A trip to Berlin, Germany using a GPS
-------------------------------------

This document was written by Paul Edwards and is released to
the public domain.


On Saturday, 1999-06-05 at about 07:30 BST we left Heathrow,
arriving at Tegel airport (TEGEL) in Berlin at about 11:00
Central European Summer Time.  As we got off the plane we were
almost immediately in the immigration queue.  Not because there
were so many passengers that a queue had been formed that snaked
its way back several hundred metres but because this was a
piddly little airport, not what I was expecting to see in the
capital (or soon to be) of the world's 3rd richest country.  And
not the impression I got from the fact that you had to book
Berlin hotels months in advance (as confirmed when I booked at
short notice and got about 10 rejections first).

We then needed to find transport to central Berlin.  We knew we
needed to buy a daily pass, but not where the buses were or
where to buy the ticket from.  That's what tourist information
desks were for, but there were no signs leading to that, just
lots of airline desks crammed together.  Wandering around
aimlessly we finally arrived at the holy grail, the information
desk.  And he said that I needed to go to the tourist
information desk on my right.  I couldn't believe it, and
stepped back from the desk to see what the sign said, and it was
indeed "Information".  Anyway, to my right was stairs going up a
level, so I went up there, but there was what looked like a
coffee lounge there.  I mean just how difficult can they make
it?  My wife reckoned only I would interpret "to my right" to
mean going up the stairs on my immediate right.


Sure enough, back down the stairs and lo and behold there was
another information desk, this one with "tourist" prefixed.  We
got some literature and a daily bus pass each (7.80 each).  We
could have bought a "Welcome to Berlin" card for 29 DEM but we
weren't sure we needed transport for 3 days (we did) and we
weren't sure what stuff we were going to that had the discounts
(nothing the way we did it).  Berlin is not the same as Vienna,
it is huge and the attractions are mostly far apart.  Whilst
waiting for an X9 or 109 to take us to the city, I attempted to
decipher the instructions, which did at least have an English
translation.  The bus came before I had figured it out.  Using
my GPS I had decided I had reached as close to our destination
and that we should get off, but my wife had read more tourist
information than me and was holding out for the zoo.  I thought
that was quite bizarre, calling your central rail station "Le
Zoo".  But it was indeed the right stop, and there really is a
zoo nearby.  So we got out of the bus and there was a
underground entrance right next to it, Zoologischer Garten
(UZOO).

We then needed to change at Alexanderplatz.  Here I made my
worst call of the trip.  I decided to get out to take a
waypoint.  Satellite visibility wasn't good so I walked around a
bit.  Then I saw this massive TV tower (TVTOWR).  I thought that
would be a brilliant reference point so went there.  Almost got
locked in too, the gate must have only temporarily been open. 
There was a sign on the gate saying "Achtung something-or-other"
which I translated to be "Warning - smoking can seriously damage
your health".  But that was presumably only applicable when the
gate was closed anyway.  So after escaping from the mini
concentration camp I was within spitting distance of some large
sites, so thought I'd visit them whilst I was in the area.

First we came to Marien Church (MARIEN), which was closed.  Next
was some parliament house (BRATHS), then Nikolas Church (NIKOLK)
which had twin spires.  By this time I was so far away from
Alexanderplatz (which I still didn't have a waypoint for) that I
decided it would be quicker to walk to our destination rather
than revisit old ground, but if we should discover a train
station on the way, we would take it.  Now I didn't actually
have a waypoint for my destination, for like most people, the
hoteliers have no idea where on the globe they actually are. 
You'd think they'd pay more attention.  Well I did have a
waypoint for Siegesaulle from the internet, and although the
street I needed wasn't on the map I had, I estimated from the
map that they had of their position, where they would be on my
map.  So I had estimated distance using my finger and the map
scale, direction wasn't determined as scientifically as I would
have hoped, but I ended up with a relative waypoint some 5.3 km
at 95 degrees away from Siegesaule so it wasn't going to be the
best.  In actual fact it turned out to be a massive 1.44km at
231 degrees away from the true location of Frederiks.

