Schnell, we must see die ganze stadt

Up at the leisurely hour of 7am we moseyed on down to the dining room for our complimentary breakfast. I really held back, conscious of how quickly five months of gym work can turn into asking for elastic waisted pants. So I bit the bullet and went healthy with a fruit salad and yoghurt, chased down with a mini strudel of course. There's apparently a bylaw that all meals must contain some variant of strudel and I'm not causing an international incident over it.

Breakfast complete we headed off to rendezvous for our Segway tour. We arrived in plenty of time at Glinckastrasse and got chatting with some of the other riders who would complete our Segway stunt team. Wouldn't you know it, out of 7 riders 4 were Kiwis, us and a lovely couple of guys from Auckland. They were touring Europe to celebrate a 50th birthday, snap!

Michael our guide, a Russian emigre, gave us all a quick lesson in Segway mastery. Jean was first monkey up and took to it like a Lab to food, which put the pressure right on me. I was a little wobbly at first, but didn't send the Segway into an uncontrollable death spiral, so it was really a great success.

Once we had our training and were on the road my natural athletic ability and innate mechanical understanding kicked in and I was playing that Ssegway like I was some sort of gyroscopically balanced savant.

We had booked the three hour tour, which surprised both Jean and I, and our groaning hamstrings by the end, but thank goodness we did, because Berlin has so much to see. As a World War Two and Cold War buff it's the centre of my universe, but it has so much more history to offer. We saw a church from the 1200's, the first Rathaus (city hall) original university, Museum insel and a long and impressive list of other historical gems.

We finished up the tour just before 1pm and headed back to the hotel via Checkpoint Charlie. This was not for any historical imperative, but because Jean and I had lunch at the McDonalds which overlooks the site on our visit 8 years ago and she was hungry. It also didn't hurt that they were currently selling the McRib.

Bad calories consumed we continued to the hotel, where I jettisoned Jean and trekked back towards Potsdamer Platz and the German Museum of Espionage. Now I could tell you more about this, but I've been sworn to secrecy. Decode the images if you can. ;)

Here's some video to enjoy https://youtu.be/GQWqqemlH8U
https://youtu.be/1gLnmi_iRmQRead more