasant knowing I was going to get a decent amount of sleep before waking up, unlike the previous night! Day 3 - Brunch and back to BerlinSasha and I were up at 9am to shower and pack our gear away, ready for a 10am departure with Nat to Kings Cross where we were going to have brunch with our friend Nicole. It took us slightly longer than we expected to get to Kings Cross as there was problems with the Jubilee Line so we caught a bus to Aldgate East and changed to the Tube there. Nicole had chosen the venue, a place called Caravan King's Cross in Granary Square and it turned out to be a brilliant venue - yummy food (I had the Jalapeno Cornbread with friend eggs, black beans, chipotle, lime and a heap of Avocado - Sasha and Nat both had this also) and we also sat outside in the glary, rather hot-but-not-too-hot sun. We talked for ages, and eventually migrated down to some astroturf-covered steps alongside the nearby canal and talked some more Nat and Nicole had to get on with their days. Sasha and I still had a bit of spare time before we were due to head to the airport, but couldn't really think of much to do and certainly nothing more we wanted to do in that time so we started making our way to Liverpool Street Station and had a bit of a look around there, as well as getting a milkshake from the Ed's Diner (where service was rather slow and it was rather hot inside) - we both got the Chocolate Milkshake, me eschewing my usual choice of the Oreo shake for once! By the time we'd had enough, it was just early enough for us to start making our way to Stansted Airport in order to arrive when check-in for our flight would be open. Not that we needed to check in, but we did need to get our Visa check (as it was Ryanair) and if our flight wasn't open for check in they might not let us get the Visa check. The journey to Stansted on the train was humdrum, although we did seem to go a different route than normal and even then a slightly different route than I had taken Friday morning for part of it. Visa Check was accomplished with little trouble, so then it was a matter of joining the hoardes for security. Stansted is, in my opinion, perhaps the worst airport in the UK for check-in security - it always seems to take forever. Gatwick is a breeze always, Heathrow can take some time but given its one of the world's busiest airports it can kind of be forgiven, the others you're not waiting long but Stansted is always a long wait. We watched a gentleman who clearly needed to get through the gates quickly in order to make his flight keep going to officials asking if he could get through, always to be told that he needed to go to Fast Track and get a pass, for him to reply that Fast Track had told him there were no passes left for purchase, and for the officials to say "Sorry but you'll need to talk to them". Eventually he joined the back of our mini queue which happened to be right next to Fast Track - there was no one checking whether the people coming in there were supposed to be going through Fast Track so he ended up doing what Sasha and I had already discussed is what we'd do in his situation - pass under the rope barrier and join the fast track queue. No one checked whether he should have been in that queue and he got through fairly quickly. Once we got through we joined the snaking throng of people winding past the shops, and were occasionally jostled by people running on their way to their gate (understandable if you've been waiting forever in the security queue and your flight has already started to board) before we doubled back, grabbed some Meal Deal food from the Boots Chemist to eat on the flight (nowadays much better quality than the stuff they have at the WH Smith) and found a seat to sit for a while until our gate got announced. Which it did after a time, we proceeded to the gate and found ourselves joining a forming line - which started moving forward about 5min later after those with Priority Boarding had been checked. Almost always with the likes of Ryanair, Priority boarding is an absolute rort - all it means is that you get to join the front of the queue for getting on the plane, but if you join the front of the normal queue you end up being right behind these people as you wait to get on the plane. And so this was - those Priority Boarding passengers just got to go ahead of everyone and stand in front of the big double doors at the end of the corridor, while we queued up behind and waited in the corridor some 20-30 minutes before the doors opened and we were able to board. Seriously if you are getting Priority Boarding because you are less mobile (which is one of the reasons why they tout it), being stuck in a corridor for 20-30mins with no seating and having a hoarde of passengers behind you is not what you want! We had a window seat and the seat next to it near the back of the plane (where it had been cheap) and although we saw very little of the UK in terms of land or features upon departure, we could see quite a bit as we came into land at Schoenefeld including a rather lovely sunset. From Schoenefeld, we caught the Airport Express train to the Ostbahnhof and then the bus from there to right near our new place. It certainly made it all very easy, and with that - journey done! In SummaryIt all worked out in the end, but what a funny start to the trip - it had echoes of the previous trip in March, where Sasha had already been in London and I met her there but we'd had some turmoil over flights, namely me getting to London thanks to airport strikes at Berlin. This time, Sasha had already been in London and I met her there, but we'd had a bit of turmoil over flights - Sasha missing hers back to Berlin a few days earlier! It all worked out for the best though and we had a good couple of days in London, with Sasha having a couple extra although just like the previous time she had to work during those extra days. It was fairly laid back also, we certainly did not try and pack a lot into the trip but we still managed to do a fair amount nonetheless. Once again it was very gracious of Nat to put us up for those