Berrrrrrlin

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It was a 9 hour ride to Berlin, and it started out really promising. We had a whole cabin (we didn’t buy beds this time… only seats) to ourselves! We thought we might actually get some sleep. So we chatted a bit, watched a movie, and then curled up on our own benches to sleep through the night… or so we thought. About an hour after we had gone to bed, we were awoken by a girl coming to find her seat. Ok, no problem. I simply moved to the floor, letting Allie have one bench, and the girl the other. Fine with me. This would have been great… until about an hour later when 2 more men joined us. That was about the end of our sleeping for the night. So we set out at 7pm and arrived in Berlin at 430 in the morning. We were unable to book a room for that night, (it was full) so when we arrived at 5am, after almost no sleep, we put our bags in storage and curled up on the common room couches until our room was ready.

Thankfully the people at our hostel were just lovely and cleaned our room first so we could actually have a nap in a bed! We didn’t want to waste the whole day though, so we got up around noon and went out for a bit. We tried to make it for the walking tour, but the train took a little longer than usual, and missed it by 20 mins… so we did what we do best, and went to find a Christmas market instead. All in all it was a successful afternoon.

The next day we decided to brave the cold (ok I KNOW -7 isnt really that cold but common now. I lived in Ghana for 9 months. And when do you walk around for 3 hours to see the sites of a city?) and head out on the walking tour. It was another really good one.. they took us past the Jewish Holocaust memorial, part of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie.. and we got to hear lots about Berlin’s history.

After the tour we went and found the Rittersport Store (ya we did) and had hot chocolates made out of melted Rittersport chocolate bars. You’re jealous. I know. We had to warm up somehow right? Haha it was deliciously yummie.

The next day we spent most of the day in the Jewish museum. We had planned other activities, but had no idea how cool and how much information was included in that museum. It was really interactive too, and just overall very cool.

We met a really awesome group of people at our hostel that night and ended up hanging out with them the next couple days. Contrary to my other travels, this time we haven’t really met that many people 1) that we like (and that aren’t weird) and 2) that are in the same place as us for a while. We’ve been fine just the 2 of us, but this was a nice change… and we had a nice couple nights hanging out with them. It made us want to stay longer! But our flight from Munich to Edinburgh is approaching, and we have to keep moving.

So today we headed out to Augsburg.. a little town close to Munich, which is where my Mom was born, so we decided to go check it out. As I write this, we are on the train there. We have had a LITTLE bit of a longer day than planned though… it snowed quite a bit last night in Berlin, (oh snow… how I DIDN’T miss you…) which made it so a bunch of trains were either late or had problems running. We did make our first train, but it was soo full we had to sit on the floor in between 2 cars. We didn’t mind though.. and thought we would be in Augsburg by 430ish like we planned. But as of right now its about 630 and we are still 2 hours away. Snow+ not working train toilets+ trees on the track+ delayed trains = switching trains unexpectedly… and a trip almost twice as long as it was supposed to be. Good thing our hostel it right across from the station! I will want to fall right into bed once I finally see one….

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Photos

the wall
.. as an aside... if you look carefully you might notice that i am wearing sweat pants.. they are over-top of my jeans. it had to be done. i almost froze

colouring at the jewish museum
you may think that some of these activities are just for children, but you would be mistaken. here we are practicing how to write our names in hebrew. so there.

me and jess
this is the FIRST time this australian has seen snow! EVER!