But I didn't know that yet!  So we started walking to the
waypoint, arriving at the river on the way, which I thought was
a good sign.  After yet more walking we finally arrived at some
train station (SHOLZ) which didn't have a name written clearly,
and inside the signs were too confusing, and we ended up
leaving, not really sure what we'd encountered.  In hindsight it
was probaby station Jannowitzbr and the sign I saw must have
been the Holz Street exit.  This was another bad move.  We had
day-pass travel tickets and should have just caught any train to
civilization.  But alas, I was overconfident of my
relative-waypoint ability.  After the station I was directed by
the GPS to cross over the river, another tragic mistake, since I
knew our destination was north of the river.  The thing is that
this river might have just been some minor tributary.  So off we
went, through what looked like spooky streets, quite obviously
part of East Berlin.  There was some church nearby, but I
thought we could visit it after we'd arrived.

Well I got to my relative waypoint, but if my hotel was anywhere
around here, I thought I'd rather take my chances on a park
bench anywhere else.  So I had to call it a day and head back to
the river crossing, in case there was nothing nearer.  I then
decided to read the map!  Then with a combination of lateral
thinking but mostly looking at street signs, I determined where
we were and where we wanted to be.  So we still walked for ages,
past some Ostbahnof which all the maps seemed to think was
significant but I didn't even find out what it was.  I was
counting streets to find the next turnoff, but decided to go up
one earlier, to take a shortcut.  But first we saw what might
have been the Berlin Wall.  It wasn't marked, it wasn't where we
expected to see it, but it was a wall!  I asked a couple who
appeared to be writing "Fred loves Mary" on it whether it was,
and they reckoned it was.  I also asked whether we were West or
East and he said we were West, you could tell from the thing at
the bottom, at an angle.  This confirmed what I already believed.
 The fact that we were both wrong was not to be ascertained for
some time yet.

The street I went up wasn't marked, but here I got my first
break - it was the right street, even though it wasn't meant to
be!  Unfortuately getting the right number in the street wasn't
so straightforward!  The road (Pariser) terminated before I got
my number, and next thing was some plaza.  So we sat down
dejected, whilst I came up with a new theory of where the rest
of the street was - ie I HAD turned off too early.  But I had an
auxiliary plan which was to do a sweep of the crossroad ahead
first.  Fortunately the auxiliary plan worked and Pariser
restarted, and finally I made it to Frederiks (FREDRK) at 14:08.
 

You'd think my troubles would be over by then, but alas, when I
tried to check in I was told to piss off, they were in the
middle of the changing of the guard ceremony.  My fault for
arriving at peak time I suppose.  After sitting down for a while
I thought I'd ask again if I could check in now, and they
decided "I suppose".  I paid the 148 DEM that the 2 nights
including linen cost, although whilst I was concerned with the
fact that they hadn't given me the key I seemed to have
neglected to watch for my change!  When we got to the rooms I
found that the towels weren't there so had to return to pick
them up too.  Still, I shouldn't complain - the shambles that is
their reception is what allowed me to book at the last minute in
the first place.  Basically they told me the doubles were fully
booked and only whilst negotiating the singles and triples did
they discover that they had a double after all.

We decided by this stage that we were not going to walk halfway
around the world again, we'd spend all day on buses etc.  So we
went to our NEAREST station (UWEBER) this time, and on the way
tried to buy a sausage.  Unfortunately the vendor didn't speak
English, so despite pointing to the thing which was at the price
we wanted, we ended up paying considerably more to get it with
fries.  At least I think that's what happened.  It turned out
that the approx 6 DEM we paid (including drink) was actually a
bargain when compared with what dinner cost.  Back at
Alexanderplatz I took the long sought-after waypoint that cost
me so dearly (UALEXP and SALEXP).

Then we went to catch the 100 bus which was recommended for
sightseeing.  But finding that was not simple!  We tried a
number of places before finally giving up and asking a nearby
woman in uniform, which I was hoping was bus uniform, but she
said "no" curtly when I asked if she spoke English.  It was
quite obvious she was ex-Stasi and didn't want anything to do
with fascist capitalist western pig-dogs.  So we gave up.  But
the tourist info had actually said to catch the 100 bus to the
Zoo and then catch the S-Bahn back.  So we decided to do the
reverse, and hopefully it would be easier to find the 100 at the
other end.  This did indeed turn out to be the case, but mainly
because at the Zoo we saw a 100 bus and ran to where it was
about to stop.  Just like someone else was too!  And they were
told that the bus was stopping here, and that they should go
over to the other side of the road.  And there was one there
too!  So we rushed over to that one (ZOO100) and were soon on
our grand tour of Berlin.

