April 3, 2009: Ich bin ein Berliner

I got to work early today so that I could leave in time to catch my train to Berlin. I got off at 15:00 and walked out into the sun; it was the start of another mini-holiday inside my mega-holiday. It took me 4 ½ hours of travel on one of Germany’s awesome ICE train to Berlin.

I pulled up to the station at 19:50 and walked out into the AWESOME sight of the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station) in all its glass-clad glory. Unfortunately I had to change trains here in order to make it to my hostel on time and I could not stay to take it all in. I caught a train to the zoo station and got out to change trains. There was a party going on, the streets were full of people at the various Imbisse (foodstands) drinking beer and vodka, walking down the street and singing. It was warm out and I had both my jacket and sweater in my backpack, a first for my trip to Germany. I had a box of Chinese noodles and headed to the bus stop to catch the first of two busses required to get where I wanted.

I got off the second bus in an ultra-fancy part of town. Pücklerstraße is the same street that the several high-ranking German dignitaries live on; it has three story buildings, all with electric gates, and fancy BMWs outside. If the BMWs are outside I can only imagine what is inside the garage. Anyway, I made my way down the street, it was dark by now, and finally made it to the end, the hostel was in the forest at the end of a dirt road. I was finally at the hostel!

I got in and met up with two American girls and a guy who was the staff member on duty that night. I checked in and got the tour, the hostel was relatively empty and extremely clean. After the tour I sat down with the Americans, got a beer from the vending machine and watched both Religulous (that is very hard to spell) and my choice in movie Trailer Park Boy’s: The Movie. I told the Americans all about how popular the show was in Canada and they did not believe me. Before I went to bed I was informed about a free walking tour of Berlin. I thought that I HAD to go on that.

I got to bed at the reasonable hour of 00:30 and had great dreams of the days to come.