Berlin or Bust?

---

The answer: Bust.

The trip was doomed from the start: We'd been talking about a weekend trip to Berlin for our gang, but what should've been Eugene, Jen, Ross, Louise, Shruti and Brian whittled down to just Shruti and Brian buying last-minute train tickets to Berlin on Friday afternoon. Strike one. Of course, last minute tickets cost about 3 times as much as the 58 Euro tickets you can get if you plan ahead. Uh oh. Strike two, and we haven't even boarded a train.

Being the cheerful non-cynical and optimistic people we are (no snickering here, please), we were undeterred in our goal of German adventure and boarded our train to Brussels right on time at 9:05 pm. All we had to do was make it to Brussels in time for the 11:40 night train straight to Berlin, but the Belgian rail system threw us a curve, delaying our train in Antwerp and making us have to take an alternate train to Brussels, where we arrived at 12:10 am. "But wait," you say, "wasn't your train to Berlin supposed to leave at 11:40?" Dear attentive reader, you are indeed correct. We missed our train and also found that there were no other trains going either to Berlin or back home to The Hague until the next morning. All we could do is spend the night in Brussles in a complimentary hotel and ride back in the morning....well, that and drink profusely.

So, instead of exploring the Brandenburg Gate, the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, or any other such Berlin-esque adventures, our exploits consisted of wiping out the entire stock of the hotel's Duvels (which also netted me a promotional hat, coasters, and Duvel ashtray...sweeet) meeting a Michael-Jackson-dancing Spaniard, a totally wasted Englishman, a half-Italian/half-English beer chugger, and partying until 5 in the morning with all of the above in the hotel lobby with a pretty decent iPod stereo dock.

Good times, good times...well, right until the irritated night clerk told us to shut off the Michael Jackson tunes and vacate the lobby!

What else has been going on.....

Saturday:
So, after coming home and getting the other half of my night's rest, it was time for a pasta and poker party at Bethan's place. Mmmmmmm..lasagna. Subsequently came the requsite beers at Havana and the Fiddler, and then of course the always healthy late-night snack of fries and mayonnaise. And you thought the big breakfast at IHOP was bad!

Sunday:
On account of the perfect weather, a bunch of us met up for beers, cards, the name game, and even iPod music trivia on the Plein. Life is just really, really tough sometimes. This of course, was not one of those times.

Here's some pics of Saturday and Sunday: Oh, what? Did you want to see some of the sites in Berlin? Yeah take a number buddy...me too!

June pics

---

Photos

Living it up on the Plein
I do have to give it to the Dutch for this one...the Plein is an awesome place to soak up the scenery of the Hague and enjoy some good Belgian beer. Another plus: no mosquitoes!

Well, at least we're in Brussels...
So yeah, this is it...this is the Berlin trip, AKA Brussels trip part two.