domingo, 1 de maio de 2011

Travel log - Europe - Day 7

Day 7 - Berlin

Waking up very early we had no time to eat anything, we set off straight to the airport. In fact, we had time to grab some bananas. Louis took us to the airport, but he didn’t enter. It was so weird because all the goodbyes we had planned failed. He just hurriedly kissed us goodbye in the airport parking lot and as we were running late, we just parted there, as if we were meeting the next week, for our French classes.
The airport was not a welcoming place, like it never is. We had too much in our bags, more than the flight company of those low-cost flights accept. So we had to open the suitcases in the middle of the lounge and try to put some thing in the already full handbags. We considered abandoning something there, giving it to whoever wanted, but it was not necessary. We still had the security check to go through. And we were late. A guy approached us as we were almost finishing checking in. He said his aunt did not speak any French or English, and she needed some help to get to the gate. So, there we were with a new friend who could not speak any language we knew and anyway maintained some mimics conversation with Carol. We almost went to the wrong side once, lost a sheet, but we made it to the gate. When we got there, sweating under those jackets we saw that the flight was late. One hour. So we just sat there, pissed off, but happy that we had not missed the plane. Of course we didn’t see anything during the trip. We were so tired of the few hours’ sleep plus the running around the airport we dozed off as soon as we boarded.
As we arrived in Berlin, we got some information from the desk at the airport. It didn’t seem so difficult to get to the hostel. We also bought some tickets and info books. We preferred to buy those tickets for 3 days. But nothing is too easy when Murphy is at work. The sidewalks were full of snow, what made it difficult to pull our bags. The wheels would not turn, they were not snow wheels. We had some help to climb some stairs, which from the start showed us the Germans were a nice people. As we arrived at the bus stop, we asked a blond girl if she could confirm if that was the right place. She confirmed. We waited for the bus and it was really cold. The bus took some 15 minutes to come, and we hopped in. It was crowded and people were not so pleased to see us with those big suitcases. As we stopped, I wanted to confirm we were in the right direction. A guy with a baby told us we were going in the wrong direction. We cursed the blond girl, she had deceived us. We damned her 7 next generations. We got off the bus, crossed the street and still cursing her, we found the other bus. Still suspicious, we asked a couple that was passing by. The girl told us we were in the wrong direction, which meant the blond girl was right and the man with the baby was the one who got us wrong. So, we stopped hating the first girl and started thinking some hellish punishment for the man. Ten minutes or so later, we were half fronzen and our arms in pain for carrying all those kilos, we finally got off where we were supposed to. And we arrived at the hostel. The place was wonderful. People were friendly and helpful. The place was clean and cozy. And we had paid for dorms but they were not so full so they offered us the double rooms for the same price of the dorms (the double rooms are normally more expensive). So we had a room only for us and this view out of the window.



As we arrived there, I noticed I had lost the ticket of almost 30 euros and I would have to buy a new one to take buses and subways. I had one cheap ticket for the last day and the other for the first 3 and of course I would lose the most expensive one.
It was almost dark, not so late, but it would get dark soon. Anyway, we dropped our things and decided to go out for some food, a decent meal to make up for the breakfast, lunch and dinner we hadn’t had that day.
We found a Turkish cafeteria/bar. We ordered some falafels, because Carol had already had them here. I only knew kebabs. She said they were different from whatever she had eaten in Brazil and I asked it “hot”, but it was really hotter than I expected.



So, there we were, a new city full of possibilities and we were eager to unravel its mysteries. What did we do? Well, it had been a straining day. The best thing we could do was to lie down and take a nap in order to have energy to do anything else. I should call it the arriving nap. After having done that, we got our newly acquired booklets with info about the city of Berlin and we started checking if the plannings about where we were going on the following days should be stick or not.

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