Christmas in Berlin: Arrivals

Before I left to come to Berlin I'd suggested to my parents that we could have our Christmas here. They liked the idea and once I assured them of my determination to still be here they booked their flights.

My Sister Katie arrived last Friday and my parents arrived on the Saturday. My parents went home today and my sister is leaving tomorrow so for the last week I've been spending Christmas (Weihnacten) with them in Berlin. The next few blog posts will follow the events of the last few days.

First off, arrivals. My sister's flight was due to arrive in Berlin at 10:30pm and we would be going to a CS meetup after she'd arrived. Due to the flight being delayed (thanks to Gatwick, not because of the ever efficient Germans) we arrived at Belushi's around 1:30-2am. The bar was still full but people were beginning to leave for clubs. However, most of the people I know well were still there and I was able to introduce Katie to them.

We stayed and chatted to a few people, I got talking to an Australian girl who was couch surfing in Berlin, and she gave me a lot of good places to visit while my parents were staying. One of the highlights of the evening was seeing a Frenchman stagger off drunk and falling flat on his face. It was a proper full-on faceplant, hilarious.

Despite only being there a couple of hours it was a cool event and I was glad to be able to take my sister to a CS meet in Berlin as she had introduced me to it back in Sheffield. If it wasn't for CS I'd probably be mixing with more Germans and although I'd probably be speaking better German I'd definitely have much less of a social life so I'm very much glad that my sister introduced me to it (despite my initial scepticism).

Saturday, this time when we met to the airport to meet our parents they were there and had arrived early (Ryanair, cheap and they arrive on time). We then got the train to go the apartment in Schöneberg. We had to collect the key from the owner from a nearby restaurant. For some reason, she didn't speak English which I personally find unforgivable for someone who lives in Berlin and rents out apartments to foreigners. Anyway, between my Dad and I we managed to understand what she was telling us and were able to get into the apartment.

The apartment itself was typical Berlin, situated in a rather bland, unassuming building it was in fact very nicely decorated. On the days I'd be sleeping at the apartment I had a rather uncomfortable sofabed to sleep on but that was my only, minor complaint about it.

On Saturday evening we had dinner at the nearby restaurant which took a fair effort to decide what to have as there was no English menu. We then had a look round Potsdamer Platz and the various Christmas Markets. My parents were impressed by the buildings at Potsdamer Platz and I would definitely recommend the Sony Centre as a place to see to anyone who visits Berlin.