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Berlin, Germany
Tuesday, Jan 02, 2001

New Year in Berlin

David Murray
2007-02-02 03:33:39

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An Aussie guy we knew had arranged to go to Berlin for new years, and as my life was back to normality, i.e. Lucy was back, we decided to tag on to him as he had cheap accommodation. £10 per person per night. So we flew in, caught the S-Bahn and then the U-Bahn and ended up on the otherside with a load of Poms and one German in some seedy little bar. Don’t know where it was, but at the end of the night, we were given some keys and an address for our room. It turned out to be a small flat on the East side it was cool. Following morning, we all met up on the river for brunch on a boat, then we all went our own ways. As we had been in Berlin 16 months before, it was amazing the change in the city. The first place we had to visit was the Reichstag. The building had been closed since around 1933 and an English architect had redesigned the roof and it was now made of glass, and the best bit about it was that you could line up to go inside it. Which we did. I would love to be able to say that we could see the sights from above, but it was covered in snow. We did walk out onto the roof and the main thing we did see was that where there were a sea of cranes, there were now new embassy buildings surrounding the Reichstag. Still, it was interesting to see the glass dome. Once down, we made our way over to the East Side Gallery. This is the largest piece of the wall that is left. 1.5 Klm’s long and painted by people from all over the world. It is one long gallery. It was good to look at this and the piece of wall. One last stop before we went out to see the new year in and this was to the Potsdamer Platz area. When we were last here in 98, all that was here was a red box which was an information centre and some of the wall. This place had been empty for years and now there were buildings over it. There was a couple of shopping plazas and the red box was still there but it was closed and its days were numbered. We made our way to somewhere else and met up with our group and we went to some disco. I would like to tell you all about it, but all I can remember is the song before 12 was 99 luft balloons and the song as the clock struck 12 was Jolene by Dolly Parton !!!!! Somehow, we got back to the flat and after about an hours sleep, I was being woken and told we had to leave. Then the problems started. We had to run for an S-Bahn. My stomach did not like this. The train was moving, so was my stomach. Then it started to come, my stomach that is. The station was not getting closer, my bile was climbing. It was ready to blow. We stopped, I ran behind the train, I hurled my guts. It stopped, I sat, Lucy kept well away. At the airport, it all seemed ok. I slept on the plane, arrived at Heathrow, jumped on the tube, got off at Hammersmith, then the nightmare started again. My stomach started swimming and I was hurling. Not a good look, but what a way to start the new year. Vomiting in two countries in one day !!!!!