Hi, so I thought I'd let you all know about my recent trip to Berlin since I had such an amazing time there.  We had originally planned to go to Barcelona during a short break from filming I had back in the Summer but had to cancel it due to a change around of filming days, which was a bit rubbish but I'm really glad we did. Berlin is amazing. Every bar, club, restaurant and shop is unique and designed to offer something completely different from the next one, unlike a lot of places in London. The city is crawling with art and culture, with an art gallery occupying almost every other unit in some parts (namely Prenzlauer Berg, among others), a massive amount of studio space and even the old bombed-out remains of a Jewish shopping centre (Kunsthaus Tacheles- "Art House No Art"), having been taken over by artists, now standing as an amazing, unofficial art gallery in which every surface and material has been painted, sprayed and sculpted by the artists that have lived and worked their over the years.

You are constantly reminded of Berlin''s dark history through the harsh, grey, communist-looking architecture, especially in East Berlin (the oppressive side of Berlin before the wall came down 20 years ago). It is now inhabited by artists, musicians and creative, open-minded people from all walks of life- those buildings are now covered in beautiful graffiti, paintings, posters and photography, making them symbols of liberation rather than oppression. We spent most of our time looking for hidden clubs, in strange bars, Japanese restaurants and vintage shops and were on our feet for literally the whole five days and still only got to see about half of the things we wanted to because there's so much going on.

If any of you get the chance to go, here are some places I would definitely recommend visiting:

Madame Claude's- The 'upside down bar' where all the furniture is on the ceiling (its also a gig venue downstairs)

The Yesterday Bar- a cool little bar with pixies, mushrooms and grass on the ceiling, mannequins sitting at the bar and arcade game tables

Mr. Pong- A ping pong bar (where everyone in there plays on one table)

Kreuzberg- an area of Berlin with loads of cool clubs, bars, street art and shops (including a gay bar where almost every surface is covered in(really) fluffy pink and yellow shag-pile and Colours- a vintage clothes shop where you buy by weight (one Kilo of clothes is 15 euros)

Prenzlauer Berg- for all the art galleries (including KunstHaus Tachelles) vintage shops and Japanese restaurants

And numerous other places which I can't think of/spell off the top of my head (I found all of them on SpottedByTheLocals.com- a really good sight where locals from all major European cities list their favourite places)

I''m waiting to hear from my publicist as to what I can and can''t tell you about finishing Skins without getting into trouble, but my next blog will be about that :) Kat x