Being history geeks and surviving a bike of danger

Thursday 5th August

So we arrived in Berlin in the grey, cloudy afternoon.  The train station is huge - literally five floors with escalators everywhere.  We found an information point and talked to a very unhelpful man for a while before giving up and walking away.  As we did so we realised that he was a policeman, not a station employee.  First lesson in Berlin learnt.  We did then find the train information point and reserved seats for our 5 hour train to Prague.

We got an S-bahn to the road the hostel was off and found it alright.  We checked in and wandered around after unpacking a bit in our dorm.  The hostel is so nice, new and full of young people.  It has a bar, a gamesroom, an outdoor seating area and a rooftop terrace.  It's been awesome staying here - Salzburg's hostel has a high standard to meet!

We had walked past a food place on the way from the station to the hostel so we went back for some tea.  It turned out to be a healthy food place, and the soy bolognese wasn't quite as yummy as I was hoping.  We had a very early night as we were shattered, so after a cocktail we headed upstairs to bed.  We met a guy staying in our room but he left in the night while we slept.  The other roommate is an Irish girl a bit older then me who leaves on Friday.  We had another girl arrive late last night as us three were going to sleep and decide to have a very long shower and potter about for two hours before finally going to bed.

Yesterday was bright and warm and we headed out to see Berlin - thankful that it wasn't raining.  We went to the Brandenburg Gate first, which was massively impressive.  As always, we took lots of photos and walked around looking at people in old army costumes waving flags.  We found the fun bikes we had been told about and risked our lives for €1.  The bike was like eight bike seats sat around a centre circle which you held onto for dear life.  We were swerving around anything and everything in our way, which was fun when we were on the pedestrian area - more scary when we went onto the road and got shouted at by a van driver who nearly hit us.  Our steering man found this hilarious and continued along the road, swerving infront of various vehicles.  After surviving the bike of danger we walked through the Gate to the Riechstag.  It was very cool seeing it and remembering bits from History lessons about it.  (Geeky, I know) 

There was a huge queue to go in so although it was free we decided to give it a miss.  Instead we went to the Memorial for victims of the Holocaust where lots of big slabs of granite were arranged in different sizes to commemorate the victims. 

After wandering around them we went to find Checkpoint Charlie and came across a part of the Berlin Wall which is still standing.  Walking along was weird, thinking that not too long ago it divided people on either side.  Leading up to Checkpoint Charlie was a load of information about the Wall and it falling.  We learnt about all the people who had tried to escape from East to West and had been shot, and that the Wall's path was marked in the street and roads with different coloured stones.  Checkpoint Charlie was cool to see, if a bit mad with people trying to cross the road with traffic still going.

In the morning before we went to the Brandenburg Gate we also went on a boat trip around the River Spree.  It was useful to then know more about the places we were going to.  We seemed to find some sort of high view point in each place we visited and with the maps we had we were able to get a decent idea of the layout and size of the city. 

After Checkpoint Charlie we went back to the hostel and got changed for the evening.  We had heard about the TV tower during the boat trip, and kept seeing it during the day, so we decided to go up it.  We arrived, got tickets and a wait time of an hour, and went to find some food.  A nearby cafe offered schnitzel and chips so we stopped there.  I had schnitzel, which although sounded very German, was essentially meat in breadcrumbs.  It was good though, and great to attempt to order.

When it was time to go up the tower we went in and got in a lift which took us up 203 feet in 40 seconds.  The view was amazing and we found the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate and the Cathedral all looking very small.

We headed back to the hostel to sleep, ready for a final day in Berlin seeing everything else.

Stride like the rooster!