Train jumping

Monday, July 19, 2010
We checked out this morning and headed to the Hauptbahnhof (central station) to put our bags away and doing the free walking tour of Berlin. We had been just getting on the subway and not buying tickets. Our rail pass says we get free travel in major German cities for the underground. I am sure we are still supposed to get a ticket but nobody checks so we have just been going with it. Of course on our last day, a guy comes around and we don’t have a ticket. So we jumped off the train at the wrong stop and waited the few minutes for the next one. Hehe. We are tired of waiting in lines and not always making headway. Anyhow, we made it to the tour meeting spot just in time and were off to see Berlin. What an amazing city. We saw the Brandenburg gate (we are seeing an ongoing trend that Napolean likes to steal statues and monuments), the jewish holocaust memorial, Hitler’s bunker, the berlin wall, checkpoint Charlie, the SS headquarters, museum island and more. It made us want to stay longer and see so much more. However, there is simply no time. We had already booked our next hostels in Dresdan and Prague. We definitely want to come back at the end of the trip if there is time before Munich. We are coming back to Germany anyhow, so we shall see. So much more history and holocaust museums that we would like to check out. Anyhow, we are off to Dresdan for the night. We arrived, took a short train ride to the Kangaroo stop (that’s the name of the hostel) and checked in. It was a really quiet spot with a really cool vibe. The bathroom was hippie flowers and earthy while the common room had hammocks and comfy furniture. We met a couple of people in the hostel from Australia, Canada and the US. So we were chatting and whatever and decided to probably check out the town that night. We were starving and really wanted our sauerkraut...so we went to this local spot and had sausage and sauerkraut. It’s funny, German’s are kind of particular about their sauerkraut...they will not let you put it on just anything. They only had bockwurst not bratwurst so he didn’t want us to put sauerkraut on it but did give us a side of sauerkraut. Perfect!!! Esquisito (in Spanish)!! Anyhow, afterwards we grabbed a few beers headed back to the hostel and started to get ready. Heather and I had our first group shower with one other non-english speaking girl. It was a new experience that is for sure!!! So we went back into the quiet room and hung out with our new buddies. Everyone was quite chill and most of us had only one night in Dresdan. We all decided to go out to the local hot spots and they played really good music and had cheap beer. It was a crazy late night but a whole lot of fun. We didn’t get in and to bed until 5ish. We even went to the big lebowski bar...pretty hilarious!!! Next day, check out Dresdan!!