Our host in Berlin, Sion, had informed us that a nearby bike shop was in possession of a vehicle that was worthy of our attention. He described it to us: a giant bike that seven people could ride, all sitting in a big circle and all pedaling. We were keen.
Sion marked it on the map for us and off we trotted. He had already paid them a visit on our behalf but we still thought it best that we did it properly. The management weren’t too keen on the video camera but were more than happy to let us use their "Conference Bike".
Just as described, it was a seven-seater bike with all the pedallers arranged in a ring. But the machine really has to be seen to be appreciated. Whilst I am sure it would make a wonderful setting for a conference, it might also find a good home in a science-fiction horror movie. A bright orange, space-age combine-harvester being pedaled down a Berlin street by a man in a top hat was quite a sight.
On a high from our latest and greatest means of transport, we head towards the Brandenburg Gate. We got distracted en route by a women selling ‘curry wurst’, which, we have been told, is a prototypical example of German food. The vendor finds the two of us filming our purchase to be highly entertaining, but her smile might have lasted if she could understand English; Thom wasn’t all too impressed with what was essentially a frankfurter drowned in ketchup, with a spoonful of mild curry powder.
Further up the road, we spied a square that was filled with an arrangement of short, stone blocks of varying heights. My eyes lit up: "You ever heard of free-running, Thom?" He had.
So we set up the tripod and proceeded to prance around like idiots, hopping across blocks in the top hat and posing for the camera. Suffice it to say that we drew a lot of looks from passersby, but we were used to it by now and carried on regardless.
Aside from posing in a velo-taxi outside the Brandenburg Gate and doing forward rolls past the Reichstag, the day passed without event. We rendezvoused with Sion in the evening, and he took us out to a Berlin beach bar. I wasn’t aware Berlin had any beaches but discovered that someone had the brilliant idea of dumping a load of sand on the riverbank, sticking in a couple of palm trees, playing some appropriate music, and serving up beer. Genius!
It was great to just sit back and relax (on the beach, no less!) and have some company. Sion was telling us about a walking tour he could arrange for us (we were debating whether it would qualify as a method of transport), and he showed us the brochure. I don’t quite recall why exactly it came up, but somehow the itinerary for the tour overlapped with us telling Sion about our free-running near Brandenburg Gate, and we realized that our "stone blocks" were in fact a memorial for the murdered Jews of the Second World War! I had spent my afternoon hopping around a war memorial in a top hat.
Classy.