Hot Berlin

I am currently writing this from an overnight train from Berlin to Vienna. We could not agree on another German city and so we decided to look east to Austria. Salzburg was too expensive, but Vienna was pretty inexpensive and has a lot of history attached. 

Anyways, on our first full day in Berlin we traveled to the main train station and booked tickets for an over night train to Vienna since the journey would take about 8 hours. We didn't want to waste the day and we would save on a night in the hostel. We chose to go with seats (5 euro each) compared to couchettes (15 euro each)--that might have been a mistake. There is currently 5 people in a cabin for 6 and we are squeezed in here pretty tight. We will see how this sleep thing goes. 

Day 6

Anyways, writing of trains. The train from Amsterdam to Berlin was quite nice. 

K and I have decided we would have rather travelled on that train on an overnight trip to Vienna instead. The seats actually reclined. But hey this is an adventure right? The train ride from Amsterdam to Berlin was about 6 hours. We left at 11 and arrived around 6ish. 

We took a public train one stop and then walked a few blocks to our hostel, so it wasn't too bad. The only downfall was that it was HOT HOT compared to Amsterdam. The hostel did not have AC either, which I guess I should not be too surprised by. Also, because it was Sunday night by the time we got there all of the supermarkets were closed. On the plus side, the food in Berlin was pretty inexpensive, and so we ate at a German falafel place. It was pretty good. 

The rest of the night we decided whether we were going to Vienna, Salzburg, or Venice next based on hostel prices. You know which we chose. We then went to bed and boy was that room hot. We have now learned the art of taking cold showers to cool us down before bed (thanks Bethany for the tip ;)  ). 

Our room :)

Day 7

The next day started off early because the sun was shinning directly in my eyes and the room was beginning to get hot again. We paid for the hostel breakfast which was only 3 euro each and was a lot better then the breakfast the hotel in Amsterdam offered. We decided where we were going to go that day after the train station. We went and saw the Berin Wall Memorial. It was very interesting and gave a very in depth perspective to this era in history. I definitely felt the power of the ground that I was standing on. 

We then tried to find a grocery store. We found that all of them were closed and we could not figure out why. K googled it on his phone and we found out that it was because it was Whit Monday (a holiday where markets are closed--we should probably look further into this). We decided to go to a park to cool off from the midday sun. We think we went to Mauerpark (it could have just been some neighborhood park). We decided that since all of the supermarkets were closed we would have to eat out and luckily the food was not too expensive here. We looked at our guidebooks and chose a burger place they suggested that was not too far from where we were. Kruezburger, it was actually really good. 

We then headed to Alexanderplatz (a square with a lot of shopping stores, a clock, a fountain, a place to watch bungee jumpers from a building, and where you can see the TV tower--more famous landmark). We took a couple pictures and thought that we would put our feet in the water of the fountain until we saw it (pretty dirty looking and filled with trash). When we sat down the stones were burning hot, needless to say we left pretty quickly. 

We then walked over to Rotes Rathus (another place with fountains). We would have loved to sit down on these fountains but the first had varying degrees of spraying water and sitting alongside the fountain would make our bottoms wet. While the other fountain had people having a water fight in it, which was pretty cool to watch, but we did not want to join in.

We did find a nice bench in the shade to sit on. We people watched for a bit. I took a mini nap while K watched our stuff and continued to people watch. 

We then when into a church and watched/listened to a choir sing. 

They were very pretty and the church was very cool (meaning respite from the overhead sun). 

Afterwards, we went back to the hostel . Which was probably a good thing as my chacos were giving me a blister and my contacts were bothering me. At the hostel we rested and tried to cool down, but to no avail. We then headed out to find dinner. On our way we explored a bridge that looked pretty old or at least had some history. We walked down a little restaurant/residential part. After we got passed a certain point we found a park, but we did not stay for long (gut feelings kicked in) we found a tiny pasta place to sit and enjoy dinner. The place was quite homey and quaint and I would have stayed all night if I could have. 

When we finally left we went back to the hostel and wrote postcards. The night finally began to feel nice, but it was 9:40pm at night. We went to bed early that night because the heat had drained everything from us. 

Day 8

We woke up again early due to the sunlight as well as the heat. We went to a German Aldi (was really excited) and got breakfast and brought it back to the hostel to eat. We then travelled to the Holocaust Memorial. The place had very interesting architecture 

There were blocks of concrete at varying heights and along sloped walkways. As you walked along them you felt as though you were going through a maze. We went into the memorial as well.  Not only was it free but underground (making it cold). The museum was very interesting and quite insightful, but also very sad. 

