This leads us to Saturday July 20. The very first thing we did was to sleep
in. We left the hotel at noon to walk
back to the train station. We didn’t
have a lot of time to get back to the train station but we did have a few items
on our to do list. We wanted to see Notre Dame Cathedral during the day and
find a SIM card in order for us to make phone calls. We basically struck out in both
instances. One, we didn’t get a chance
to go inside the cathedral and 2nd finding a SIM card that would
allow us to use data in countries outside of Germany wasn’t possible. At least that is what we were told. We
settled on trying to find free hotspots.
Free in Europe doesn’t mean the same thing as free in the US. Not only did we not find Notre Dame on the
way back or find a SIM card but we also missed the train we wanted. Fortunately there was another train we were
able to take that arrived 30 minutes after our originally scheduled time. This train took us through Nuremburg. |
| I took a pic of all the different beers on the trip |
It was a good time on the train. Relaxing and comfortable seats. There was a bar in the next train to get
drinks from. Our little “train party”
came to an abrupt halt in Berlin. First,
I forgot to download a map that showed us how to get to the hotel. Second, I could have sworn we were leaving
out of the front of the train station (Berlin Haptbahnhof HBF) and in fact we
left out of the opposite end. It may
sound like a minor detail but it is kinda important when you walk 22 minutes in
the exact opposite way you are suppose to be walking.
When we realized the area was starting to look a little
ragged (graffiti, cracked sidewalks,
kids with mohawks, hostels) we figured we must have screwed up. We started to walk back till we found a
Subway (much better smelling than St. Thomas Subway shops) and was able to
obtain some internet access. They used
the same internet company that I had used when we were in London 2 years
ago. My credentials still worked! This is where we made the big discovery that
we were walking the wrong direction. We punched in new directions that had us
going back to the train station. By the
time we got back to the train station I think it was close to 8 at night. The fun didn’t stop there. Due to the lack of internet I had not pulled
up the directions for the hotel before we left wifi range. The one silver lining
in this is we had a friendly couple who saw us looking at a map and gave us
their public transit passes because they were leaving town that night. That saved us some money and stress as it was
good for that night and all the next day.
The first lady we talked to about directions managed the
Bahn (train) desk. She wouldn’t help
us. (We had her again the next day and
again she was a bitch to us. ) It took us at least another 20 minutes till we
made our way to a tourist center in the train station that could give us
directions. We were told to catch a bus
to a station Potsdamer Platz (sorta famous area). That worked great. Let me first say thank you to the person who
pointed us in the right direction (I mean this with as heavy of sarcasm as
possible.) The lady who pointed us in the right direction basically screwed up
and gave us incomplete directions. Upon
reflection the next day it turns out she did a terrible job because the subway
would have been much easier and less transfers. We had to wait for a bus
outside the train station and then take that to another train station to catch
another train, walk a half of mile, and then take that to a subway stop instead of 2 subway stops which
the lady should have had us take. The
directions didn’t work so great. The bus
was the easy the part but then we made the same mistake as we did in
Zurich. We needed to catch a specific
train to the next train stop. We caught
the first train on the track but while it was the right track it was the WRONG
TRAIN. This particular train took us past our stop and then a very long
distance from where we wanted to go.
Here is where it gets interesting. First, the distance on the map to the hotel from
the train station we were currently stuck at was pretty significant. Second, it was quite dark outside when we
looked out the train station. (less lights = poorer area) Third, Berlin has an underground train
system, regional trains, “S’ trains and a train that makes a big circle every
hour. No one explained this and it took
us some time trying to decipher how their transit system works. Much to our dismay we were having difficulty
figuring out the next step.
We tried the circular train but discovered we were going the
wrong direction so we went back to our previous station. We could have gone the other way on the
circle but that train stopped running for the night. Eventually we walked outside were we found a
bus terminal. We spotted one of the
train stations on the bus’s window that would get us closer to the hotel. We took that bus and then caught 2 trains to
get us closer to hotel. After a 10
minute walk and around midnight we finally made it to the Intercontinental
Hotel. We ended up eating at the bar
cause most everything was closed. Chin
was determined to get a drink at a “Berlin bar”. Around 1:30 am we decided to go and find a “Berlin
bar”. One of the waitresses tried to
give us directions but the bar was not were she said it was. We ended up back at the hotel bar where we
stayed till almost 3 am.
The immediate area of the hotel wasn’t full of eating
establishments. Damn you Google.
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