Berlin

• Dfurler's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Berlin

Trip Start Jun 28, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Aug 29, 2008 Next
Entry

  Berlin, Germany
Friday, July 18, 2008

The Birkenstock mission has also been accomplished!!  Now I can shop for me :)

July 16th:  Happy Birthday to Danielle!!

Today I got up at 5:20 am to catch my flight from Paris to Berlin... who planned that???  Anyway I made my way to the airport and suprisingly enough the metro line was full at that time of day.  I arrived at the airport which is slightly different that you would find in Alberta/Canada.  I was able to figure it out though and security was pretty lax.  I had a layover in Dussledorf and then on to Berlin.  Unfortunately I have a nasty cold so my ears did not like the flights.  When I arrived in Berlin it was rather confusing as to where to go but I just followed the crowd and found the information booth, bought my transit pass and headed to my bus to the hostel.  I found it fairly easily and the Birkenstock store on the way.  I did some much needed laundry and pretty much relaxed.  I was a little nervous about getting around because I don't know any German.  I met a girl trying to get online at the hostel and we ended up going to another internet cafe and then for some dinner.  Unfortunately she was heading out tomorrow, but she gave me some good tips for different cities.  This is the only thing that kind of sucks about hostels is you meet people and just start to get to know them and then you say goodbye :(

July 17th:

I got up today to do a walking tour of the sights in Berlin but the lady at the front desk told me the wrong time so I missed it!  Luckily enough for me another girl was told the wrong time and ironically she is Canadian.  We wandered around and found a free walking tour... even better!  The guide was very dynamic and knew so much of the history.  I wasn't really familiar with what there was to see in Berlin but now I wish I had a couple more days here to check out the museums and monuments.  I got to see the Berlin wall... or what's left of it, checkpoint Charlie, and much more.  We walked for about four hours.  When we got back to the hostel,  I met a couple other people from Australia and we went out for dinner. 

July 18th:

Today one of the Austrailian girls and I got up early and walked around and took the train to the main station to book my ticket from Prague to Krakow.  We got my Germany patch and then headed back to the hostel.  We were meeting up with the Canadian to go out the a concentration camp... on a guided tour.  This was the first camp in Germany and was used to train all of the SS to go to the other camps.  It was considered a working camp and was mainly for Communists at first anyway.  It was very sobering but also very interesting.  This history is some much more real compared to King Henry the whatever who lived in a particular castle 350 years ago.  It was very sad and most of the camp was gone as the Soviets took it over in 1945 and most people just wanted to forget rather than make it a memorial. 

Off to Prague tomorrow on the bus... hopefully I don't get everyone sick

Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry