Ich Bin Ein Berliner....

Quote of the day: "Miaow." - Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns.

Song of the day: "Radio" - Robbie Williams

Pre-rant notes: I want to know if anyone (other than Calvin) actually reads this thing, so anyone who does, email me at bloosmarti@hotmail.com. And Calvin can, too, I suppose....


Last week, Beth and I went to Berlin for our first wedding anniversary. A lot of people asked us why we picked this particular destination, and, in truth, there are a number of reasons. First of all, because Beth lived in Germany when she was younger, and has always wanted to go back, and I've never been there. It was also because Easyjet recently started flying there from Liverpool, and its cheap!

Most of the times I've been on holiday its been to some sunny island resort or something, but this was the first time that I'd been specifically to a city, and one where we knew it was going to rain (and it did).

Berlin is a huge city, and with only having three full days to explore it we didn't see it all, and both agreed that we want to go back sometime in the future. We saw the zoo, which was HUGE, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, which for the uninitiated is all about the Berlin Wall, and numerous other tourist attractions. But for me, the best part about Berlin was the public transport.

When we first went out on the Monday morning, we went to the nearest U-bahn (underground railway) station to find out about the transport, and discovered that we could get a 3-day travel pass for 18Euros (which is approximately £12.00) that gave us unlimited travel on all U-bahn, S-bahn (normal trains), bus and tram services throughout the city, as well as a booklet of discounts for tourists. I can't even get to my nan's and back in Warrington for twelve quid! Not to mention the fact that every single train on every single line comes every five minutes!

I do, to some degree, have a form of patriotism; I am proud to be English (and yeah, I said English, and I mean no offense at that, it's just that I see Britain as an outmoded concept), but when you go to a city in another country, and see how much better it is than here, it really opens your eyes. And I'm talking about a city that was rebuilt from the ground up in the last fifty years, and has pretty much been rejuvenated again in the last fifteen years since the wall came down! It really opened my eyes to how much better our own country could be, and how much crap we put up with. I hate to say it, but I could very easily see myself moving to somewhere like Berlin in the future if England doesn't shape up.

On a lighter note, I did figure out how Germany now has the strongest economy in the EU - they sell off pebble-sized pieces of the wall for 3Euros a go! When I told me dad this, he said to look for a guy out the back with a large cement mixer.....