Wednesday 15th September 2004 Spandau N° 1.

11.8° C Sunny and warm with white fluffy clouds. Lots of traffic started moving early. Bill

Spandau railway station - Wikimedia photo by Jwaller

called to say that Ikea didn’t open until 10 a.m. (we’d arranged to take him as there was something he wanted to get). At ten we left in the car to find the store which was opposite the MBK shop in Stresow. It only took about five minutes to get there in the car. Bill wanted a new chair for computer working. He chose one with a moulded wooden back and the usual single support leg with half a dozen castor feet. A snip at 59€. He also bought some Gravad Lax, Swedish salmon and bought us a pack to try for having taken him to the shop. Back at 11.30

Spandau railway station - Wikimedia photo by Jivee Blau

a.m. Mike drove the car back to the station car park and was lucky enough to find a space. Lunch. The mooring was busy again with cruisers coming and going, several of them were charter boats. Still no WWT callback service for our ‘phone. I rang Europe Central in Coquelles (Calais) to book our French car in for its Control Technique (equivalent of the UK MoT) and got a booking for 8 a.m. on 2nd November (the 1st is a national holiday in France as it is All Saints Day). We called for Bill at 2 p.m. and went into Spandau on foot to find a Cybercafé to use the internet. Found one right inside the corridor leading to the station. The place was packed but

Spandau streets -Wikimedia photo by Dguendel

Bill had a PC and we had one between us. Started off having trouble with the fact that everything was in German. Bill said he always starts off by loading up Yahoo.co.uk which comes up in English and takes it from there. Checked our e-mail - there were several old ones from WWT, first telling us about the changes, then saying that the new system was coming in to force on the 1st Sept. The WWT website wouldn’t let us have a copy of our August ‘phone bill - it dawned later that we were using the new NAC code instead of the old one. We got a bank statement, printed that and

Spandau streets -Wikimedia photo by Alexrk2

then we booked our ferry crossing via SeaFrance 159€ (not cheap!) We tried several times to book an F1 hotel, but couldn’t get their home page to fire up. We’d had two hours on line, but the price wasn’t too bad at 1€ an hour and 25c per printed sheet. The newly built shopping arcade was right next to the station, so we went to have a look for a shoe shop, found one and I bought a new pair of Eccos, exactly the same as the ones I’d just (almost) worn out. Expensive, but worth it for the comfort. Mike wanted to get some postage stamps, but the machine in the old town wouldn’t work. He bought a 15€ top up for the ‘phone from a Vodaphone shop and then we went back to the boat. I made a pork stew for dinner. Bill came over to discuss where we were off to next. He said he wanted to have another go at the Bode museum, so the nearest mooring would be N° 5, and Mike said we’d try for it but might not get it with the number of hire boats which were still roaming around in Berlin.