Berlin, Day Three: Looking Back

One of the best things about being in Europe is not what might appear obvious at first. But when you think about it, how can you dislike a culture where chocolate is an accepted breakfast? We only really do that in the UK at Christmas when you attack the Quality Street with your first cup of coffee of the day. But in Germany, as an example, every breakfast is a Christmas breakfast. 

Rich led led us as we shouldered our way into the light and airy Kamps Bäckerei (Bakery) near Hackesher Markt this morning, confidently marching up to the counter and pointing at a tart*, sitting seductively behind the glass counter. The guy behind the counter obliged. Rich then realised that perhaps that wasn’t the one he meant to order, so corrected it by ordering a different one. Without cancelling the first. So Andy and I followed suit and that’s how we all ended up with two breakfasts. 

I benefitted from this by enjoying not only a chocolate bun, but also a chocolate croissant, at 8:30 in the morning. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Europe.

We planned to go to the Technik Museum today, chiefly because I had heard that there was a part of an RAF Lancaster on display there and I would very much like to see it. Rich and Andy indulged me in this and so, full of chocolate, we headed through the snow to catch a train to Anhalter Banhof. 

There is a public football pitch on the site of that railway station now, and the only remaining part of this once magnificent building is a section of the front entrance. We walked along the footbridge over the river along what was the route of the main railway line until we came across an aeroplane on a roof. 

It hadn’t just landed there of course. It had been installed on the roof of the museum by way of attracting people to it, and it works much better than a billboard. The snow continued to fall as we arrived at one of the two museum entrances, situated near the old goods yard. A long platform stretching further than I was prepared to walk in this weather lay in front of us, and once again I couldn’t help but think of what this station was used for in the 1940s. Places such as this will forever be haunted by certain aspects of their past. 

We were enveloped in a wave of warmth when we entered the building itself. It came up to us, put its arm around us and invited us to have a look at its exhibits. To the left of us was the Science exhibition and to the right, cars. No prizes for guessing which one these three middle aged (but still cool) guys chose to see first. 

Now I know that the idea of reading about the technical specifications of old vehicles will have a universal appeal, but for the sake of brevity I will just pick out one or two of the facts that might make you think “Oh, fancy that,” or some such. For example, did you know that the Germans were developing an electric car in 1905 (Nineteen-oh-Five)? I put that in brackets á la Football Teleprinter so that you can be sure you read it right. 

They also had an amphibious car, complete with oars, the German Ambassador to London’s car from the 1920s and a BMW cut in half to show you the workings. That’s still more of a BMW as I could afford to be honest. It revealed the electrics, the mechanics and the upholstery. But it didn’t explain why they can never seem to do less than 70 mph THREE FEET BEHIND YOU ON THE A69!!! 

Sorry, got carried away. Back to the museum. 

Over the other side of the old railway line (we didn’t bother with the science bit, we were all too excited by the prospect of old trains) was the bigger part of the museum, the bit with the aeroplane on the roof. This promised all sorts of delights, including planes, trains and boats, and I spent a lot of time unsuccessfully trying to resist my inner nerd. But first, coffee. After all, it was a walk of nearly five minutes from the first part of the museum and we were parched. 

This will forever be the place that I remember as having my first conversation in German, as the kids behind the counter didn’t speak The King’s. I managed to order three coffees and an apple cake, find out how much it was and pay for it without pointing at anything or ending up with something that I didn’t want. After a year on Duolingo, I call that a moderate achievement. 

As we left the café, roughly three hundred people formed a queue behind us, all eager to try the coffee. Or maybe to practice their German. But either way it seemed like we had timed our visit perfectly and headed off to the trains before they caught us up. 

We found ourselves in a small shed with two dusty, tired looking locomotives huddled together under a leaky roof. They looked like they’d just been told off by the Fat Controller. Well, this isn’t much to write home about, I thought, scoffing at the idea that this could compete with, say, the National Railway Museum in York. I believe I may actually have said “Pah!” at one point. 

Andy and Rich then went outside to an old engine shed next to a turntable, and entered it ahead of me. They were waiting to see me eat my words about York because this was much more like it! Huge locomotives were everywhere! My nerd finally escaped my clutches and ran riot. 

There was even a very detailed scale model of the old station which showed what the area was like before the war. I might have spent the whole day in that part of the museum alone, but I could hear the old Lancaster calling me.

Unfortunately for me, the planes were all up on the open plan fourth floor, where you could see all the way down to the ground floor from the top. Gulp. My nerd and I fought our fear of heights and boy was it worth it! The whole floor of this museum looked like a life size version of my bedroom ceiling when I was 12. There were Stukas, Me110s, and Me109s hanging from the rafters. The Stuka had been shot down and was left in the state in which it had been found.

The Lancaster had flown on a night raid from RAF East Kirby in the early hours of 4th September 1943. It was shot down by a FW190, and crashed into a lake near Zossen. None of the seven man crew survived. The remains of the aircraft were salvaged from the lake in 1997 in an operation that was funded by the museum, and has been on display there ever since. 

The crew were British, Australian and Canadian. Lest we forget, these were their names:

Sgt J T Carruthers RAF

Flt Sgt W E Grindley RAAF

Sgt H I Jones RAF

Flt Sgt David Livingstone RAAF

Sgt A Moore RAF

Sgt H M Porteous RCAF

Sgt A Sutcliffe RAF

After all that, it was time to hit the shops. I had promised to find some Birkenstocks for my wife Rachel and I was determined to succeed. 

We caught the train to Alexanderplatz, and were confronted by many shops that we could’ve visited in Northumberland Street (Newcastle, in case you wondered). Not having a great sense of where we were in the city in relation to the apartment, and having given up fairly quickly on finding any Birkenstocks in the shoe department of the German equivalent of John Lewis, we walked off in what we thought was the general direction that we needed to go. And lo and behold, we stumbled across a Birkenstocks shop. I managed to actually get the right colour, style and size of shoe. Tick!

It had been raining and snowing for quite a while when we walked back to the apartment. We had had a good day but the weather was still pretty awful. We were cold and we needed cheering up a bit. 

Thankfully, Andy seemed to recognise this and that’s why he had the decency to walk underneath a shop awning at the very moment it chose to unload its gallons of icy cold water onto the pavement. He was completely drenched. There was a pause while Rich and I looked first at each other, and then at Andy to decide how hard we should be laughing. To his eternal credit, almost immediately Andy smiled at his misfortune which gave Rich and me the licence to fall about sideways, holding our sides and absolutely cry with mirth. 

I was still trying to suppress a smile an hour later when we went to a very nice café on Neue Promenade for a beer and a bit of a drying out. Andy and Rich look very like each other, but any doubts that they were actually brothers were dispelled when Andy thought he’d accidentally deleted from his phone a precious photograph of them as children. In unison, they performed a sharp intake of breath, leaned in towards the screen, and then leaned back again with a “Phew” when the picture reappeared. I laughed aloud for the second time in an hour but I suspect you had to be there to gather the full comic effect. 

Kilkenny’s Irish Bar at the station was packed for the rugby match which was showing on their multi screens. I think every Irishman and woman in Berlin were in at that particular moment. We went off to Eden Restaurant for a Thai meal to let things settle down a bit, and when we got back a couple of hours later we managed to find a space to watch Palace v Liverpool. 

A band was in the other bar, playing David Bowie songs. It seems I got to bed that night at about 1:30, so I can assume I had a good time. 

So good, in fact, that I’ve resolved to go back one day, and I commend the city to the House. 

*Really? You thought that? Shame on you. This wasn’t pre-war Berlin, and it wasn’t the Kit Kat Club.