Berlin (part one)

It's holiday season. Part two of my summer break has just finished. Four days in Berlin.

Unusually, we travelled first class. Not because we're flash bastards. All the cheap second class had been sold when we booked. Not that mattered to Andrew. He loves travelling first class. He'd done his research and learned of the location of the first class lounge in Amsterdam Centraal.

We arrived well before our train for that reason. A visit to the lounge. Andrew was very excited. "Have you been here before?" the lady on the door asked. "No" "Help yourselves to drinks. No eating is allowed." OK. I settled down with a Bavaria 8.6 and the Financial Times.

When the kids when for a second drink after 25 minutes, the lady on the door rushed over. "Only one drink per person!" Very friendly. She contemplated putting the crown cork back onto a cola Andrew had just opened. She could have told us about the one drink limit when we came in. Andrew had been so looking forward to it. Bloody jobsworth.

Five minutes after departure Lexie asked for the first time "Can we go to the bar, dad?" I relented after thirty minutes. It was handily placed in the carriage next to ours. German trains are so civlised. They have a bar. One that even sells half-decent beer. Franziskaner Hefeweizen. In a proper glass. I ordered one. The kids went for the healthfood choice: sweets. (Though Lexie did initiailly say "I want vodka!")

After a while, we even got a seat. About halfway down my second Franziskaner. We watched the countryside race by. Well, not exactly race. we were still in Holland. The countryside never really races in Holland. 160 kph maximum.

Three Poles were sitting in a corner. I don't want to indulge in steroetyping, but they did have a shocking amount of drink on their table. Of various sorts. Beer, wine, vodka. About half the bottles were empty. The woman of the party, smartly dressed, middle-aged, occasionally engaged in loud, laughing conversation with passing passengers. I say conversation. It was more a monologue, with just embarrassed foot-shuffling on the other side. One of her male companions had a great tash. Lech Walensa style. You never see a western European with a tash like that.

Lexie always gets fed up after half an hour. Me and Andrew had been happily sitting in the bar for 90 minutes when Lexie appeared. "Mum says you have to come back." "When I've finished this beer." "Mum says now." "Tell her I'll be 5 minutes."

One advantage of first class seats is the presence of normal mains sockets. Lexie's portable DVD player's batteries only last two hours. With a socket to plug it into it was good for the whole 6.5 hour journey. He watched Star Wars 6 for about the seven hundred and twentieth time. I filled in Sudoku. I even finished the 3 star one.

I'd never been to Hauptbahnhof before. (Trains from Amsterdam used to stop at Bahnhof Zoo and Friedrichstrasse.) A brand, spanking new station, close to the Reichstag and governent buildings. And bugger all else. It's just on the western side of where the Anti-fascist Protection Barrier* once ran. Luckily Berlin has an excellent public transport system. Our hotel was just half a dozen stops way on the S- and U-Bahn.

I say hotel. Hostel** is the correct term, as Andrew kept reminding me every time I mentioned our hotel. "It's a hostel, dad." I know, I know. Just a slip of the tongue. We'd got a luxury 4-bed room. It had a rather nice ensuite bathroom. And homemade bunk beds. Mine squeaked like crazy at the at the mere twitch of a toe. But what do you expect for 60 euros a night? And it was only 50 metres away from the very centre of the beer festival.

Handy for the supermarket, too. That's just on the other side of the road. We stocked up there on essentials. Beer, wine, more beer, rolls, cheese, more beer. The selection wasn't bad. Mostly pale lager, of course. And German. But they did stock pale Bock from Bürgerbräu and pale and dark Kindl Bock. They seemed like a good choice.

We had A Plan. I'd even written it down on paper. For Thursday evening it was "Eat in Brauhaus Mitte." Before you comment, I know that it doesn't have the best of reputations. But, after comparing menus on the internet, it seemed to offer what we wanted at the right price. And eating, not drinking, was our priority.

It's a funny old place. The front is normal enough. Steps up to a terrace and the main entrance. But at the rear it just ends and a shopping centre begins. With no intervening wall. It's as if the back of the building has been demolished and replaced by shops. It being hot, we sat on the terrace. Great view of Alexanderplatz station and the trains and S-Bahns scurrying through it.

I ordered liver and mash and a Dunkles. I've been a bit reluctant to order mash since getting packet stuff in Sion in Cologne. Surely it couldn't happen again? Well it did. Why do they do it? Andrew's fried potatoes were freshly made and excellent "Do you want to swap spuds, Andrew?" "No, dad. Yours look crap."

The Dunkles was a hazy pale brown with a vague flavour of caramel and hops. Though they struggled against the dulling effect of loads of yeast. There may have been a touch of liquorice,too. But that could have been wishful thinking. I gave it 40 out of 100. Dolores's Hefeweizen beer was significantly better. You know something? The best Dunkles I've had from a German-style brewpub in the last 5 years was in Golfbräu. And that's in Tunisia.

We didn't linger after eating. Back at our hotel ("Hostel, dad"), we finished the evening in the garden, drinking a bottle of wine. Just me and Dolores, not the kids. They had soft drinks. Next to us, a group of Swiss youths got stuck into a bottle of schnapps. They even had ice. Now there's organisation.

And that was it for day one. Not much beer-drinking, I know. But the festival didn't start until the next day.

* The official DDR name for the wall.

** Pegasus Hostel
Str. der Pariser Kommune 35,
10243 Berlin.
hostel@pegasushostel.de
Telefon: 0049 (0) 3029 7736 0

Brauhaus Mitte
Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13,
10178 Berlin.
Tel. 030 - 3087 8989
Fax: 030 - 3087 8988
Email: info@brauhaus-mitte.de
Homepage: http://www.brauhaus-mitte.de/