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Published: August 5th 2010
Taking a slightly later train to Berlin than originally intended has got to be one of the greatest things I've ever done. No getting up stupid early, no rushing about, time for a real sit-down breakfast rather than just grabbing something at the station on the run... Time to change my last 500 Kč bill into Euros (although I still have about 4 euros worth of Czech change that is now useless, but such is life)...
Train to Berlin was fine. Not much to write home about. After a couple of weeks in essentially mountainous terrain, it was flat. Pretty, but flat. Kinda like being home, but at the same time so definitely not. As with lots of European countries, you see a lot of really old, beautiful buildings that have fallen into disrepair, and I always think it's such a shame, even though I know it would be impossible to keep them all.
Found my way through Berlin Hauptbahnhof (which I later discovered was built for the World Cup back in 2006, although not completed on time), which if not the largest, is certainly the most intricate and extensive train station I've ever been in. Fortunately everything is labelled quite nicely so I figured out my way on the S-Bahn to Alexanderplatz and had a coffee and pastry before heading out to try and find the bike tour/rental shop where my friend Kate works.
Short back story - Kate and I used to work together. Inevitably, in conversation, someone would say something like, "well, go ask Kate", and which point a long discussion would ensue. "Which Kate?" "The one with the Mc-something last name." "That doesn't help, they're both Kate Mcs." "Aussie Kate". "No, the other Kate". And so on. Eventually people just started calling us Aussie Kate and Other Kate, which worked.
She said I could find the store by walking around the base of the TV tower, and sure enough, after a pause at Starbucks to scam some free wi-fi to verify the name of the shop (there are a couple at the base of the tower), there it was. Found Kate without problems, and spent the evening catching up (it had been, like, 5 years since we'd seen each other), playing with her cat. Nice, relaxing evening!
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The station was not build just FOR the World Cup. It would be insane to build such a train station (costs: 2 billion ) just for a 4-week event......................