Started at 11pm, Thursday night.
A nice blog post for you guys to read while I travel from Philly to Detroit.
Arriving on the bus from Berlin, about a half an hour late, Hamburg welcomed me into her (?) loving arms again. And wished me well with fireworks and a festival.
So here I sit… about seven hours until my flight to Frankfurt.
Because I’m afraid of oversleeping- I’m pulling an all nighter…. (since I don’t sleep well on planes- an all dayer too). And to top it all off, I haven’t been sleeping well the last few nights either.
So, back to Abenteuring in Berlin- where do I need to begin?
Let’s start with a couple of weekends ago (the 21st of August? Wow…. can you really believe that it’s already September?!)….
Saturday I walked to and from and around the Brandenburger Tor, Alexanderplatz and beyond. In total I think I walked over ten miles (perhaps even 15!). I didn’t really see much that I hadn’t before, but enjoyed the warm windy weather. My original goal had been to peruse Bundestag once more, this time in daylight, but the long line dissuaded me. Again and again I went, and again and again I did not go in. I hear the wait- during the summer, during the weekend, during the daytime- can range from anywhere from three to six hours. Perhaps next time I come to Berlin…. of course with a travel buddy or two…. I will wait in line and go in during the day.
The following day… well, I didn’t do much. I was quite sore from previous day’s stroll.
Monday, Monday, so good to me!
Since the US Consulate is only open from 8:30 to noon (practically the same time as class), I had to get up extra early in order to get there as soon as I could…. Well, let’s just say I hit the snooze a few too many times and was not well liked. I did get to the consulate around 9ish, and to class around 10ish. (Ish. Didn’t write down specific times…. All I know is that it takes over a half an hour from the Zoologolisch Bahnhof to get to the US Consulate. And that the Consulate is not the Embassy, a mere 15/20 minutes from my hostel).
After class I went back to the hostel to regroup and head out to the Olympicstadion…. I think there must have been a nap and/or internet time in there since I didn’t head out until about 3:30pm. After going to wrong way, confusing myself because I took a different UBahn linie then last time, and missing my stop, I finally made it to the historic 1936 Olympic Stadium. The stadium that held the Olympics while Hitler was in power. The stadium that Leni Reifenstahl shot the classic film, Olympia. The stadium where Jesse Owens made history.
If I didn’t know the history of this stadium, I definitely would have been disappointed by the size. Only able to hold a low 70 thousand people, it is definitely smaller than the beloved Big House. But because of the background information, I was able to imagine how it would have been if I had been there over 70 years ago.
That evening I headed to Checkpoint Charlie. Not something that was too important to me to see, but still interesting enough that I had to make it over there to take some pictures. Of course, the guy next to the UBahn sign warned me, if I got him in the picture, he’d kill me. Then he rambled on about something else, but I didn’t catch what he was saying as I broke some traffic laws to cross the street and get away from him.
The rest of the week went by so quickly, somehow I skipped over Wednesday. Unfortunately for me, it meant that I missed free museum Thursday in the Museuminsel.
During my last weekend in Berlin:
I rode around on the public transport system (which, yeah, oddly enough, just riding around is one of my favorite things to do in Europe. Maybe it’s just because we don’t have such an extensive system here in the States. Or it could be just because I’m odd), did some last minute gift shopping for my family, did some more riding around on the U- and S-Bahns and buses. Of course I saw the sites, etc. etc. etc. But I wasn’t inspired to take many pictures…. hmmm…. I mustn’t have been feeling well, huh?
Monday I went Schloss Charlottenburg. Took a few pictures, but didn’t go inside since the old house was closed. Just this past Tuesday- without meaning to, I slept for six hours in the middle of the day. And last night I found the ZOB and then packed. Today I went to my last day of class and rode the bus back here to Hamburg.
Riding the bus was the cheapest option. Changing my flight or riding the train were much more expensive.
Once I got to Hamburg, I headed to the airport to check in my luggage early. I’m so thankful I decided to do this. 1) I do not have to carry around my huge luggage tonight and 2) I don’t have to worry about going through my stuff and deciding what to keep and what not to keep so early in the morning.
In order to check an overweight bag, it costs 5 Euros per kilo (that comes to about $3/lb for those of you who do not want to do the math yourselves). My bag came to a whopping 33 kilos, 13 kilos over the permitted weight limit. Yup, that would have been about $90 to keep everything.
Buh-bye $5 Wal-Mart towel. Buh-bye second hand shirts. Buh-bye all pants but the pair I have on. Buh-bye cheap underwear. Buh-bye any clothes that were too big, or that I had my last trip to Berlin!
Actually, it got pretty tough for the last few kilos…. I know what would have done the trick quicker, but I am not giving up the books and magazines! No! No! I won’t!
And until about right now (2am), I was doing just fine with my decision not to check into a room/bed for the night. Somehow three hours went by quickly, but this last half hour has seemed to last for forever. I really don’t know how I’m going to make it until 4am when the first train heads to the airport.
And now that I’ve started to think about how late it is, I’m getting that jittery feeling. Ugh, this is not good. But it’s better when I walk around…. except that my backpack is very heavy.
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