FROM SHANGHAI TO LONDON BY TRAIN: Germany: Berlin

I got off at a surprisingly small station. I’d been expecting a Waterloo style station but instead found myself in a six platform station which just a few small shops and cafes. I went immediately to a big are with “DB” on the front, assuming this was some kind of reservation office. I found the international desk and told the fluent English speaking lady what I wanted. Now, I had a price of about £80 in mind for the two journeys together, as I’d seen this price on the internet. Instead, she said the Berlin to Brussels train would be €115 and the two hour Eurostar from Brussels to London would be €225. That’s €340 altogether, over £200! I said there must be a cheaper way, especially the Eurostar fare. She assured me there wasn’t. Just then a younger with carefully designed facial hair and a wry semi-smile took over. So I explained everything to his again and he gave me the same prices.
“But I know the Eurostar price is cheaper on the internet” I said, pleading with his static face.
“That’s the cheapest” he insisted. “OK, take me as far as Brussels. I’ll work it out myself from there” I replied.
“OK, as you wish” he said, with the manner of someone who had just listened to a friend state that he wanted a few days stint in Las Vegas to repay all his debts.
I suddenly remembered there was a youth discount and the Berlin to Brussels price was reduced to €74. Within thirty minutes I had checked in to a local hostel, been online and booked a train in two days time from Brussels to London for £40, a third of the price he assured me was the cheapest, even though my having to ask for the youth discount clearly contradicted this.
Berlin looked good in the low early evening sun as I wandered around looking for a restaurant. I got speaking to a Korean girl who was studying piano in Dresden. She walked me to a cheap Italian place which turned out to be very nice. In my random wanderings, I had picked up a free booklet in a Dunkin’ Donuts which at first glance looked like some advertisement supplement but was in fact a great little guide of the city, featuring maps, restaurant and bar reviews and details of where and when you could meet in order to get a free 4 hour walking tour of the city. I notice a nice review of a jazz bar so I took the metro and spent the evening there, drinking excellent blonde beer and chatting to an old man from Leipzig who worked for Amnesty International and had worked with many leaders of the world. He had even dealt personally with Nelson Mandela. We became beer-fuelled best friends and he made me promise to write to him.
That night as I went to bed in the hostel, I noticed one guy across the ten-bed room who was vaguely looking at me. It was late and I wanted to turn the light out after some reading. As I started reading, I noticed he went to do the same.

When I woke up, I peered over and saw the he was just waking up. I got out my book and started reading again in an attempt to quickly warm up my brain and sure enough, he started reading too. Isn’t doppelganger a German word?
I went for a shower in a strange large room with a timer button for the water and transparent doors. Five minutes later he came in to have a shower. Was this guy trying to talk to me or something? I quickly forget about it as I went for an overly sweet breakfast of apple pie, coconut macaroon and coffee at a local bakery. I checked out and put my big bag away before going to Dunkin’ Donuts for 12.30pm, the meet up time for the free tour. It was simply great. For hours me were shown around Berlin’s most famous spots with all the interesting stories entertainingly told. I met new people, learnt important new things and my love of Berlin quickly blossomed.
The most interesting thing I learnt was how the fall of the Berlin wall came to be. Summarised, an important member of the German government was a famous alcoholic and had forgotten to attend an important meeting to discuss ways in which the government could appear to be helping the people to once again be able to cross the wall. At this time the government had no such intention but as protests were escalating, they just wanted to offer a phoney carrot. In bold print, some people could cross the wall but the small print would show that actually nothing had changed. So one day, this important government guy was giving a speech when he noticed a memorandum about the missed meeting, entitled “meeting about the new freedom to cross the wall.” So he included his into his speech which suddenly caused the bored journalists and officials to listen. He simply announced that people could free cross the wall, based on the wording of the memorandum. One journalist jumped on this, asking when this new freedom came into effect. The question was repeated as the government guy hastily improvised and famous said “as of now” and that was it. The crowds formed at the wall, all demanding to be let across and they were, albeit with water canons feebly trying to deter them.
During the tour I had bumped into an Italian girl on two occasions and it was a little awkward. She was clearly shy and we had already done the “goodbye and have a good life” thing at the end of our first meeting. But at the end of out second meeting, I fumbled and said “well, see you… again” and kept cursing myself for sounding like a stalker. As it happened, we met a third time as I was walking through the city centre in the evening. We went for dinner and she really opened up. But then she started talking about letting God into my life and I didn’t quite know how to respond.

My over night sleeper to Brussels was in fact just a seat. It seemed that the DB facial hair guy didn’t like me after all and had booked me a seat, even though I clearly asked for a sleeper. And who followed me into the six-seat compartment three minutes later? Yes. Mr creepy copy-everything-I-do man. Having never spoken a word to each other, I opened with “so, we seem to be following each other all the time” to which he agreed, which to me confirmed one of two things. Either he had also noticed we’d been doing a lot of the same things or he really had been actually following me for some unknown reason. But actually he was a nice guy and he had a good chat although I moaned a lot about not having a bed .When I approached the conductor and told her that I had the wrong kind of ticket, she looked at it and said “no, this is right, it’s a seat ticket.”
“No, I’m supposed to have a bed.”
“Oh no no no. This is a seat ticket. It’s a ticket for a seat and you’re in the right place so it’s OK.” Fortunately I had three seats to myself and the arm-rest reclined so I laid down and slept surprisingly well. As I woke up we were just pulling into Brussels.