Madness! Utter madness! Weeks of silence, and then two great big fat blog entries, one hot on the heels of the other!

Berlin. Ah! What a city! I could totally spend a chunk of time here. A long weekend just wasn't enough - but it was better than nothing. It's ages since I've been up to Berlin. I must do it more often.So, Christian & I drove up with Béné. I'm beginning to recognise whole stretches of the A9 motorway, what with spending so many hours on it the previous weekend to Dresden and now again to Berlin.

The traffic was kinder to us this time though, and we were in Berlin in about five hours from Munich. We headed straight to Aleks' flat, where we were also staying, and dumped our stuff. Béné spent a few hours with Aleks catching up (they know each other from Béné's time in Amsterdam) while Christian & I went for a walk into town, strolling along the Kurfürstendamm, West Berlin's main shopping district (Gucci, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, you name it, it's there) until it started absolutely CHUCKING it down, at which point we dived into a very nice coffee shop.

That evening was Aleks' birthday party. She had managed to borrow a villa - no, really! - in a very posh outskirty bit of town, and the party was WILD! Christian ended up managing the barbecue, whilst I assisted in many different activities (getting the kitchen sorted, barbecue, making sure people had drinks, that sort of thing). The cellar room was converted for the evening into a bar area, a dance floor and a chillout room, whilst upstairs was lounge, kitchen, and terrace (with barbie). There were lots & lots & LOTS of people, and I stayed till four thirty bopping my little socks off with a variety of French, Germans, Dutch, Danes, and Americans.

The next day, Sunday, a bunch of us went to a small lake near the zoo for brunch. The food was great, but the service was dire - Béné ordered a hot chocolate & a croissant; they managed to forget both for almost an hour. In mid-afternoon, we went along to a huge street festival celebrating cultural diversity. It was PACKED! Way too many people for comfort. Christian & I slunk off to a less crowded bit, leaving the others stuck in a huge human traffic jam looking for cocktails. There was a cloudburst but it seemed to skirt around us so we managed to avoid the worst of it. We ended up watching part of the street parade (we got to see lots of Korean nuns bashing gongs) then having a coffee and heading back to Aleks' place.

That evening we went for sushi. It was pretty good! The conversation inevitably turned to the happenings of the night before at the party, and in particular the unfortunate incident that saw Jessica from Amsterdam spitting out her drink all over a guy at the shots bar in the cellar! Her exploits earned her the nickname SprayMalay (she's Chinese-Malaysian actually, but let's not squabble).

We just had time for a spot of breakfast at Aleks' place on Monday morning looking at everyone's photos from the weekend, and then a relaxed coffee in town (at the same coffee shop that Christian & I had found on Saturday) before we headed off back to Munich. Once again, traffic was okay, and we got back to Bénédicte's before sundown. A quick bottle of prosecco & some cheese, then we drove home.

And that, folks, was Berlin!