As the bus went around I marked various buildings on the way,
with the intention of coming back later and finding out what
they were!  After arriving back at Alexanderplatz we found out
where the 100 bus stop was (ALX100) but stayed on the bus for
the return trip.  Some loud American tourists got on but this
turned out to be a good thing as one woman was obviously a girly
swot who'd done loads and loads, loads and loads, loads and
loads (it's only University Challenge, Rick) of study and so
when we went past a place she'd proudly proclaim what it was,
whilst I zapped in more meaningful waypoint names than "001". 
This turned out to be something Imarked as DVOLK, presumably the
Kulturforum, ie Culture Forum (HCULTR), not sure what the H
stands for, the President's house (PRESHS), some dome (DOME)
I didn't get an expansion of, and Siegesaulle or Victory Column
(VICCOL).  I also marked the real zoo (ZOO).

We then went for a close encounter of a bombed out church
(GEDEN).  This was the most remarkable place I saw.  You see old
movies and films full of mayhem and destruction, but it never
feels real.  This was a historic and beautiful sight being blown
to smithereens.  The obvious moral of the story being you should
build churches in underground bunkers, not on the surface where
they're in the path of any passing bombs.  Anyway, it's good to
see a monument like this somewhere in the world, if it's one
thing I hate it's people claiming that a war is "just what the
country needs".

Then we headed for the tourist information office (TOURIS) we
had see earlier.  It doubled as an opportunity to get out of the
rain.  Some old woman said something to me and I said I only
spoke English.  She said something again, and I gave her the
official line again.  She seemed pissed off at this point.  I
know how to say "Sprache de Deutsch" but I don't know how to say
"no speaka the Deutsch".   I was going to say "Parlez Vous
Anglais" but if I was going to do that I might as well have done
the usual perogative of the English speaker and slowed down and
spoken loudly as if to someone just escaped from a geriatric
farm, which she looked like anyay.  Quite apart from the fact
that what did she think people who went to tourist offices
spoke?  However, she decided to try once more, and then I
realised she was speaking English and was saying it was hot. 
Well I hope she thought the information was worth it.  I just
ended the conversation with "Sorry, I don't speak English
anymore, that's completely wasted on me".

There was nothing of interest in the tourist office so we
decided to make tracks to the Brandenburg Gate.  This is the
gate that Hitler marched under but it was built long before
that.  On the way we passed the impressive Russian Embassy
(RUSEMB).  We arrived at Pariser Platz (PARISP) which is where
the Brandenburg Gate (BRGATE) is, at around 19:00.  Here I hoped
to do a "Basil Fawlty" Hitler walk through the gate and get a
photo of it.  Unfortunately there is now traffic flowing through
the gate.  However, I still thought it could be done so long as
I was quick.  So when the break in the traffic came, I rushed
there (so fast that I hurt myself), got into position, and
waited for my wife to take the photo.  Unfortunately she must
have forgotten that I no longer had life insurance, and even if
I did, there was likely to have been a clause exempting being
run over by a bus whilst doing a Nazi walk under the Brandenburg
Gate, because she certainly took her time, and there really was
a bus coming, and all indiations were that one of my legs was
going to go through the front of the bus, a split second before
the rest of my body.  Fortunately she finished taking the photo
and I was quickly out of harms way.  She reckoned some people
around her were laughing, but that she pretended she didn't know
what I was doing.

Next stop was Hitler's bunker, the verbal location of which I
had from the internet and the GPS location courtesy of the girly
swot coke-swilling American tourist.  There was certainly no
signs anywhere.  I can't believe the insanity of the Russians
for destroying all this.  We got what looked like the right
number, then found a way round the back.  We then came across
what we assume was the infamous children's playground where
Hitler found out for sure that his mother was right after all
when she said that playing with matches was dangerous,
especially if you happen to be doused in petrol (HITDIE).  Next
thing to see was his underground bunker.  This was supposedly a
mound of grass in an area enclosed by a fence.  Well we found a
fence, which enclosed a lake in places, but no mound.  A local
walked by and I said "Hitler" and pointed to the enclosed area. 
Hitler?  Never heard of him.  I didn't know how to translate
"Hitler" into German so tried again, and this time he understood
and pointed to some innocuous part of the area.  I took a
waypoint (HITBNK) and a photo and left it at that.

