Monday, August 6 – Arrival in Germany and Walking Tour

So, everyone woke up super-early, because the boat arrived in Rostock, Germany at 7am (8am Finnish time, but now its German time, yack)

I took a bus to a train and then a train to another train to another train to Berlin, ouf. German trains are not as nice as Finnish trains, but they get places, so that’s the important thing, and the German countryside is pretty (and the train stops in the middle of the country are quaint).

From Berlin, off to my hostel, which is pretty awesome actually. Its tiny, 7 rooms total, or something, I’ve seen very few people – my roommates (Francophone swiss people! We spoke French last night – I’m more comfortable in French than they are in English, woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and these two Spanish (I don’t know, its sounds like Spanish…really, if could be any romance language) speaking people, plus the people who work here (who are super-nice and talkative and friendly)

At the hostel, I found out about a free walking tour, so, being too tired to figure out my own tour, I decided to take it. It started at the Brandenburg Tor.

We went by the Holocaust memorial (more on that tomorrow), Checkpoint Charlie, some of the remaining Berlin wall, a number of squares, Humboldt University (where Einstein studied), lots and lots and lots of history, it felt like I was back in school, which was kind of nice, because I miss actually studying (I’ll probably want to take that back in a few months). I also met a lovely person from Austin, Texas, who’s also a solo traveler, pretty much travelling all over Europe, not just a few countries, she was pretty cool.

Oooh, also, because it amuses me. This is the parking lot on top of the bunker where Hitler killed himself.

They tried to destroy it, but that wasn’t possible, so they sealed it off and put a parking lot on top of it, not bad, really.

The tour ended at museum island (literally an island with lots of museums on it, shocking), so I walked back to the hostel along a river.

And then I got to meet my roommates and practice French and go to sleep. The end.