Berlin

1.-3.6.2012

BerLin(da)

Left work a little early in order to catch the bus to the airport.

Norway seems to be having a strike period going on and security guards are one group that are currently demonstrating.

Luckily the airport we flew from, Oslo Rygge, was as peaceful as always.

The flight timing was perfect as I didn't have to take any days off from work. Leave Friday evening, arrive Sunday evening. Perfect mini-holiday.

When arriving to Berlin we had a little trouble on finding the right train. I'd done the travel once before but had noooo memory what so ever how things went. Maybe because I wasn't in charge last time and I just blindly followed others.

Thankfully an elderly lady helped us find the right train and buy the right tickets.

Btw, the first shock was the price of the train ticket. 3€?! In Norway you have to pay at least 10€ to get to the airport. I've gotten so used to the Norwegian prices that everything else seems to come as a surprise. Thankfully as a really positive kind!

We reached the hotel late in the evening and just wanted to go eat and sleep.

Wandered our way to an Italian restaurant by the Kurfürstendamm -street. Food was good but we got it in like 5min which made us a bit sceptic. Also the waiter came to pick up our tips before we had even left the restaurant. In my opinion tips should be gotten after the customer leaves. Habits, habits.

Saturday we woke up early. The elderly tourists Linda and Ingar.

I'd written down manymany tips that I got for Berlin but only by keywords so actually I had no clue what was where. We asked the guy at the hotel reception where we should go for breakfast and he said Prenzlauer Berg is a nice area for that. Calm and peaceful.

We bought day travel cards and headed off for breakfast.

Well, apparently Prenzlauer Berg was calm and peaceful indeed. Nearly everything out of the little we found was closed. Where were all those small and idyllic cafeterias serving delicious sandwiches and smoothies that I imagined the area to have? Not on the roads we walked... :-D

Later I found out that it was actually the place to be on Sundays because of a huge flea market at Mauerpark.

Well, we did find breakfast after a lot of walking. 3,5€ for a breakfast menu including bread, various things to put on top, egg and coffee. Not bad I'd say.

We also found Mauerpark.

The weather got so cold, windy and slightly rainy that we couldn't bare it anymore. Or I couldn't.

Where did that +30°C weather go?

Checking out a 'vintage store' (yes, the only store that was open) didn't help as the only possible thing to buy for me was a wool jumper by some old Finnish brand, and that was far too little by length to keep me warm. I guess anything is when you are wearing 20denim tights? ;-)

Back to the hotel it was.

From the hotel we headed off for some serious tourist time!

The Holocaust memorial.

How cool would have it been to go on a Segway tour!!

I may have forced the poor guy into this picture...

The weather was coooold so instead of walking around in parks the plans changed into hop on and off busses.

Next stop: TV tower.

My classmate Ingrid hinted to go check out the TV tower. Good suggestion btw, especially for someone on a mini-vacation and without time to actually travel from point a to b to c to d that much.

Usually it takes around 2 hours from the purchase of the ticket to actually get to the tower. This due to the queues and regulations of how many can be up in the tower at once.

Lu-lu-lu-luck was our friend.

We went to ask a lady at the souvenir shop about ticket prices and all. She happened to have two tickets to a departure at 4pm. At the time it was 3.55pm. Perfect.

We paid her (12€/pp), ran up to the elevator and went to enjoy the view.

Up in the tower there was a lot of interesting information about the different areas of Berlin as well as different important monuments, buildings and places. For someone who gets exhausted from reading hundreds and hundreds of info boards at museums and all, this was just perfect. Everything was told simply in a few words.

More to follow.

<3: Linda