Berlin - Day three

Day 3 and another gorgeous day. We checked out of our hotel and left our bags at the hotel so we could do some more exploring. We hadn’t yet seen the massive Victory column in the middle of the botanical gardens on the western side of the city so we trooped off on about a 30 minute walk before breakfast. We got slightly lost but the garden itself was beautiful, the middle of autumn would be stunning there. We also saw a red squirrel which was cool.

We finally made it to the column and found that it was closed for renovation and you couldn’t see squat. Frustrating. At this stage, Louise had had no caffeine for about 24 hours and Hamish hasn’t eaten for about 10 hours so things were looking grim.

Nevertheless we headed back to Brandenburg gate to try and get some breakfast on the way to our next destination. Walking past Starbucks, Louise said “no its too expensive, we can’t have breakfast at Starbucks” and we went into the place next door. This backfired massively as we ended up paying 12 Euros (about NZD 20) for a coffee and two crappy pieces of bread.

So Day 3 wasn’t turning out as expected. But we carried on, Louise wanted to check out this area called Hackescher Market, which is a collection of cool shops and galleries. Not wanting to waste money on the tube we walked. This was a long way, but Hamish was happy to find that we passed the Mercedes shop, as pictured.

Apparently the don't do test drives to poor looking kiwis...

 We spent some time trying to locate the markets and when we did find them, they were closed. Another epic fail. By this stage we needed a rest so we hit up the nearest café and had a hot chocolate made from dark chocolate, which was amazing. Things were looking up. Refreshed we headed back to the Mitte area of Berlin and went to the museum that was built on the location where the Nazis had the SS Interrogation chambers. This was another cool museum, with so much information that it was quite overwhelming.

Picture of the Brandenburg Gate - quite a contrast to our tourist snaps from earlier in the trip.

Then it was time to head back to the hotel, again we negotiated the train system and arrived for our short flight back to London. The trip for Hamish has come full circle really with Louise again passing out and nodding her head the whole way home. Back at London we were greeted with Tube strikes . A yucky ending to an otherwise fantastic trip.

Cute or Scary?

Highlight #1: The hot chocolate….hard to describe.
Lowlight #1: Seeing amazing cars you have always wanted…but will never be able to afford:(
Lowlight #2: European breakfast again, and things being closed!
Interesting fact #1: When the SS building was destroyed as part of getting rid of all things Nazi, they found the interrogation chambers in the basement - this was opened as a temporary exhibition in the 70’s and was so popular that they made it a permanent exhibition.
Interesting fact #2: Flight time from Berlin to London is about 1 ½ hours which seems ridiculas compared to the 3 hour mission we had getting home from Stanstead Airport to Fulham. 
Interesting fact #3: We know have conclusive evidence Hamish's nose is smaller than Pinocchio's. Louise you cant argue with scientific fact.