Berlin Day 3 : Stumbled upon

Today, being May Day, is a public holiday in German. Unlike at home where holidays which fall on the weekend result in a day off on the Monday, there's no compensation here (poor things). We'd been warned that most places would by closed today, including shops and supermarkets, but excluding bars and restaurants. We'd also been warned to stay away from certain parts of the city because of the risk of riots resulting from various conflicting May Day demonstrations.

We met our living-locally Music-Group friend for lunch in a really nice spot not far from our apartment. We spurned the obvious route and made our way there and back through a series of really pleasant suburban areas. At one point we heard noises which made us fear that we'd inadvertently come across one of the riots, but it turned out to completely different: a post-wedding gathering. Because of what looked and sounded like firecrackers, we thought the bride and groom were Chinese, but this turned out not to be the case. It was all very colourful and added a nice little something extra to the day.

It's a tradition of these musical trips away to have what we refer to as a "Gala Dinner". Because of different musical commitments by different people, it turned out to be impossible to find a time to suit everyone, and the best we could do was to fix the even for Monday evening and to have two of the gang join in when their concert finished. Since the chosen restaurant was nearest to us and we were having lunch very close to this restaurant, I made the booking today. Lunch was really good, and priced surprisingly reasonably (which turned out to be the norm for Berlin).

Tonight was my first musical event (a performance of Carmen in the Staatsoper). We'd arranged to meet in a restaurant just across from the opera house, and the early start of the performance meant that I didn't have time for the nap which I'd hoped for before heading back out again, so it quickly became obvious that this was going to be another long day. It was a bit of a mad rush to catch the appropriate U-Bahn, then I chose the wrong stop to get off at, after which I turned the wrong way when I got out ... so the others were already ensconced when I got to the restaurant.

The opera production split the group, with one of our number not liking it at all and the rest of us being more satisfied. Musically, there was no disagreement: top-notch stuff. Afterwards we tried to get in to a poshish place for a quick after-opera drink and were surprised to learn that it had closed at 9.00 (despite being so close to the opera house). We tried the indoors bar connected with the restaurant we'd been to earlier, but it was packed and a bit unpleasant. We finally found a spot not too far away on Unter den Linden and wound there there. I'd arranged to meet Carl and two of the others afterwards, so once again the group split up, with me making my way to Wittenberg Platz to join the tail end of another disco night (this time one which allowed audience members to nominate what they wanted to hear). All good fun, even though it meant another late end to the day.