After landing at Heathrow and making our way to our hotel near Primrose Hill, Aaron and I called our friends Meg and Chris to come meet up. They live in Bristol but came into the city for a weekend on special account of us being there. One favorite view of the city is from the top of Primrose Hill, so after cleaning up the four of us headed up there for a visit and the views. Then we stopped at a pub just down the road, went for an Indian meal at a place in Islington (thought about heading to Brick Lane, but knew that our jet lag would be setting in so we decided not to venture too far from our hotel) and then for another pint at a pub nearby. I was crashing hard (so sleepy!) so we headed back and called it a night. We made it all the way until 11:30 or so, which was pretty good considering our all night flight from LA. As we were going to bed Aaron commented that it was an excellent way to start our European vacation and I agree. A really nice evening with friends, some fresh air, good food, and a pint!
The next morning we got up early enough to grab some breakfast at a cafe on the local high street. I hadn't been to this part of London before (even though it wasn't that far from where I had lived) and found it to be almost the perfect speciman of a London high street. Butcher shop, flower shop, cafe, pub, pharmacy, and local grocery. Everything the neighborhood needed.
Our flight to Berlin was un-eventful. We left out of the new Terminal 5 from Heathrow, which was HUGE. Accomodated large amounts of shopping and restaurants. Gordon Ramsey had a restaurant there and Harrods had a small department store inside too amoungst many many others.
We found our hotel in Berlin easily. On our way there we came across hundreds of football fans on their way to watch the Euro Cup Final in the public parks that had been set up to accomodate the fans. Flags as skirts, tri-colored mohawks, painted faces... the whole nine yards. After getting settled in our room we went to see about joining the crowd, but found out that we got there too late. They had reached capacity and weren't letting any more people in. We walked along the water-park and found an 'over-flow' area and watched the first half of the game with a couple of thousand fans there. At half-time we took off back to our hotel and watched the rest of the game at the outdoor cafe that our hotel had set up.
Today so far we have meandered around, grabbed lunch, and will now set off to see some sights.
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