As soon as I arrived in my hostel I dropped off my rucksack and headed out with a small bag, umbrella in hand. I had been lucky to find a cheap train ticket from Gießen which meant I arrived at two, but because the clouds were pretty dense it was a little gloomy and it spat rain for the rest of the day. Undeterred I strolled the short way to the radio tower, passing through a small park overtaken by the masses of ravens clustered in the trees, on the ground, pretty much everywhere. I’m not afraid of birds but in an empty park with grey wet weather I got out of there as quickly as possible. If you’ve seen Hitchcocks “the birds” you might understand…..

Just down the road from the radio tower I forked out a few euro to get into the dome where I huffed and puffed my way up the winding stairs to see the view from the drop. I then continued around the museum island admiring the old museum buildings from the outside, stopped to take a picture before saying a quick goodbye again to the ravens who had descended from the skies down the river to the trees lining the bank.

I kept walking hoping to reach Brandenburg gate. The amount of police strewed around was the first indication something was up, and at the roadblock halfway to the gate I turned back because I didn’t want to get caught up in the middle of a demonstration. There’s meant to be another protest tomorrow so I’ll have to plan my nightly visit to the tor around it…..

Cue more wandering, more old buildings and lots more rain before settling in a small asian restaurant (“creasian”) near the hostel. I could have inhaled several kilo of the dumplings, but the soups were missing a little something. My first impression of Berlin is okay, I’m reserving my opinion until I see more of the city. For now I’m just glad to be here having almost missed by first trains stop because I was so engrossed in a preparing a job application! All work and no play……