After some last minute hassle and dis-organized planning, we finally got ourselves to Berlin for a short 2 day trip! Its really hard to find a place to go on such short notice cause everything is super expensive if we don’t book in advance. The bus ride took about 7h and it wasn’t really that comfortable but I guess I can put up with the discomfort if I can save some money haha. Halfway through the journey, the bus went up into a ferry which carried us across the sea to Germany. I thought it was super cool haha cause its my first time travelling in this manner. Not that I have never been on a ferry before, but I just thought it was like a cool idea haha. Anyway, I tried to sleep for the rest of the bus journey but I wasn’t really successful cause I couldn’t find the optimal sleeping position so I kept turning and adjusting throughout the night haha. We reached Berlin around 630am in the morning and it was raining and super cold. The temperature was supposed to be around the same as Copenhagen but for some reason, it was just really cold there, even when it was all bright and sunny the next day.
We managed to get ourselves across to the other end of Berlin (where our hostel was) and threw our things into the luggage room first so we wouldn’t have to carry them around. We tried their 5EUR breakfast buffet which I thought wasn’t really that fantastic or worth it, cause it was just like different cereals, breads, hot drinks, some meat and cheese. But since it was raining and we didn’t know where else to go to find breakfast, we just settled for the hostel breakfast. After that, we headed straight to Brandenburg Gate for the free tour and basically went around the city looking at all the historic sights and buildings. I thought the tour was pretty interesting but like in Copenhagen, we have to walk a great deal and my new sneakers isn’t really suited for this kind of “long trek” so my feet was like aching a lot at the end of the day. After that, we had a very very nice curry wurst at a place called Curry 36 (I think it should be quite famous in Berlin cause there’s like a long queue for it haha). Hot fries + mayo + curry powder + wurst in the cold weather is just perfect haha. Last stop of the day was at Ritter Sport Factory where we just bought lots of chocolates. I bought like 2 packets of mixed ones and a box of assorted chocolates to distribute and “maintain relations” haha.
For the hostel, there were 5 of us in a 6-bed dorm so it was quite unlikely that anyone else would bunk in with us but they were like so worried about it all night. There were 4 beds at one side of the room and another 2 beds at the other side of the room. Looking at the combination of people there, it was no surprise that I ended up on the other side by myself (which I didn’t mind cause it just meant I have more space and privacy for myself). It was nice to just lie around on the bed while doing random things like listening to my mp3 player, entertaining and penning down random thoughts without having to explain or be disturbed by other people.
The whole of next morning was spent visiting a concentration camp, which I thought was quite disappointing cause there really wasn’t much impact to the thing and after a while, I got tired of looking at the same things. Should have visited other places but nobody else wanted to visit the places I’m interested in haha. I wanted to go visit this museum of science and technology (there’s an airplane parked over the rooftop or smth) cause it sounded like it had really cool plane exhibits and other stuff, Potsdammer Platz and this Panorama Café (which gives a 360 degress view of Berlin), as well as the zoo (they all stared at me when I mentioned the zoo, but I read online its really nice and the photos also look quite nice haha). It reminds me of the time when I was in Taiwan and nobody wanted to go up Taipei 101 to look at the night lights… sianz. That aside, we wasted some time heading to this Topography of Terrors exhibit which was like almost the same as the concentration camp (I’m not sure why we were so cultured and everything) but yeah so we went in for like 15min then headed back to Curry 36 for curry wurst dinner again =) After that we went to Kurfurstendamn (which was supposed to be like their shopping street) and Ka De We (a very big shopping mall) but the things there are like over-priced for me. We went into H&M and Zara to take a look but I didn’t anything in the end although I saw this nice-looking jacket at Zara on sale for like 26EUR. But I only had like 1+ EUR in my wallet cause I forgot to transfer money when we left this morning haha. After that we headed back to the hotel and slept early cause we had to wake up at 5+ am for the bus back to Copenhagen which doesn’t really have anything worth mentioning.
Overall, quite a nice trip although it could be better. And I was really thinking I should have applied for exchange in Germany instead. Not only are things cheaper there, but its like a million times more interesting than Copenhagen haha. Oh well, I guess some things can’t be undone so I shall have to stick to Copenhagen and work it though. I only spent about 100EUR in total in Berlin (excluding the bus transportation to Berlin and back). But I managed to buy this Brandenburg model for like 10EUR to add on to my collection at home. I think it will be super cool if I can like go around and collect models of iconic structures in various countries. And I have another photo to add on to my Connection photo album (left side of the blog)!
And I really hope my Sweden Northern Light Trip will work out next week!! Even though I may have to go myself and I may not get to see the Northern Lights at all, I still want to try for it haha. I can’t imagine what will happen if I do see it though, quite exciting just to think about it. And I hope I will have many many more trips to go after this, but after Sweden, I probably will lay low for a while to save more and make up for the Sweden trip haha.