Ally and I spent the weekend in Berlin for her birthday 
It was unbelievably freezing, made all the worse by me having a cold (which I then gave to Ally… not the best birthday present).
Ally took a whole load of photos with her Nikon D40.
Saturday:
Ally drove us to Stansted Airport early in the morning, and we flew to Berlin with Ryanair (“the on-time airline”). The flight was delayed.
The two of us went with a group of other tourists on a walking tour, with a very friendly guide called Sarah. Very informative, and we saw loads of stuff – including Museum Island, the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie and part of the Berlin Wall, and various other things.
Saturday evening, the two of us went to the Reichstag, and queued up to get in so we could go up to the dome at the top.
Sunday:
We went on a tour of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in Oranienberg near Berlin. Very interesting, but of course also very depressing. Our guide was a brilliant bloke called Nigel, who used to be a Major in the British Army. He had been stationed in various places over the years, including Cold War Berlin, plus he also spent time as the Defence Ataché at the British Embassy in Germany. He’s currently an Associate Professor of History, and also makes historical documentaries, as well as doing historical tours like this on the side. Very knowledgeable guy, and very passionate about history.
Monday:
Ally and I went on a “Berlin’s Underworld” tour, of a former air-raid bunker in one of Berlin’s U-Bahn stations. Very interesting.
We also went to the Topography of Terror exhibition, which is located at the remains of where the Gestapo & SS headquarters used to be in what was once Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. A very chilling exhibition covering the history and crimes of Nazi Germany’s police/security apparatus.
We tried to go to the Holocaust Memorial again, to go in the actual information centre underneath the memorial, but unfortunately the centre was closed on Mondays.
We finished off with another trip to Checkpoint Charlie and the Wall (as when we saw it on Saturday it was only briefly during the walking tour).
We flew back to the UK with Ryanair (“the on-time airline”). The flight was delayed…