Team Sudan reunion

While I’m not much of a museum person, I really wanted to go the Pergamon Museum on Museum Island (which is home to several).  I had tried pre-booking but there were only afternoon slots left and that didn’t suit me.  So we turned up early to avoid the queues.

Getting there at 0940, there was already a small queue but shortly after we joined, the queue grew to more than double.  Once the museum open, they let the pre-booked visitors through then drip-fed our queue into the building.  We got in some 15 minutes after opening and were greeted by the gate of Ishtar, from Babylon.

I understood the museum to be reconstructions which I thought meant replicas!  But I eventually realised they were reconstructed from fragments and actual ruins.  Eg. the plain blue tiles from the Ishtar gate were quite intact whereas the patterned ones were quite smashed … that’s because they put back the patterned ones and just re-made the plain ones.

The Ishtar gate was amazing and so was the facade of the market from Melitus.  The Pergamon altar was closed for restoration but that will give me something to come back to.

The other collections of statues etc were good but pale in comparison to the reconstructed buildings.

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Back outside, the weather was pleasant today.  Not warm and sunny like yesterday but actually nicer for walking.  We took the train to East Side Gallery, where murals have been painted on remains of the Berlin Wall.  I’m not into art so we left pretty quickly.  At the nearby station we were surprised how expensive it was (EUR1) to use the loo so we held on; not what I expected in the civilised society that is Europe.

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We grabbed lunch before going back to the hotel for a brief rest.  I had an appointment at 1600 near Tegel Airport to meet my Khartoum hostel mate from my Sudan trip.  We made a small detour via the Parliament with its distinctive glass globe first.

It was very good to see Marius as he was involved in a fatal accident in Kyrzgyzstan in which his colleague died. They were walking on the road when an overtaking car lost control and ran into three of them.  I had no idea until our meet-up about his condition, eg. if he was seriously injured, maimed or disabled. Marius got away lightly with many broken ribs and a broken pelvis.  He was hospitalised in Germany for two months and now undergoing three weeks of rehab at he place we visited him in.

We reminisced a bit about the days which we had spent together, in particular the trip to the Meroe pyramids and all the eating.  Then we exchanged stories about or separate journeys.  He had travelled north by train to Wadi Halfa wheras I went to Port Sudan for diving before following his route by bus but making stops along the way.  It was the Team Sudan reuniong!  I was stung by a wasp during our chat but fortunately I realise now that I don’t have an allergy to them!

We grabbed dinner at a Greek restaurant near the subway.  The meals were about EUR5 each (discounted 50% for some reason).  Awww!  Germany is cheaper than New Zealand most of the time but when one strikes deals like this, it is just amazing!

Back at the hotel we sought some advice from reception on how to get to Schonefeld airport in the morning.  It’s normally very easy on a 35 minute non-stop regional train and failing that a one-stop suburban train connection.  I had trouble finding anything less than 2 stops totalling 1h45.  People at the station had confirmed that this was due to track repairs and didn’t have any better options.  The hotel staff tried and found us a bus to suburban metro connection which totalled 1h15 with only one connection.