Phew, I’m back home in Wales now so that must mean it’s time for a record breaking long blog post. After sampling two more energy drinks earlier this week (Take Off.. tastes cheap, and Effect – a good Red Bull contender) I felt I had the energy to take a quick walking tour of Berlin before my flight home. First task was to work out how the train system operates…. and the answer is very smoothly. You buy a ticket, stamp it, and get on the train – the system appears to work on trust with no gates or barriers to check your ticket. Right, so where is McDonalds? I have to try a MaccyDs when I go away just in case they taste different… So my first stop was in the centre of Berlin. No McDonalds, but we did see some massive building called the Reichstag which looked quite impressive.
This house had a massive front garden well suited to marching around in, and a great big glass dome on top – the queue was sadly too big to wait in on our time limits so we carried on looking for the golden arches. Then we stumbled upon a gate. Not a very good gate cuz it was easy to
get through, no bars or wire or anything, and nothing to swing open. It was here we found a Costa Coffee and made use of their convenient facilities… not as satisfying as a McPee though. Time to cast our search net wider I thought, and we went for a little walk around Berlin’s side-streets. And what do you know, we met Charlie who was looking after his checkpoint. He was asking for a €1 fee in exchange for photographs, so I snuck this little piccy while his gun wasn’t visible. Once he’d let us past (we made a run for it) I could smell the fries, the McGoodness was within grasp with only one final obstacle – someone had p
ut a bloomin’ great big wall in the way. We walked along it for a while, searching for weaknesses or a way over but I’m guessing this had been tried many times going by the messages written all over it. Some sections were even painted with intricate designs and artwork in order to make it more attractive. There was the occasional sentry tower here and there looming ominously over anyone inspecting the wall and some very gloomy buildings which we learnt later were the SS and Gestapo headquarters at one point.
Finally though, we found a way past the wall and the big yellow M greeted us with a smile. A Big Tasty with Bacon later and all was right with the world. Time to catch the flight home…. 

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