There were four of us on the trip: me, Claire, Mary and Jesse. On Friday we all had classes in the morning. I was done by 1pm and figured it might be a good idea to see where exactly the bus was going to pick us up in Copenhagen. I had the address and a little google map, but I'm definitely glad I checked it out ahead of time so we weren't scrambling at 4:10 for the 4:15 bus. We made it to the stop just fine, the luxury bus was there with a red carpet laid out...actually there was just a large German guy who was the bus driver. I had ordered the tickets, so everything was in my name. I went into the bus to say that I had four people and we wanted to put some luggage underneath the bus but I was quickly stopped: the bus company hired the only under 40 year old German who spoke absolutely NO English whatsoever.
It's been about a year since I last took German classes, Claire took German in high school but was unsure because she knew she'd confuse German with her Danish classes here, Jesse and Mary took Spanish so they were of little help, except later that night when Mary overheard some Spanish being spoken on the subway...but that's a different story. So I was expecting that I would have to whip out some phrases but not so soon into the trip. I somehow mumbled through and we got on the bus. Luckily there weren't many people taking the bus...on a regular sized luxury bus I think there may have been 20 people or so. Mary and I split the backseat (the kind that have 5 seats going across) so that we could lay down and Jesse and Claire each had their own row right in front of us. It was nice to have the room so that we could sleep and just be relaxed and comfortable. I brought a stash of magazines (thanks Mom!) plus we had all sorts of munchies to make it through the weekend. We were all set.
I mentioned before that there was a ferry that needed to be taken. It wasn't so bad actually. I think my friends were way more concerned about what was going to happen to me with the medicine...I took it as we pulled into the dock and I was knocked out for about 45 minutes or so of the trip. We got back on the bus and I slept pretty much the rest of the time. We got into Berlin around 11:45pm or so. I knew that the trains ran all the time, so there wasn't going to be an issue of getting one...the issue was going to be which train to take. We tried to figure it out and we found a nice father and son duo who helped us out. By the time we made it to the hostel it was probably around 12:45am and we were probably in the room by 1am and ready for sleep. There were bunk beds and I called major shottie on a bottom bunk, and I happened to choose the one closest to the door.
My position close to the door is important: in the morning I was half-awake when I heard a knock. I couldn't really tell if it was our door or someone else on the hall. No one else was moving in the room....I didn't really expect Mary or Claire to hop down off of the top bunk but one would think that Jesse might stir being on the other bottom bunk. But no. So I start to get up out of bed...I have one foot on the floor and I'm lifting my head when our door opens. A guy just looks at me and then just closes the door. Apparently it was some sort of a maintainance man who had the wrong room.....so he shuts the door and I BOLT up and look at Claire and Mary because it's obvious that Jesse is no help. Claire and I had a moment of "wait, did that just happen?!". No worries though, because Claire's cool cousin gave her a door alarm for Christmas so we had some protection after that.
We knew we wanted to take the New Berlin Tour aka the free one! that left from the Brandenburg Gate at 11am. We really had no concept for timing but we decided if we left by 10am we should be okay, and in the worst case I knew there was another tour that left at 1pm. Thankfully we made it by 10:45 PLENTY of time to stop and get a little Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Mmmmmmm soooo goood! Our delightful tour guide, Colin, was from Scotland and he was quite animated to say the least. He reminded me (not only because of the name) of the character Colin in the movie Love Actually. Claire also noticed that he was strikingly similar story telling abilities to Robin Leach of The Fabulous Life of... you know that TV show on VH1? Right next to the Brandenberg Gate is the Hotel Adlon. (((Here is where you picture the voice of Robin Leach, there's a link at the bottom of this post if you want an example)))
Colin: "Berrrrrlinnnn. Right next to the historic Branderburg Gate, one of the most famous hotels in allllll of Germany: The Hotel Adlon. Where rooms go for an estimateddd $1200 a night. The ultra luxurious Presidential Suite goes for a whoppppping $12,000 a night including 3 king sized beds, 17 Jacuzziiiisss, someone to wipe your butt for you but astonishingly doesn't include breakfast. The Hotel Adlon is also the site of the infamoussss baby dangling incident by Michael Jacksonnnnn" Okay so I made all of those stats up (except Colin did say the breakfast not included thing) but you get the picture. Yeah we saw that too. Awesomeeeee!