few nights, and also for Al to put up Sasha at short notice. We had gone into the trip primarily to celebrate Al's birthday, but we also thought we had a lot of stuff we wanted to do in London and when we went to come up with a list of those things, well we kind of came up a little short. We even talked about seeing a Theatre show but didn't really know which one to pick as there was no obvious one that we hadn't already seen that we both really wanted to see and we never did anything about it. Have we done most of what there is to do generally in London? I know I kind of have on my list visiting Madam Tussauds and the Harry Potter Experience but neither of these things appealed this time and they kind of don't make me want to go out of my way to do them either strangely enough. Are we a bit Londoned out? Not sure. Everything was familar, kind of exciting to see again but you instantly get confronted by some of those London things you forgotten you hate - the always busy-to-crowded Tube no matter what the time of day, how slow the tube can actually be, how difficult walking along the footpaths with many people using them all the time can be and not the least of which, how noticeably dirty the air is. Berlin has a slower pace to things than London which is frenetic, but the pace in Berlin is about right. One last thing - when I was living in London, it was a city full of cranes in the air. Always always full of cranes, as new construction went up everywhere. This time, the cranes were noticeable by their absence - sure, there still were a few but there are definitely far fewer now than the entire time I was living there. Has Brexit knocked the confidence out of businesses from investing in new buildings in London, with those already under construction completed or nearly completed but no more going up until people know what's actually going to happen? maybe. I have said ever since I moved to London that cranes are a sign of a healthy city, a growing city with a healthy economy and people confident of investing in its future. Perhaps the lack of cranes is now a bad omen for London's future fortunes in the next few years, and by extension the UK as a whole? That's anyones guess right now. Only time will tell...
One of the things we most recommend to people visiting Berlin is to visit the World War 2 air raid shelter at Gesundbrunnen, run by Berlin Underworld. It is built into the U-Bahn and S-Bahn railway station, and is quite fascinating - because of all the stuff you hear about World War 2, you never quite hear much about what the German people went through and particular the Berliner's as their city became the focus of Allied bombing efforts and eventually, ground occupation as the War in Europe came to a close - and ended right here in Berlin. Not only did Berlin have to go through its own Blitz, but when the Soviet tanks rolled in they had to fight their way in to control the city. This particular bunker tour gives you a good introduction to what the German people, but Berliner's in particular, had to go though and even what they had to deal with at the end because once it was all over, the city was in ruins. Berlin Underworld don't just do tours of this one bunker. They have others, though some of them are not visited as regularly. We found out that to celebrate the organisation's 20th Birthday, they were having a "Long Night of the Underworld" much like the Long Night of the Museums - 10 of the organisation's Bunkers or facilities in their care would be open between 6pm until late (with the closing hours varying), all for one fixed fee. Having been meaning to do another bunker tour, but unsure which one or ones, we took this opportunity to do as many as we could. We started off by going to the southernmost exhibit - the Fichtebunker, a former brick Gasometer building which was converted into a "Mother and Child" bunker during WW2. It even had a Prison in the basement, and as far as bunkers go is quite spacious - each family was allocated a small room to themselves with bunks, located on one of the circular floors. We then travelled up to the northernmost exhibit - the Op-Bunker, which is literally a small bunker formerly located on the grounds of a hospital where surgery or operations could be carried out safely. This building was outdoors half above ground, but very solidly constructed and it still housed all the equipment - all a bit primitive looking and kind of scary, but obviously functional given the times and circumstances. Next, we headed back south a bit and visited the ABC-Schutzanlage, otherwise known as the Atombunker. This is located at the Pankstrasse U-Bahn station - literally the U-Bahn station is the entrance to this bunker and its built over the station complex, both being built at the same time in the 1970's. It is still fully equipped and operational - this one is hardly a museum piece, it is still in commission and ready to be used in an emergency. Atomic war is not seemingly as much of a risk these days as it once was (though Trump and Kim Jong-Un seem to be ratcheting it up again) so I wondered what the merits of keeping such an installation in commission might be with its inherent costs. I guess if you've got it, it makes sense to keep it going just in case - but I did work out that in the case of the Zombie Apocalypse, this will be a very safe place to be. Almost all of the rest, bar 2, of the exhibits are all located slightly further south from Pankstrasse at Gesundbrunnen. We had done it this way deliberately to end up around Gesundbrunnen around dinner time with the idea of getting some quick and easy food from a venue around the station there, but first we wanted to visit the Flakturm Humboldthain. The Germans tended to construct 2 types of bunker in World War 2 - underground bunkers, like the one at Gesundbrunnen which was not safe from bombs from being dropped on it, or above ground multi-storey structures which also had anti-aircraft guns on them. Above ground structures might seem counter-intuitive, but actually these things were mega-solid and the anti-aircraft gun