The Proust effect is when a sensory stimulus spontaneously evokes a memory, such as conditioned salivation when you’re anticipating food because you can smell it. It’s like on Christmas Day, I’d always wake up to the smell of turkey cooking, and I’d associate that with it being Christmas. The smell of bacon cooking is something else that can evoke the Proust effect in people; the Germans would call it specklust, or maybe even specksehnsucht.

I was up early, cooking rashers of smoked bacon, and some pork and apple sausages, so that when Carmen came down they were sizzling away in the air fryer - ready for a filling brioche breakfast roll. We’d got a little over an hour until we needed to head to London City airport for another trip overseas: another race.

Last time I was in this position, preparing to fly to Berlin for the marathon, I’d been given a lift to the airport, and was patiently waiting for my old iPhone to finish transferring to my shiny new iPhone 13 Pro. Five years later, I’d arrived in London, having already transferred to a new iPhone 18 Pro a week ago. No rush, but the data roaming was untested.

I like it when we can fly from London City airport as it’s generally so much quieter than Heathrow, and is less likely to have issues. The only downside is that the travel time is a little longer, and is subject to any industrial action and delays you might face using the London Underground.

We set off at 09:35 for South Ruislip, and arrived at the airport a little after 11:00. Everything so far was going well. This was my first time flying with my new ‘blue’ passport as my old EU passport had less than six months to go at the start of this trip, and whilst some countries accept three months it is common for airlines to require six to avoid the risk of them making a mistake. The check-in was nice and quick, and security wasn’t too bad either. It took six minutes from deciding to do bag drop to being through security. Once on the other side, Carmen decided to her get nails done for the race, so she got that sorted whilst I picked up a few bits from Boots for a light lunch.

London to Berlin is a short flight, taking less than two hours. During this time we were served a drink, and a snack. I started to read on my iPad, but couldn’t really concentrate on it. Once we’d arrived in Berlin, we had the joys of the new Entry/Exit System (EES) that EU countries have been implementing. In theory it should mean digital tracking, and would no longer require stamping of your passport. In practice though, a technical glitch meant the queues were longer than normal. So much so, they were giving out free water bottles to people in the queue, and were manually stamping. It took an hour to get through immigration, but at least our luggage was there waiting for us after.

We spoke to a German father and son duo from Dresden for the journey to Potsdamer Platz; it hadn’t been the route I intended but the train I wanted us to take wasn’t running. From there we took the U2 as far as Gleisdreieck but no trains were going further than that due to an electrical fire in the switch room at Wittenbergplatz just over a week ago. The damage meant numerous lines not working, or not working fully with no end date specified. We instead took the U3 the rest of the way to Wittenbergplatz as the only route still running there.

Previously we’d stayed at the ibis budget, but this time we were next door - in the ibis. I always find it strange having two ibis hotels next-door to each other. It’s common in Germany at least though. By the time we’d checked in, it was 18:25.

With nothing else to do, we decided to go in search of some food. We had liked eating at Cao Cao last year, so we went back there for some Vietnamese food. I had one of their specials: Vịt Cà Ri Đỏ. It was crispy duck served with seasonal vegetables and sweet potatoes in red curry sauce with coconut milk & rice. The portion size was massive so I couldn’t manage it all.

We then took a casual walk back to the hotel, stopping by the adidas store on the way to see what Berlin Marathon kit they had. I also picked up stone extra pillows from reception as it’s common for many other European countries to like them flatter than we do. Once Carmen had finished applying glue and Duck tape to repair the hole in her running shoe, I did the same to mine. It was strange we’d both ended up with the same issue too close to race day to wear in a new pair. Hopefully, they’d hold together okay.