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The Hostel (Pfefferbett Hostel) I’m in is ace in every way except there is no kitchen which is a bit of a pain when I’m here for 4 nights.

So I had a quality salami pizza last night at a little gaff called La Cucina in the Pfefferbett area. The thing was huge and bloody gorgeous, only 5 Euros for it too. What I would like to happen is a repeat of the same for the next 3 nights but then that’s not exactly what one would consider a balanced diet is it.

Crazy Oscar is the fella working behind the hostel counter, he’s a full-on type of guy and never stops talking about something utterly off the wall while getting on with whatever task is in hand. A nice chap and certainly preferable to Oscar the grouch which it’s not always that uncommon to get in these places.

I know I’ve alluded to this many times already and it probably holds about as much interest for you as a Colleen Rooney (are they married? Who cares actually) column, but proper geared Vespas (not just PXs either) are everywhere in this country, it’s great. Well done Germans.

I’m about to go on a completely free tourist walk of Berlin, not generally my sort of thing but it covers loads of things I was interested in seeing anyway and did I mention it’s free. It’s provided by Sandemans and supposed to be one of the best in the Europe apparently, though they are hardly like to say that it’s bobbins are they. Seeing some of the sights in this manner will give me more time to explore the large amount of alternative stuff the city has on my own.

I’m making more of an effort to include the actual names, websites etc. of places I talk about as if some of my stuff is gonna be on the Lonely Planet site it may as well be of use to any fellow travellers foolish enough to click through to it. Here’s how my blog comes through on the LP pages, in this case, for Ottawa.

Most annoyingly, I’ve just discovered that I’m missing my iPhone earphones. Some times I’ll listen to stuff before going to sleep as I did last night. So in the morning they will generally be loose in the bed but I can’t find them anywhere. The other 5 people in my room all checked out this morning so I reckon they must have fell on the floor and one of them snarffled them either by accident or on purpose, whichever it was makes little difference to me. Scoundrels.

The tour was excellent, I’d recommend it profusely to anyone, especially if you like your history. The guide was a well to do and slightly eccentric St Andrews student who presented things in an over the top thespian sort of style, but it worked and she clearly knew her stuff. A tip was optional but it was one of those kind of situations where it’d be awkward not to and I didn’t mind anyway as she was good, so 5 Euros it was.

Even at 3 and a half hours long it was pretty action packed. Here’s a selection of what we took in: Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (also known as the Holocaust Memorial), Hitler’s underground bunker spot (where he spent the last few weeks of his life as the Russians closed in on Berlin), Goering’s Luftwaffe offices (later to became the main goverment office of the GDR and post Cold War a tax office!), a small stretch of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie (actually a tourist trap re-creation of), Bebelplatz (where years prior to World War II the Nazis had burned 25,000+ books of basically anything not the Nazi ideology) and the Fernsehturm (iconic TV Tower Eastern bloc balls up).

The Holocaust Memorial (also known as The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) was quite errie and impressive, it’s quite hard to visualise but it’s basically a large series of blocks at different heights creating a bit of a maze. It doesn’t sounds like much but I liked it. The architect (Peter Eisenman) leaves the thinking behind the structure ambiguous for you to interpret what it means yourself but he has said he was inspired by the Jewish Cemetery in Prague and having been there also, I can see a connection.

I did go back to The Reichstag after the tour to have a look at the interior but there were huge queues even at 20:30, I’ve still got 3 days here though so there will be time again.

By this time I realised I’d not ate for donkeys and was starving so I went over to The Sony Centre (which I’d planned on visiting anyway). It’s just an entertainment complex with restaurants and a big cinema, but the building is really modern and unusual. I had a look at a few healthy and different options but then I was that hungry and tired that a disappointing meal would have made me want to lock myself in Hitler’s bunker. Wings and ribs with fries.

With regards to the picture, obviously some Berliners think it funny to take a pish in a Dunkin Donuts cup, put the straw back in (as if to suggest help yourself) and leave it at the side of a U-Bahn entrance. If I’m honest, so do I.