Check point charlie

[scooterscot]

Nice crop/cut job on your Brian avatar Scooterscot, which version of MS Paint did you use?

I used the Gimp of course... powerful and straightforward

[minestrone]

Never really got Berlin, just not the place for me really, never thought that the area round Check Point Charlie there was that bad though but then I do live in Glasgow.

[scooterscot]

Never really got Berlin, just not the place for me really, never thought that the area round Check Point Charlie there was that bad though but then I do live in Glasgow.

I'm no getting it either if I'm honest, it's dark history is everywhere you look. However the people make up for it they're very nice and approachable, I'm glad I'm here I'm glad I'm exposing myself to Berlin's history otherwise I may never have understood what really happened here.

[Bunk]

Don't take this the wrong way but I think Berlin is a great city for the younger crowd. Top nightclubs, big arty community, very trendy (and a bit pretentious). Probably not things you look for in a city.

[darmstadt]

I've also never been a big fan of Berlin either, some of the people are very pretentious but there are some very interesting things about it. A while ago I stayed in the Holiday Inn in Berlin Mitte, originally in the East, which is a very mixed area. The hotel is actually owned by the bloke who owns the Babelsberg film studios so its full of film props. Just up the road as you come to the U-Bahn there is a currywurst stand which is always on TV as it reputedly the best one in Germany. But before you get to the U-bahn, just over the road there is a small building which has iron gates on it. This is the entrance to some of the tunnels below Berlin. They date back over 150 years and they're still finding new ones. A lot of it was a pneumatic dispatch system, some was used during the war and some was railway. Quite interesting.

The first time I went to Berlin was just after the wall came down when I met up with a load of old German punks from Kreuzberg where they taught me the art of 'chugging.' We bought 48 cans of cheap beer and sat on the top of a double decker slamming them and drinking them down in one, pretty crap really. The Zoobahnhof was interesting because everything was in German and Russian and it still acted as if it was back in the Iron Curtain days. If you like Jazz then go to Quasimodos, saw a great gig there with Fred Frith and if you like transvestites try the KitaKatClub.