Watching the snarled traffic nudge its way through dismal weather as my cab slogged along to London City Airport, I worried about all the ends that needed meeting before the close of this month and wondered if I would regret booking my Friday night flight to Berlin for a weekend visit with an old grad school friend to revel in a little Weihnachts spirit. The unusually chaotic scene at the airport seemed to confirm my anxiety. I’d flown out of London City before but had never seen such a mess as during this check-in nightmare. Anyway, I’ll spare you the gory airport details (we’ve all been there!) and skip to the fun part!

A slightly delayed yet expediently short flight later, I found myself at Berlin’s Teigel Airport expressly processed at passport control and with my checked bag already out on the baggage carousel and waiting for me! Nice. How do those Germans do it? They’re so frickin’ efficient it’s ridiculous! Also waiting was my grad school buddy with her new Beemer (ah, she’s done well with her MBA!), keen to whisk us away to her Schöneberg flat for some catching up and weekend strategizing.

Our line of attack planned, we set out Saturday morning to do Berlin in grand style. A mix of the sobering (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and nearby Memorial to Homosexuals persecuted under Nazism) with the delightfully festive (Christmas markets at Charlottenburg and Gendarmenmarkt) and the historic (Brandenburg Gate, the remnants of the Berlin Wall) made for a perfect weekend, with plenty of glüwein and würst and all sorts of yummies (I loved the seasonal grünkohl with ribs!!!) rounding out the tour. 

Interestingly, some of the cooler establishments we hit during the weekend – such as Romantica restaurant with its endearingly sweet décor and its irresistibly savoury menu and the jammin’ blues joint/veritable institution Yorckschlösschen – had Qype stickers placed at their entrances. I took it as a seal of approval and was glad to see I was to be in good hands (and that my host had good taste).

As I said waaay back in August in my Le Eurostar Weekend post, one of the nicest things about London is how well connected it is to the rest of the world (or at least Western Europe) … which is a good thing too! Despite this being my second time to bop about the German capital, I’ve still yet to sample Berlin’s world famous currywurst! Oh the indignity! Berlin, I shall return.

See more pics from (and a little more scribblin’ about) my Berliner December weekend at my ontoTravel blog.

Frohe Weihnachten!
tikichris