Arrival in Berlin

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A trip that had been discussed for years has finally come to fruition. My mother left the Phillipines in the late 1960s to work as a nurse in Germany. After meeting my father and giving birth to me, they moved to the United States in 1976. My mother has not returned to Germany since and although I've been to Germany a few times, I had never visited Stuttgart, the city of my birth. So after talking about going back for years, we finally bit the bullet and decided to do it this year. Joining us would be my sister, and my 3 friends Shea, Vita, and Churro. We all flew out on August 27th. Shea, Josie, Vita, and Churro all flew out early in the morning to Berlin via Newark. Meanwhile, Mom and I took a later flight on Lufthansa to Berlin via Munich.

Our trip did not start off on a good note. Once we landed in Berlin, I did not realize that the luggage carousel was practically right at the gate. So we continued walking and by the time I realized where the luggage carousel was, we had already walked passed the security gates and there was no way to go back. Totally confused and not knowing what to do, I was completely frustrated by the different answers that various employees would tell me. Eventually, I figured out that I had to go to some holding room in some dark and isolated area of the hotel. We weren't alone though, another woman who was from San Francisco did the same thing and was accompanying us. We walked into this small stuffy room where we picked up a phone and gave someone our information and baggage claim tickets. We asked some of the other people there and some of them had already been waiting about 2 hours! So after waiting and waiting and waiting, a man finally brought our bags after about an hour and we were able to finally catch a taxi into Berlin.

For our 3 nights here in Berlin, we are staying at the Circus Apartments in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin. When we pulled up, Josie and Shea were outside smoking after an already full day of sightseeing. Our apartment was amazing. It was spacious and tastefully decorated with decor clearly from IKEA. Churro and I would be sharing a room and after settling in we were off to have a late night dinner. Being that it was now well past 11pm, we weren't quite sure what was still open. We settled on a Turkish restaurant in Rosenthaler Platz and proceeded to gorge ourselves on delicious Turkish food and consume far too many Erdinger beers.

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Photos

Our Apartment in Berlin
The Circus Apartment

Our Apartment in Berlin
The Circus Apartments

First Night in Berlin
Turkish Dinner