Unthawing my frozen hands above a bowl of lentil sausage soup, I look out from the winter garden atop Berlin's coolest store, KaDeWe, over the greyscale city as it subsists under the incessant snow and hypnotic red light of the Fernsehturm.

As the U-Bahn pulls out of Wittenbergplatz station, I think back to my first steps in this city just a few hours ago: getting off the bus in front of the screaming Chinese pagoda at Zoogarten, being swept along Kurfürstendamm by the -15°C Russian wind only to encounter that horrid steel spider, and in fine opening the door to my stylish room at the Mittendrin hotel on Nurbergerstrasse.

Abstieg bitte. I hop off the U-Bahn at Alexanderplatz and immediately stumble upon the Weltzeituhr. Fatigued by the distances travelled and by the overall lack of an aesthetic system (those fuschia gas pipes winding through the streets, for a start), I take a time out under the Weltzeituhr and pretend to wait like a true Berliner. Just before me sits the Cubixx cinema with its electric blue heart contained in a glossy onyx cube, stunning against the matte snow. On the S-Bahn tracks above, glowing letters. The pulse of the Fernsehturm is all-consuming. I walk round its cool cement base, frozen in time, in winters and ideologies past. Inside I run my hand along its pleated coarse walls, along its alkaline, surgical railing. In just ten seconds' time, I am catapulted to the command deck. In the distance, I spy westerners eating in the gilded bubble of the winter garden, probably listening to I'll Try Anything Once. 180° away, the Karl Mark Allee, in all its Stalinst grandeur, sustains successive waves of Russian winds and suddenly becomes my next objective.

Once on the Allee, I struggle on through the tundra to see what's playing at the Kino International. A lone passer-by nods me on with dilated cheeks. I continue on to Potsdamer Platz, the Berlinale epicenter. Crowds have gathered round Berlinale Palast in anticipation for the first screening of Les Adieux à la Reine, but the cold forces me back to the hotel, where after a long relaxing bath I retire to my bed with some delicious butter biscuits found at DM, a strong herbal brew and the news in German.

With the first morning light, I awake to snowflakes dancing in the garden. I don my woolly leggings and all the other requisite layers then hasten back to Potsdamer Platz for Berlinale Shorts tickets. I squint on in anticipation while a few French hipsters beside me use the zoom on their DSLRs to check the availability of screenings from the back of the queue. Tickets in hand, I make a right on Ebertstrasse and stumble upon the Brandenburg Tor on the Pariser Platz. To my left, the US Embassy; behind me, the French embassy, quietly tucked away in a bunker. A Congolese protest (or celebration?) erupts and spills over to the neighbouring Reichstag. I continue on down Unter den Linden, past the imposing Russian embassy and across the museumsinsel, topped with a certain Berliner Dom. Just behind the latter, the elegant Bode Museum floats on the River Spree, beaming in the setting sun. Atop the bridge to the mainland, peddlers shiver beside their treasured furs, cosy and sheltered under a tarp. On the adjacent embankment, I wander in the DDR Museum and inspect yellowed photographs of the asbestos-ridden Palast der Republik under one of the 1001 lamps which it once housed. Between my fingertips I contemplate the nonporous polyester fashions (which remind me of the green viscose blends of Brave New World) and finally take a rest in a Trabant.

On Saturday, I set off for Schloss Charlottenburg, getting off the U-Bahn at Mierendorffplatz and walking ten minutes west to cross the River Spree. Against a pale sky, skeletons of trees reach out to the stifled sun while a small boat decongests the icy river. Once at the snowy schlossgarten, I follow the winding paths past the marzipan Belvedere tea house and to the snow covered opaque lake, under the Prussian bridge and onto the buttercream Schloss herself.

Thirty minutes of U-Bahn later at Eberswalderstrasse in Prenzlauer Berg, I am at the height of the carnivore experience at Filetstück. Total silence, sinking with each sip, marbled fat as it bursts between the molars, spilling onto the tongue, exploding with éclats of sea salt and the warmth of blood. I browse a few vintage shops (though nothing compared dipping one's hand in the fifteen cent button basket at Humana Second Hand) before following the sleigh tracks to the Kaffee und Kuchen of my dreams at Frühstück on Raumerstrasse. As the sun sets I join the locals in calling it a day at the Kulturbrauerei, former brewery turned cultural mecca and host to a plethora of theatre and live music.

On Sonntag, after an early screening of Iron Sky at Cinemaxx, I take the U-Bahn to Platz der Luftebrücke and trek to the now-defunct Tempelhof airport. Standing in the middle of the umbrella-shaped structure, a hundred staircases descend before me. Below the command block, speechless letters.

I grab a quick bite to eat back in my favourite neighbourhood of Prenzlauer Berg, catch the bus at Zoogarten back to Tegel Airport and reflect on the weekend now past. Years of watching Arte's Franco-German comparative culture show, Karambolage, and regularly reading Der Spiegel couldn't have prepared me for Berlin's complex personality. I vow to return soon, hopefully this summer, to canoe to the Pfaueninsel and spend a few days lying in the thick grasses at Schloss Sanssouci. And I can't help but to think that, as travelling so often reminds me, in order to really understand, l'essentiel, c'est d'y être.