Drowning in Berlin
It’s taken me over three weeks to start writing this post. Our plan when picking Berlin, a city we know and love, as an easy Christmas break after a testing year proved futile from the start.
Lufthansa held our luggage hostage for 4 days. Pretty bad for a 6-day trip. We only got our luggage back after many phone calls. The airline closed the case and won’t compensate. It's a long story detailed on Twitter that I didn’t want to dwell on here.
But, really, it was the bigger part of the trip.
To say Lufthansa’s lack of concern completely clouded my trip is a severe understatement. My experience has (unless they have a change of heart and compensate us) forever altered my opinion of one of our go-to airlines and my fond memories of a favourite city have been shattered.
On day 2, when we were waiting for an email to let us know the luggage had arrived at our hotel - as is customary when luggage goes missing - we went out as we would have, albeit in the only clothes we had. The first thing we did was to walk into the colourful Ritter Sport shop and buy enough chocolate for 3 months - we already have enough in the house to last us for about 9 months so that's chocolatering for 2024 sorted.
And I love the Ampleman (the figure on the Berlin pedestrian lights) shop so quite a bit of hard-earned €€ went there.
On day 3 of wearing the same outer clothes (I travel with spare smalls), we went on our pre-booked day trip to see both Leipzig and my friends who have moved there. They met us off the train at Europe’s largest train station, another example of Germany’s grand stations, for a population of a little more than half a million. They showed us around, took us on a walk through a big park to get to their neighbourhood where we had an excellent Vietnamese meal (although this was a low hour for me so I didn’t eat much) and then to their home where they had offered us some provisions to keep us going.
We asked them to call the airline again, thinking a native German accent would help. The hold-up this whole time was waiting for a courier to get the luggage to our hotel. They got the case reopened so we could hopefully collect our luggage and we had a number to call the airport directly.
I felt lifted when I left their home and got the tram back into town to look around the shops. I finally - and reluctantly - bought one item of clothing, a jumper in the TK Maxx sale. A jumper I’ve now hidden at the end of my wardrobe rail that I won’t be wearing again for a long, long time to avoid thinking about this episode.
This is why someone who loves clothes as much as I do does not see delayed luggage as an excuse for a shopping trip. I only want good memories attached to what I wear.
Luckily we did have a washing machine and drier in the hotel plus central heating in our room so we at least could wash our clothes.
So their call seemed to do the trick. We called the airport directly after breakfast the next morning (day 4) and they agreed for us to collect. ELATION!
After a few hours spent collecting from the airport, where I don’t think I breathed on the whole journey there, we celebrate recapturing our escaped luggage (and bears); first a visit to the smart Kadewe where we picked up (more) Moomin mugs in their sale followed by dinner at Indian Village. The busiest we’d see this place but I get the feeling they will always find room for two fans. I resisted going here until now as I didn’t want this fabulous restaurant associated with any bad times. Feeling happier, and because I habitually never have alcohol with Indian food, I stuck to chai. And then they bought a complimentary Mango Schnapps after the meal, after carefully checking it was OK for me to drink alcohol.
On day 5, with the luxury of a change of clothes (I don’t want to see ‘that’ outfit for a long time) I loved going to the last stop on the line Pankow, and then picking up a bus to go beyond where it felt more rural. Then, afterwards, we rode the bus all the way back into town and discovered the coffee experience at Ben Rahim. Buses are much more comfortable when the roads are smooth and we get to see so much.
One of the things we struggle with when we’re away on New Year’s Eve is dinner as so many places are only geared up for NYE celebrations. So often we travel home that day. As there was a quality Restaurant Shezan attached to the hotel, we managed to book and their excellent smiling staff (in contrast to the hotel) even changed the set menu to make it less meat-orientated. It was fabulous, and we took the rest of the bottle of white - rare for us but correct for the meal - up to our mini-fridge to finish over the next 24 hours.
Sadly, after this, another nightmare started. We’d been hearing fireworks all day, and this got worse as we attempted to go for at least a walk and see the official fireworks. I don't celebrate NYE so this was against my better judgement but the beloved wanted to see them in his favourite city. A second attempt to step up took place much later in the evening, closer to midnight.
This still proved to be a mistake. Running with all of my layers of winter gear on, when I thought my life was about to end or, at the very least, I was about to lose my hearing or sight, is something I never thought I would need to do.
All I could think of as I was running with my eyes half closed while hunched up, trying to protect my ears, was how many of our European neighbours did not know when the next loud bang was going to come and how close a weapon was to landing on them.
