BLUB – abandoned swimming centre

As the trip to Teufelsberg earlier didn’t allow for any exploration of the buildings, we made another shorter trip to BLUB, short for Berliner Luft- und Badeparadies. It’s is recently abandoned because of a rat-infestation, saw no rats while there thankfully.

This place is easy to just walk into as there is openings everywhere. This was the place we used.

We gathered some courage to go into the building by first circling around it.

We found a greenhouse at the back with crushed windows and graffiti, which was everywhere anyway.

It was so cool walking around and looking at this abandoned mess that looked strangely beautiful this way.

We went inside the main building where it supposedly were an adventure pool. It was huge!

We weren’t alone in there, more people were curious about the place. There was even a group of people climbing up to the roof with a barbecue and all.

We explored the whole place and found the spa part, the place is massive and we kept finding new rooms.

Graffiti everywhere, with some words of wisdom to the visitors.

And art that was really well done.

We climbed the stairs to the top where the “Great Slide” begun and got a better overview of the place.

When we felt that we’ve seen everything we could we went for ice cream in this park, and couldn’t keep away from this one. Was my favourite when I was a child. Back and forth, back and forth all day.

The Russian bar

In our last week in Berlin we found a Russian bar on the parallel street to ours. It was weird that we hadn’t found it until now as we’ve been to everything in our neighbourhood. So here we drank Russian and Polish beer, also this local IPA that we had trouble drinking as it was so much bubbles even without touching it. It worked out fine after pouring it into a glass.

It was a place of gold and red with a disco ball dangling from the chandelier.

We sat here for awhile until there was nothing new that we hadn’t drunk before.

After that we went to our foremost waterhole, Hopfenreich, they alway have something new.

Bike trip to Teufelsberg

Our only real bike trip was to Teufelsberg that is an abandoned US spy station that was used during the Cold War. It’s west of Berlin and it took us an hour to get there.

At the last part we parked our bikes at the foot of the hill and walked to the top.

A fence greeted us, a fence with three layers. A path took us around the abandoned area.

Here and there we were rewarded with great views.

And finally we caught sight of the highest tower which we hoped to climb.

We didn’t find any holes in the fence and arrived at the main gate, which seemed to be opened. A guy on the inside saw us approaching and shut it close just infront of our noses. I had time to be upset before I understood that it was a tour guide. You had to pay to get in, wasn’t happening.

Disappointed we walked away, sitting down a while to admire the view, before going back to our bikes.

As we walked down the hill, we saw another. Going up was a steep climb, not at all like the path up the other hill. We were generously rewarded for our toils. We waved to Teufelsberg.

We could see our next destination, the Olympic stadium, which is just behind the tower block designed by Le Corbusier, Unité d’habitation.

There were more people around here, having picknicks, drinking beer and flying kites.

And this small plane was going back an forth riding on the winds.

Agnes did some compulsory tourist posing.

We went down the hill using stairs that we didn’t see before going up the tough way. Our bikes waited patiently for us.

Lastly the Olympic Stadium which we also only looked at from the outside. Some really stern architecture.

At this point we were really tired and I thought the whole world had turned against me before Agnes told me that I needed food. So we went to the first place we could find and ended up at a kebab place at Neu-Westend. Could possibly be the tastiest food I’ve ever had. At this point we realised that we’ve reached our limits for the day and bought tickets for our bikes to take the U-Bahn all the way home.

Exploring Friedrichshain

Vacation means time to do things we want to do. We left our Kreuzberg and walked over the river to explore Friedrichshain.

I found this pretty building while making a quick search of what not to miss. The whole facade was covered with colours and a range of different motifs.

We really went all in discussing our surroundings as the true city nerds we are.

We ate a quick lunch at Lemongrass before going for our main mission of the day: Beer. First stop was Hops & Barley a local micro-brewery. We tried all they had. IPA, cider, coffee cream ale, helles, dunkel and weisse. Favourites was the ale and the dunkel.

Next place was Neue Heimat where we had a beer in the sunset.

It’s some kind of industry area turned into clubs, bars and restaurants.

Was so so nice with the light!!

In the same area was Cassiopeia, that is an outdoor place with a cinema.

With tables under the trees and..

A huge climbing place.

We left Friedrichshain for our Kreuzberg and went by Wendel on our way home.

So nice being able to sit outside until late without needing a jacket.

Our last beer was taken at our favourite bar Hopfenreich, that is just around the corner from our apartment. Such a great day with so many laughs, discussions about important things and a lot of beer. The day after was a slow one but we were feeling a lot better than we deserved.

Enjoying vacation and Kreuzberg

After the submission of the dissertation we took a well earned vacation, we had two weeks left in Berlin.

We had a lot of ice cream at Kokomo during those two weeks. I think my final favourites was sesam/honey and Belgian chocolate. Yum!

Sunny happy Agnes <3

We took a walk to Prinzessinnengarten for lunch where we had this amazing salad. Drank a cider with apples and mint that was so good. We didn’t stay long though as there was so so many wasps.

We walked the long way home along the canal. We saw this interesting house.

And this triangular one.

And around Görlitzer Park.

We really lived in the best neighbourhood. If I move to Berlin in the future, this is where I want to live.

Back at the start, Kokomo.