Got myself a boyfriend in berlin

Well it's certainly been an eventful transition from the last decade to the new one for me! As I mentioned in my year-round-up blog post, I was all set to fly to Berlin with Ollie on Monday to see in the new year on yet another holiday. It didn't exactly go to plan. I have a history of fainting anyway (always in public places, always the drama queen) and just after Christmas I managed to catch the mumps, so I ended up dramatically fainting in airport security. Not only was it a good first test for Ollie (which he passed - he caught me) but it was also enough to not be able to fly! So it was back home (and back to the drawing board) for us to work out what to do next.

Luckily, we managed to make it to Berlin less than 24 hours late! After a through-the-night coach to Luton and an early morning flight, we finally arrived for our New Year city break. We had booked to stay at the Amano Grand Central and the name of the hotel was a good sell - it was right near loads of shops and restaurants and only a short walk to loads of the main stuff that we wanted to see. Not that we saw anything at first though - when we finally checked in, we were in desperate need of a nap after our dramatic 24 hours!

It was new years eve when we arrived so after a nap, it was time to get ready! My face was 3 times the size it normally is so I didn't get many photos (outfit or otherwise) but I wore my orange faux suede skirt, black tights, black heeled boots, and black lace choker top. We'd pre-booked tickets for a rooftop party to see the new year in, so we just needed to pick a restaurant to go to beforehand. We figured we'd picked perfectly with an Italian just round the corner from the party but wow it ended up being a proper shit show. We didn't get given any menus until we'd already been sat there for 30 minutes! Our drinks took another 30 minutes (after the waiter admitted he'd forgot to put our order through the till) and we didn't end up leaving until half 11, which put a a real race-against-the-clock on the night. I will give it to Pane e Vino though - the pizza was really good.

After a quick hop, skip and a jump (and an Uber ride), we arrived at our party at the Hotel Zoe and raced up to the roof (champagne in hand) to see the new year in. Luckily we made it with about 5 minutes to spare, which was just enough time for Ollie to (finally) ask me to be his girlfriend. So we saw in 2020 on a fairylit rooftop, sipping champagne with fireworks going off across the whole city as far as the eye could see, as official boyfriend and girlfriend.

Our new years day was spent very much how I'm guessing most of yours was - lazing around in bed. I was still horrifically ill and in pain (if you've never had mumps then I pray you never do because it's awful), so wasn't up to much. However, we did make it out for some dinner at the most amazing burger restaurant, Peter Pane. I got chilli cheese fries and a cocktail and everything was very good!

We'd pretty much spent our whole time in Berlin in bed so on the Thursday, it was time to get up bright and early to see some sights! I did a classic jeans-and-a-nice-top outfit in black jeans, pink crochet top, chunky black boots, chunky knit scarf and aviator coat. And we started the day right with a good breakfast! Even though it was January 2nd by this point, some of the restaurants still seemed to be on bank holiday opening times so we found a cute little hipster cafe where we got sweet treats and lattes - the good kind with the latte art.

Then we had a little walk across the river and down to the Reichstag building, which was beautiful and especially on the frosty-but-gloriously-sunny kind of day that we'd been blessed with. We didn't actually go up the glass dome (although you can), because we had a boat tour booked! At first, our Berlin bad luck seemed like it was continuing because apparently the boat was full, but then they decided to open the top deck and all went ahead. I mean, it was super cold on the OPEN AIR part of the boat, but it's the best way to see the sights and boat tours are my favourite thing to do in cities with rivers (which is virtually all major cities).

Then we walked down to see the Brandenburg gate (which is the site of the main NYE fireworks in Berlin and was still being cleaned up), before getting an Uber to Monkey Bar, which we'd had recommended to us. Unfortunately, our Berlin bad luck struck again and it was closed, but going there did cause us to stumble on a German market which was still open! It was mega cute and walking round it was a nice way to soak up the last of the festivities. Apparently there's over 70 different Christmas markets in Berlin! Plus, there was a nice mall area where we found a good spot for lunch (with a cocktail, of course).

Obviously you can't go to Berlin without seeing some of what remains of the Berlin wall and after a quick google search, we decided that East Side Gallery was the best bit of it to see (the bit with all the artwork). Which wasn't entirely practical because it was the opposite side of the city than where we were, but luckily Uber is pretty good in Berlin. The wall was really worth seeing too; when you see something that holds a lot of history in a major European city, you assume it's pretty historical (as opposed to the Berlin wall, which only came down in 1989). 

In a final stroke of Berlin good luck, we remembered a rooftop bar we'd seen online and thought we'd check where it was and it was approximately 2 minutes from where we were! We timed our trip to 260° perfectly too as we managed to get out the lift just as the sun was setting and we were treated to the most beautiful view of the city! It was also a nice spot to toast to one year by eachother's side, as I joined UK Meds on January 2nd 2019. It's cute how much has changed since then.

We'd done pizza, we'd done burgers and we'd done chicken so we thought it was time for a bit of Asian food for our last night. Ollie may have laughed at me for googling 'cool asian restaurants in berlin' but it picked out Prince, which we ended up going to and it was amazing! It was a mixed south Asian selection in a tapas style so we got duck pancakes, peanut garlic chicken (incredible), grilled butterfish, steamed dumplings and chilli sweet potato fries.

It may have been filled with hurdles and bad luck but we still had the most amazing time in Berlin. And I came back home with a boyfriend. So overall, it was a pretty perfect end to 2019 and start to 2020 (mumps aside).