emplacements ensured that no plane wanted to go near them. There were 3 of these massive structures in Berlin, and this one is the only one largely intact - one was completely removed by the British, the other mostly destroyed by the Soviets leaving behind a few remains. There was a large queue to get into this one - it was quite popular and we had to queue for 45 minutes to get into it. During that wait, we passed a conveniently placed food and drink stand and had something to eat. The entrance was a door at the top of the tower, which we could access from the hill which butted right up against it. Once inside, we had to wear hard hats, and be careful wandering around the defined path. There were lights, but it was quite dark - and it was 5 storeys inside. If you didn't know, you'd think this structure was built into the hill - but in fact the hill is former Berlin rubble, placed on the remains of the bunker to try and partially bury it. Why did the Soviets want to bury the tower? well, they blew it up to destroy it - but only succeeded in partially collapsing one side, the damn thing was so solidly built. They had a huge amount of trouble destroying the other tower in the Soviet zone, so they just decided to bury the blown up portion to hide it and leave the rest sealed off. So there is a lot of rubble inside the tower and some collapsed floors and staircases, but there is a safe pathway through many of the floors through the destruction and standing in the tower looking at the broken, but solid and partially bent floors with all the steel reinforcing apparent is quite impressive - definitely a mega-solid structure that would have withstood any bombs thrown its way. Our next exhibit was to visit the Mythos Germania museum, located in a part of the Gesundbrunnen station. This is a small museum which is dedicated to "Germania" - the so-called name for Hitler's new capital which involved demolishing a lot of inner city Berlin and replacing it with massive new buildings designed by Albert Speer, the Nazi Architect. This museum, although small is a lot more comprehensive than we bargained for and there was a lot of information - plus a large model of what Berlin, or Germania would have looked like had they built the buildings. At first, it was hard to reconcile the model against modern day Berlin and where the structures would have been located until I spotted a small Reichstag, dwarfed by the proposed Congresshalle and it started to make sense. Where the Hauptbahnhof (main station) is now, is roughly where this hall would have been; there would have been a big avenue cutting all the way from there to Südkreuz station, through what is now Greifswalder park next to where we first lived in Berlin; meaning all of these buildings were on a hugely grandiose scale. Some projects that were part of Germania were completed before World War 2 brought a hiatus to work - the reconfiguration of the Tierpark including the relocation of the Victory Column, the Luftwaffe headquarters, and the building of the new Templehof Airport building south of Südkreuz - although the final iteration would have seen Templehof replaced by two, bigger airports with even bigger terminal buildings. It is very difficult to imagine what Berlin would have looked like had more of Germania been built, or built in its entirety. We'd seen quite a bit already, but there was more to see so we decided to keep going and see how much more we might be able to do - having now done all the important ones we'd wanted to see. So we tried the S-Bahn Museum but it was just a couple of placards about one particular train line in Berlin housed in a former toilet and all the placards were in German. So we went across the road to the Blockplatz bunker, a former WW2 bunker that had been turned into an Atomic shelter and had a lot of exhibits about escaping across the Berlin Wall as well. There was one more exhibit at Gesundbrunnen - the Untrwelten Museum, but having been there twice already we decided to give it a miss. So we headed south, and visited the other two exhibits - the AEG Test Tunnel under the AEG Factory, which is apparently Germany's first underground train tunnel and was used to connect factories for the transfer of goods and personnel. This one is the Berlin Underworld group's latest exhibit and not set up for normal visits - because its located in the Factory grounds, it requires special permission for them to open it up. We walked the length of this tunnel, before going to the final exhibit - a series of vaults in the former Oswald-Berliner-Brauerei, which were used to help people escape from East Berlin to West Berlin and showed some of the methods of escape used. We were a bit exhausted, but had a great sense of accomplishment and got a late night kebab before we headed home (which was about an hour away from where we were by that point). We had, by any stretch of the imagination gotten our moneys worth from the event - even having to brave a police cordon to pick up the tickets as a large group of Fascists, or anti-immigration protesters were assembling outside of the ticket collection office. My favourite was the Flakturm - the way the collapsed side of the building had kind of collapsed in a uniform way to leave the stories intact but slumped is unbelievable. The active Atomic Bunker and the Mythos Germania would rate as my equal next favourites - how often can you go into a still active bunker, and just the sheer amount of comprehensive but easy to understand history about Germania was quite something. No photos in this blog post I'm afraid - in a lot of the bunkers we weren't allowed to take photos, and others where you were, it was almost impossible to take anything decent due to the darkness or confined spaces anyway! We've seen far more of underground Berlin that anyone else I know - and I dare say, unless we have an opportunity to visit the Flakturm again (its only open in warmer months as it becomes a nest for bats) that will probably be it!
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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