First Day in Berlin

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Emily and I got up early on this morning and went to the lounge to have our free breakfast! After we ate all we could in the little time we had, we just walked across the street and were at the airport. It was a very nice change of pace compared to taking multiple forms of public transportation and rushing to be on time. The flight was only about an hour, and then we arrived in Germany! We took the train into the city, but it was a leap of faith more than anything. In Belgium we at least knew a little French, or everything was translated into English, but in Germany everything is very foreign. Luckily, we made it into town and easily found our hostel. One of my new friends had recommended it, and he was very right. It has a great atmosphere and the people are very friendly. We had to wait two hours to check in so Emily and I got a bite to eat and walked around the city a bit.

We noticed immediately how much cheaper it is than any other place that we have been. It was hard to find a meal for 7 Euros in Belgium or Spain, but here we had a large meal for about 4 Euros each. Also, it is a big city but there are not tons of people clogging the streets. It has a lot of character to it. It reminds me of east London in a way, but also of Minneapolis. Its really hard to pin point exactly what its like, but the point is that I really like it here. We checked into our hostel and we are in an eight-bed room in kind of a loft. It is very safe and they have nice beds, but we haven’t seen anyone else that is in our room yet.

After we got settled, Emily and I walked to the TV tower to get a bus tour. We got a 2-day hop-on-hop-off tour for pretty cheap. Berlin is just so interesting and has so much history to it. Everywhere you go something important has happened, or there are remains of the past. I guess that I have just gotten so used to London that sometimes I forget all the history that goes along with every street that I walk on, but here I realize it more. We got off at the Holocaust memorial, which not only was very moving, but also cool architecturally. We also went to Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, and saw remains of the Berlin Wall.

After taking the tour, we went to find a restaurant that I read about in the guidebook that I bought. It was a cool looking place that only served jacket potatoes with different things on them. Sadly, once we found it we found out that they had temporarily closed. We searched for a new place to eat and ended up finding this great restaurant that had swings as chairs outdoors. We had a lot of fun eating and swinging, and it was cool watching all the people around us. We are now back at the hostel and about to go hang out in the common room. I am very excited for the adventures that we are going to have tomorrow! We are planning on going to a concentration camp and then to the top of the TV tower.

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Comments

[Jennifer]

Hello
I did the same things when I visited Berlin! Stay safe and have fun.

[Aunt Pat]

very brave
You are very brave to face all that history in Germany. Watch out for those German guys!!