Day 22: Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

Today we decided to be lazy. We'd had a big day previously with a lot of culture, both the museum and the beer-kind, and decided to have a bit of a sleep in. We hung around at the hotel in the morning and decided to go out for a walk in the afternoon.

Around lunch time we headed out to have a wander around town and look into some shops. There's a shop down the road called Shoe City I was keen to try out, and many other nice places along Friedrickstrasse. Not too much to report, a lot of window shopping! I had spotted a Primark as well near Alexanderplatz, but luckily for the euros in our pocket it was a bit too far away for today.

After wandering around for a little while we ended up at the Christmas markets near our hotel for a bite to eat. We got some of Dylan's new favourite German market food. I can't remember what it's called in German, but it's basically a deep fried dough base with cheese and other bits on top. Dylan had a garlic one, and I had one with mozzarella and tomatoes. Delicious.

Biting comes before photo-taking, every time

Structurally difficult to eat, I went the taco route

It had started to snow very lightly, which was wonderful. It wasn't very heavy, but we were excited to get a little more snow on our mostly snow-less trip so far. Dylan was also tempted by a man selling fancy looking garlic baguettes, and succumbed to another garlicky carb (which, too be fair, did have olives on it also).

Soon afterwards we got a message from our English friends from the night before. They were going out to a sports pub to watch the football. The English kind. We set off to meet them at a sports bar a little ways north of our hotel. We met Kieran and Connor there, but they had realised this bar was playing the German football, not their game. Also it was very busy.

Time for plan B! We headed out into the cold again and set off to find another pub with a TV. Eventually Dylan found an Irish pub on google maps, and when we arrived they were playing the correct game. Thank goodness for that. Connor and Kieran were keen for some dinner. I had some nachos, while Dylan was still too full from all his garlic foods to eat.

West Ham won (hooray?) and we hung around in the bar. It was slowly getting busier, and the drinks were a little too expensive, so we decided to move on. We went down the road to another pub and stopped in. Turns out the drinks were even more dear there, so we only stopped for one confusingly expensive beer.

Google supposedly said there was another cheaper bar just across the road, but there was nothing physically there. We walked back and forth, up and down the street to no avail, until Dylan thought the nondescript steel door set into the brickwork might be it. He checked the website on his phone and yep, the plain door was on their website. He ran over and pressed the buzzer, and just like something out of a film, the peep hole opened for a few seconds, before it slammed shut and we heard it start to unlock. A very well dressed bouncer opened the door to tell us if we didn't have a reservation we couldn't come in. Bugger, too fancy for us!

The others wanted to go out and experience some of Berlin's famed clubbing scene. I was tired and decidedly not interested. We stopped by the Christmas markets for one last hot wine (Conor had never had one before!), and I went home while Dylan went out with his new mates.

(Dylan: Clubbing was awesome!)

Don't worry Una, he's still alive.

Not too much to report to today, but tomorrow will be museum day!

A+D