Wilkommen

Woke early…never need an alarm when I set one! Met up with my house swap person at the airport…she was lovely and we had a good chat about each house and surrounding areas. Left her and straightforward check in, then chatted on FaceTime with Mt and AR who’s about to go off to Scout camp for a couple of days.
Slept most of the way on the plane, then breezed through arrivals and found my way to the train station and hopped straight on the train…20mins after we landed!
Decided to walk the half hour to the flat to get a sense of the city and its scale. Drizzling fairly persistently and chilly, but not too bad and I had the right clothes on. Once I got to the block I realised I didn’t know what floor it was on. If I’d gone in the lift it was labelled but of course I just set off upstairs, and ended up going right to the top and back down again with no names on the doors. Found their name in the lift eventually but then couldn’t open the door. Argh…rather warm and flustered by now!
Went back to ground floor to ask her friend and she came up and taught me how to use the key…easy when you know how!
The flat is lovely…very European with blonde wood and stylish furniture, crammed full of books in several languages and interesting art. Had a cup of tea and a sandwich and added to my Google map, then headed into town for a wander.
Basically just aimed for the Brandenburg Gate, then the Reichstag, passing several large embassy buildings en route (UK one oddly modern and flashy, Russian one heavily screened off and guarded). Found the box office of Komische Oper and, remembering how brilliant they were at the International Festival a few years ago, popped in to see what was on. Lovely chat with the guy on the desk and found a ticket to tonight’s Orpheus in the Underworld by Offenbach. Delighted! I went off in search of a sausage and a beer but only found restaurants rather than bars serving food so ended up in a wee hole in the wall curry wurst stall and enjoyed a bratwurst with a roll, then headed round to the opera house for my beer. A rather different crowd from back home…more of a mix of ages, some very stylish outfits (amidst a whole range of levels of formality) and a talk on the staging given free before the performance. It was an incredible performance…so OTT, camp and funny. Wonderful dancers, costumes, singers and a fantastic narrator who spoke for the characters when they weren’t singing, including doing sound effects to accompany their actions. Hard to describe but wonderful.
Huge dishes of chocolates to help yourself to as we left. My goodness the performing arts in Germany are not in the parlous state of the UK at the moment…that was a fabulous evening.
Taxi home…didn’t fancy the underground this late at night when I don’t know my way round very well yet. Of course the taxi driver, like everyone else, chatted easily in English and he gave me some ideas for other concerts etc whilst we’re here
Good start to the week!