Wednesday 30th of December 2009 – Berlin Day Four – Zoo & Tresor
Woke up today and it was snowing, as predicted, real snow not snow that melts in 5 minutes like in London. We went off to the Zoo, as recommended by Jo and what a treat that was. My favourite day so far.
Playful elephants right by the entrance:
scary, adrenalin pumping lions roaring – it felt like the whole room was shaking and it seemed to last a lot longer than just a minute:
Full playlist here:
and lots and lots of beautiful snow. The aquarium was just amazing. Without a shadow of a doubt the best zoo I have ever been to. Always strikes me how gorillas, orangutans, large cats and bears seem to be the unhappiest at zoos. The elephants and giraffes seemed ok.
Photos of Berlin Zoo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/sets/72157622996685147/
Came off the train at Friedrichstraße https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrichstra%C3%9Fe, one of the main streets Berlin, the streets seem to stretch on forever here, whichever way you look… Walked for a bit, drank some mulled wine on a very big square with a big outdoor market: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plasmatika/tags/dayfour/
Lots of snow everywhere, loving it!
Got back to hotel, rested until 9pm and went off to Kreuzberg – Kreuzberg (one of the poorest areas of Berlin?) for the most expensive Chinese meal we ever had (could have got similar in London for 1/3 of the price) – this restaurant was just opposite the Chinese Embassy so maybe that’s why. Two wong tong soups for starters, and nooddles for main, and two drinks, cost nearly 50 euros. Actually, Berlin is turning out to be expensive to eat, due to euro and pounds being the same, and also because we’re eating at touristy places.
It was snowing so much, and the snow was about 40cm deep. We walked to Tresor club – it hadn’t even opened but there was a fairly large queue outside. It cost 7 euros to get in, and the music was tech-house, not my cup of tea. Also the people seemed to be rather conventional, and everyone looked too young (yes, probably because I’m old) – but the live act upstairs was rather good and we stayed there until 3… As we were leaving, we found yet another room we hadn’t noticed, which was playing some very heavy and dark techno, with a lot of strobbing going on, this got on my nerves after a few minutes, so we then left for good.
On the way to the station we decided to check out the other club we had seen on the way to Tresor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KitKatClub, which is meant to be a fetish club where everything goes, but we didn’t know that, and also it wasn’t a particularly wild night, just some heavy metal music, a dragon on the ceiling that spat some fire above our heads and made me scream (I thought something caught fire).
Apparently people are allowed to have sex all over the place there, but tonight it was very sedate (thankfully, watching people having sex isn’t my idea of a good time). I really enjoyed the music though, and had more fun than at Tresor. There were many rooms in there, Berlin buildings seems to be blessed with lots of space, I love that. One of the rooms, the ones with beds we laid on for a bit, looked a bit tacky, with girls dancing on the bar counter, but the decorations on the wall/ceiling were quite nice.
I think we headed home at 5, and there was even more snow, I’d never seen so much of it, so deep. We tried to get into another club, near our hotel, but they were closing. Just as well, as it was time for bed!
Best day so far, and so much happened it felt more like two days.