The morning after our pub crawl came and after we’d blearily packed our bags and checked out of the hostel, we groggily made our way to Potsdamer Platz for a much needed hangover cure of whatever meaty dish was available.

Over a schnitzel and a burger, we remembered meeting two girls who looked remarkably similar to two girls we knew from Guildford.

More than just a coincidence, we remembered that these two sets of people were one and the same, and my phone buzzed with text messages and phone calls simply begging to experience our famous sightseeing tour.  Renowned for our incredible landmark-absorbing technique, we soon instructed the girls to meet us at  our brunch stop and we promised a whistle-stop trip around the stuff we’d seen and a slightly longer trip around the stuff we hadn’t seen.

Wandering down towards the Topography of Terrors, we remembered that for some reason other people like taking photos of each other in foreign locations, so stops were made to accommodate for this.

The Topography of Terrors, under construction, was to be a phenomenal exhibition housed in a revamped site on the former SS headquarters.  To be completed in 2010, we’d arrived a bit early, so we had to make do with reading the placards of SS members and detailed accounts of the organsational structure and rise to power of the Nazi Party outside.  In the sunshine.  Somehow, we coped.  The most disturbing thing I saw was the seemingly normal photos of people celebrating their birthdays, in mundane-looking meetings and conducting inspections, briefly forgetting that these SS members and Nazi Party officials were responsible for terrible atrocities.

Onto Kochstrasse on the metro, to wander to the West Berlin Starbucks and enjoy the delights of capitalist globalisation while the girls saw Checkpoint Charlie and equally reviled at the tourist feel to the place.

Picking a museum by cross-referencing Uncle Steel’s recommendation, our bible (The infallible ‘Rough Guide To Europe On A Budget’) and Jo’s ‘Top Ten: Berlin’, we picked a museum to go to from the vast array Berlin has to offer.  It was to be the Pergamon Museum.

Built entirely around housing the giant Ancient Greek Pergamon Altar, which was somehow recovered and transported to Berlin, we were given a detailed audio guide and spent a good while admiring the frieze around the base as well as learning the history behind its construction.

The incredible detail of the motifs on each piece were also something we baulked at.  The altar itself was understandably the main attraction, yet there was still a lot more to explore.

The museum had three more exhibitions, as well as the following structures:

• Market Gate of Miletus
• The Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way, Babylon
• The Mshatta facade

We had our work cut out.  The absolutely huge classical hulks of architecture made us feel just like ants.

Aside from the mammoth structures, one exhibition was simply entitled ‘Dionysus’, and told the story of the Greek god of, in a word, excess, and we learnt about the origins of his myth and the reason behind his differing depictions.  Along with the statues, there were also some pretty cool masks which were worn when carrying out the orgiastic drinking and revelry depicted on nearby pots.

Another wing was devoted to the brand new ‘Return Of The Gods’ exhibition, with a small variety of artifacts of each major classical deity, with an explanation of each god’s historical portrayal.  What wasn’t mentioned, however, was that Aphrodite was from Cyprus.  I was inconsolable.

Upstairs was the Islamic and Eastern Art exhibition, which had your standard fare of tapestries, crockery and colourful carvings.  Less predictable, however, was the entire recreation of an Aleppo Room recovered from across Syria and Jordan

Extremely modern, well-informed and well-thought out, the museum was an impressive insight into the classical world – not to be missed.  I was incredibly glad we’d picked this museum above all others, although my heritage might owe something to my favoured affinity with classical Greek mythology…

The most important initiation of all was about to take place for our wannabe-interthinkers:  beer o’clock.  Not greeting it with as much gusto as previously hoped, more photos were taken by the girls while we enjoyed a wheat-beer Paulaner.

Feeling a little peckish by this time from our alcohol intake and expended energy appreciating antiquities, we stopped at another important landmark:  Dunkin’ Donuts.

A six-pack was more than enough to tide the four of us over and it was soon time for the genders to separate.  Saying our goodbyes, boys went south and girls went north.

Returning to our hostel to pick up our bags from a Lady GaGa T-shirt-sporting Berliner (in every definition of the word), Uncle Steel arrived to take us out for dinner.  In a twist of generosity for his impending lift to the Hauptbahnhof, we bought his coffee for him.  We’re smarter than we look.

Returning to the remarkable Berlin station with its umpteen platforms and umpteen floors, we remarked on how nice it was to have our trip broken up by some friendly faces from home.  Oh, and we waxed lyrical to each other about how cool the station was.  Seriously, it’s a feat of engineering.  Ask Mr. Manners.

With my Uncle and our friends now just a distant memory and meeting a high-school couple from The Bronx, we boarded the couchette of our night train at 0032 for a well-deserved six hours of sleep.