I made it to Berlin which in itself a small accomplishment. Without knowing, I picked the day before a public holiday that fell on a Friday and the start of the school holidays to travel to Berlin. The Innsbruck train man advised me that it would be no problem to get a seat, but when I booked all I could get was a smoking seat and the train was full. I met the worldwide software manager for Mercedes Benz on the train. He was giving me Berlin tips and drives a BMW Z3. He travels 500km to go to work. He lives in Köln and works in Stuttgart. He works a 50 hour week in 4 days and lives in a hotel when he isn't at home. Work pays for the train each way and the hotel. Apparently a number of people so this if the job is right for them.

Anke, a friend with history with my family, met me at the train station and I am staying at her apartment. She has gone to Bavaria with Antje (same relationship to me as Anke) to meet a man they met on Ibiza who owns a restaurant there. Antje had been living with her family in their garden house (like a garden shed with bunks, a kitchen and a loo) and they fed me and I got a sunflower (my favourite flower). They also detailed what they have planned for my Dad next time he visits, I hope he survives.

Berlin has always been a mythological city. Through my life I have heard lots of stories about it. The usual ones like the Berlin Wall, but also where Anke and Antje lived, where Dad got sick and it seemed like a different world. Getting here and seeing parts of these stories i.e. Anke and Antje's homes, the Victory Tower where Dad had chest pains and Anke decided he needed a doctor, and photo's of places my parents had been 14 years before, makes the couple of days travelling with Anke and Antje a bit emotional.

Anke, Antje, Klaus (Antjes husband) and Anne (Antje's daughter) took me for a day of sightseeing before Anke and Antje went away. This helped me to find my way around and we went to Sanssouci a castle in Potsdam. We went past a whole lot of sights but the weather was pretty bad and I couldn't take photos. I bought a 3 day pass and it lets me travel all the travel networks (Sbahn, Ubahn and buses) and gives me a discount into museums. Berlin only has about 175 museums so I'm a bit spoilt. In the last three days I have been to Checkpoint Charlie, The Brandenburg gate, the chunk of the berlin wall left, the museum for world cultures, the berlin cathedral, the natural history museum (there was a giant dinosaur skeleton), Schloss Charlottenburg and the list goes on and on and on. I still have another day left of my pass.

There is a lot to see and do here and I'm glad I have a fair bit of time here. I would definately recommend Berlin to anyone althhough they do have an annoying habit of saying things are in english and then they hand you a piece of paper to read instead. The totally best site I been to so far is the Reichstag (German parliament). It pretty much got destroyed in the war but has been rebuilt with a new dome which you can climb. It's free to go in and because the Reichstag is in the middle of the old east and west you can see old and new coming together (with lots of new where the berlin wall was) from the top. There is a bulletpoint history display at the top which has photos and calls the Third Reich a sham parliament, it's really quick and easy to read and gets across the main points. The Checkpoint Charlie museum needs to take a leaf from their books. Adolf Hitler never ruled in the Reichstag, it wasburneddown before he gained power. The only downside is a really, really long queue due to a security check. All the staff that were in Bonn have apartments built for them and discounted travel each week home.