As mentioned in my previous post I went to Berlin to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Let me tell you my story about the four beautiful days.

Day 1 – 28th December

Sunday, 28th December started early in the morning because I had to catch the Intercity-Express (ICE) in Mannheim. It was the first time I travelled by this train and I’m sure that it wasn’t the last one. The seats were so comfortable and the noise level was really acceptable. Furthermore power sockets were available, yeah. I felt like a businessman with my MacBook in a high-tech train.

Several hours later I was there. I arrived in Berlin. The train station there was the biggest one I’ve ever seen. At the station I first bought a city map and I ate some self-made sandwiches. Then I walked to the youth hostel. There I met Sarah, Claudius and Claudia, some of the organisers.

After my registration I took a walk into town. It began to dawn and the pictures I took turned out nicely. You can find them in the gallery “Berlin at Night”. In the right picture you can see the Brandenburg Gate which is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany.

In the evening there was a welcoming speech. After that we played a funny speed dating game and finally we sat together and had a drink. By the way Priska drunk Prosecco at least one glass a day *jokingly* .

Day 2 – 29th December

At ten o’clock a city rallye started. I walked with other participants through the city to answer a sheet with few *g* questions. During the city rallye I met two people from Luxembourg who went to a hacker congress. I decided within a second to attend them because it sounded interesting. There’s also a video of the 25th Chaos Communication Congress (25C3) in my video section.

Day 3 – 30th December

This day we visited the “Reichstag building” (see the pictures here). It was constructed to house the Reichstag, the first parliament of the German Empire. Later on I went to the Victory Column (in German: Siegessäule). Then I visited the museum for communication which wasn’t exactly brilliant. The next one was a technical museum and was much more interesting but it only had opened for another 45 minutes.

Day 4 – 31th December

On the last day groups were built to visit museums of the group’s interest. I had already visited two museums on the previous day. In addition I heard about the “New Year’s Eve Run”, so I didn’t join any group. My run started at one o’clock. I’ve already written a post about it here. For the evening a casino night was organised. I focused on poker. I lost all my poker chips in the 10th round. One guy called all my bets in that round because he just wanted to know if I had the last card to complete the nice “2 2 2″ flop to the “Poker” (for most people known as “Four of a Kind”).

At eleven thirty we went to the place where we could see the highlight of the day, the fireworks. Later on we went to the big party at the Brandenburg Gate and I wore flashy glasses, the perfect party gag . Several hours later, something around five o’clock in the morning, I went to bed. In fact I didn’t want to sleep yet. But the guy who should accompany me to the disco couldn’t be found anymore. So I had to break my tradition of going home at 8 a.m. or later .

At noon I hit the road with four other guys from Mannheim. In the picture you can see Priska, Christian and the “Smiling One” (sorry I couldn’t remember your name). The fourth is missing, maybe the left one is Jari. If you were able to turn my cam you would see me .

Thanks

At this point I thank

• Stefen for telling me about that event.
• Claudius for his tolerance to pay the participation fee after the registration.
• the band for the nice music.
• the course instructors for their workshops that I didn’t talk about.
• Priska for persuading me to go to the open air party and not to go back to the youth hostel (it was extremely cold).
• everyone for joining this event.

It was a great time.