Berlin: Where's my bag?

Night life

Berlin is famous for its night life, stag weekends, reunions and lad’s weekends, so I desperately wanted to experience this for myself.

I found myself at the Europa Centre and after a few pleasant and cheap drinks, I stood up to leave and my handbag had gone - not the best thing to happen on a night out anywhere, never mind one in a foreign country! My passport, purse and other valuable items had gone before I even had a chance to move onto the next bar.

 

 

 

 

Security came and spoke good English. They searched the place and called the police, who were quite helpful - but my handbag was gone forever. After searching the bins in the city centre for quite some time, I went back to my hotel minus a passport and all my money and credit cards.

The beauty of visiting a capital city is that your country's embassy will be quite nearby, which fortunately was the case in Berlin. The British embassy in Berlin is nothing special and has quite a rude female receptionist but it serves its purpose of providing you with an emergency passport.

I was, though, quite disgusted by the fact this cost 116 euros! I had a police report and everything and still had to pay this fee, even though I’d also had all my credit cards stolen. Thankfully the person I was with was able to pay for me. I left the embassy angry, minus even more money and with a lecture on identity fraud. They also informed me at the embassy that four bags had been stolen from the Europa Centre that month, and therefore to try and avoid it or, if you must go, to keep an eye on all possessions.

Now you’re all probably thinking, "Why have your passport with you on a night out?" The simple answer to this is that a couple of hours before I was at the Reichstag, which is a government building. As I mentioned previously, you need your passport to enter that building. Therefore my best advice is, if you’re going out after you’ve visited the Reichstag, return your passport back to the hotel before you do so!  

Verdict

Even though my bag was stolen, and I consequently spent many hours in the British Embassy, my trip to Berlin was absolutely fantastic! I felt that I learnt a lot about the history of Germany and soaked up the German culture. There is so much to see and it is very cheap compared to most capital cities.