Berlin Trip- Part 1: Monday & Tuesday

11th April (Monday) ~ 14th April (Friday)

My first time stepping outta UK! Finally, after a year’s worth of ‘You come here (UK) to study, not travel!’, my parents have finally allowed me to explore Europe.

The original group consisted of 3 girls & 1 guy- Cas, Auds, me & Wilson. However, ½ an hour just before we were supposed to take the bus to East Midlands Airport (Nottingham,), Wilson called to say that he couldn’t make it. So it was down to 3 girls flying off to Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

Auds & I in front of our plane

Climbing the flight steps with Cas

We touched down close to midnight. Cas had emailed the hostel earlier on and we were told to take a 55 min train ride to central Berlin where our hostel was. We rushed a little coz that was the last train for the night. Got to the station, didn’t understand a single world German, so we asked a guy and he pointed us to the platform. Boarded a train, only to find out at the end of that line that we had hopped onto the wrong one!!! There we were, early Tuesday morning, 100+km outside Berlin. *Gasp!*

Lost!

Taken in the morning before we boarded the train back to Berlin

We had ended up in some dusty tiny town (way much smaller than Lboro). Even the gates of the train station were locked! Had to climb over 4 gates in all (with some difficulty as we had on our heavy backpacks). Walked down the darkly lit streets to find any available hotel. Didn’t find any, so we had to spend a few hours camping outside till the 1st train for the day arrived.

It was a little freaky, 3 of us lost in a foreign country and spending the night out in the streets under what felt like sub zero temperatures. If my parents knew about this, they would definitely freak out =)

Lol=)

zzzz...

Anyway, we did manage to find our way back to central Berlin. Checked into our hostel. I’m still wondering whether the hostel should be given hotel status or not. Our private room was bigger than normal hotel rooms. Towels were provided, plus TV!!! Wow! I’ve never heard of any hostel providing TVs per room.

Tuesday 7am @ the Hostel's dinning room

Waiting for the reception to open before checking in. Notice how dead I look as comapred to Aud's fresh face

After resting for a while, we started exploring. Armed with a map and research done online, our first stop was the Berlin TV tower. Went up 365m to the rotating restaurant and had tea there. While we were enjoying the view, we nibbled away on cakes, cold cuts and caviar! *grins* This was the 1st time I was tasting caviar on a what was supposed to be a budget- backpacking- trip too!

What we had for tea

*drools*

Berlin skyline

Tea was followed by roaming the streets and just taking in the sights of the city. We went to a cathedral, Berliner Dom, Altes Museum, Berlin University, Brandenburg Gate, Berlin wall memorial, Reichstag and a Peugeot Concept Car showroom.

Berlin Uni

Brandenburg Gate

A Peugeot concept car- Now where are its wheels?

Berliner Dom

Admiring the sunset

@ the river next to Berliner Dom

Group shot outside Brandenburg Gate

Didnt manage to capture the gate tho...

Now where are we? *rolls eyes*

We walked from place to place, mainly because we weren’t familiar with the local transport system yet. There are 5 types of public transport: Train, S- Bahn, U- Bahn, Trams and buses. Train would be the railway kind, from 1 city to another. The Bahns are like tubes and MRTs but the S & U have their individual systems. S refers to surface, U would be underground. Its like having 2 different kinds of MRT systems.

Dinner was held at a sushi restaurant following which, 35mins of surf time at the nearby internet café. Ooh, I had my 1st taste of rum at the sushi place. They gave each of their diners a complementary glass of prune rum & I actually liked it:) Oh wow, Alicia backpacking, sleeping on streets & drinking alcohol... what an interesting start to the trip.