We booked all of our flights and our hotel using some of my many thousands of BA Air Miles ( or Avios Points, whatever they’re called now ) as this seemed to be a sensible option. What wasn’t so sensible, though, was that the direct flights to Berlin that weekend were all booked up for Air Miles already so we ended up having to take a less direct route, which involved a BA flight to Dusseldorf and then a change to partner airline Air Berlin for the flight over to Berlin. Not only did this mean an unwanted landing and take-off, but it also pushed the price up to a level where EasyJet might actually have been cheaper (normally they aren’t, once you add in bags, and wanting to sit next to your wife). Why? Because each leg of the air miles flight requires payment of the taxes, and the taxes are about 99.99% of the normal listed price anyway. Chunter, chunter. Next time we should either book earlier or fly with someone who doesn’t do air miles.
Having said that though, both legs were nice short one-hour hops with a drink and snack included, and essentially unlimited baggage, and the terminal wasn’t busy, and the bags made it OK.
Incidentally, while we were doing this, the kids were being looked after by my parents.
We arrived in Berlin in some semblance of daylight and jumped fairly quickly onto a regular service bus that was going where we needed, the Best Western on Kantstraße. It took about 15 minutes and then a further 10 minutes to walk from the bus stop.
So far so good. The room booking was in place and the room was OK, and we had a bit of time for a quick snooze.
In the evening we met up with the “tribe” from Redway Runners, most of whom were staying “out east”. To get there we caught the S-Bahn from Charlottenburg into Zoo Station – queue some quoting of U2 lyrics on Facebook. I most certainly was “ready for what’s next” by that stage, although it was more silly juice than laughing gas.
We met the Redway Runners posse on Kurfürstendamm and went to a fairly busy restaurant-pub. I ordered a local delicacy that involved some sausages, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. It was lush and it accompanied my beer very nicely.
Kas was doing her best to not look jealous as she was sipping her way through non-alcoholic beverages.