Being all grown up and responsible I set the alarm for seven yesterday morning and set off just after eight. It was the rush hour, and school holidays, so I thought it would take ages to get to the airport. It took 32 minutes. My flight would not be taking off for another three and a half hours.

I parked in mid-stay and got the bus to the terminal. I sat next to a scraggy woman whose child in the seat behind leant forward between us and asked her why some people go on holiday on their own. Very embarrassed, and more for my benefit than her daughter, I’m sure, she explained that the people on their own were probably going on a business trip and not on holiday at all.

The flight was the smoothest hour and a half hop ever, and the landing, everyone commented, was a transparent glide from air to runway. I’ve never felt one like it.

I bought a Bounty and ate it on the bus as we dove through the dirty square blocks of the southern suburbs. Very ugly. Lots of broken rendering. Thankfully I was much more impressed with the city proper, which has to be one of the most magnificent European capitals. So many contrasts. Buildings are a hybrid mixture of the modern and the classical. Glass done sprout up from the tops of Romanesque buildings, and everywhere you look there are winger horses, stone warriors and friezes that would put Florence to shame.

The guys went off to sit in a bar and drink beer, but I walked with the girls (Claire and Charlotte) for a couple of hours through old East Berlin, and we ate the richest, most sickly and beautiful ice cream ever in the hot, hot sun. I felt very sick half an hour later, but it was worth it.

By the time we got back to the hotel we were hot and tired, and there was a damp stripe of sweat across the chest of my t-shirt where my bag strap had been. I knew I should have packed more than one spare.

I bathed in the deepest widest bath ever in the swish Four Seasons bathroom (the mini bar includes marzipan, vodka and an authentic, certificated chunk of the Berlin Wall in a nasty bit of Four Seasons perspex), and we met in the lobby for a slow walk to a drawn out dinner of big courses and rude waiters.

I didn’t go to the Samsung / Philips / Sony party with them afterwards. You can do that in London. I went walking instead through the East and down to the Sony Centre, a truly impressive complex that would look completely at home in central Tokyo and is best seen through a timed-exposure shutter and lens pointing skyward.

I slept well and woke up at nine from dreams about people who used to work at VNU ages ago. Suddenly I really wanted to get in touch and meet them all again.

We breakfasted and checked out and got the coach across town (the West looked nowhere near as nice as the East), skirting the large wooded park in the centre of the city, to the biggest exhibition centre I have ever seen for the IFA (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations) trade show. This makes the NEC look like a shopping centre, and once you get inside it is the most hideous, hot, crowded bewildering place you could imagine. People, everywhere. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them, and everywhere you turn there are stupid PR people trying to tie balloons onto your rucksack.

I span around at the first one and pulled it off my bag (I didn’t realise this was what they did) and said a very firm ‘no’. Her face screwed up and I thought she was going to cry, and I suddenly felt very mean. I gave her back the balloon and walked on, but soon the crowds were too much so I went to the garden and sat reading proofs for a couple of hours.

I only had one appointment - a four o’clock meeting with Hitachi who were bankrolling the whole trip, and I almost missed it because of the crowds. I bought a sandwich at half three and then pushed my way through the seething mass of people back towards hall 8.2 stand 11. I arrived 29 minutes later. Just in time.

We drove back to the Four Seasons to pick up some more bags and our bus promptly broke down (something to do with brushing the paintwork of a Mercedes parked by the kerb). While we waited for a replacement, we had beer in a bar around the corner, and eventually arrived at their airport twenty minutes before our flight took off.

We glided home, it was so smooth. I am really impressed with Buzz. Their planes may feel a bit old, but they are nicely painted, the staff are great, and I have never yet had cause to complain.

I bought bread and milk and a tuna sandwich at the airport and raced back to Chelmsford. Paul came around and we watched some more of the exceptionally long Stepford Wives. I feel shattered.

…but I can’t wait to go back to Berlin.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 25th, 2001 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Journal, Picture story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.