Next we tried to find somewhere to eat.  This was quite
complicated so instead I decided to follow the nearby signs that
said "Stasi".  They led to some building (STASI) but I'm not
sure if this was their headquarters or not.  There was an area
we wanted to eat at (from reading our tourist guide) but we
couldn't find it on the map so ended up going back to 
Alexanderplatz via the S-Bahn Unter den Linden (SUNTER), where 
we ate at Burger King which cost 17.70 DEM for a pretty small meal.
I also bought some savouries from a shop under the station, in
case I couldn't sleep that night.  When we got back to the
hostel we decided to buy a coke from their fridge in the
reception area which was jam-packed with smokers.  These are
young people too.  But when I went to pay for it they said that
it was not for sale.  That I had to go to the bar area or
somesuch.  God only knows how I was meant to have known that,
one would think that a lock on the fridge would have helped. 
Someone else relented, probably on the realisation that my wife
had already opened the bottle and had started gurgling it, as if
inspired by "A Fish Called Wanda".  Which was just in the nick
of time before I choked to death on cigarette smoke.

We woke up late the next day, which meant that it took ages
before I was able to have a shower.  They haven't invented the
"hook" technology in their showers, presumbly you're meant to go
to the showers naked, and that's why they decided to drill large
holes in the shower door to complement the see-through curtains
in the rooms (which has been the case in every German
hotel/hostel I have stayed in).  Still they had invented the
door-handle technology, which lasted up until the point that I
had actually gotten out of the shower and someone decided to try
the door since they didn't hear the shower (despite the fact
that they could see the light was on).  They haven't invented
the "engaged" technology yet either so rely on the light on/off
switching signalling strategy.

We were soon on our way and glad of it.  Now we just had to buy
a ticket from the station and we'd be recharged for touring! 
Unfortunately it was only then that we discovered that the
machine that sold the ticket we wanted only took coins, I don't
know what tickets the other machine sold, my German ain't what
it used to be in my heyday of war-comic reading (I wonder if the
Germans have the equivalent?).  We asked a fellow passenger
whether there was a newsagent nearby that sold them and she
reckoned there wasn't.  Or at least that's what I think she
reckoned as she didn't speak English.  And she genuinely didn't
speak English too, she wasn't just being obstinate, as she tried
very hard to help us - god knows how these people travel
overseas without speaking English, perhaps it's because they
were only ever allowed to visit Russia anyway so just learnt
Russian.  She took us to the other end, same deal.  She even
tried out a whacky theory that if you put notes in the machine
that did take notes, coins would come out the other side (they
don't incidentally).  She reckoned our ticket wasn't valid and
that we'd be fined if caught going to Alexanderplatz where we
could buy a ticket.  There was a theory that our ticket lasted
24 hours.

We decided to chance our arm on the 24-hour combined with
"machine doesn't take notes" excuse - unfortunately on closer
inspection of our ticket it had the wrong date on it.  The
airport bus must have had been set up incorrectly - so much for
German efficiency.  With sweat dripping from our foreheads, we
arrived at Alexanderplatz, vaulted a couple of fences, kicked
two security guards in the nuts, and then, acting dead casual,
bought a ticket, went and stamped it, and guess what, the date
there was wrong too!  I went back to the place I bought my
ticket, complaining that it was the wrong date, but he said, in
perfect German, "It's the wrong date because in Germany we are
so efficient that we even have our millenium bugs a full 6
months before the rest of the world".  I decided to keep all my
tickets so that I could try to pass that message on to the
ticket inspectors.

Breakfast consisted of cakes of some description from
Alexanderplatz, which was where we tended to do most of our
eating.  We then headed for the Berlin Cathedral.  On the way I
was accosted by some girl doing a survey of tourists.  I'm not
sure how she knew I was a tourist though, presumably the T-shirt
that read "I've Been to Berlin's Bunker" gave it away.  Anyway,
she asked what I thought of Berlin and I wasn't diplomatic
enough to lie, I said it wasn't as good as other places like
Vienna.  I also added that I was disappointed at Hitler's
treatment.  I pointed out that whilst she and her countrymen
probably wanted to forget about him, he is still very important
to us.  She admitted that it wasn't a pleasant part in their
history.  One thing I wish I'd asked is if in hindsight she was
actually glad to have lost.  Preumably the honest answer is no,
given the ferocity of the defence of the Reich.

