Day 56...ach - 21st August

Today doesn't even warrant a mention. It was one of those days wehre nothing goes right and it takes ages doing whatever it is. We got up and had our included breakky, which was nice. Then we went to do a bit of quick laundry before exploring. But the laundromat the hotel lady directed us to - couldn't find, then when we did find it it was closed. Then we couldn't ring one from the yellow pages book, then we chose to drive around and none were there. Then we went back to the hotel and rang the TIC to help us but they didn't help, so we drove around some more and walked into a TIC to demand some help. She gave us an address to one which we drove to, that ended up not existing. Then we finally though to look in our lonely planet book and found one. It was pissing down rain but we got our clothes clean and done. It usually takes 2 - 3 hours and really takes a chunk out of your day. We latched onto an old american couple who were in there, as we hadn't spoken English to anyone else in a week! Yay!

Then we tried to do some shopping, but couldn't find the mall, and then did and got some books. At least that trouble is over. Ate an expensive sandwich in a sandwhich shop. Didn't end up getting any clothes, even though I need new jeans as the ass of my jeans has collapsed and looks horrid. Berlin doesn't have a street or district for shopping, so we didn't have any luck. We tried some malls but didn't like what we saw. One consolation though, was that we saw a Bugatti Veyron in a Bugatti showroom. Nathan crowed over it and got really excited. There were lots of boys there cooing and taking photos of it. The fasts production car in the world. It looked pretty shiny to me. After that we had some more unsuccessful shopping and left pissed off. So we went back home (see - we call each current room 'home' now, we adapt really well!)

We tried to recharge by relaxing and reading before showering and going out. We headed out all happy and refreshed and aimed for a restaurant district we had read about. It took us forver to get there via various trains due to construction work on the rails, and then when we turned up - it was shit. It felt really dodgy and cheap and were sure we'd have the runs if we ate there. So we negotiated our way back via subway. After 1 and 1/2 hours we didn't want to miss dinner as it was a weeknight, so we went back to the microbrewery from the night before. I hate doing the same thing twice, but we didn't want to risk going to another region so late and trying again.

So relieved were we to get there that we had a few drinks (I practically skulled my first scotch) before dinner. The waiters there are really nice and recognised us from last night, and gave us some free badges and stuff. Nate had another local dish (about 4 different meats in a pan, from the hamsteak, to pork, sausage etc) and he put back about 2 steins (2 litres) of beer. He would have managed more, but he was full of ham, lamb, bratwurst etc! I had several scotches and a massive pork knuckle (which is a german and berlin fave) and felt quite ill after! It tasted great but so filling! We staggered home drunk (via taxi - we cheated! though it was cheap) and made a noise of ourselves all the way up to the room. We put on the TV and got fascitaed with the late night German porn ads. Naked boobs, and growly german phone numbers (funf funf funf, fier funf funf). What fascinated me was occasionally a fat old lady would pay to have her ad in there, and it was horrendous. Passed out. bed.