Of course we like travel. That much should be apparent by now! So Sasha said she had a few ideas of where she might like to go travelling to for her birthday, and suggested I should have a think about where I might like to go for my birthday as that was coming up before Sasha's. Myself, I wasn't so sure about a trip for my birthday for two reasons - one being I had no idea where I might like to go if we were to go anywhere, and certainly there would be no prospect of taking time off from my work around my birthday time to do any trip longer than a weekend. So I kind of left it at that for a little while. Sasha's workplace send her on work trips to the UK every so often, and out of nowhere they suddenly wanted to send her to the UK the Thursday and Friday before my birthday (which was on the Tuesday) and we hit upon the idea of staying in London for the weekend - Sasha's flights were covered by her work, and while we wouldn't be able to use her work accommodation over the weekend we could stay at a friend's place. We had been talking for a while about how we should go to London sometime to just catch up with people, and here seemed like a ready opportunity to do just that. All we needed to do was get me to fly in on the Friday night and align my flights back on the Sunday with Sasha's - hers being dictated by what her work would allow. I would be able to get away from work a few hours early, catch an early flight and be able to get into London by about 8pm - and have the whole Friday night. Catch up with friends, maybe do a little something for my birthday, and we also booked tickets to see the Phantom of the Opera on the Saturday afternoon - something we had both wanted to see. So with that all set, we then had guests come and visit following our Swiss trip. First up was Sasha's former colleague from her last UK workplace Gavin, whom we spent an entire Saturday catching up with. Next up was Ellen & Matt, who were passing through Berlin on their way to Weimar to visit Matt's dad. We were going to put them up at our (new) place, but they chose to stick with their pre-arranged accommodation in order to make things easier for us as right the next day after we caught up with Ellen & Matt for a lovely evening of dinner and drinks, Denise and David came to stay for a week on their way through Europe before settling in the UK. They weren't originally going to stay for a week, they had a time they needed to be in Munich for and thought they might travel their way down there via some other places but to my mind it made sense for them to use the free accommodation and make the most of Berlin - it has a lot to offer, so I wrote a lot of suggestions and I guess that coupled with them finding out it would cost a bit to travel around on their way to Munich saw them decide to stay that whole time. There was one downside though - the one weekend they would be in Berlin was the same weekend we were going to London, but that's just how it all unfolded. We'd still get to hang out either side of that, and Denise & David would be in Berlin for my actual birthday day before heading to Munich. I went out and met Denise & David at Schoenefeld Airport when they arrived, and we caught up with Sasha in Alexanderplatz where we went to our favourite little Brauhaus "Marcus Brau" for dinner and drinks. I did forget my laptop bag there and had to do a trip back to get it, which was rather stupid! The next morning Sasha departed for the UK on her work trip - there had been some talk of a strike for this day but it didn't happen so Sasha got away fine, Denise & David were out roaming around in Berlin and all seemed to be going well until 5pm that afternoon when I got a text from Ryanair saying my flight at 6pm the next day from Schoenefeld Airport to Stansted was cancelled. I was a bit incredulous at first, and then angry that Ryanair would cancel a flight that they hadn't sold enough seats on at such short notice. It had been a cheap flight, but no flight was going to be that cheap now. Ryanair did offer to rebook me on a flight the next or following days - but the only one I could rebook to with no extra charge was late on Saturday night, which would make the trip not worth it and the charge for the earlier flights on the Saturday were extremely pricey - so much so that I figured there must be cheaper flights with other airlines. Curiously the later flight on the Friday night was not available to rebook either. A quick search showed that I could get a British Airways flight from Tegel Airport a bit later on the Friday night to Stansted for still an okay price given it was just the day before - and once I got the refund from Ryanair I could put it towards the cost of this flight. So I booked it, I appraised Sasha of the situation, I'd arrive in London later but I'd still be there Friday night. Everything looked good despite this little hiccup. It looked good for about half an hour. I was still at work and had my German lessons that night after work, and some of my classmates were chatting in our group chat and one mentioned that all flights for Berlin the next day were cancelled due to a strike at the airports. Sure enough a quick Google and that was