On our list was The Musikinstrumenten Museum in Potsdamer Platz, and I was dying for Pippa to experience it. So we set out on a mission and that was our first stop. The musical instrument museum was as beautiful as I remembered it. The selection if historical instruments is like nowhere I've seen. I managed to sneak the little picture below of a very unique piano of theirs. Another interesting thing about the museum is the architecture of the building itself. I never quite realised it until I had a conversation with one of the museum attendants, but the building is meant to be structured like a ship. The original building was destroyed in WWII, which used to house over 4000 instruments, all that remained after were 700.
After the museum we went for some lunch and a coffee, and contemplated our next move. The Check Point Charlie museum was something we both wanted to do so we decided today would be a day of culture and we would venture to Kochstraße and engross ourselves in history.
The museum was incredibly informative and Pippa and I were shocked at how little details we knew. Understanding the suffering of Germany and the other areas affected was invaluable, and we found ourselves fascinated by the cleverness of the escape plans. It is over all essential to be seen and I hope everyone gets a chance to go there once in their lifetime.
After such a heavy afternoon, we made it our mission to try and keep our chins up, so we went back to the hotel and had some beers and began to plan our evening trip to Kreuzberg. Pippa found an amazing little Mexican bar that had been recommended by so many people as the best Mexican in the whole of Berlin, and we knew we had to try it.
My first impression of Kreuzberg was the art, liveliness and flashing lights that surrounded you. I know it's a city so all these things are a given, but Kreuzberg seemed to be shouting to me in a language of colours and excitement that was exhilarating. A place that had bred so many subcultures, it seemed to be different every step you took. We found the burrito bar and it was full of young people, drinking €3 pints of beer and stuffing their faces with cheap and tasty Mexican dishes. We sat and the bar, ordered our yummy food, and were joined by a man from Toronto who we later found out was international ice hockey player Matt Foy for the Berlin team.
We had good conversation, enjoyed our beers and then went to a quirky bar called Das Hotel (everything was pretty quirky here to be honest, Brighton eat-your-heart-out) and continued the beer drinking. It was getting late at this point and we had a feeling the U-Bahn wouldn't be an option anymore. Deciding a cut off point, we said goodbye to Matt who had decided he needed more late night food, and began what we initially thought was going to be a short walk until we found some transport, but turned into a 2 hour excursion from Kottbusser Tor all the way west to our hotel. Armed with a fold out map and our good choice of coats we managed to walk through the empty streets and not get lost once.
My choice of shoes sadly was not the one for walking, and I was limping by the time we arrived at the hotel at 3.30am. The whole experience was really quite surreal, as I can't think of another situation where such a thing might have happened. Only the right circumstances, or more the wrong circumstances could have lead to such a spontaneous and actually really dangerous journey. Exciting to look back on, but given the state of my feet, and our over all exhaustion, maybe we won't do that again.
AKC x
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