I made it to Berlin at about 5:00.
My first real Eurail ride. I’ve been on local trains in France before, but never actually rode the Eurails before. It was fantastic.
I had a window seat. The Czech and then the German country-sides were fascinating to see. And Dresden looked amazing — the architecture was extremely cool. All in all, a perfect experience.
Well, except for the fact that the friggin’ train was an hour late and I had to sit on the platform in the cold waiting for it at 10 am in the morning — thinking the whole time that “I could have had an extra hour of sleep today!!!”
Aside from that, splendiferous.
I have discovered one thing about inter-Europe travel that sucks, tho’.
When you change countries, the languages keep changing.
It’s killing me.
I just learn Dobry-Den/Na sheldano (Hello/Goodbye) and Prosim/Diky (Please/Thanks) in Czech. And all of sudden it’s Guttentag/Auf Wiedersehen and Bitte/Danke.
That’s hard to get used to!
Can’t tell you how many times I said “Diky” instead of “Danke” and got the strangest looks from people.
Oh well! I’m just a dumb foreigner. People probably think I’m American…
I’m here visiting my cousin, Bryan. He lives in Berlin now. Has for the last year.
Bryan’s one of my closest cousins. He and his sister, Erin, grew up with Mara & me. And we were always doing things like holidays and family vacations together when we were kids. I think that, up until two years ago, I’d done every Xmas (literally) with Bryan and his parents, my Aunt Norma and Uncle Pat. So Bry knows me well.
And he knew that I’d have far too much stuff for my short little weekend trip.
So we went back to his pad, dropped off my stuff and then over the next couple of days, he showed me a bunch of the cool things in the city.
The big TV tower, called the Fernsehturm. It was the place they used to broadcast all the communist propaganda from.
The Fernsehturm is the big tower in the middle. It’s kinda like the CN Tower, only shorter.
The original location of the Berlin wall. (Just a couple of blocks from Bry’s apartment.) And what used to be ‘No Man’s Land (along the edge of the Berlin wall).
Mauer means “Wall”
Formerly “No Man’s Land”
We also saw a bunch of cool squares (‘platz’ in German), monuments and the like.
The Brandenberg Gate. The Berlin Wall used to run across the other side of the gate.
This is an underground monument identifying the spot where the Nazis conducted their infamous book burnings in the 1930s. Its a little hard to see, but it’s a stark white, room full of empty white bookcases buried under a large square.
The Berliner Dom. A huge cathedral that looks older than it is. (It’s only about 125 years old.)
Berlin’s a very cool city.
You need a little more than a day and a half to get a real sense of it. But I quite like it.
One of my favourite memories? Chilling out in the sun and having a drink on the banks of the Spree under the Berliner Dom, with Bryan and his friend Corinna.
And who could forget… Thanksgiving in Berlin…