Christmas Getaway: Germany Day 4 (Berlin)

Up earlier again today, but Mum and Dad got some washing done first thing so we were headed out a little later than other days. Our first stop was just about 10 minutes north of our accomodation, but it felt cold today! Yesterday hadn't been as cold as Saturday or Sunday had been (when the max temperature was only 2 degrees!), but today was about 7 again - but it was super windy so felt colder than it was!

We were under the impression that it was just a bit of the wall in a park, but it turned out it was a very organised and much bigger park than we expected, with lot of information and it was also quite busy. So it turned out to be more of an attraction than we expected! It was quite interesting though, as they had preserved a strip between the two walls as it was in the time of the wall.

After that we headed onto the train and over to the East Side Gallery. On the way we stopped in the East Side Mall for bathrooms and lunch, eating in a food court and giving everyone a break from currywurst! Then we were headed off, and this is not a gallery like you would expect. It's literally a strip of wall more than a kilometre long (I think it was 1.3, 1.4km long in total?) which has had lots of artwork painted on it from as early as 1990. It was very busy around and along the whole length of it but there were some really interesting and political artworks along the way.

After that we had walked back a station to Ostbanhof (pretty sure that's literally East Station in English) and got back on the train with the intention of heading back to the DDR museum as our last stop of the day. We were in the queue at 2:45 when the guy from the front desk came around and let us know that not only were they closing at 4, but that entry is at 3pm. And that it was going to take us 15-20 minutes to get to the front of the queue. So we had a quick browse through the shop, then headed out and back towards the apartment.

Along the way we stopped in at the Amplemann shop. The Amplemann are the traffic light men, who were originally from East Berlin but are now dotted about the place and are quite the phenomenon. They are also a good way to buy souvenirs that aren't quite so... Destructive, I guess. We got some cool souvenir bits before heading back to the apartment.

Of course, it is the 31st today and we have a vague plan for trying to get see some fireworks this evening at midnight. Berlin has quite the reputation for just letting off fireworks in the street, but there are organised fireworks around the Brandenburg Gate that we might go and see? I'm not feeling super great though so it might just be the other four going out. We'll see.

In the end I wasn't feeling well enough to go out, but everyone else went out to the main station near our hotel and watched the fireworks in the square. It turns out I got quite the show even from our balcony, as in Berlin literally everyone buys fireworks and just lets them off anywhere in the street. So they were everywhere, and a lot, and for a long time! It was very cool though, I've not seen fireworks like that up close before. Bring on 2020!