Like a lot of the buildings in this part of Berlin, there are no numbers on either the apartments, or the door bells, just a space for the name of the apartments occupants. (and no … I haven’t met David Bowie yet )

Photo taken April 18, 2014 at 06:51PM

http://flic.kr/p/nbBjWw

Flensburger Dunkel is as the name says, a dark beer, but despite it’s clarity, one that had a decent body to it. The third of a litre bottles with the ceramic tops go for about 0.79 euros at my local supermarket, so about $1.20 Australian

Photo taken April 18, 2014 at 10:21PM
http://bit.ly/1mcUmYb

Schönhauser Allee
Train heading towards Senefelderplatz disappears underground soon after leaving Eberswalderstrasse

Photo taken April 19, 2014 at 02:25AM
http://flic.kr/p/nb8cA4

Danziger strasse
Parking with your rear wheels in the gutter and your nose on the footpath appears to be legal,at least “with parking ticket or resident parking permit”

Outside bar
Not all the street art you see is non-commercial nor salubrious

mural
This mural wraps around the corner over the ground floor of a bulding – Sredzkistrasse and Hagenauerstrasse

I’m just working through some of my photos from Berlin with a bit more time to look at them. One of the more prolific street artists is El Bocho, and one of his signature pieces are melancholy looking girls, often with “I miss my … ’ sorts of sayings.

From my perspective he probably has his work defaced more than most – the pieces I found having tags or other graffiti over most of them.

At NO FIRE NO GLORY Kaffee Bar

Kaffee mit Tracey and a lemon tart to die for. #amib

http://4sq.com/cu6iHr
via IFTTT

The place we are living in, like the rest of the buildings on the block, is only one apartment thick. As a result the block is hollow with a substantial green space. In this block that is used for a playground, some vegetable plots and gardens.
http://bit.ly/1jbtJfU

Good Friday – a couple of days into the trip

Inspired by the travel notes of one of my colleagues I thought I’d jot down some initial thoughts about the trip so far.

1. It’s a very long way – the trip from Brisbane to Berlin with changes in Singapore and Helsinki is more than 30 hours of travel, and little of it comfortable. However breaking the flight for an overnighter on the way seems counterproductive as the immigration/customs side of the trip is the most tedious part
2. Not all airlines are equal – Etihad from Brisbane to Singapore was a much more comfortable flight than Finnair from Singapore to Helsinki. On both the staff were more than friendly and competent but the Finnair is just that little more cramped, and has fewer facilities.
3. Entering Europe is a breeze – we entered the Schengen area via Helsinki, and while security checks of our hand luggage was thorough it wasn’t over the top. Berlin was shock as Tegel was like entering via a country airport – we picked up our luggage from the conveyor and walked through the door to the taxi rank.
4. AirBnB accommodation is great – none of us had used AirBNB before but found the experience after arriving terrific. Our host was in town to meet us, show us through the place, explained everything that needed explaining and then left us to recuperate from our flight. Main thing to look for – make sure it has free wifi 🙂
5. Transport – our major expenditure so far has been on month long tickets for Berlin’s AB zone. It covers rail and bus and we made sure we bought the flexible monthly rather than the calendar monthly as we are here for part of April and part of May. We caught three trains and two buses yesterday so I suspect at €78 Euro it will be a bargain!

Sim cards – there are a range of SIM cards for mobile phones available, all about €10. The three of us bought ours at the same time from the O2 store so have free calls and SMS between them. Other calls inside Germany are 9c a minute. We upgraded with a 500Mb data package for the month, and some extra call top up, so for €24 we are set for the duration. Our main concern was we needed to activate everything in store with the English speaking assistant as the normal method is to ring a number but that is all in German. The O2 assistant was more than helpful even though the three of us took all his time for more than half an hour.