Auf Wiedersehen!

It has been such a long time since I've blogged that I'm back in the UK now. It's quite surreal being back: I marvelled at the fact Asda was open on a Sunday, that I could buy skimmed milk and that I didn't have to pay a pfand for my glasses in a bar we visited last night. Sadly, the bar closed at 2am :( 

Some things I've been doing since I last posted:

Boat tour: We took an hour long boat tour from Friedrichstrasse with Stern. For 11 euros it wasn't bad, but it would've helped if he'd given us the audio guide from the beginning! Definitely a great way to check out Berlin

Lange Nacht die Opern und Theater: This takes place on the last weekend in April and involves 50 of the city's opera houses and theatres performing short pieces. Your ticket gets you entry to all places, a shuttle bus around(plus use of the Ubahn and Sbahn) and a party in the Volksbuhne afterwards. We had a great night, seeing a beautiful musical piece in the Konzert haus and the party in the Volksbuhne was pretty fun too!It is definitely recommended, although plan your route well in advance first!

Inside of the Konzerthaus

Parks: Berlin has so much beautiful green space, it's hard to visit them all. The most obvious is the Tiergarten(complete with the Cafe am Neuen See). Other parks I've loved are Treptower Park(on the river) and Tempelhof(an old airport that is now a park). Gorlitzer Park is a cool place for chilling out. 
 

Tempelhof park

Neuen See, Tiergarten

If you venture just a little outside of Berlin you can find some really beautiful and serene places. Grunewald is really pretty, with some wonderful houses and the haunting Gleis 17, which was used to deport Jewish people from Berlin to concentration camps during WW2. I also visited Friedrichshagen, a cute village on the eastern side of Berlin and the Mugglesee, which is really cute!

Gleis 17, Grunewald

Eating: As always, I've been trying out new places. I finally tried the pizza naan at W and it was so good. Other places I've been include Jimmy Woo in Neukolln. The Jimmy Woo special soup is incredibly tasty and so big,  A great Italian in Friedrichshain is Fliegender Tisch where the food is really yummy and the service is great-plus its a really cute restaurant!

I also tried a couple of other brunch places: 100 Wasser does a great value brunch on a sunday (10 euros including tea and coffee) which has a lot of hot food and some German food in the mix. Alberts in Wedding do a pretty good value brunch on weekdays for 8 euros, but its not particularly veggie friendly. My favourite has to be Cafe Morgenrot, which allows you to pay what you can afford for brunch(minimum of 5 euros). It also happens to be entirely vegetarian and SO yummy.

Bars and clubs: We went to FritzClub at Ostbahnhof, which I liked-it has three different rooms with three different types of music. Plus it wasn't particularly expensive. I also really liked Brunnen70 because it was so enormous and interesting. The furniture was cool-lots of space to lounge around and there was slam poetry in one room, amazing brownies in another. Plus three dancefloors!Its quite tricky to find as its tucked away behind a furniture shop and has no obvious door sign(besides the queue of people streaming out of the door). White Trash had really great live music and the food was SO yummy. For a more relaxed evening, this place has a great atmosphere!

There are also numerous beach bars in Berlin, complete with sand and deckchairs. The one opposite Hauptbahnhof is my favourite, but there is also one at Ostbahnhof on the river and one on top of the shopping centre at Schoenhauser Allee!

Beach bar at Hauptbahnhof

So my time in Berlin is over. I've seen and done so much I can't write it all down. I also met some lovely people who made my time there all the more wonderful!
For anyone thinking of applying for the Leonardo programme, don't think twice-it'll be such a great experience for you! Thanks if you've been reading my blog-I hope you've found it useful :)

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