Here, people were doing this for their own amusement.
I always love the newness of the 1st of the month and on New Year’s Day, we went into new territory. We followed nearly all of the East Berlin tour and spent hours learning about the former Societ sector in Lichtenberg . This was the only rain I remember in Berlin and we expected to be at this stop a few minutes. Yet we spent ages reading the history info outside the closed STASI museum. Even though I’ve read loads about this era, including many historical novels, I was keen to find a book to further my education. But this was a day when many shops closed. Sadly the Karl Marx Bookstore & Café Sybille was closed too. After heading back to Alexander Platz for refreshments at Dunkin, we also strolled to Haus des Lehrers (which I’d probably looked up at many times not knowing the significance) and trekked back out to see Café Moskau and Mokka Milk Bar & Kino International before being chased out of the area by more idiotic men lighting fireworks a few feet from us.
For other coffees. the obligatory visit to The Barn, the one in the circus and a new one and a visit to our local spot Coffee Lab. A post-luggage retrieval celebratory coffee at Caffekirsche plus one at Bonanza. Ben Rahim is a new chain to us. With a Middle Eastern flavour, it is extremely popular, extremely expensive and rather lovely.
Foodwise, I managed a Nordfish super before we got the train back from Leipzig after feeling more optimistic. Then having got my appetite back, along with our luggage, we had lunchtime pasta, keeping the idea from the Athens trip as we so often skip eating in the afternoon and end up looking around for a snack as it’s too close to dinner. So Butterbrot did the job with a fresh bowl of pasta to share, even though it took a long time to arrive.
Breakfasts at YadaYada with their €6 orange juice (one to share, please) and No Fire No Glory after which we dog-watched at the nearby market where we learnt we could go to Berlin airport for the luggage rescue operation.
Engelberg was in the neighbourhood of the Sunday flea market we visited last time where I would buy everything if I weren’t having to board a flight to return home.
I drank more alcohol during these few days than any holiday I remember. Sometimes I can go 4 days in before I even think of saying yes to a beer with a burger (again, obligatory). After the luggage debacle, I insisted on a beer and we had one at Burgerneister (another must-do) and one with our meal at the happier end of the trip at Upper Burger.
On the second night, I had a little drink with tapas and then we went to the Mikellar bar later. None of this had any effect on the usual near-tee-total lightweight me. I took no pictures that day and don’t recall where we had tapas but do know I had no appetite and was glad I was able to eat a bit. The complimentary little bottle of fizz the hotel put in our fridge on NYE went undrunk though
Overall, we spent far more than I imagined - much more than in Athens, compensating for our low mood. I am already looking forward to a much different and chilled Christmas 2024.
This trip devastated me. Mostly because we felt ‘Christmas’ had ended prematurely. The Christmas bears that travel with us every year were in the luggage. All the other issues; not having a change of clothes, being able to charge our toothbrush or having any skincare and toiletries are almost secondary. I carry enough toiletries to keep me going for 24 hours in case of any luggage delays. Oddy enough, first time this happened, we were also connecting through Frankfurt and I was thinking about that as we boarded our flight that Wednesday morning.
I was unprepared to buy any make-do stuff to keep us going as I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF at home.
It was an uncharacteristically distressing end to my favourite month and an already challenging year, travel-wise and broken arm-wise.
This was not just due to the lack of care over returning our belongings to us, but because this is the end of a long line of cities we’ve visited that allows its residents to let off loud fireworks in the street.
Who goes on holiday to be more anxious? What kind of holiday is that when you persistently beg to get your belongings back and then are frightened for your life as grown adults pour out onto the street and light mini bombs in front of you?
So yes, I don’t plan to visit anywhere close to NYE unless we are in a country where this is outlawed, like the UK. The only way I will go away for the Christmas week is if we go to a far-flung place like Canada or Japan. It’s the end of an era that started two decades ago.
I don’t want to go to Berlin or Germany for some time.
Each time I have visited Berlin, I’ve had Bowie’s Heroes in my head. It’s telling that I didn’t hum it once during these 6 days. The other regular song, the theme to Deutschland, did pop up now and again, though.
I am glad we persevered to fill the last 2 days with some good memories. Exiting our hotel on the last day, we went to our local, Coffee Lab, which proved to be a fantastic end to our trip. We figured their coffee was good as there was a queue outside each day we passed. We didn’t know if they did breakfast, so the bagels were a bonus on top of the homely welcome.
Then that evening, we landed at Andels for a rooftop cocktail, back in the exact place where this holiday tradition started in August 2012.
December 2023