I filled in the questionaire except for the bit that was in
German, which she said she'd fill in herself.  I asked her why
everything had been translated except for this bit and it was
because it was "Sex (Male/Female)" which she could see for
herself.  I suggested I might be a transvestite, but she said
that was her problem.  Another question I wasn't too happy about
was the top 3 things I wanted to see.  I put down Hitler's
Bunker, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall.  Which I thought
was pretty sad really, as if the only thing of interest in
Berlin was man's inhumanity to man.  So I made room for another
one, and put down the Brandenburg Gate, which I'm not sure
helped much really, as that's yet another war-related site, but
at least much earlier.

One final bit of the questionairre posed problems.  They wanted
to know how much we were going to spend.  I put down 300 DEM,
because I knew that's how much we had withdrawn, but I didn't
know what my wife had in mind for further spending.  When
Irejoined her I asked, and it turned out she had big plans to
buy clothes, and I had visions of us having to eat out of
rubbish bins lest we rendered the survey data invalid.  By this
time we were at the Berlin Cathedral (BERCAT) which was closed
because a service was on - so strictly speaking it was actually
open.  As we moved away I saw the surveyor again so I got the
form off her and increased the amount to 500 DEM to give us a
chance to live again.

We then crossed the road to where we came to the Altes Museum
(ALTESM) which consisted of statues and other incredibly boring
things.  All I can say is thank god it was free on Sunday so it
wasn't a complete ripoff.  There is actually a cluster of
museums here, so the next one was Alte National Gallery
(ALTENG), which was closed as far as I could tell from a
combination of rudimentary German and hassling a passerby.  Now
the next museum, Pergamon (PERGM) was actually worth visiting,
as yet another country realises that the best way to get ancient
artifacts is by shopping in Greece.  Fortunately the Greeks had
the courtesy of expanding across half the world, so everyone is
entitled to call Greek artifacts their own.  In this museum you
will find a whole podium and other things comprising basically a
big building, like really really big.  There were a few English
translations which we bought, but that was the only cost on the
day.

Next museum was the Bodemuseum (BODEM) but it appeared to be
closed.  That's assuming we even arrived at the right entrance,
the most obvious entrance was actually on the river!  We now
more or less wanted to go back to the station, but I had a
theory that there was a station further ahead, and that way we
got to cross the river and walk through a park instead of
retracing dead ground.  This time I was more or less right, we
got to S-Bahn Hackescher Market (HACKES).

On the S-Bahn I marked station Friedrichstrasse (SFRIED) then
Charlottenburg (SCHARL) where we had to walk to the supposedly
connected U-Bahn Wilmersdorfer Street (UWILM) which ended up
taking us almost half an hour to get to!  Initially there were
signs to direct us there, but they were replaced by a map where
we could figure it out for outselves.  Although the station was
east, I must have mistranslated that into west when I dialled it
into my compass, so we went the wrong way, thought about coming
back to a Thai restaurant we stumbled on, circled around, and
then eventually came across a number of entrances, the closest
one being just 300 metres from the S-Bahn.  We had a hot dog to
celebrate the achievement.

Next stop was Richard-Wagner-Platz (URICHA) where we got off to
go to the former queen's palace.  We didn't know which way to
go, but fortunately there were other tourists there who did, so
we followed them.  I slowed us down getting a waypoint, but we
still managed to more or less follow them.  How on earth other
people automatically know the right way to go is beyond me. 
Without a waypoint I'm lost.  

The guide went straight past the first large building (once
again I don't know what other people use that gives better
resolution than a GPS to differentiate two buildings in close
proximity),  which turned out to be the Berlin National Gallery
(BNATGL), but it wasn't marked as such in our book.  I have a
suspicion that the National Gallery was actually the one that
was shut, temporarily relocated.  

We then finally arrived at Schloss Charlotteburg (SCHCHA). We
checked out the price list and found that the family ticket was
actually cheaper than 2 adults, so decided to buy one of them. 
But when we were served, we were told that that was only for
families with kids.  Shocking!  That's the first time I've seen
a place where 2 adults and 2 children is cheaper than just 2
adults.  Next time I'll bring my blow-up doll.  And they might
have added that information in the price list in the first
place.  Since when has our choice not to have kids exempted us
from being a family?  Anyway, so I settled for 2 adults.  But
there was some complication, only something-or-other was open at
this time of day.  I didn't even know what the place was (my
wife had brought us here), much less be in a position to choose
subsets.  