the case - the union was suddenly striking Friday and not on Thursday which they had flagged as the possible day, and both airports were affected. This meant my British Airways flight would be cancelled also - and it would not be possible under any circumstances to fly out of Berlin the next night. I could rebook with British Airways on flights for Saturday, but again for extra cost which was more than booking the original flight had been worth. Other airline's flights for the Saturday morning were also extremely expensive, or no longer available - the strike information also said to expect disruption on Saturday as a flow-on effect from the strike. Flying out of Berlin was not going to be a likely possibility to have a successful trip. No, I knew I needed to think around the problem if I was still going to go to London but my head was not in the right frame to do that - I needed to clear my head and concentrate on something else for a while then come back to it. My German lesson proved to be the timely distraction I needed. Following the lesson, I got back onto it during my commute home. If I was going to London, I had to arrive in time to make it to the Phantom - otherwise I might as well not bother. I can't fly out of Berlin, so where else nearby can I fly out of? I looked at a whole range of nearby airports, but they either had super expensive flights because the airlines were transferring passengers from Berlin to those flights or just didn't have flights that would work. Hamburg had a likely option for the Saturday morning that would get me into London City Airport at 8.30am for €120, but I would need to get to Hamburg and stay overnight. Trains to Hamburg were expensive (over €100) and had notes saying they were likely to be full because of the airport strike - buses were cheaper but would take forever, though I knew I could catch the cheap evening train which had a fixed cheap price. I was about to book it when I decided to look a little further afield - so searched Bremen airport. Here I could catch a flight to Stansted on Saturday morning that arrived at 7.20am for €61 - that was much cheaper, and I could catch the cheap Hamburg train and then transfer to a local train from Hamburg to Bremen for €40. Again I would need to stay overnight, but at that stage thought I would just wander around the city that night and see this city that I had not been to yet. So I booked it - done. Unfortunately this whole research process took me much of the evening, so I wasn't able to be as sociable as I would have liked with Denise & David who had cooked a lovely meal for me that evening also. The next morning I went to work with all my gear to travel with, and overnight I had reconsidered the idea of staying up all night. At work I did a quick search and found a hostel near the Bremen Railway Station with a free bed in a dorm room for that night for €20, so booked it - some sleep is better than no sleep and would make Saturday in London a lot more enjoyable! I left work an hour early and went to the Ostbahnhof Station, which is where the cheap (and slower) train to Hamburg begins its journey. I got on, claimed a good seat where I wouldn't be too disadvantaged of the train filled up with people and if it didn't, I would have lots of room. The next stop was the Hauptbahnhof, the main station - a lot of people piled on there. Berlin Zoo Station - even more people. By the time we left the last Berlin Station at Spandau, it was standing room only on the train - probably because the airports were shut and it was the cheapest means to get out of the city. I was thankful for my spot! We stopped and picked up even more people along the way, but I don't know where we fitted them because there already seemed to be no room! Our train began running late too, and by the time we reached Hamburg Harburg our train should have already arrived in Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. This would make my connection with my next train tight, but still possible - when I got off the train I started trying to make a beeline for the platform but the crowds of people piling off the train were too many and I gave up fighting through the crowds, knowing that I could catch another train in half an hour. My next train actually showed up early and I was able to choose a good seat well ahead of time, and then we were on our way for the journey to Bremen which was just over an hour. The first stop out of Hamburg station was Hamburg Harburg station - had I known my Bremen train was going to go back here, I could have gotten off at this station and caught the earlier train from there! Upon arrival at Bremen, I walked out of the station and began a small wander through the city but after two blocks decided I'd had enough - nothing looked obviously interesting and the river area was not lit up, and being the dark of night time it didn't really look any good for photos. I then made my way to the hostel and checked in, chose a bed so I could make an easy escape without disturbing anyone else that might end up in the room (there was no one there when I arrived) and I put my earplugs in and went to sleep. I managed to wake before my alarm was about