Flea Markets, Thunderstorms and Terror...

Since it's Sunday, I decide to head to the flea market at Mitte this morning.....and I am not disappointed! It's a sprawling and bustling market, with people selling anything and everything, and for super cheap....50 cents of vintage clothes? yes please! There's also an ampitheatre next to the market site, where locals can get up and sing/dance/act/whatever.....pretty good way of entertaining myself in the sun for a while. And on the grassy areas, people are having barbequeues, sunbathing, drinking, listening to music; it's a really chilled vibe.

The Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte areas of Berlin are beautiful; there are hundreds of little cafes dotted along the streets, spilling out on the the pavements, adorned with street art. It almost feels Parisienne here, although much less self-aware, and infinitely cooler (hipster Berliners sitting smoking and just being....)

After a few hours, I head back down to Alexanderplatz; I've been told there may be a flashmob there at 3pm, so I lay on a bench people watching for a while. Sadly no flashmob materialises, but a brilliant little jazz/funk band pitch up, so I listen to them for a while; perfect Sunday music.

It's now ridiculously hot; almost beyond bearable, so I decide to head down to Potsdamer Platz, and to the Topography of Terror openair Museum. It charts the plight of the the Jews during the war, with photographs, documents, propaganda posters and artefacts and is really harrowing. There are pictures of women with their heads shaved, being publicly ritually humiliated for entering in to relationships with Jewish men ("racial defilement"). I feel a bit overwhelmed by the time I leave, but glad that I went. It's a really intense but important fragment of history.

Back at the hostel, I head to the bar for a Berliner and some chill-out time, after a long day of walking. Get talking to an Australian guy called Zach, who has just moved here (having bizarrely lived in Pitlochry previously....). We have a BBC cocktail (uber creamy....bleugh...) and sit by the top-floor windows, watching a truly epic thunderstorm. It was so hot that the weather broke, the sky turned black, and thunder and lightning drew in. The rain is so heavy that it's vertical, and is running down the street like rivers. Totally amazing.

Eventually it subsides, so me and Zach head out for falafels. We wander around the Alexanderplatz area for a while, trying to figure out just how Berliners are so inherently cool? Is it their ironic fashion choices? The hair? The attitude? The way they make smoking look film-star sexy? Probably a mixture of all of this.

Have promised Zach I will visit him at the coffee-shop where he works before I leave Berlin, so may do that tomorrow.

Off to bed, ready for a day of visiting squats, photographing graffiti and hanging out at the African beach bar....