Day 6 (travel day)

Today we traveled to Berlin via train for 4hrs. We opted to buy the 15 day Flexi Pass which means that you have 15 travel days in 2 months ($1600). Since we are touring around inner city most of the time, this seemed best. The 2 month Continuous Pass would be about $1000 more but would give you unlimited train rides for 2 months. Without the pass each train ride would cost between $200 and $400. So it just made sense. You can also choose to buy passes for 1st class or 2nd class. “If you can’t afford to go 1st class then you can’t afford to go”

We arrived in Berlin around 5pm and had to walk about 10 miles (1 mile actually, but seems like it when your dragging 2 suit cases with backpacks down cobble stone) to get to our hotel. We are staying at another Marriot, thank you Missy.

Lori researched Berlin for the whole ride. I saved my strength as seen in the photo below. She found a double decker city tour bus that leaves at 6pm and departs from the East side of town. My job as a pack mule is to carry luggage and setup transportation. Well my cramped up fingers were not fast enough to get us an Uber so we were 15 minutes late and the tour was gone. We are now standing in the middle of town with no plans. We looked for the “cutest” direction and started walking. Berlin is very conscious of its history and tries very hard to recognize it. There is a group that tries to locate homes where Jews were abducted and they mark the location with brass insets in the sidewalk so they are never forgotten. We came across some while looking for food. See photo below. We stopped and ate at a Tapas bar (small shareable portions) and had a flask of wine. We really need to learn how much a liter is.

We ended up wondering down a dark alley with all kinds of artistic graffiti. The weird thing is that all of these people were conscious and seem to be enjoying themselves. We ventured farther in and found a small outdoor movie theater (graffiti everywhere) and a small bar that said no pictures in English. I’m not sure who they were talking to so we went in. It presented as a sketchy bar but was probably one of the coolest bars that we had been in. I think the bartender may have been the offspring of a band member from the Ramones. We had a glass of wine, and totally stood out but were treated very well. We wrote messages on the wall in the bathrooms, Lori broke the rules with some pictures and we left.

It was getting late now and we were at least a train ride or Uber from our hotel. Since we have still not adjusted to the 6hr time difference we kept walking. We stumbled across a small food stand that sold Curry Wurst and fries. It should really be called Curry Best. Oh my gosh! We have found our favorite German food! I’m not sure we need to eat anywhere else, that is if we can find it again.

Our goal, when it was light out, was to see the Berlin Wall. The alley, and food joints slowed us down so we arrived by subway at the Wall Memorial after dark. Pretty dark and sketchy at night so we read some plaques with our phone flashlights and went back to the subway. There seemed to be too many lingering silhouettes within view.

Trying to figure out subways and trains seem to be harder than it should be. The rides were still covered in our Eurail day pass but we really need to figure this out. We arrived at the hotel unscathed.