Berlin

Get up times for holidays get sillier. Alarm went off at 2-30am! Left home at 3! Negotiated local roads full of joy riders, burglars and drug dealers safely onto the M62 only to find that it was closed at Rochdale! Luckily the road we had no alternative but to follow lead us fairly quickly onto the road that Tom S uses to cut across to the M60 so we arrived at terminal 1 meet and great with no additional trauma other than going all the way round one roundabout 🙂.
There was a big queue to hand car keys in so I braved the automatic machine and seemed to manage ok, although the proof of the pudding will be if there’s a car awaiting us on our return, or whether we have to get a taxi to Heathrow to collect it.  As if that wasn’t sufficient tech savvy we then had to check our own bags in at EasyJet, including printing out and attaching our own luggage labels. We ended up with 2 tickets for one case so I just put one in my pocket just in case I got lost en route.
Anyway I must have done an excellent job as our cases were virtually the first on the baggage claim (they were already going round when we got there!). We did balk at doing the self passport check but I did do that on returning from Portugal. So, apart from refuelling the plane and piloting it myself I’m now fully competent in all aspects of the flight process 🤔
The upside of such an early flight is that we were in our hotel room by 11-15am. The tour guide took us for a quick orientation walk round, before he had to go back to the airport to meet the other half of our tour party from Bristol who didn’t arrive until 7 hours after us so we get the longer holiday.
We then went out walking, saw the Brandenburg gate, the holocaust memorial etc. But it was very hot and sunny (29 degrees). This always happens if I don’t bother bringing any shorts!
We came across a hotdog cafe that was pure American, including the staff, which was part of the Marriott hotel (so maybe not a surprise!). Mum had a basic hot dog with some onions. I had a Bad Dog which had everything, including every sauce known to man. It was nice tasting but disgustingly sticky and messy to eat so I had a hose down in Marriott’s very classy toilets.
We (well ok, me,) took around a week then to find the river so we could go on a river boat tour as the guide had assured us there were loads of them and they all served coffee and cake (my crafty way of getting Mum to go on one 😉) but we only found one empty boat! So after 15,000 steps we returned to the hotel for some much needed rest.
There is a cool sightseeing idea. A tour guide drives round in an ancient VW and his clients follow him, each driving one of the old East German Trabants and he tells them what they’re driving past by walkie talkie, but very sadly I’ve left my driving licence at home. Mum has brought hers but, unaccountably she doesn’t seem to fancy that experience 😕