You are now entering the American Sector

Michael had to leave early this morning for work which left me to get on with finding somewhere to live. After a couple of hours trawling ads, emailing people and not getting through to anyone on the phone my hunger was growing to such an extent that my apprehension about the language barrier forced me to go out in search of food.

I decided to head somewhere touristy so I wouldn't feel quite so stupid struggling to order something as simple as a baguette (which I did, while again accidentally buying fizzy water, I hate that stuff).

So I headed to Checkpoint Charlie, one of the former borders between the West and East sides of Berlin. I was there last time but didn't have much of a look round, and to be honest I didn't this time really. At some point I'll have a look round the museums there.

While I was there I had a look in one of the many gift shops and bought a book on the history of Germany after the Second World War, as I don't know a whole lot about Germany in that time, and it's a big part of Germany so it should be an interesting read.

I then walked into the old 'East Berlin' along a long road which is now a shopping street with a lot of expensive looking shops, including a Bugatti showroom (see previous entry) and no less than THREE H&M stores. Quite an ironic turn of events really, a win for Capitalism to be sure.

There was also a Mini shop, which looked like it sold more merchandise than actual cars, and had a Mini stuck to the wall:

Once I'd come to the end of the shopping street I headed for Alexanderplatz as it started to rain, on the way I snapped the following photo:

I think it might look better without the tower in the background, it should be simple enough to clone out in Photoshop.

Perhaps not the best day for apartment finding but I had a good look around part of Berlin and I rang up a sister of a friend of Michael's about a German language course, which I'll be going to apply to tomorrow morning.