Bear-lin and Music strings

Wilkommen aus Berlin!
Our first night last night in a 30 bed dorm, bad times. It feels a little bit like we are part of a people farm being lit with a slightly eerie red glow day and night. For some reason no-one will talk to us (we suspect it is the smell of Andy's shoes).

Our first evening we spent picnicking outside the Reichstag building, sampling some (cheap) strawberry beer so that when Rosie next asks us about it we can say confidently that we have tried it. Berlin feels oddly familiar after all the strange and wonderful places we have been so far. For example there was no need to use a map in order to find our way to the hostel, that and it only took about 30 minutes as opposed to 2 hours.

Steph and Andy for some unknown reason decided to stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning just wandering around whilst I had gone to bed but this lead them to discover Internet Happy Hour which for staying up ridiculously early there is 50c off the internet time... personally I would prefer to sleep.

Tuesday morning and the plan was to find a particular music shop in order to restring Steph's very very cheap guitar, the pride and joy of the Czech Rep. We meandered into the suburbs of Berlin, locating first a Lidl for some cheap lunch and then stumbling across the music shop, it was however doomed to be a disappointment and point of irritation. Firstly when we walked in we were told that we had to lock up our bags in case we managed to smuggle out a amp inside them. Then we were followed around the shop by a rather scary shop 'assistant'. THEN once we realized we were in the wrong part of the shop and relocated ourselves to the acoustic we were told that Derek was a 'toy' and received scornful glances for even bothering to repair him. Andy hoping that he would be allowed to play some of the guitars asked and was basically told no unless he was planning to buy one right then and there. Apparently this is not the case in Britain or Venice where he had played a Mandolin..

Having purchased the required strings for poor and much maligned Derek we retreated to Victoria park in bad tempers about our ill-treatment. Over lunch Andy managed miracles in music using a penknife and little else. Derek would live to play again. We spent most of the afternoon in the park eating, playing the guitars and (in my case) drawing. After feeling that we had relaxed in our old city enough we headed off to find the Victoria park waterfall, at first we only found a small one and questions were asked 'Is this it??'
Eventually we managed to find the real thing which was pretty and impressive, a few of us dabbled our feet in it and many artistic photos were taken. By the time all this had been done it was time to get back to the hostel and then hit some of our old haunts.. Oscar Wilde pub, Bombay Curry house and of course the Reichstag at sunset.

At the Pub we watched some of MJ's memorial service (secretly hoping he would rise from the casket to the tune of 'Thriller'). Then it was off to the Reichstag for the sunset, which we just about managed despite getting held up by looking in every souvenir shop along Unter den Linden. Finally from the Reichstag it was time for dinner so at 11 we found ourselves in our curry house ordering and being told the food could be a while... Thank goodness for our waiter who felt the urge to kick up a fuss on our behalf. The curry was, to quote Mr Smith 'buuuuufff'. So ends the story of today with full bellies and sleepy heads. Tomorrow is Cologne or Köln and back out into the unknown.