So I said I'd think about it and come back, and stood in a
corner watching what happened to other people.  But they got the
same treatment, were told that they should have turned up
earlier (it was 3pm, which I don't think is unreasonable).  There
was an entrance nearby to something-or-other, we weren't sure if
part of it was free and we could just walk in.  Certainly we
didn't see anyone collecting tickets.  But in the end I got sick
of it, we've seen plenty of royal residences already, if this
one was so complicated we could do without it.  The tourist book
we have says it's free on Sunday and it's open 10-5.  Go figure.

Anyway, Checkpoint Charlie beckoned.  We went to what we thought
was the nearest U-Bahn, Stadtmitte (USTADT), and then walked
towards the free west.  We came to the famous and glorious sign,
"You are now entering the American Sector" (CKPCH).  We then
went to the House at Checkpoint Charlie (HAUSCC) and confirmed
that our tourist book was right, it is overpriced, although we
spent quite a bit of time there as there were lots of articles
and a video.  I especially liked the one where an East German
woman asked the security guard if she could cross, and he gave
some longwinded answer, then she asked again for a simple German
answer, and the guy answered "sure", she kissed him and ran! 
That was the wall finally being opened.

We then found a much closer station (UKOCH), then decided to
look at the main shopping centre near the zoo, both for things
to buy the next day and for dinner.  We didn't find anything
much of interest, although I marked two stations on the way,
Kurfurstendamm (UKURF) and Uhlandstr (UUHL).  My wife had heard
of the Europa centre (EUROPA), so we tried our luck there.  The
food/price ratio inside wasn't good so we tried our luck outside
in a smallish shop.  After some pretty pathetic main meals we
tried an icecream as a snack which I obviously didn't understand
correctly because it cost 5 DEM!!!

Fairly despondent we made tracks home.  Unfortunately the trains
were their usual cryptic selves, the end result being that we
were at Westkreuz (SWESTK) when some guard kicked us off the
train lest we ended up at the depot.  He asked where we wanted
to go, and I told him we'd come from Alexanderplatz and wanted
to go to Weberwiese (which was actually a U-Bahn so he wouldn't
have recognized the name).  My wife insisted that we'd come from
the Zoo and we wanted to go to Alexanderplatz.  He asked which
one of us had any idea of who they were, where they'd come from
or knew where they were going.  Although I was the one with the
GPS I deferred to my wife's superior intellect on that one.

Even going back the way we'd come proved difficult, as the place
we sat to wait didn't seem to have any trains, but somewhere
above us I could hear them coming at a great rate of knots.  We
came very close to missing our proper train whilst we scouted
above, but got there in the end.  As you can probably tell I was
pretty zonked out by the day's activities and just wanted to go
to sleep where trains don't go beep and hassle you in the middle
of the night.  So I wasn't my sharpest when we arrived at
Alexanderplatz and I decided to have a mini pizza whilst my wife
got a beer from the shop downstairs.

Whilst eating, I was facing the shop whilst my wife was facing
me, so only I saw what happened next.  Some guy bought a beer,
then on his way out noticed the same savouries that I had bought
yesterday.  He proceeded to stuff a few of them into his shirt
and/or his bag.  I thought that was pretty strange, but I didn't
want to make assumptions, he'd presumaby only noticed them when
he was leaving, just like I had yesterday, only he was a bit
hungrier than me.  4 or 5 packets later he just walked off.  I
yelled out "hey" angrily and pointed at him.  A passerby was
also near him.  The thief chose to shake his head and keep
going, the passerby to just keep going.  I was loathe to yell
out in English, I was hoping to just bluff him into facing the
shopkeeper.

I yelled out again, "Hey, did you pay for that?", deliberately
quickly, loudly and angrily so that hopefully the English would
be disguised.  Once again they both stopped to look, but this
time the thief tapped his head to signal to the other guy that
I was mad.  That just threw me into "red mist" - I didn't mind
being called mad so much as I minded the implication that I was
lying.  He wasn't just going to walk away scot free, so I chased
after him.  When I got to him unfortunately no-one else was
around to ensure it was sorted out orderly.

After catching him up, once again I said "Did you pay for that?"
and it was almost like his eyes flickered as he mentally
switched languages to speak to a dumb tourist.  He said "Are you
mad?  I paid for it.  Go and ask them."  I suddenly had this
vision of him being good mates with the shopkeeper and a
standing order for savouries, which he picked up on his way out
every day.  Oh dear.  As you can tell, it had been a long day. 
So I went back to the shop, asked the (young) girl if she spoke
English, which she said she didn't, not sure if she was being
obstinate or just didn't want to speak to a hyped-up foreigner. 
So I tried the woman, and she reluctantly admitted she did,
what's the matter.  I told her I thought that guy had stolen her
savouries, if she wanted to ring the police.

