Berlin - Day 1

After a 4 1/2 hour train ride, we finally made it to Berlin. I was getting restless that last hour and hoping that this 4 1/2 hour trip would prove itself worth it. Well, I was still questioning myself even after we arrived because it was raining and we had no clue where our hotel was. I found the information desk in the train station and they helped us get started. While in the station, Charles (favorite friend revealed) had to get his hands on the first Bratswurt place he saw. Well maybe not the first one cause I think the first one we saw was a man with a mini grill around his waist, looking like his Bratswurt weren't done. So he got one from a real place inside the station. Now most of you know I don't eat pork, but being in Germany and this being their thing I have to admit that I had two pieces of Bratswurt. It's not nasty, it's just not what I do. After getting to another metro station (closer to the hotel) and getting some money, we were just about ok. Berlin uses euros and Prague uses crowns. All this money exchange is gonna get old soon. However, I did read that the goverment is expecting to change from Czech crowns to the euro by 2010. In the meantime, take me back to dollar, dollar, bills ya'll.

Thankfully, Charles convinced me that all we needed for this trip was a bookbag, so at least we weren't traveling heavy as we searched for Hotel Arena in the rain. Once we found the hotel (which was better than I expected) we just chilled until the rain ended. The TV in this hotel had many more stations than in the pension. It was in German, BUT CNN, MTV, and VH1 were all in English. That meant I was going to be straight for a couple of hours. I mean really how many days has it been without TV? Not that that's a bad thing. When we were checking into the hotel, I found a flyer advertising an English speaking walking tour of Berlin. I normally don't go for things like this, but since we both didn't really have a clue where to go, we thought why not! We couldn't go until the next morning, but when the rain stopped we didn't waste our time finding things on our own.

We stayed in Mitte (translates as middle) which is the heart of Berlin. Many historical landmarks were right in this area. We went in search of Reichstag because it featured a glass dome on the inside and you were allowed to venture to the top for a great 360 panoramic view of the city. The line to get inside was at least 30 mins, however, what else did we have to do. Let me tell you it was well work the wait. I´ll download pictures later.

We also saw the TV Tower (which you can't miss and guided us back to the hotel) and several other buildings that we knew were historical, but didn't know the names of until the next day.


The night ended with us eating Vietnamese food at an outside stop and watching the final episode of Germany's Next Top Model with the employees. Yeah I know, Vietnamese food in Germany! Who cares...that food was "on point"!

The internet in the pension has been trippin´. It runs so slow that it will allow me to enter this blog, but when I try and download pictures it basically times out on me. I´ll make it up to you.