Berlin to Vienna: A Train Journey to Remember

First, I will write about the train ride from Berlin to Vienna and do a separate post for Vienna because otherwise the entire post would be much too long. K and I were quite happy and excited to be leaving Berlin and heading towards Vienna. 

Purpleberry was too! :)

As stated before we believed that we would be traveling in similar style as the Amsterdam to Berlin trip, but much to our dismay we were not, instead we were in a 6 seat compartment with 3 other people filling up 5 of the 6 seats available. The seats did not recline so K and I along with the other people needed to figure out a way to place all of our seats in which to be comfortable. This was difficult, and I found myself scrunched up in the fetal position in my seat turned sideways trying to sleep. We did meet three nice people, two college aged boys from England traveling on to Venice and one man from Berlin visiting his brother in Vienna. 

Our quarters. 

Now for the weird things that happened with our train ride. The first thing that happened was at our Dresden stop, we were there for an awfully long time. When finally inquiring as to why we were waiting so long at this stop, we learned that our motor broke down and needed to be replaced. And so we waited there for an hour and a half while they took our motor away and brought us a new one. We figured after that we would be fine, wrong. About 20 minutes after leaving Dresden we came to a complete stop in the middle of nowhere and just sat there for 10 minutes, you can imagine what we were thinking. Did our motor give out again? This time in the middle of nowhere? And then all of a sudden we started up again and continued on our way. Around 12 we picked up more passengers and there were some that had no seats in the compartments and were required to sit on seats in the hallway, there was one man who was there sitting in a suit and had a briefcase, he was probably there for about 20 minutes. Then all of a sudden the entire train went black (or so I heard from my compartment mates--I was trying to sleep) and the man in the suit and had the briefcase had entirely disappeared. Creepy, right?

Hallway late at night.

The last weird thing to happen with our train was around 5 am somewhere in Austria when we were at a stop for another unusual amount of time.

Sun rising.

Sun up somewhere in Austria. 

 We found out that during this time they took away some cars that had been with us on the journey and added new ones. We figured this out because I had been using another compartments bathroom due to the working sink and when I went to use it, there was new car in its place. Weird. Anyways, we made it to Vienna in one piece, the poor English guys didn't make their Venice connection-- we never did hear what they were going to do (stay in Vienna or wait for another train). I did get to see the German man be reunited with his brother, which was nice.

K and I went and reserved our tickets for the Vienna to Venice night train and then started towards our hostel to clean up and start our day, which I will write about in a different post. 

Much Love,

Taylor

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. 

First Stop on Our European Adventure: Dublin, Ireland

I sit here writing from the plane that we are taking from Dublin, Ireland to Copenhagen, Denmark where we will transfer to a flight that will bring us to Amsterdam. 

Day 1

We got into Dublin on Tuesday morning. Flight was good, we slept a little. (decent food and lots of movies ;)  ) We had a little bit of trouble trying to find a bus to take us to the city center, but we eventually made it. We were actually not very far from our hostel (Ashfield House), but we couldn't check in just yet. It was 10am. So we walked over to Trinity College ( about a five minute walk). And rested on the steps while watching some men construct new cobblestone part of the walkway. This was much needed rest as we had been traveling with our backpacks for some time. We found a bathroom and a water fountain ( with filtered water [quite a surprise]. We then walked around looking to see if we could find me a pay as you go cell phone (not an option due to our movements through Europe and the different sim cards needed). K found a Starbucks where we could rest again, go to the bathroom, get wifi and find a bank. After the bank we found a park, which I believe (after looking at maps) was Saint Stephen's Green. This was a beautiful little park and we found nice patch of grass and laid down to rest. Man are those backpacks heavy ;) . We stayed there until it started to drizzle. We got out our rain coats and started our journey back to the hostel. We accidentally came upon Dublin Castle but didn't want to stop and take pictures just yet. After a while we finally made it back to our hostel and checked in. The man at the reception desk was very cheerful and quite helpful for people first experiencing hostel life. We got up into our hostel and could only choose two different top bunks, but it was nice to take off the backpacks. I took a shower (airplane, backpack and Dublin all over me) and K rested. We found a small backpack to carry around the city for K, as my bag was too small for our waterbottles, guidebook, and rain jackets. We then headed back in the direction of Dublin Castle. On our way there we stumbled upon Christ Cathedral. We eventually found Dublin Castle and meandered through the outside of the castle as it was too late to gain admission inside. We headed off to find dinner ( sandwiches and fruit), we were going to have a picnic dinner at Trinity College and watch a college theater production but when we got to Trinity it began to rain quite a lot. Then I decided to take the long way around the college ( quite a large campus when it is raining pretty hard). We had some difficulty getting back but we did it. When we got back to the hostel we put on dry clothes and started planning for Amsterdam. If anyone has any tips on using Eurail nowadays, we would really appreciate the advice as we are quite confused by the whole thing. With that in mind we planned on walking to Connolly train station the next morning to see if we could get any help.

Day 2

We got up and had breakfast at the hostel, a very good spread. We then proceeded to try and find the train station. We had some difficulty finding the place, but we were helped by two wonderfully sweet people. We must have looked really lost. We spoke to someone about eurail, but they were only able to specifically help us with eurail in connection to Irish Rail. They didn't want to give us wrong information about the other European countries. We were told to check out some other places, but we got the run around. 

On our way back from the train station ( realized I needed to start taking pictures with my phone ;)  ).

We figure we will just visit the train station in Amsterdam and just speak to them. Hopefully, someone who speaks English can help us. After that we got K a sweater, as his was ruined on our flight over here :( . We headed to the Gallary of Photography. On our way there we found a comic shop, which we headed into. This was quaint and very fun. The Gallary of Photography and the other photography museum we visited across the street were very insightful and we learned a lot of new things. Next we began walking and came upon the Temple Bar area. 

We took the typical touristy pictures and continued on our way, because we wanted to get to the hostel to check into our flight. The hostel staff was very nice and accommodating with finding us transportation to the airport the next day. We then headed out to the Jameson Distillery. 

Our route had us walking by the river, which was quite pretty. We had a lot of fun at the distillery and learned a lot about how to make Jameson whiskey. I was chosen to be a volunteer taster! Several people and books had told me that I should volunteer and so as soon as I saw the guide walk onstage with the cardboard tubes, I raised my hand and i was chosen! It was an awesome experience, I got to try Jameson, Johnny Walker, and Jack Daniels with ionized water in between to cleanse my palet ( really awesome tasting water, perfectly pure). When asked which was my favorite I went with Jameson ( really does have a smooth taste ;)  ). I got a certificate making me a certified whiskey taster. Yey!!

We walked down the river again and stopped in a couple of shops to look around.

One of the shops was a table top game store. They had a ton of cool diaramas. They also had classes to learn table top gaming, take a painting class, and others. They only have 10 in the U.S., mostly on East coast. 

Another shop was the Winding Stair, a book shop ( no,winding stairs though :( )

Doesn't this look like the best chair to curl up and read a book with some tea on a cold rainy day? (am I Irish or what?)

We then bought dinner, heated it up at the hostel and had a picnic dinner at Trinity College by a lawn overlooking the building where the Book of Kells is located. 

It was very nice and the sun even came out for a little bit and we basked in the warmth. Then K and I wondered around the campus and headed back to the hostel. 

Now we are on our way to Amsterdam. Until next time.

Much Love,

Taylor

P.S. Or update. We are in Amsterdam at our hotel. A long long day of traveling and an unexpected stopmtomthe countryside--more on that later.