I’ve spent yesterday with my friends in Berlin. We started with a late brunch at a nearby restaurant/cafe and then wandered around the city mainly by car (it was too cold to walk for more than 5 minutes) seeing places and visiting some other pubs/bars/whatevers. If that’s Berliner’s lifestyle – and my hosts told me it is – then I like it.

It was quite a different stay than my last time in Berlin three years ago – I think I saw it with a different eye this time. Maybe it is so because Marcin & Anna love this city so much it’s contagious. It’s anyway better to see a place with people who love it, they always know where to go and have lots of interesting things to tell while there.

What surprised me in Berlin is how international a city it is. During that brunch I heard three languages, someone was speaking French, some other couple Spanish etc. and you can see different people on the streets – not only Turks as you might expect knowing of large Turkish community in Germany. You can easily get around without knowing or uttering a single word in German and everybody is friendly towards foreigners.

I felt quite well there, well enough to go for a supper to an Italian restaurant near my friends’ apartment – they didn’t want to go because of the cold and were not hungry. I think I’ll return there in some more life-friendly weather, possibly in the Spring. I just hope I was a good enough guest that my kind hosts would invite me to stay with them again.

And today I’m in Bratislava. What’s funny is that usually we come here flying in to Vienna airport and then going by car to Bratislava. Apparently nothing flies to Bratislava – there was a flight from Warsaw, but when I checked this time it was already removed from the timetable by LOT. So, all I know of this city is what I saw from that car as we are driven from Vienna straight to the hotel and some vague recollections from a brief touristic visit seven years ago. Not much to see, not much to write about except that I like their suspension bridge.