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| Erin's Journal for 9-15-02 A little grumpy from lack of sleep, Glenn and I got up and packed to leave around 9:30am. By the time we'd had our breakfast and hiked our packs back out to the checkout booth, we'd missed the bus to town and had another hour to wait. So I nabbed a few pictures of the beautiful area around the campsite. It may have been less than a sturdy roof over our heads, but the tents weren't so bad, and the surrounding area made up for it in scenery! Once in town at Central Station, we headed in to activate our Eurail passes, grabbed some lunch for the train ride, and waited about an hour for the afternoon train to Berlin. The train left around 2:15pm, and we ended up in a cabin with a nice Kiwi lady to talk to, so it was a nice easy trip. Since we had a native of New Zealand held captive, we asked her what we should see while there, and she reinforced the idea that our plan of 3 weeks won't be enough to properly visit all the stuff we need to see there! She was fun. She got off the train about 3 hours before we did, so I had time for a nap across the seats while Glenn read up more on the hostel possibilies in Berlin (lots Upon arrival in the city, we were delayed as the tracks were very closely filled with other trains. We arrived into our station about an hour later than planned, and immediately went to buy a phone card so we could call our chosen hostels to check for space. We also went and found an internet point in the station, and caught up with some emails to the friends we'd planned to meet in Berlin. Glenn made a call to the Circus Hostel, which had rooms for us, and got directions. We had to take a couple of inner-city trains to get there, but once we found it, we were very pleased. It's a very nice, new facility and very clean, with friendly people working behind the desk. Very important We got to our room (2 in a 5 bed room) and met one of our roommates, a nice girl from Chicago studying in Vienna. We chatted a bit, then went downstairs again to the bar in the basement for a happy hour beer (started at midnight!). With that to calm my adrenaline, we went up to bed. |
| This tower is all that remains of what used to be a huge cathedral! War has changed the face of Berlin many times. |