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catching up - Berlin pt. 1 (Sunday)
Oct. 13th, 2006 07:27 pmI've still got two days of Mom's visit left to cover, and they were the two most exciting days (in both the positive and the negative senses of the word.) Our train to Berlin left about quarter after 7 Sunday morning, so we left the house around 6:20 to catch the night bus up to central station. We waited until the bus was 10 minutes late, and at that point we didn't bother to wait any longer and just walked there. (Luckily, it's only about a 25 minute walk, so we didn't have to hurry and weren't late or anything, it's just that a 25 min. walk isn't exactly what I want to do when I've gotten up 3 hours earlier than usual, it's dark out, and I haven't had breakfast yet.) When I purchased the train tickets, the website asked if we wanted reserved seats, and said it wasn't required but encouraged, so since it was only €1.50 a person, I did so - and reserved seats in a non-smoking carriage around one of the tables, so that the three of us could sit together, and everyone could see out the windows, both there and back.
And this was very nice, for about the first hour (during which, I'll note, I slept.) Then we stopped in Deventer, and a steward came around and informed us that everyone had to get off this train. We'd wait at Deventer for 15 minutes, catch a train to Arnhem, disbark there to catch a train to Duisberg, where we would wait for an hour and then get on the next train going to Berlin, resulting in us arriving 1.5 hours later than we planned. When you're only there for one afternoon and are returning the next afternoon, losing 1.5 hours is a bit irritating. We never did find out why we weren't able to just continue on the train we were on (which should've been a direct route, no changes, to Berlin.) The irritating part was that the train that we got in Duisberg on got increasingly more full - and full of people who had reserved seats for that train, which meant that all of us who'd been bumped from the earlier train kept having to shift around as new people embarked and said "you're in my seat". At one point, Joel and I were sitting on the floor between two cars, which is not exactly conducive to a) spending time with mom, b) looking out the windows, or c) letting Joel work on what he was trying to prove. There were a few other people in the same situation as we were, and we ended up taking the lead from one of them, a German guy about our age, who suggested we head down to the restaurant car and just sit at one of the tables there. So we did, and that ended up being very nice, but of course mom was still left sitting by herself a number of cars away in most cases without a window seat. So I was a bit peeved that we'd spent €4.50 for reserved seats which we had for only 1 hour out of the expected 6, and comforted myself with the fact that surely this wouldn't happen on the trip back, and we'd enjoy our nice reserved window seats around a table in a non-smoking car where we'd get to see all the wonderful German scenery.
But we arrived without too much hassle. The new Hauptbahnhof (central train station) is really quite impressive. We got a number of pictures from various angles to demonstrate just how big it is. Our hotel (which turned out to be more like a hostel) was about a 5 minute walk away, though we had to back-track a bit at one point because it wasn't actually on the street it said it was on, but rather you turned down a driveway, which turned into a street, which took a couple more turns and then led to the hostel. The three of us were in a room with two bunk beds, which for one night was just fine, especially as there were bathroom/shower facilities in the room (and little packages of gummy bears on the pillows! German gummy bears are the best.) We shed most of our things, and then decided to go first to the Reichstag, which we'd seen from the train station and so knew it was close. This was also something that Joel very much wanted to see. We got there and decided that even though the line was long, we wanted to go in, so we stood in line about half an hour. Without a previous appointment, you can't actually go into the parliamentary rooms (which I know Joel would've wanted to do), but access to the roof terrace and then the glass dome on the terrace, which looks down over the parliamentary rooms) was free, and definitely worth the waiting in line. We had a lovely view of the city from the terrace, and even more so when we went to the top of the dome. Eventually soon I'll post the pictures that we took while we were there.
We ended up there until it was nearly dark (which, because Berlin is on the far side of the GMT+1 time zone, wasn't especially late, but we'd only had sandwhiches for lunch), by which time we were hungry and so decided to go find food. From the top of the Reichstag we could see the Brandenburg Gate, and figured "there's got to be restaurants on the street that comes away from the gate", so we headed off that way (stopping, in the meantime, to get some very fabulous pictures of the Gate at night). At first we were a bit foiled - there were plenty of souvenir shops, and a Starbucks, but no actual food places that were open! A couple blocks down Unter den Linden we'd found a American-style-Applebee's-like-steak-chain-place, which really wasn't what we were in the mood for (we're in Germany! We should eat good German food! We don't really get good German food in Amsterdam.) Luckily, just a block or two later we found a little brew-pub type place (the sort which serves beer, meat, and potatos.) They were full inside but had a number of tables outside, all underneath heat lamps so you could actually sit there without your jacket on and not be cold (which was a plus in my book, because it'd gotten just cold enough that walking around outside my fingers were getting a bit numb.) Mom and I each got a bowl of some fantastic mushroom soup, and then I had a Bavarian style pork roast (cooked in beer), mom had some marinated camembert (which I tried and actually didn't like; you know how some tastes come out your nose? This one did, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling.) Joel got meatloaf. I still struggle to imagine anyone actually chosing meatloaf at a restaurant, but though he described it as "like a hotdog, but loaf shaped", he enjoyed it very much.
