Arrival to Berlin

We could not sleep very well that night as we get so excited when we travel. We woke up quite early to get to the airport a couple of hours before de flight. I have missed several flights, so I guess I learnt my lesson! ☺ We were flying with Air Berlin, which was fantastic, much better than Easyjet on our flight back. The plane was empty, I guess that nobody goes on holiday on a Wednesday morning in January! ☺ The sky was quite clear so we could enjoy fantastic views over the white mountains on the way to Berlin! We flew to Tegel Airport, which is quite tiny. It is reasonable when you think about the number of airports you find in Berlin. That I know of, you find Schoenefeld, Tegel and Tempelhof.  Tegel airport was only 8 kms away from the center of the city.

Everything was well indicated, besides, we did our homework and we knew exactly where to take the bus to get to the hotel. From there we took the “TXL” bus which took us straight for only 2€. We were very lucky selecting the hotel, as we found one quite reasonable in price in the middle of the city! We checked in and we went straight to the room to leave our luggage! The room was very peculiar as the bathroom was in the room and there was just a courtain to divide it.

We were so eager to start visiting that we left five minutes later. With our map in our hands we started walking although our stomachs were already screaming. It was already 4pm and we hadn´t had a bite since we had breakfast. On our way we started seeing beautiful buildings but could not recognize any of them. We stopped in a typical German bar and we ordered some cheeses and a couple of beers! Damn! That was the biggest cheese platter I had seen in my life ☺ It was right next to Nikolaiviertel, a medieval neighbourhood dated in the XIII Century. From there we keept walking and we came across the city hall (Rotes Rathaus), a beautiful red building very close from Alexander Platz, between the square and Nikolaiviertel. It was extremely cold so we didn´t stop for too long. From there we headed to Oranienburger Str, which is the area where you find restaurants and bars.  As it was quite cold we decided to go for a drink and warm up our engines! ☺ We found a crowded cafeteria 100% American style called the “The Sixties” (review attached). Silvia had a Mojito and I had a beautiful strawberry daikiri. We kept walking along Oranienburger Str checking all different restaurants. We had a craving for Japannese, so we checked our lonely planet and headed to Kuchi. This restaurant was very trendy although there were some things did not match with the way japanese restaurants work. You had to share tables! It was not the first time we saw that since we started looking for a place to eat, so I guess it is a normal thing to do! But then we saw a couple of tiny tables and order a bottle of red wine while we waited to be seated. Silvia is an expert ordering this kind of food, so she did all the work ☺ After dinner we went straight to the hotel as we wanted to get up very early!