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If walking is your thing, Berlin is great for having absolutely no trajectory in mind. No where in the centre is any more than 20 or 30 minutes away by foot, and getting lost can be a lot of fun. You tend to encounter lots of smart, abstract architecture at every turn. Each street has something unique about it. If you’re of the environmental persuasion, you’ll certainly be pleased too.
It’s a short 10-15 minute walk from our hostel in East Berlin along the River Spree to the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate. This is where our tour to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp begins. While we wait, I eat Dunkin Donuts, write a postcard, buy a few souvenirs for people (including a Berlin calendar for my Brother) and take some typically touristy photos of the square.
Isn’t it great? 2 hours and £20 later and you can be 800 miles away in Berlin. My 6 week trek of 3 continents continues in the most pleasing of ways. Arriving somewhere I’m always struck by idiosyncrasies. In Berlin it’s the ubiquitous graffiti. Anything concrete that can be sprayed with an ineligible disarray of scribbles inevitably is – but occasionally it’s done in a semi-artistic manner.
My journey to Scandinavia took an abstract form. Due to Lufthansa’s odd route network, we had to connect both through Frankfurt and Munich in order to reach Stockholm. It was full day travelling, and I could have flown to Asia in the equivalent time, but I’ve never been one to complain about the gift of flight, especially when it’s taking me somewhere I haven’t been before.
I woke up at 5 a.m. to see the sun rising from behind far off skyscrapers – a very appropriate and pensive way to depart the land of the rising sun. Then, later, as we passed through the endless intersections and neon filled streets on our way back up to Narita, I listened to “Jesus And Mary Chain – Just Like Honey” on repeat. Anyone who’s watched Lost in Translation will understand.