So we lingered over that, before heading back to the hostel. While mom was in the bathroom, Joel and I did try out the beds to see if they would be big enough for two, but decided that they just weren't quite - at least, not if we intended to sleep at all. None of us had brought any alarm clocks, but we went to bed pretty early, and I left part of the curtains open figuring that the sun would wake us up early enough in the morning. Which it did, but what happened after will come in another post.
And this was very nice, for about the first hour (during which, I'll note, I slept.) Then we stopped in Deventer, and a steward came around and informed us that everyone had to get off this train. We'd wait at Deventer for 15 minutes, catch a train to Arnhem, disbark there to catch a train to Duisberg, where we would wait for an hour and then get on the next train going to Berlin, resulting in us arriving 1.5 hours later than we planned. When you're only there for one afternoon and are returning the next afternoon, losing 1.5 hours is a bit irritating. We never did find out why we weren't able to just continue on the train we were on (which should've been a direct route, no changes, to Berlin.) The irritating part was that the train that we got in Duisberg on got increasingly more full - and full of people who had reserved seats for that train, which meant that all of us who'd been bumped from the earlier train kept having to shift around as new people embarked and said "you're in my seat". At one point, Joel and I were sitting on the floor between two cars, which is not exactly conducive to a) spending time with mom, b) looking out the windows, or c) letting Joel work on what he was trying to prove. There were a few other people in the same situation as we were, and we ended up taking the lead from one of them, a German guy about our age, who suggested we head down to the restaurant car and just sit at one of the tables there. So we did, and that ended up being very nice, but of course mom was still left sitting by herself a number of cars away in most cases without a window seat. So I was a bit peeved that we'd spent €4.50 for reserved seats which we had for only 1 hour out of the expected 6, and comforted myself with the fact that surely this wouldn't happen on the trip back, and we'd enjoy our nice reserved window seats around a table in a non-smoking car where we'd get to see all the wonderful German scenery.
But we arrived without too much hassle. The new Hauptbahnhof (central train station) is really quite impressive. We got a number of pictures from various angles to demonstrate just how big it is. Our hotel (which turned out to be more like a hostel) was about a 5 minute walk away, though we had to back-track a bit at one point because it wasn't actually on the street it said it was on, but rather you turned down a driveway, which turned into a street, which took a couple more turns and then led to the hostel. The three of us were in a room with two bunk beds, which for one night was just fine, especially as there were bathroom/shower facilities in the room (and little packages of gummy bears on the pillows! German gummy bears are the best.) We shed most of our things, and then decided to go first to the Reichstag, which we'd seen from the train station and so knew it was close. This was also something that Joel very much wanted to see. We got there and decided that even though the line was long, we wanted to go in, so we stood in line about half an hour. Without a previous appointment, you can't actually go into the parliamentary rooms (which I know Joel would've wanted to do), but access to the roof terrace and then the glass dome on the terrace, which looks down over the parliamentary rooms) was free, and definitely worth the waiting in line. We had a lovely view of the city from the terrace, and even more so when we went to the top of the dome. Eventually soon I'll post the pictures that we took while we were there.
We ended up there until it was nearly dark (which, because Berlin is on the far side of the GMT+1 time zone, wasn't especially late, but we'd only had sandwhiches for lunch), by which time we were hungry and so decided to go find food. From the top of the Reichstag we could see the Brandenburg Gate, and figured "there's got to be restaurants on the street that comes away from the gate", so we headed off that way (stopping, in the meantime, to get some very fabulous pictures of the Gate at night). At first we were a bit foiled - there were plenty of souvenir shops, and a Starbucks, but no actual food places that were open! A couple blocks down Unter den Linden we'd found a American-style-Applebee's-like-steak-chain-place, which really wasn't what we were in the mood for (we're in Germany! We should eat good German food! We don't really get good German food in Amsterdam.) Luckily, just a block or two later we found a little brew-pub type place (the sort which serves beer, meat, and potatos.) They were full inside but had a number of tables outside, all underneath heat lamps so you could actually sit there without your jacket on and not be cold (which was a plus in my book, because it'd gotten just cold enough that walking around outside my fingers were getting a bit numb.) Mom and I each got a bowl of some fantastic mushroom soup, and then I had a Bavarian style pork roast (cooked in beer), mom had some marinated camembert (which I tried and actually didn't like; you know how some tastes come out your nose? This one did, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling.) Joel got meatloaf. I still struggle to imagine anyone actually chosing meatloaf at a restaurant, but though he described it as "like a hotdog, but loaf shaped", he enjoyed it very much.
So we lingered over that, before heading back to the hostel. While mom was in the bathroom, Joel and I did try out the beds to see if they would be big enough for two, but decided that they just weren't quite - at least, not if we intended to sleep at all. None of us had brought any alarm clocks, but we went to bed pretty early, and I left part of the curtains open figuring that the sun would wake us up early enough in the morning. Which it did, but what happened after will come in another post.