Afterwards, we went in search of a grocery store and bought picnic food and brought it to Tiergarten. We found a nice shady bench that looked over a sunny grassy field and sat to eat. 

We stayed for a while to get away from the brutalizing midday sun. It was very nice and relaxing. We then decided to walk the length of the park, as we knew that we would never be able to explore all of the park due to its sheer size. 

Our path led us to the Victory Momument. We decided to go into the center where it was located to get a better look. This required us to go underground to reach it, which was a blessing since it was underground and cold. When we got inside the bottom of the Momument we were required to pay 3 euro each in order to go through the museum and climb the steps to the top. K was generous enough to pay for both of us. The museum was a tribute to all great momument type buildings around the world. We breezed through the museum, anxious to get to the top. About 280 steps awaited us. We made it, and boy was the view absolutely incredible. 

When we came back down we decided to treat ourselves to cold drinks at a cafe that we had seen from above. K got a beer and I got a sprite and we toasted to our victory ;)  .

We then found a way to get to the post office (post bank) and mailed our postcards. After that we were kind of finished with the day and so we headed back to the hostel. We got dinner from a nearby grocery store (different sandwiches, grapes and cheese). Then we had a nice conversation with our Austrailian roommate and then were invited to sit outside with another two our roommates (brother and sister visiting from a different part of Germany). We had an interesting talk as well.  We were exhausted from our day so we declined their invitation to go out. 

Day 9

This was our travel day. We were taking a night train from Berlin to Vienna that didn't leave until 6pm. So we decided that we were going to visit some of the other famous places that we could get to and take pictures of them even if we could not get in. We went to Reichstag (German parliament).

We also went to Berlin Dom. We took pictures, sat on a bench and enjoyed the grey weather. 

Then it started to rain and so we headed for a covered column area that overlooked the river. We stayed there for a while until we decided that we should go back to the hostel and wash our sweaty clothing from Berlin before heading out to get to the train station and get dinner. While washing our clothes at the hostel we ducked out for a bite, to grab curry wursts.

We then folded laundry, packed luggage and started on our way. Obviously, we made it to to the train on time, but the train had some difficulties throughout the trip and we are a little behind schedule at this point--but I will tell you more details about that in my next post. 

As per usual I'll post this when I get a chance. Until next time.

Much love,

Taylor 

P.S. We made it to Vienna at 7am today. It is simply wonderful here, we are going to go out and enjoy this absolutely beautiful city now! ;) 

Amsterdam

I am writing this from the first train of our journey. We are traveling from Amsterdam to Berlin. I am very excited for our first train travel experience, as I have never taken a train long distance before. The ride is about 6 hours long. Luckily, we were able to do the journey direct, so no transfers. The whole affair was actually pretty easy (knock on wood). 

On our first full day in Amsterdam we made the train station our first stop, we figured out more information about Eurail (and actually spoke to a person)!!! The lady who guided us through the Eurail information was quite nice and very helpful. We learned how to work our passes, about reservations, a timetable for Berlin bound trains, and where we needed to go to catch the train. We also got more information about the different names for the trains that we would take in the different countries. After our conversation, we both felt a lot better and could enjoy our travels through Amsterdam feeling more relaxed. 

Day 3

Our flights from Dublin to Copenhagen and Copenhagen to Amsterdam were pretty good. SAS is a very nice airline. As I mentioned in my last post, we had a little trouble with the train system when we first got here, but it worked out in the end. K had done some research on how we were going to get around Amsterdam. But still needed to figure out how to get from the airport to our hotel. The airport is a little outside the city. So we couldn't use public transportation yet. We figured out how to buy metra like train tickets that would get us to a stop where we could buy 72 hour tram tickets. We were told where to go to catch our train and a train attendant helped us on the train, but we missed our stop and ended up about 30 minutes outside of the city. We got a nice view of the countryside. :)

When we finally figured out what we needed to do to get to our hotel. The name was the Flipper Hotel. It was a nice little place. It was the cheapest option that we could find for staying in Amsterdam for the days that we were there. It came out to abut 50 euro each, every night.

 The first night we got a very spacious room with our own private bathroom. Very nice. 

After we rested a little we asked for some advice on dinner, but the woman at the reception desk had very pricey options and some were a tad distant. We opted to go out and explore ourselves. 

We found a little Asian fusion place, Wok King. Either we were really hungry or the place was as good as we thought, but we were very happy with our choice. 

We then explored a grocery store, Albert Heinz, to see what they had in comparison to Dublin. Reading food labels in a foreign language is difficult, but we managed out. In Dutch protein is ewitten. The weird thing is sometimes they only tell you the protein for 100grams, so we would have to figure out how many grams were in what we were eating. After we finished at the grocery we went back to the hotel.