It was about a 3.5 hour tour, that included at 30 minute break. We saw all of the big sites: Branderburg Gate, the Reichstag (Parliament building), Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the Wall in both East and West Berlin, the Jewish Memorial and also the bunker where Hitler killed himself. Well we just stood on top of it....it gave us a really good idea of the big sites and then we were able to decide where we wanted to go back to. After the tour we continued to walk around a little but eventually went back to our hostel. We got pizza from a place around the corner and just ate in our room.
Saturday night we planned on going on a pub crawl with the same company that gave us the tour. Unfortunately Claire wasn't feeling too well so she stayed back in the room and slept but Jesse, Mary and I made the trek. We had to meet on the steps of the one of the S-Bahn stations at 8:15. It cost 12 Euros for unlimited beer for the first hour, then there were drink specials at the bars. So the three of us are standing waiting to pay when all of the sudden this kid in front of us looks at us and goes "noooooooooooo!!!!!!" and I am confused. And so then Jesse goes "noooo wayyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and Mary and I are doubly confused. TURNS OUT it's a kid Jesse went to high school with! He is a senior at the University of St. Louis in Madrid and he was in Berlin for the weekend too with two of his friends. Both Jesse and Eddie knew each other was going to be in Berlin, but never thought they would see each other considering it's a pretty big city. It was cool for Jesse to chill with someone and it was fun to have a little group to go around with.
We went to three different bars and one club at the end (my fave part of the night) Plus (and I think this may have made the night) in between the different bars we would stop in like an underpass for vodka and orange shots. Interesting to say the least! There were about 30 people or so on the crawl, some Americans but there was a group of about 10 absolutely crazy Scottish guys in kilts. The three bars were okay...but the most fun was at the club. It was sooo crowded but we just danced till about 3am and then went home. It was easily the most fun I've had since I've been here......now we're trying to plan a Copenhagen pub crawl with a few other friends.
Linkity Link and Pickity Pics:
An example of the Fabulous Life Of...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6192002654905175683&ei=NuO2Sb7eMcHD-AbBuP2BBA&q=the+fabulous+life+of&hl=en
This is the Jewish memorial right in the center of Berlin. It's practically an entire city block of these cement blocks. They are all the same length and width but are different heights. Underneath of this memorial is actually the museum in memory of Holocaust victims.
We. Love. Dunkin. Donuts. End of story. That's Mary on the left and Claire on the right.
The ferry terminal in Rostock, Germany. (taken before the Dramamine)
The Berliner Dom--Berlin Cathedral
Checkpoint Charlie. Those two people standing there with the American and French flags are actually actors that you can go take your picture with.
There is the outline in the middle of the street of where the Berlin Wall used to stand
THE Hotel Adlon!
Brandenburg TorSo now I'm stealing this next thing from Claire....
Things I miss:
1. Normal, cheap coffee. It's why I was SO excited for the Dunkin Donuts in Berlin. In Copenhagen we don't even have Starbucks. There are the Danish version, Baresso, but it's just not the same!
2. Normal currency. It was so nice to be in Germany where a cup of coffee costs a regular-sounding amount of money: 2 euros. In Copenhagen, the Kroner is so absurd that a cup of coffee at the Baresso costs something like 20 Kroners. What?! Yeah it's kind of annoying.
3. Capriotti's. Somehow I think it came up ohhh about 25-30 times this weekend. Claire is from King of Prussia so she understands the need for a quality hoagie. We tried explaining it to Mary (from Pittsburgh) and Jesse (from Connecticut) but I think we settled that you just need to eat one to understand
Things I don't miss:
1. American TV channels. I thought it was going to be a hard adjustment but I've rediscovered lots of great TV shows that are shown over here like Spin City and Frazier plus some new ones like Army Wives. And with surfthechannel.com I can basically see anything I want!
2. Bitterly cold weather. So it's still cold. weather.com usually says something like "40 degrees, feels like 32" so while it may still be around freezing, it's balmy compared to the beginning of the semester when it would be "30 degrees feels like 18"
As I said at the beginning, I'll try and get another post for the rest of the trip up tomorrow!
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