She said she couldn't do anything if they were taken from
outside the store.  Unbelievable really.  I almost wanted to say
"right, I'll take the rest of them, see you".  There was so many
things I did wrong really.  Firstly I should have got my wife to
watch too.  As it was she refused to go witness to anyone who
yelled at German strangers in English completely unannounced,
was probably drunk on the beer fumes (I'm a teetotaller), and
just a few minutes earlier had confused the Zoo with
Alexanderplatz.

And then there was the poor German thief.  It's a bit like
"excuse me, do you speak English", followed by "excuse me, do
they have such a thing as a Citizen's Arrest in this country",
then "do you know if foreigners can make them" and finally "is
stealing goods located outside the shop actually covered".  Yes?
 Jolly good, you're nicked.  And then there was the violence
aspect to the situation.  Although I was a bit bigger than him,
although unlikely as fit, I was wearing a backpack, I had a GPS
receiver around my right hand, worth many times more than the
savouries, I was still holding a tissue paper from the pizza
clenched in my fist, and there was a wall on my right.

What a disaster that would have been.  My first blow would have
wiped out my GPS, more likely on the wall than his head.  The
blow itself would have probably hurt me more than him, with the
tissue softening my fist for him.  I still had to free myself
from my backpack.  I think I would have won anyway, basically the
GPS being destroyed because of a thief (and so soon after my
house had been burgled too), would have had me extracting bloody
vengeance at any cost.  

It would have been far cheaper for me in the end to simply pay
for the savouies myself though.  And although I still didn't
know for sure he hadn't paid for it, I could at least have
assembled a rudimentary German sentence to yell after him, e.g.
"Achtung ficken Deutsche-sprache Kraut".  Regardless, he got
away, but not only that, I didn't know where he'd gone or if he
had friends.  I got into the train hoping he wasn't there.  He
didn't appear to be, but of course the train just sat there
waiting for him.  I took the precaution of moving my GPS into my
backpack, and extracting myself from it.  

We ended up arriving home safe and to be greeted by
guitar-wielding hippies playing Rolling Stones songs on the
stairs.  It wasn't loud enough to keep us awake though.  We
skipped the coke ritual that time, even though the reception
area had been cleared of smokers.

Next day we woke up late yet again.  After checking the bed for
horses' heads I ate my own (paid for) savouries for breakfast,
then headed to Alexanderplatz for more food.  Alexanderplatz is
our family food centre.  Then we went out to check the local big
shops to do some bargain hunting.  We found some pots we wanted,
but we needed to know whether they could do export or not, and
decided not to make a fuss until we'd checked out some other
shops.  

We then headed to some Potsdamer Platz (UPOTSD) which was meant
to be a massive new development.  Well we saw several cranes,
but they obviously don't make massive new developments like they
used to.  So we were soon back on the train and got out at
Wittenbergplatz (UWITTN) which is closest to Kai De We (KADEWE),
supposedly the biggest shopping centre in Europe.  It was
impressive, a rival to Harrods in London.  And it's good to see
that the Germans aren't the typical luddites I'm used to -
practically every fridge had a temperature display!

You're not allowed to take photos in the shop.  There is a whole
floor dedicated to food, and there was some cherries that looked
great.  But I wanted to eat them straight away, but I couldn't
do that unless they were washed.  I snooped around a bit and
noticed they had a sink in the shop, so tried to negotiate 10
DEM worth of washed cherries.  The woman didn't understand me
(she said she knew a little English), despite being in the West
and young, and despite the fact that I pointed at the sink.  A
customer did the translation and soon I got my cherries.  They
measured it exactly, then dropped some cherries, then replaced
them, then dried them.  It was almost embarassing really,
causing such a fuss for 10 DEM.  But my wife reckoned that's why
the cherries were more expensive - it's the service that
distinguishes them from Charlie's Cheap Cherries.

After eating the cherries (outside) we set off to the Allied
Museum.  I knew it was closed according to the tourist brochure,
but given that it was so hard to find on the map in the first
place, I thought it would be an invaluable waypoint to have. 
You need to get there to see the real hut that used to be at
Checkpoint Charlie.