to go off (at a very early hour!), so turned it off and got myself sorted quietly so I didn't disturb the one other person that was in the room. I made my way to the station where I got my tram ticket, caught the tram through Bremen and got off at the airport - a journey of about 15 minutes. It was very dark out still and the tram had decent lighting so I couldn't see much of Bremen out the window, and we seemed to emerge from the CDB directly at the airport. The trams dropped us off outside Terminal's 1, 2 and 3 but I needed Terminal E - a separate terminal building over to the side. This seems to be exclusively used by Ryanair and has all of 2 or 3 gates in it and a small combined waiting area. It was fine though, visa check and security were a breeze and the only thing of note about the flight was that they had trouble with the tug vehicle trying to push the plane back from is park - they never said this but I could hear constant revving and a slight push movement but it could not budge the plane. I also saw the replacement tug arrive and shortly after that, we were being pushed out. Getting in the air was a bit of a relief too - after all this business I was on the important part, flying to the UK! After landing, getting through the border was easy with no fuss, and I just managed to catch the about-to-leave Stansted Express train which left 30 seconds after I jumped on meaning I would arrive that little bit quicker. After the train arrived at Liverpool Street Station, I had a bit of a problem - you need to show or scan your ticket on the barriers in order to leave the platform, and my ticket was no longer in my pocket. No idea where it went - it should have been in my hoodie pocket but wasn't, and was not in my bag anywhere. Not sure what to do, I was all set to go up to the person at the gate and explain the situation when I realised I had the email for the ticket on my phone and maybe I could show that. When I got closer to the gate I saw they had barcode readers - what if I displayed the barcode on the ticket on my phone and held it up to the reader? It opened and let me through. From there I caught the Central line tube (in the wrong direction initially!) to Bank, where I changed to the DLR and rode to Mudchute which was the closest station to where we were staying - our friend Nat's house. Sasha, who had spent the night at Nat's greeted me at the door. Following showers, Nat cooked us a really great breakfast of pikelets, and once we were all ready we headed out and wandered around the nearby Mudchute Farm Park nearby. It was buzzing with children and families out to see the animals, or go horse riding - it was a pretty crazy sight as in the near distance behind the park was all the highrise buildings of Canary Wharf, a massive London financial center. Who knew that in London you could find sheep so close to the central city? After this we all headed for Oxford Street on the DLR and tube, with Nat needing to go shopping and Sasha and I going to the Phantom at Her Majesty's Theatre. Neither of us had been to see the Phantom before in the theatre, but we had both wanted to and never gotten around to it while living in London. We picked up our tickets, Sasha got her program and we both indulged in a pre-show glass of bubbly before taking our seats inside. The show was amazing - I'd seen the movie, and been really impressed despite Russell Crowe's dreadful acting (when is it not?) with not only the story line, the depiction and also the rest of the cast of amazingly talented actors and actresses. The live theatre show was no different, except it had an exceptionally talented Javert (Russell Crowe's role in the film) who it turned out was the understudy, and the voice of Monsieur Thenardier was just incredible - raspy and aged but still pleasant to listen to, while Madame Thenadier was also played her role to a T. We went back to Nat's afterwards, got changed and the three of us plus Kyle who lived nearby headed out to Brixton where we met up with Nicole and Melissa for dinner at a pub where we could also play board games. The board game chosen was Trivial Pursuit, we teamed up into teams of 2 each (Kyle & Nicole, Melissa & Nat and Sasha & Myself) and began the long process of playing the game. Sasha and I were trailing everyone else quite badly with no "pizza shapes" while the other teams had at least 2, if not 3 when we got a question "What country was still manufacturing Steam Locomotives up until 1997". Of course I knew the answer - "China!" - and everyone burst out laughing. We had gotten our first pizza shape and we also nailed the second question, a music speciality question which Sasha answered with ease. Suddenly we had 2 pizza shapes and were in contention! Some of my other favourite parts of the night were when Nat and Mel would get asked a question - there was a stage for a few questions where Mel would say what she thinks the answer is to Nat, Nat would say it can't be and come up with an answer and after a lot of back and forth Mel would concede and their final answer would be Nat's suggestion - of course, Mel had the right answer from the very beginning and this happened at least twice, if not three