Day one of Berlin and boy did this day start out early (and therefore exhausting).
So, I actually have a friend in Germany at the moment living in Heidelburg, and when I told her I would be visiting Berlin for a bit we thought about meeting up--after all, what are the chances we will see each other again? She's also quite familiar with my family, being a friend from way back in those old elementary school days, so my family offered to let her stay at the airbnb apartment we were staying at and join us for our short 3 days in Berlin.
We figured out what time she would arrive, what time we would arrive, settled upon a time and then I gave her the address to her apartment... but left out one crucial piece of information--the actual apartment number! Thus, I realized I would have to wake up early (she said she would be getting in at 7AM so I assumed she would arrive by 7:30AM) and meet her outside to bring her in because neither of us had a usable phone. So much for the modern age right? The problem is I am not very good at waking up early, even with an alarm, and so I spent the night not being able to fall asleep for fear that I would not be able to wake up!
Before I knew it, 7:30 had arrived and I looked out the window to see the streets covered in snow. Most people are generally quite happy to see snow, but two and a half years in Montreal has led me to harbor quite a distaste for it and so I sighed. It was only -3C outside and I had my winter jacket, so I wasn't afraid of the cold, but it was morning and I was feeling a tad hungry, a tad tired, and a tad worried because... it was suddenly 8:00AM and my friend still wasn't here? Time ticked by, tick-tock-tick-tock - no skype messages, no emails. I had gone up and down from the apartment at least twice (we lived on the 8th floor). My parents eventually woke up. Finally at around 8:30AM my mom glances out the window and sees my friend and I run down (she is understandably looking a bit confused) and call out her name and finally we meet.
I'm not a sentimental person, neither is she so there were no hugs, no exclamations of "I MISSED YOU" and to be honest, for the rest of the day we hardly spoke a word to each other. In my defense, I was tired. In her defense, she had quite a bad cold. That is us though.
As to our actual day in Berlin. We left the apartment at around 10AM to get breakfast at a nearby cafe our host had graciously labelled for us on a map only a couple of blocks away. I had a hearty Mediterranean breakfast that came with a baguette, four large blocks of cheese which I avoided due to being slightly lactose intolerant, cucumbers, tomatoes, a very delicious sausage, and an egg. A good way to start off the day before facing the cold again (for some reason I felt colder now after eating breakfast than I did at 7:30AM in the morning waiting for my friend) as we headed towards the Brandenburg gates, which were also just a couple blocks away from the cafe.
What can I say about the gates? I will say this about my entire stay in Berlin, but I imagine the city must be marvelous in the summer and I would love to return during a summer--but alas, we were there in winter and so I feel like my enjoyment (although I did very much enjoy Berlin) was hampered by the fact that my feet were constantly freezing. Therefore, the gates were certainly glorious, and I'm sure the entire courtyard where they are at was very nice, but there was a lot of people and quite a bit of construction going on (or what I think was construction--there were boards placed everywhere), so the view was a bit hampered. We did take a group photo though at the gates. After that, we stopped at a starbucks to figure out the next destination (Checkpoint Charlie, also close by).
My dad was hoping that Checkpoint Charlie would be the actual site of the Berlin wall, but it wasn't. It was the border between East and West Berlin, and one thing I did find fascinating about Berlin was how they publicly displayed the history out on the streets on boards. Had this been summer time, I would have had no issue standing outside one of these areas making my way through each board and reading about it all, but again, the feet were cold. Although, I imagine that had it been summer, there may have been too many people for me to even reach the boards. Perhaps next time I visit Berlin, I should come prepared with a good set of boots (all I had with me were sneakers).
At this point, I wasn't the only one whose feet was freezing off, so we walked around a bit trying to find a mall where we would warm up a bit (we found one), and then somehow wandered our way to the Gendarmenmarkt. This was a fun area. It was obviously a famous local spot, but I can see why. Our family has been to a German market before when we were in Vienna, and took a day trip across the Austrian/German border to a small city in Germany that was having a sausage festival, but it's a bit different when it's Christmas time. For one, they had a lot of mulled wine (which I tried, interesting, but not an alcohol drinker myself. I find that I do enjoy hot alcohol more than cold though). We of course, bought a couple of sausages to try (although me and my brother were disappointed in the lack of currywurst) and share--and that pretty much became our lunch because we were eating so late. The market also had an indoor section with a lot of quaint little shops selling small hand-made crafts.
One of these shops was actually a leather-crafter and they made some very nice leather wallets. I would've liked on, but being jobless and generally wary of asking my parents to by me things now that I'm supposed to be an adult, I of course, passed on the notion of buying one (they were very nice though and even came with coin holders which my wallet does not come with and I really hate carrying a coin pouch around--but anyway, digressing). My brother though, who rarely ever wants to buy anything ever, was absolutely caught by them. We left the shop to accompany my mom to another store selling Christmas decorations and many wooden candle-holders and what-not, and throughout our entire time in that store, my brother could not stop talking about the wallet. Eventually, he decided to go back and buy it. Considering it was a leather wallet, I believe he paid about $80 CAD for it possibly? That is not so outrageous when you think about how expensive some wallets can get--and much blander ones too!
After that, it was only about 3:00PM, but I think we were tired--especially after our tour around Italy--and thus decided to make our way back to our apartment. I don't know if I mentioned in my earlier post, but we actually lived right behind The Berlin Mall (apparently the largest mall in the city?) and thus, we decided to wander around there for a bit. My parents went off to buy groceries for dinner, and me, my friend and my brother sped around the mall before finally deciding that there was a reason none of us like shopping malls and we went back home. Upon arriving, my friend promptly fell asleep (she had taken the night bus, which meant she hadn't slept, and she had a cold), while me and my brother caught up on internet activities.
The parents came home. Dinner was made. Dinner was eaten. Back to the computer we went. Shower. Sleep.
A nice relaxing first day, and a good example of what the rest of our trip would be like: waking up early, spending the day walking around and freezing, and then spending the rest of our day/night un-winding and de-thawing in the apartment.
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