Sue and Paul Connolly: Berlin, Bears and Bunkers.

After such an awesome break in Mongolia staying with Rod, Aaggii and Tuggsuu our next port of call was revisiting Berlin staying longer this time. We were meeting up with Tom and both of us were looking forward to seeing him since we parted company in Ireland at the end of July. Tom was now travelling solo as Owen had headed back to Geraldton in August. Tom's hostel was very close to our hotel near Alexander Platz. It was great to see him again and to listen to his travelling tales. Beers at the bar then off for a bite to eat. Tom suggested we do a walking tour of the city with one of the tour groups.

The walking tour was very interesting and very thought provoking as I was reading Stasiland stories behind the Berlin Wall by Australian author Anna Funder who had lived and worked in Berlin. As we were walking to the meeting point of the tour we came across some activists outside the Russian Embassy protesting about Greenpeace protestors who had been detained by the Russians. Paul not missing an opportunity for a cause had a chat to them about the issues and then a photo shoot. The tour was well organised and took around 2 hours. Some of the areas we covered on our tour were Brandenburg Gate, State Opera, Bebelplatz scene of the Nazi Bookburning, Hitler's Bunker (Now a car park) Checkpoint Charlie and lots more. With lots to think about we headed straight to a bar for a beer.

The next day Paul who was hanging out for a kayak tour and a hot rod tour did both of these and I declined the invitation to join him to walk around Berlin. I headed back to some of the historic places that had been noted down from the walking tour.

PAUL'S PARAGRAPH........the kayak tour was a bit of an ezy-pezy with a young guide named Lars who was a uni student. One girl did the whole trip with her high heels on - oh well. I did a quick change and a cross town taxi trip to start my hot rod tour. I was 10 minutes late which was a bit of a worry as I was their only customer. Initially the guys were not going to do the tour but decided to go ahead with it as I was leaving Berlin the next day. The tour cost 70€ for two hours, but the first and last vehicles in each group are to be tour guide driven, so it really wasn't a cost effective exercise for the operators. None the less, the tour went ahead with me as their sole participant, and it was a real buzz hurtling around the streets of Berlin at up to 55kph in a small petrol driven hot rod. I've never seen so many pedestrians pointing, smiling and taking photos in my life - well worth the experience.