Berlin baby! (Warning; very long post)

As I mentioned in my weekend packing post, four of us recently headed to Berlin for a girlie weekend of eating, drinking, partying & laughing. And it was brilliant. I'd wanted to go to Berlin for ages. I'd heard from various friends how cool it is so couldn't wait to go and find out for myself. And indeed it was very cool and a fantastic destination for the kind of weekend we were after...

A mere 90 minute flight from Luton, we landed in to sunshine on the Friday afternoon, jumped in a cab and before we knew it, had pulled up outside our home for the weekend; Hotel Michelberger.

Oh yes please, give me some of that

Laura had been recommended this hotel and then I found out a few days before leaving that some other friends had recently stayed there too and really enjoyed it so we were confident it'd be good. We walked through the door and this is the sign that greeted us - we knew we were in good hands!

We checked in to The Band room which was one big room for the four of us with massive windows overlooking the hotel's courtyard hangout.

A quick change and a swift bottle of Prosecco later, we were off to Deck 5; a beach bar randomly on top of tall building in the centre of Berlin, to enjoy some sunset cocktails.

It was such a nice evening. Really packed and buzzy up there due to it being Friday night, the sun shining and Germany playing the quarter final. We settled ourselves on to one of the big beds and the drinks were flowing.

Returning to the hotel a few hours later was like walking in to a club! The place was heaving. We'd missed the food but had kind of lost our appetites anyway, so went for a liquid dinner instead.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur but I do remember downing numerous shots of Michelberger homebrew with the bar staff....

.....oh and Charlotte having a naked wrestle with our equally naked inflatable male companion when we got back up to the room at silly o'clock (this was originally going to be a hen weekend after all!) I'll spare her the embarrassment of posting those particular photos...

Saturday, we dragged ourselves down to Friedshwimmer, this cute little spot on the canal and stuffed our faces with the eat-as-much-as-you-like brunch buffet.

Bearing in mind this was around midday, we were amused to see a club on the opposite side of the canal that was still going strong with music pumping and people still dancing on the deck (you can see it on the right in the top photo). "Oh my God" we said, "it's almost midday and they're still clubbing" we said, "eeughh, imagine if that was us over there now, still out partying". Oh how we laughed....(you can see what's coming next right...)

Thankfully it was a sunny day so feeling all eyes-bigger-than-belly after we'd eaten and with hangovers in full flow, we practically crawled the short distance around the corner to Badeschiff, a funky little beach bar place with a floating pool in the river.

Preparations for a massive rave at the pool/beach bar that night....we didn't make it

Charlotte and I were straight in the water and although it was cold, a swim sorted my head right out. It was pretty weird sitting on the edge of the pool and looking down river. Can you imagine if such a thing existed in the Thames?! Looking about, there was some interesting architecture and art installations dotted around.

A floating apartment block above the very sweet Heinz's head

So we chilled there for the day, chatted to some really nice people, the girls got back on the beers and generally laughed all day at the previous night's antics.

The thing that struck me at this point was how friendly and laid back everyone is and how nothing is a big deal. Anything goes. Also, how much they love to drink & party. We stopped off for a schnitzel on the way back to the hotel at this simple little place on the corner of the hotel and the guy asked us what shot we'd like with our food - like it was the most normal thing to have a schnitzel and a shot!

We felt it would have been rude to turn him down so we went with the watermelon vodka but politely declined the second shot of homemade sage & basil vodka....

Saturday night we headed to Spindler & Klatt right on the river. We turned up an hour late for our dinner reservation and by then the kitchen was closed. Yet again, we were on a liquid dinner - our poor livers.

After that, the night was spent hopping from place to place all in a bit of a blur (standard).

So, remember the club on the canal that still had people dancing at midday on Saturday from the night before? Yep, that was us, at 7am. Not good.

Changed out of our gladrags and back out to hit Club de Visionaire

The following day consisted of sleeping, eating roast chicken and drinking shandy. Three things I'm particularly partial to.

Sunday evening, it was lashing down with rain so we found this really cute and cosy place nearby to watch England get knocked out of Euro 2012 on penalties. Thankfully it served delicious hangover food and did table service on drinks which was a bonus given the state we were in. We decided against going on from there and called it a night at about 1am. Very early by Berlin's standards but from past experience, I refuse to do the journey home on a hangover and by this point Laura was having serious concerns about her liver and kidney function (step up Nurse Kitty).

I had such a wicked weekend with three amazing women; we talked about anything and everything, we listened to each other and gave advice, we laughed and reminisced at old stories and pondered about the future. And we drank. God did we drink.

Anyone reading this (hiya!) who is thinking of going to Berlin - go. It's so good and so quick & easy to get to and it's cheap. And if you're going for a weekend of partying, then I'd highly recommend the Michelberger Hotel. It's way cool and only cost us €100 each for four of us sharing a big room for 3 nights. Bargain!

Now that a few weeks have passed and I've recovered, I can't wait to go back and do it all over again next year.

xxx