I am sitting in Berlin's central station, the new and so very improved "Hauptbahnhof" - which in itself is a sign of Germany reunited, since Berlin did not have such a thing for the last 50 years, due to the split into East & West. I like travelling by train, and no presumed terrorist leaving potentially explosive baggage somewhere on some train would stop me travelling this way. I think.

But I don't necessarily like the Bahn, the German state rail company. Actually, few Germans do; it's a modern tradition - present since the 2nd World War, which we started, in case you didn't know - to dislike state institutions. Even if one does follow even the tiniest edict with alacrity, all the while considering taking legal action against it; calls to our version of the Supreme Court are coming into fashion.

Anyway, the Bahn built this steel and concrete monster, glass-umbrella'd, which feels like a temple to gigantism with its 2- or 3-storey high levels of which there are at least 4, trains using the lowest and highest levels, with 2 shopping and service levels inbetween. There are several fast-food places, although they did think of a fruit-and-water stall, at least - somewhat expensive, though. There are several paperback sellers and news agents. There is little soul; somehow huge places always seem to stretch out soul between their distant outer walls too much - perhaps soul is a natural constant that is dealt out one per building, whatever its size?

I miss the old "central" station, the notorious, but much smaller Bahnhof Zoo, in the erstwhile isolated West side of the city, near the ruin of Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (except that the man has been left out of its name since the War, so that nowadays it's sort of memorialising the War instead). For one thing you could wander in there and buy fruit and water provisions for about 3 Euro; at the stall in this new central station, mentioned above, you're bound to be paying about double, for less fruit. Also, Zoo station was in the centre of the West side, surrounding life honking and hooting away - literally, since it's right next to the city zoo; this new Station is in the area that used to be no-man's land between East & West Berlin - the only places it's really close to are further evidence of the renewed German mania with size, the chancellory with its huge concrete roundings and the new office block for members of parliament.

At least the Reichstag, where German parliament has been sitting again the last decade or so, in spite of its stateliness looking a little frail between its bloated grandchildren, is visible, too.

In the spirit of this journal, I will of course enter this new gleaming temple, sunk into the centre of old Berlin, with an open mind in future. I will try to revisit Bahnhof Zoo just to look at once a year or so. And as a good German, I will keep riding the state monopoly's trains; and shut up in its stations.