Berlin Randomized !

First of all thank you all for those comments on my last post, the way you guys understood and supported i really thank you all. In the end, overall day turned out quite good, lots of gifts, outing and great food... hehehe

I think it was just morning blues which made me write that post. Reading all those comments also helped me a lot. Thanks for all the love and support.

Ok now about our trip to Berlin from where i left it. "Environment Badge".

As you know my last post that we decided to skip it, but then Ashu never rests until he gets what he wants. So he found out a place where if we go personally they give us a badge in 5 minutes. You pay a bit extra for taking that fast-track service, but at least you are safe in a way you won't get a ticket even when you parked correctly because you didn't have ( I mean your car) that Badge ! So we took a small diversion on the way to Berlin and went there deciding to have it irrespective of we drive or don't drive in the city. And not to mention we ended up driving everywhere.

First i was thinking to write a diary post day-wise, but now I am not. So now you have to bear with my random rambling about the trip.

We had lots of fun, it's a great place. Noticeable contrast with Netherlands is wider roads, fun to drive. And while talking about roads how can you miss cars... not only in show rooms / on display but also on roads, and we were quite surprise at the speed of those vehicles ! We knew there is no speed limit that people follow on German highways, but in city?

We could see people racing even around centre area like AlexanderPlatz on their bikes and cars ! Amazing !

But yes in a way it felt home...hehe

Other contrast thing about Berlin is it's past and it's present. Present gives you all the possibilities to have fun in a way you want but when you are there as a tourist and you are interested in those touristy places to visit, it is totally opposite feeling while going through all the history, eventhough we all know about Holocaust and Berlin wall, but when we are actually standing at that place, it is certainly different. When i came out of that small exhibition-cum- documentation lobby on Jewish victims at Holocaust Memorial, i actually felt depressed.

But yes, world has moved on, Berlin has moved on and It helped me also to move on from that feeling !

Other noticeable thing, Berlin never sleeps, whatever time we went back hotel at night, or didn't went back... there were always people on road. We never found it as deserted that it can scare us !

And night clubs and bars, it looks so quite outside but when you enter one there is a whole underground world with people drinking, dancing or may be having drugs... in short having fun in the way they like. And we were even amazed at their soundproof systems, not a drop of that chaotic noise outside those doors !

Aaaah and do you know what was most memorable place to visit in Berlin? TV Tower... i strongly recommend, you have to see it to believe... hehe sorry just kidding, actually it was the most disappointing experience.

We went there on Easter Sunday evening. Actually we went there in the morning and saw that there is hours of waiting, and we can only buy tickets for 2.5 hours in advance. We decided we already had a nice city top view from Berliner Dom, so better we visit this tower at night and we can have dinner there at revolving restaurant at the top of tower with mind-blowing night view of the city. Yes, very nice plan. So we went back there around 8:30 pm, and stand in a ticket queue for quite some time. Actually i didn't stand i was relaxing while Anuj and Deepti queued up for tickets ;o)

After some wait we had tickets and on display we could see that meant more than one hour of waiting. We waited there half-dead for more than hours. At 10: 30 pm we were standing against elevator, and as we entered it we were informed where can we find what and also that restaurant was closed and have a pleasant stay !

That meant no dinner with nice night view of city, well then atleast we shall enjoy the view then right? Nop, the glasses were not very clean, they were hazy, we could see through that but that provided zero possibilities with photography which we were hoping for ! We started walking around for a view and in less than 5 mins, we were done. It wasn't that big area, it was crowded, we wanted to be here since we arrived in Berlin, we paid €10.50 p.p., waited for hours tired to come up here,and there was no possibility of clear view for photography and we were hungry !

Can you imagine how we felt that moment? Yes most disappointing moment in that over-all a lot of fun trip, but but but, there is a silver lining now tv tower is synonymous for a nice laugh for all four of us, part of it and we did end up cracking jokes on the name of TV tower later in the trip !

Ahh and not to forget that resulted in we searching for a restaurant to have dinner and resulting in we eating pizza at one of Italian place at 11:45 pm at night !

When i am talking about late dinner i cannot forget this other night. As everyday we went hotel hardly before 1:00 - 2:00 am, we decided on the last day that lest take some rest in the evening so that we are not too tired to enjoy the night life of Berlin. we cam back to hotel around 7:45 pm, decided we take rest for one and half hour or so and then go out, have dinner and then go to some pub or club.

Ok so we relaxed, in fact we fallen asleep in our respective rooms, at around 22:45 our phone rang, Thanks Anuj for that. it took us a few more minutes to get ready and leave hotel and we decided to some other place for dinner than those Italian restaurants and steak house. We searched from some Spanish restaurant with failed attempts, then too tired and hungry we decided to go for our own Indian meal, first restaurant we put in our navigator showed 15 kms away from where we were at the time, but we took the risk and drove there... it was really a risk as it was closed, now we drove back to main area near Alexanderplatz, searching for anything which was open at that time, hardly anything open. It started feeling like we are going to spend this night dining on drinks !

It was nearing to 24:00 hrs, Many dining places were already closed and some were closing, and when we all were about to give up we decided to have a last look at that left lane. We drove for hardly two minutes and we saw a big lighted place names "BOMBAY", an Indian restaurant which was open at this hour. We still asked them if they were open and letting us in, they happily did. As soon as we sat we got a plate of salad very similar to how we get it back home and we knew that we were at the right place. And we were ! It was on of the best Indian food we have had in restaurant in whole Europe. Staff was very friendly. One would have seen our faces, all lit up and happy by the end of the meal. All in good mood, may be as a side effect of over-eating ! We were so full that we decided no dessert, but may be they also like us the same way we like their food they gave us complimentary Indian dessert "Gulab Jamun" ... aaah some more over-stuffing... hehehe

So that was one of most pleasant things happened in the trip.

To sum it up, we had a lots of fun through out he trip.
I will recommend you to visit Berlin, if you haven't yet. We had a great fun trip, love it !