Nostalgia. That's what this is. Capturing a big-little moment of personal history.

My first visit to Berlin to see Christa over 25 years ago.

After about 20 hours of travel by train and u-bahn I'd arrived, finally ended up here: on the corner of Cantorsteig where she lived (and still lives)

So into this little Eis-cafe i went to buy ice-cream.

To sit down, cool off, calm down.

And take it all in.

Being in Berlin. Me.

The Gig in the TierGarten

With about 500,000 German menschen in Tiergarten celebrating their re-unification with one another. East joined to West.

Silbermond are on stage. The girl on the Big Screen is the lead singer.

You find love in the most unexpected places.  Big bold and stark.

Jewish Memorial near the Tiergarten. I think Daniel Libeskind designed it.

I guess you are meant to experience the crowding in, the crushing of, the limitation to, your freedom.

In other words to feel oppressed.

And walking through its stark columns I felt oppressed. Imposed upon. Stifled of life.

And yet there were also kids skipping in, out, and around. Playing hide and seek.

Having fun.

This is the Jewish Museum (also designed by Daniel Libeskind)

An attempt to avoid kitschy cliche sentimentality.

So a memorial to the Holocaust, but not a Holocaust memorial.

An important  distinction, because:

"there is no form of art that can express the holocaust."

Rattling over the beautiful bridge, from the train window I saw this "man" standing up out of the water.

I walked for about an hour around the river Spree to get near to it. My feet were hurting. It was getting dark. I was getting hungry.

The man turned out to be three men joining hands together as the "Molecule Man"

Windows on the Wansee

This is where Berliners went "on vacation" when the Wall was still up.

You can go across on the ferry to Pfauen Insel (Peacock Island)

Where there is an enchanted castle.

Humboldt Universitat

I've changed the picture to sepia. To give the feeling of crusty old learning that i imagine must happen (or have happened already, and be long dead and gone) in a University called "Humboldt".

This pic got chosen by Schmapp Travel Guide to Berlin.

I get a bit of kudos. They get a free photo.

Cafe Einstein on Unter den Linden.

You'd wanna have a coffee there.

Thinking your BIg Thoughts.

And you could go to Caputh (where Einstein lived for a while) and stuff yourself with this little plate of schmaltzy-sweet heaven.

Homemade Apfel kuche mit sahne. Only a couple of quid.

Yummy yum yum it was.

Pumpkin Suppe

More homemade hearty goodness.

Peppery-sweet.

You have to make a lovely bit of soup in the Autumn.

Warming.

Gorlitzer Park cafe

I could have sat here. All afternoon.

Reading Brecht poetry.

Or even writing Brecht poetry.

Being a right pretentious twat.

And loving it. (Lol)

Kunstbuhne in Potsdam

"It looks like a glamourous hat"

Posh hat for a posh theatre.

Friedrichstrasse Bahnof

All the Bahnhofs in Berlin are like this.

Big barns. Big enough to roll in, roll out, Thomas the Tank Engine trains.

And Fat Controllers everywhere.

The Wall Woodpeckers

Throughout 1990, The Berlin Wall was chipped away by hundreds and hundreds of people with hammers and chisels.

To end up on every Berliners mantelpiece.

Or maybe in a frame on the living room wall (a bit of the wall on the wall. The great Irony of History i guess you'd call it)

"The Clock of the Long Now" is a sound installation involving chiming clocks.

Also called the "10,000-year clock"; a proposed mechanical clock designed to keep time for 10,000 years.

It does one tick a year.

So that's how long now is.

Berlin is a "now"  kind of place