After getting out at Oskar-Helene-Heim (UOSKAR), we looked for
directions and of course there were none to be found.  We were
of course the first people to ever go there.  A local pointed us
in the right direction, catch the 115 bus from the other side of
the road (BUS115).  After a while I decided my wife needed the
exercise and we started walking.  We passed the US Embassy
(USEMB) before arriving at the Allied Museum (ALLIED) which has
a plane in the yard.  It was open!  There are actually two
halves, the WWII half and the Cold War half.  It was worth the
trip, but there wasn't a great deal happening.  You're probably
better off just watching a video on the subject.

We then decided to find the official Berlin Wall.  Turned out
that was pretty near Checkpoint Charlie, but we could approach
it from a different angle (closer), which actually involved
returning to Potsdamer Platz.  I marked U-Bahn
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Park (UMENDE) on the way.  This time we
had to make our way further around the construction site where
we came across the Lost City of Massive Development.  It's
amazing how much you can miss without a GPS fix.

We managed to negotiate our way around some bizarre but
interesting moat, but then we were still lost, there was no wall
in sight.  After much walking, which took us past another
S-Bahn, Anhalter Bahnhof (SANHAL), and even resorting to looking
at the map, we eventually got to the wall (BRLWLL), almost right
next to Checkpoint Charlie.  We managed to miss the other side
to the wall, if it was even there.  The wall was pretty
pathetic, we walked the length to see if there was a good spot -
there wasn't.  At the other end there were a couple of
buildings, which were big and nice but not listed in our book. 
One had some golden facade (MARTGB), which I later found out is
the Martin-Gropius-Bau, a free museum of the last 50 years of
German history with English text.  The other had Preuss written 
on it (PREUSS), which I later found out was the Preussischer
Landtag, where the city parliament is.

Walking back we went via the Nazi SS Buildings which were right
next to the Martin-Gropius-Bau, which consist only of foundations 
- the idiots blew it up like everything else in their interesting 
history.  There was a lot of writing and pictures, all in German, 
once again useless, but the translation wouldn't have been worth
reading anyway - better to get it on video too.  We then went
back to the wall, so I could get a photo of me escaping.  Then
back to Checkpoint Charlie so that I could see the Russian
soldier on the picture (I'd come from the East and only seen the
American).  I also realised I hadn't seen the exact centre, so
went there where I found a plate that others were photographing,
which had Berliner Mauer, ie Berlin Wall (BMAUER) on it.

And then it was time to say goodbye.  We returned to
Alexanderplatz to use up the last of our money on a variety of
snacks.  At the end of the day I stuffed the survey up after
all.  Back at the airport, where they allow smoking, even in the
queue to get out of immigration (once again one officer per
plane).  I'm shocked that there aren't EU laws governing the
officer's workplace, that guarantee him a smoke-free
environment.  My wife got in front of me to get away from them,
and I left a large gap between me and her to keep them away. 
But unfortunately there was some complication with my wife's
passport - I don't think they could find the Berlin stamp, so
after a while I went up to say she was with me and I had one of
these you-beaut EU passports.  Luckily he found the stamp
without the obligatory strip-search and we were free!  Except
that in the non-smoking area of the small waiting area there was
an ashtray, so I moved it.  The smoking signs were very
confusing there though.

Given that Berlin should have been one of the most interesting
places in Europe, it was a complete fizzer.  It beats me why so
many people come here that you have to book way in advance. 
These people have totally destroyed their interesting history. 
Instead of having a Hitler Theme Park where you go to visit a
Hitler look-alike in his bunker and all sorts of other things to
gawk at (join the SS and have your photo taken, ride a Panza
tank, watch them smash some windows like the gunfighter display
in Universal Studios, shoot down allied planes, fire rockets
etc), they've replaced the whole lot with some big pretence that
it never happened.

I can see why Hitler was so keen to invade the rest of the world
- it's far more interesting than anything you're likely to find
in Berlin - I'd want to get out too.  Some things to note are
that it's a big place, don't attempt to walk anywhere you can't
see, and also the population is low, presumably the real German
action is where the West German money was, ie Cologne,
Frankfurt, Munich.  I had been to a West German town (Ulm)
before, some minor one as part of a tour group, and it seemed a
lot nicer, bustlier and interesting than anything I saw in
Berlin, so I'd still like to visit other places in Germany.  So
Berlin for the Berliners I reckon, but not Deutschland fewer dare
Deutsch!