Day 2: Tour of Berlin

Woke up at a decent time this morning, I guess it is kind of inevitable when you're sharing a room with a bunch of other people. Finally showered and then Clay arrived around 10:30.

Clay and I had an awesome all you can eat breakfast at the hostel with Emily and Brady, and sat outside in the beautiful sunshine for a while, enjoying fruit, waffles, granola, and all sorts of yummy stuff. Will definitely be doing it again, and the buffet goes until 1pm.

After that we hung out for a little while in the room until Rachel showed up around 1pm. It was super fun seeing Clay and Rachel, and despite both of them being SUPER tired from their long trips, they decided to stay awake.

We walked around the city for a while, slowly making our way to the big TV tower where we were meeting our tour group at 4pm. Along the way we stopped for a delicious lunch of chicken and noodles for only 3euros!

Berlin is by far cheaper than France when it comes to eating, it is shocking. Almost half the price.

After our lunch and some more leisurely walking, we met at the base of the TV tower to do a bike tour of Berlin with "Fat Tire Tours." It was awesome! We biked around for almost 5 hours and saw pretty much everything, as well as enjoying the gorgeous day outside. It was a great way to visit the city, we covered a lot of ground, but at the same time could stop and take pictures and not be stuck on a bus.





Halfway through the tour we stopped at a cool "Beergarden" which apparently means outdoor bar, to have a drink and a little snack, very nice.

At the end of the tour we headed back, grabbing a 2.50euro chicken kebab on the way home. Nice day in Berlin for sure! Now I feel like I have "seen" the city and can better choose where I want to spend more time. Maybe the DDR museum and checking out the glass top at the Reichstadt. Or however you spell it!

Off to the Concentration Camp tomorrow, and then maybe some more sightseeing and a pub crawl in the evening when Clay and Rachel have more energy.

Day 1: Take 2, sunshine, soup, and sushi!

Since I arrived at 8am and my room wasn't ready until 2pm, I had some time to kill around Berlin. I decided to check out the tram and make my way to the Tiersgarden, which is roughly the central park of Berlin. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, sunny and hot, and I enjoyed walking around the park and eventually settling on a cool place to sit and relax with my ipod.

On the walk around I found an interesting little soup restaurant, and definitely had some flashbacks to the Seinfeld soup nazi when the woman didn't speak any English and ended up just giving me a bowl of whatever soup she felt like giving me since I couldn't understand or choose anything.

It was delicious!! It was some kind of tomato-based soup, with a little bit of kick, shitake and portobellow mushrooms, and pieces of gnocci thrown in. So yummy! A very interesting little place, and I guess not very touristy since there was no English to be found on the menu.

After my walk around and little nap in the park, I went back to the hostel to see if my room was available and it was. Yay!

This hostel is SOOOO nice! I would totally recommend it to anyone, it is clean and spacious and perfectly located, the staff is also super nice. The room is great, with 5 beds and a small balcony with a cute view of Mitte (the area where we're staying).



So, I took a little nap, and was woken up 2 hours later by my new roommates, Emily and Brady from Canada. They were super cool, so we decided to head out exploring together.

Emily is way into shoes and fashion, so we walked around and peaked in boutiques, and then finished by this big dome church on the river. It was beautiful, we walked around that area for a while and then decided to have a drink and this SUPER cool place on the river bank,with tables and comfy lawn chairs on a grassy knoll overlooking the water.



We stayed around there discussing politics for a few hours before heading out to find some food. All of us were craving japanese, so we foudn this AWESOME japanese restaurant not far from the hostel where I finally got my fill of noodles, sushi, and shrimp dumplings, oh and don't forget the edamame! All for a very reasonable price, so far Germany seems cheaper than France on the food front of things.

A leisurely walk back to the hostel and here I am, contemplating if I have enough energy to go out tonight. Probably not, it is close to 11pm and I am thinking a shower and some reading will be perfect to get in form for tomorrow.

On my list if Clay and Rachel are up for it- bike tour of the city during the day, maybe apertifs on one of the boats tours on the river in the evening, and a pub crawl or adventure in the evening. We'll see!

So far, Berlin is awesome! And I love the hostel and my new friends, yay traveling!

Day 1: France to Berlin, for 10euros!

I made it! I am writing this post from the very cool (so far, I have only been here like an hour) Circus Hostel in Berlin, Germany. Yay!!

Due to a mistake in reading Clay and Rachel's itineraries, I have arrived a day earlier than the two of them. I plan on "checking things out" and maybe doing some research on how we can spend the next few days, I also plan on sleeping in a park under the sunshine for a little while. France has been ridiculously cloudy and rainy for the last 4 weeks or something insane.

I had a very interesting trip here, if only because I spent several hours last night sleeping on the floor of the Frankfurt airport along with a bunch of other backpackers who must have had a similar idea.

When trying to figure out how to get to Berlin, I decided to check out Ryanair, the superdiscount european airline, and got exceptionally lucky. Flights from Montpellier to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Berlin were 5euros each! Unreal. So, I booked them both, although that also meant I had a few hours to kill between arriving at 11pm in Frankfurt and taking off at 6am for Berlin. Basically I read, and tried to get comfortable on the floor. Finally fell asleep around 2:30 and then some German woman woke me up at 4am because they were starting to check in.

On the positive side, I had a few good things happen along the way, which seems to be a good omen, or at least a good way to start things off.

1) Got a free ride to the airport after another woman and I arrived 1 minute too late to catch the shuttle. She called a cab and then charged it to her company. Sweet.

2) Had a brand new bottle of sunscreen, sadly in a 200ml bottle which is over the 100ml limit for liquids. Tried to get it past them, but the French security called me out. So, the woman let me keep it by transferring the contents of the bottle into two empty 100ml bottle. Because now, if it had been dangerous before, it is much safer in smaller containers. Ridiculous. But at least I didn't have to throw it out!

3) Didn't have any problems getting through security in Germany, yay. I made it!

So I am off to sit in a park until my room is available! Maybe buy some shampoo and snack food.

Will try to keep updated! SOOO excited about this trip!!