Despite a couple of shocks (my Lufthansa plane being rather too reminiscent of a golf cart and the reality of my accommodation as pretty much a Japanese capsule hotel) Berlin has charmed me.
It is alive and very busy this weekend as 40,000 people attempt 26 miles. My taxi driver told me disappointingly that he is far from a sportsman. 'I eat carbs before sleep' he admitted, as if it was a dirty secret.
Today was spent trying not to think about tomorrow. Just being a tourist. And what a great city it is to be a snap-happy, guidebook in bag, map in hand, tourist.
Berlin satisfies my secret love of communist architecture; my curiosity about cities brought to their knees by a war started less than a lifetime ago; and makes me realise I have an affinity with a country of practical, down to earth, no nonsense people.
It is a wide, flat city of massive squat buildings, surprisingly patchworked with large amounts of greenery. Bicycles buzz the streets, happily getting in the way of both pedestrians and motorists.
Tomorrow I get the grand tour; circumnavigating this great city on foot.
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