times before Nat decided to go with Mel's answer during that round. Mel was again right! We actually left the pub about closing time, and oh yes Sasha and I managed to win the game after all of that - we had a fairly curly question relating to some conflict and I didn't know the answer. Sasha didn't either but said she thought it could possibly be Rwanda - it sounded plausible, we went with it and it was correct! All I really remember about the taxi ride home was I struggled to keep my eyes open throughout the whole journey! The next day in London was a slightly more sedate affair, where Sasha, Nat and I got up a bit late and walked along the Thames and then through the pedestrian tunnel under the river over to the markets in Greenwich. We had lunch there and also perused the various items for sale - nothing particularly outstanding though. We wandered back to Nat's place the same way, and in doing so just happened to pass by the construction and launching site of the Great Eastern - built by the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Great Eastern was an absolutely massive iron-hulled ship which was capable of carrying 4000 people between the UK and the USA at a time where your average ship carried maybe 400 people on the same route. They had problems launching the massive ship into the Thames and it took them months to slide it off the construction stand into the river, and Brunel died just before its maiden voyage. It was simply too massive though - there was never a demand to take 4000 people at a time across to America in that day in age, and the ship found various uses such as laying the first Trans-Atlantic telephone cable (meaning the people of the UK & USA could call each other by telephone for the first time), and even as a massive floating billboard before it was scrapped. Strange to think that in among the relatively modern housing in that area, you can find a trace of history such as this some 150-plus years later. In the afternoon we all met up in Kingley Court with Nat and some more friends of ours to go to Cahoots - a "speakeasy" type bar that you had to book ages in advance, would only be able to stay for 90 minutes at a time and you had to know where its secretive entrance was and what to say to get in. Down in the bar, it was all World War 2 themed - even right down to the drinks menu which was a newspaper and the drinks all had various names to do with the war. Even the servers were all in 1940's style attire and largely pretending they were from that time. It was quite a fun experience, and straight afterwards Sasha and I had to head straight to Victoria Station to catch the Gatwick Express to Gatwick Airport in order to check in for our flight with Norwegian back to Berlin. As we had separate bookings for this, we separately checked in but managed to choose seats next to each other. Norwegian has free wifi and internet access on board their flights, and this was no different - it did seem a bit faster than before as well and I spent a bit of the time online tracking our plane. Arrival at Schoenefeld Airport was fairly standard, the commute home also fairly humdrum (although I will admit, the crawl back from Schoenefeld to wherever we are living does get a bit old having done it so many times). And with that - trip over! What was supposed to be a straightforward trip proved not to be with the damn strikes happening - but I got there in the end! I saw less of Bremen than I had intended, according to the rules I have been there but I didn't really see much beyond the airport, train station and the hostel where I stayed. Although it cost me more to get to London than we had planned on, given the circumstances the whole rigamarole of going via Bremen including all transport and the hostel accommodation came to the same total as a flight out of Hamburg on the Saturday morning and far, far less than flying out of Berlin on the Saturday morning. May have been a bit sucky doing it this way but it achieved the best result all round I think - barest minimum of time lost in London, and the cheapest way of getting there. I just hope though I never have to encounter another Berlin airport strike - it would be the last thing we need with all of the travelling we do! London itself was cool, it was great to be able to catch up with friends again and just hang out with them. The visit to Cahoots was also quite fun, and was a little bit of a birthday celebration as well for my birthday. After we got back to Berlin we had a few more days with Denise & David around, and on my actual birthday we had a family dinner out at a Berlin brauhaus which did its own range of beer (which got the Denise & David seal of approval). Then they were off to Munich early Wednesday morning for Starkbierfest, the "dark beer Oktoberfest" and a general look around the area before heading off to Edinburgh to start their UK-based OE experience. It was really great to have them around for that time, even if we weren't there for half of it but it will be great when they next come and visit - or we go visit them in Edinburgh!
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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