this is the voice of re:mote induction.Tuesday, December 16, 2003
information wants to be free - afterword - having, to some degree, anticipated how the weekend in berlin would go, we decided to take the monday in the city to recover. with the sunday night not running quite so late we were able to get up earlier in the day. heading into mitte about lunch time we had brunch in a bakery at the hackersmacht (?), which i had visited on the last day we were there before.
from there we were round the corner from the museum island/berlin dom, so we did a walk past there. that whole area is filled with old buildings and things to see, given the weekend's fatigue, and the fact that museums aren't open on mondays, we just did a walk past. this led us to the intersection with freidrichstrasse, from which we headed down to check point charlie, then past the topography of terror/berlin wall exhibit. from there we headed down to potsdammer platz, and into the sony centre.
this was a hive of activity, looking like there was perhaps an ice rink about to be set up, certainly the place was filled with folk putting up lighting rigs and the like. hanging above the fountain was a huge replica of the ring from lord of the rings, obviously in preparation for the return of the king opening this week. while we were there we popped into a wee cafe, filling in warm drinks, since things were starting to get dark and cold again. still not really 100% we decided rather than walking about too much more we would head in the direction of dinner.
the cafe orange restuarant in oranienburgerstrasse was one we visited in october and enjoyed the food. so we got the train up to the station and went there for drinks followed by food. after dinner we wondered round the corner to schwarzenraben, which was another place which we had particularly enjoyed last time round. while our favourite waitress wasn't working that night we still had a good night. plans to go to the reichstag at night went out the window though, and we stayed there till after 12.
tuesday was the day we were heading back, but the flight wasn't till 5ish. so we reckoned that ostbahnhof should be big enough for us to leave our bags - and we were in luck, dumping our bags into a big locker and grabbing breakfast in the station. which turned out to be ill-advised, as the toast i ordered looked as though it had barely seen a toaster, and tasted several days old. but hey, i could have ordered chips and cheese the night before with dire results, like certain members of the team...
from ostbahnhof we trecked up to the experimental record shop dense, where we all bought some CDs, though some more than others. having heard of a couple of other record shops in the area we checked those out as well, though none really bore fruit in the same way. which left us time to head back to ostbahnhof, grab our bags, and back out to the airport at schonefeld.
flying back the berlin to stansted part went fine, we went through, hung out, got on plane, flew. but arriving in stansted we found that it was fog bound. which was probably one of the factors in why it took longer for the desk to open for check in. that done we went through and had dinner, in the garfunkels this time, which had served well on previous trip. though this time it took ages to get seated, which was annoying.
from there we were through to the gate on time for boarding, but as we did they announced that our flight was delayed. which gave us another hour and a half to kick about, read, stress out about how late we were going to get home. eventually our flight took off, about an hour and half late due to fog. which got us into prestwick about 12.30, and after the last train. luckily we were able to get a lift, and by the time we got back to mine and i then took j0hn home it was 2.30. the end of another festival trip.
from there we were round the corner from the museum island/berlin dom, so we did a walk past there. that whole area is filled with old buildings and things to see, given the weekend's fatigue, and the fact that museums aren't open on mondays, we just did a walk past. this led us to the intersection with freidrichstrasse, from which we headed down to check point charlie, then past the topography of terror/berlin wall exhibit. from there we headed down to potsdammer platz, and into the sony centre.
this was a hive of activity, looking like there was perhaps an ice rink about to be set up, certainly the place was filled with folk putting up lighting rigs and the like. hanging above the fountain was a huge replica of the ring from lord of the rings, obviously in preparation for the return of the king opening this week. while we were there we popped into a wee cafe, filling in warm drinks, since things were starting to get dark and cold again. still not really 100% we decided rather than walking about too much more we would head in the direction of dinner.
the cafe orange restuarant in oranienburgerstrasse was one we visited in october and enjoyed the food. so we got the train up to the station and went there for drinks followed by food. after dinner we wondered round the corner to schwarzenraben, which was another place which we had particularly enjoyed last time round. while our favourite waitress wasn't working that night we still had a good night. plans to go to the reichstag at night went out the window though, and we stayed there till after 12.
tuesday was the day we were heading back, but the flight wasn't till 5ish. so we reckoned that ostbahnhof should be big enough for us to leave our bags - and we were in luck, dumping our bags into a big locker and grabbing breakfast in the station. which turned out to be ill-advised, as the toast i ordered looked as though it had barely seen a toaster, and tasted several days old. but hey, i could have ordered chips and cheese the night before with dire results, like certain members of the team...
from ostbahnhof we trecked up to the experimental record shop dense, where we all bought some CDs, though some more than others. having heard of a couple of other record shops in the area we checked those out as well, though none really bore fruit in the same way. which left us time to head back to ostbahnhof, grab our bags, and back out to the airport at schonefeld.
flying back the berlin to stansted part went fine, we went through, hung out, got on plane, flew. but arriving in stansted we found that it was fog bound. which was probably one of the factors in why it took longer for the desk to open for check in. that done we went through and had dinner, in the garfunkels this time, which had served well on previous trip. though this time it took ages to get seated, which was annoying.
from there we were through to the gate on time for boarding, but as we did they announced that our flight was delayed. which gave us another hour and a half to kick about, read, stress out about how late we were going to get home. eventually our flight took off, about an hour and half late due to fog. which got us into prestwick about 12.30, and after the last train. luckily we were able to get a lift, and by the time we got back to mine and i then took j0hn home it was 2.30. the end of another festival trip.
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