Day 4

We started off the day having breakfast at the hotel, was not included and was 6,50 euro. Everyone on the hostelworld reviews raved about how good the breakfast was. Maybe it was because we were there on a Friday morning instead of a Saturday or Sunday morning, but it was not all that good. After we ate we headed out to the train station to figure out more about Eurail, which we figured out!!! Yey! For Amsterdam it seemed that it was definitely possible to just come to the train station and hop on a train to Berlin. 

Afterwards we got lost in the streets of Amsterdam and found ourselves in a residential part which was very pretty, nice and also quiet.

 It was nice to see the real Amsterdam if you will, compared to the tourist version of it. We took some pictures and then we decided to find the Red Lighht District. On our way there we passed a photo shoot that K does not believe may be entirely legal. He says that because there was a D-SLR camera mounted on the hood of the car and they were driving through traffic taking pictures. Also the model was sitting up on top of the backseat while the photographer was taking pictures from the front passenger seat and another model was driving (we do not think that she knew how to drive stick--the terrible sounds of gears grinding when she drove). Just did not seem very safe.

We had some difficulty finding the Red Light Distict, but we did in the end. We walked around in the early afternoon and it was pretty tame. Afterwards we went back down one of the shop streets that we had explored and I found a cafe to sit and have tea at while K did some other things ;).

 I people watched and wrote. When K came back we went to an eatery across the street from where I was sitting to have ham sandwiches. I had seen a lot of people come out of there with sandwiches and so I figured it was pretty good. Even one of the locals that had tried to speak to me had told me (I think) that I should go eat there. We grabbed some sandwiches (ham and seasoned bread with olive oil, spices, and tomatoes). We both agreed that the meat was a little too meaty, I couldn't finish mine. K ate a lot of my meat, but still couldn't finish. The bread was good though. We sat by a canal and ate our sandwiches and rested.

After we finished, decided to find Anne Franks house. We found it, but the line was too long and we didn't want to buy tickets and wait. But we took pictures. 

After that we decided to find a bookstore that I had read about. On our way we noticed a painter wnd stopped to watch him for a bit. Then continued on our way.

Our journey took us back on the other side of the city, near the Red Light Distict again ( a bit more active now that it was late afternoon). Along the way I wanted to find a store that sold postcards for a fairly good price, that I had seen before. We finally found it after some trouble, but not before we ended up stopping and resting on a bench that overlooked a square for about a half hour. We then headed to the Book Exchange. There was at least 4-5 rooms full of books from floor to ceiling.

 I really wanted a book and finally after some convincing and the promise that I would exchange it when I was finished K let me get one. The man at the counter had a kind of sarcastic (or as K says, elitist) personality. I asked him for a suggestion and after a difficult time (him not knowing what to suggest [short fiction novel] but me encouraging him to) he finally said Graham Greene. He named some of the more famous titles and I chose "Travels with My Aunt"--to go with our travel theme. 

We then stopped at a grocery store and bought some picnic dinner items and walked back across the city to the more residential side that we had been at earlier in the day and had dinner seated along the canal. It was very pretty and relaxing.  

After that we went back to the hotel.

Day 5

We got up and picked up breakfast from Albert Heinz and ate it on our way to several street markets. We had lots of samples while we were at the markets and looked a variety of different things. We then decided to travel to the Heineken Experience. When we arrived there was a long line and we didn't want to pay 18 euro for another brewery experience. We decided to try and find the Van Gogh museum. On our way we stopped at a frites place, that I kept noticing the locals enjoy. Basically it is a cone of fries with different condiments on it. The most common is mayonnaise, so I chose that one. K and I each got one, but we decided later after we had eaten we could have split one. After we were finished we continued on our way to the museum. When we got there we found that there was a huge grassy park where a lot of people were picnicking. There was also a decorative pool of water. We sat by the pool and stuck our feet in. We stayed there for a while, K people watched and I read. We stayed until it started to rain and then we went in search of the museum. When we found it and there was a line and we didn't want to wait in the rain and pay. 

We went in search of Vondelpark, which was close by. We walked around the park and took pictures. 

This was another place where a ton of people had come to picnic. We decided we would come back and picnic there for dinner. We chose to go back to the hotel and do laundry as there was a laundromat close to the hotel. Afterwards we travelled back to Vondelpark, picked up some picnic dinner and found a good spot in the park to sit down and eat. We enjoyed looking out across the water and people watching. Then we went back to the hotel. 

For now we are on Day 6 and we are traveling via train to Berline, will post this as soon as I can. Until next time.

Much Love,

Taylor

P.S. We made it to Berlin.