After a quick walk around part of the city on our arrival yesterday today was going to be the day when we explored more. However, we unexpectedly ended up exploring parts of the city where tourists don’t normally find themselves.
Our first port of call was Checkpoint Charlie which turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax being nothing more than a hut in the middle of the road. I am not sure why I expected more than that given that I knew, given its function, that was all it could be. Consequently, we weren’t there long before we move on to the Berlin Wall Monument. This is a preserved section of the wall that you can walk beside along with a history of Berlin on a level below. It must have been unimaginable to wake up in 1961 and find yourself being separated from family and other loved ones who ended up on the other side of the divide.
Before leaving the UK we had booked in to visit the dome that sits atop the Reichstag building. As this is the German Parliament building security was tight with identity checks carried out both when you book your tickets and when you arrived via your passport. I’m normally loathed to carry my passport with me for fear of losing it but today there was no choice.
You are escorted by lift to the top of the building where you pretty much are left to your own devices. The roof is a large rectangular area with towers in each corner. This platform gives you great views over the city but, the real and literal centerpiece is a huge glass dome with a spiral walkway around the side. In the middle was a mirrored structure from floor to ceiling reflecting light into the space in what I can only describe as something looking like the console in Dr. Who’s TARDIS. The top of the dome is open to the elements and the mirrored structure acts as both a vent and a collector for this rain. It was a beautiful place and well worth the visit. Oh, and it was free too!
An Unexpected Turn
When I’d woken this morning I’d found that my right eye was sticky. During the day it was getting progressively worse to the extent that I felt I really needed to get something for it. A pharmacist was what it needed.
Who knew that Berlin could be more strict about Sunday opening than the UK? Nowhere was open where I might reasonably expect to get some eye drops. In the end, we found that there was one pharmacy open at Berlin Hauptbahnhof station and as this was reasonably close to the Reichstag we walked there.
Until this point I’d not really thought too much about it and, of course, I couldn’t really see what the eye was like. Therefore, it was only when the woman behind the counter recoiled when I showed her the problem I realised that it probably needed a bit more than some eyedrops.
Through the internationally recognised language of mime, she indicated that I needed to see a doctor and gave us a bit of paper with the address of the local hospital so off we walked there. Like most hospitals, this was a sprawling place with multiple buildings and so just having its address wasn’t much use. Eventually, we (as I was accompanied by Helen) found A&E.
Being used to long waits in NHS hospital A&E departments I was pleased to see that the waiting room was sparsely populated but what to do next? I found an admissions room and went in. Initially, I was waved away but on explaining I was English he suddenly welcomed me in and chatted away to me (in English) about how he had just started his shift and was logging on. He looked at the eye before finding a nurse to take a look who concluded that I did need to see a doctor but they didn’t have an eye department here and I needed to go to a different hospital in another part of town (this was really helping me complete my I-SPy book of Berlin hospitals). This we could not reach on foot and so we got a taxi over to the second hospital which, as hospitals go, was an attractive place (outside at any rate).
We had been given slightly better instructions this time and quickly found the department we needed Once more by looking lost I was able to find a helpful nurse who pointed me in the right direction which turned out to be someone with whom I could discuss payment. This is when I played my joker.
For as long as I can remember I have carried my European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) card (now called Global Health Insurance Card so as not to upset the leavers despite it being exactly the same) and not used it once. Now it was finally going to prove its worth. The woman took my card and my passport (remember how I said I was only carrying it for the visit to the Reichstag?), I filled out a form and hey presto it was free. If I’d had to have paid and claimed it back on my travel insurance that would have been fine too but this was quick and painless – unlike the eye by now.
I was then triaged by another nurse who checked my vitals, asked a few questions (in English), and then sent me to yet another waiting area. Finally, I was called in to see an eye doctor (whatever they are called) and he asked me more questions before giving me a sight test. I was asked to place a mask over my eyes with the left eye blocked off and the right eye looking out through some tiny holes. I was asked (in English) what I could see on the screen on the other side of the room and I squinted and said “Black dots”. He adjusted the font size and I went “Oh! They’re numbers!”
Anyway, the outcome of all this was that it was conjunctivitis and I was given a prescription and sent off back to the only open pharmacy in Berlin, the same one where the woman had recoiled just a few hours earlier. This time there was a different person behind the counter and he informed me (in English) that they didn’t have what the doctor prescribed but there was another with the same active ingredient that I could use instead which is what I went with.
I feel incredibly lucky that, with one exception, the six people that I met on our tour of Berlin hospitals, all spoke excellent English and were able to make the journey from entry to exit a straightforward one. Also after all these years of carrying the GHIC card and wondering now I know that it really does have value – just remember you’ll need your passport too!
