Ed: The plan was to meet at our hotel on the outskirts of Berlin near where IFA was being held, Jason and Graham’s flight (Graham is our Export Manager) from Manchester was before mine so I was expecting to be greeted with a Bitburger (a lovely German lager). This sadly was not the case.
I arrived at the hotel, got into our room (yes we were roomies for the evening) and got myself sorted, which consisted of flinging some shorts on. I then called Jase, no answer. So I popped the tv on for half an hour, then called Jase. This time an answer, ‘just at the airport Ed, be about half an hour’ in his dulcet Midlands (Northern in my eyes) tone.
Half an hour passed and no sign, by this point it was nearly midday so I proceeded to the bar for the previously mentioned Bitburger, only it turned out to be a Krombacher, but I wasn’t going to complain. And an hour had now passed…
I called Jason again and this time he was on a train, which it turned out was going in the opposite direction to where he needed to be heading! Brilliant I thought, and being incredibly inpatient I headed to the show.
I’d been told that next to CES in Las Vegas, this was an awesome show, with giant rooms and no expense spared on displays, and it didn’t disappoint!
Samsung seemed to have stolen the show having their logo everywhere and by far the biggest room. The main buzz was around their new Galaxy Gear, which essentially is a watch that seemingly does everything a phone does. Having studied graphic design in a former life this did catch my eye as it’s a great looking bit of kit. The only massive flaw with it is that it’s useless without it being linked to a Samsung phone or tablet, it essentially just mimics the device and saves you getting it out of your pocket, still cool though!
They also had some great looking OLED panels with a new curved screen design which I believe is to enhance the 3D experience.
One other gadget that caught all our attention (yes Jason and Graham had now arrived) was Sony’s clip on lens for their phones. A great piece of design for any budding photographer.
We then spent the afternoon wandering around loads of rooms, from Loewe to Yamaha. We also briefly met up with one of our accounts directors MR Mark Pugh, aka Mr Spatial for a beer in the sunshine (see we did do some work!).
The one thing that did disappointed me was the lack of Hi-Fi! Being still really into Hi-Fi from my retail days I was half expecting to see some, but sadly hardly any. What was great to see was the mass of Bluetooth products on the market, good to see after the launch of our MR1s and their recent 5 star review!
That evening we met up with our lord and master Alan, he was joined by Richard who had both flown in later that day.
We were told we were all off to an Italian restaurant just around the corner and had to have this one specific dish, Richard had been building this dish up for a couple of weeks previous so it’d best be good! And it was, for a start it wasn’t on the menu, it’s only for those in the know. It was as much a performance as a meal with the flamboyant chef standing next to us with a small table and the biggest wheel of Parmesan I’ve ever seen. He then proceeded to scrape loads of cheese onto the top of the wheel, then set fire to a cup of cognac, mixed it with the Parmesan. Then on with the cooked pasta and then finished off with a not sparing amount of shaved black truffles which I’d never had before, YUM! Me, Jase and Rich then left the oldies (Note from Alan the MD ‘No Christmas bonus for Ed this year’!) to go to bed and went off to sample a few of the local beers…
On the Saturday me and Jason had been given free rein to go and explore Berlin for the day. We both had late flights back, on the agenda were some sightseeing, Wurst (a huge sausage) and a lager or two.
We’d decided that jumping on a ‘hop on, hop off’ tour bus would be the best way to see as much as possible, so we got our tickets and hopped on… until I realised that being a pale skinned ginger haired Brit in 30+ degrees it was probably wise to make an emergency sun cream purchase, and was I glad I did!
First stop was the Berlin wall which as horrendous as it was at the time had to be a must see. We both stood there in almost total silence walking along the side of the wall and reading about some of the terrible things, but also about some of the heroes that put their necks on the line for others.
We both felt very somber and quite moved after this experience so we decided to cheer ourselves up with a beverage.
We then headed onto the next stop, checkpoint Charlie, which we were both a bit disappointed in as it was just a tourist attraction, from the somber mood of the wall we now had guys dressed up in costume charging €5 to have a photo taken with them and a hat on of your choice. Back on the bus we went.
Hunger struck, and there was only one thing for it, a Wurst! We went to a German restaurant next to the Berliner Dom, a stunning cathedral. I opted for the Currywurst which is a favourite of the locals, a kind of BBQ/curry sauce, delicious. Jason opted for the other classic bratwurst, basically the same but with mustard and potato salad, Oh, and of course another beer.
We then headed to something we both really wanted to see, the Brandenburg Gate, but there seemed to be a problem, we had seen a few times some protests going on in the city, which I’ve later learnt is a common occurrence. Sadly there was a huge protest at the gate which meant it was off the tour and the bus driver had to find a new route, this is where the ‘fun’ really began. The driver started to head up a street which he clearly couldn’t go too far up as there was a tunnel at the end, but nevertheless he continued on his way, me and Jason being on the top of the open top bus could see this wasn’t going to work. About 50 yards before the tunnel was a metal pole sticking out from a lamppost with a metal sheet hanging from it to let truck drivers know they weren’t going to make it under the tunnel, our driver obviously forgot he was driving an open top bus and not an Eddie Stobart! He proceeded towards the dangling metal sheet and nearly decapitated us both leaving Ruark in search of two new reps! Luckily Jason jumped to my rescue and lifted it over us both, a poor Chinese tourist a few rows back had to fend for himself! Luckily no one was hurt, the amazing thing was that the driver carried on his merry way as if nothing was a foot.
After this experience we decided to give the tour a miss and find another vendor of fine beverages, and a piece of cake which we found in a lovely area called Kurfurstendamm Ecke, it was like being in Paris (helped by the 30+ degrees!).
We saw this a fitting end to our adventure in Berlin and said goodbye to a great city, and one we will definitely visit again, and head to the airport (in the correct direction) and fly home. Auf Wiedersehen!
