I decided to end my amazing study abroad experience with a trip to Berlin to check out the world famous christmas markets. I actually had no idea that they even existed until one of my best friends from school, allison, told me about them and said how bad she wanted to go. Of course I did not know much about berlin at the time that I agreed to go on a weekend trip there, but I did know that all of the places that I had no intention of going to for any specific reason had been my most successful and fun trips.
When Allison had told me about going to Berlin, I thought to myself, “why would I want to go there? I don’t know anything about it, i’ve never really heard much about it, and I don’t even know anyone that has been there before. But me, being the spontaneous and easily overexcited person that I am, decided to book my trip here thinking it was going to be just me, her and her friend from school, Harry. Three other people that are studying abroad in Barcelona, one that I know from school and two that I had just met when I visited allison in barcelona, decided to join us on our adventure to Berlin. Courtney, my friend from school that is also studying abroad with me in Oxford, decided to come along too because she wanted to get as many opportunities to travel as well.
The way that this trip started out was not exactly a “good omen”. Courtney had a paper to pass in before we left for the airport, so the two of us got up pretty early, packed, showered, and said goodbye to everyone right before walking up the giant hill to the main building of Brookes University. We get there, and Court passes in her paper and we’re ready to go. I look down, I don’t have my passport or my boarding passes, I left them on my bed. So we had to trek all the way back down to our flats and get them because clearly I was not going to be able to go anywhere without those documents. As we’re traveling back up the hill, Court realizes she forgot her headphones, so she runs back down the hill and comes back about 5 minutes later saying she had no idea where they were. Needless to say, we said screw the headphones and lets just go.
We finally get to the bus station and since we couldn’t buy the tickets ahead of time we had to get there a little early to purchase them before boarding the bus. We ask how much the bus is and realize that we do not have enough money combined on us to pay for two tickets, and there were no close ATMs around. Oh, and they don’t take American Express. So we’re trying to bargain with this ticket lady telling her how much we have on us and trying to honestly make her feel sorry for us so that she would give us some sort of a discount! Right when we were about to give up, a man walked up and asked if National Express was associated with The Airline, the bus that we were trying to get on, and they said “yes”. Thank goodness Courtney and I have traveled with National Express enough times to realize that we could use American Express with them, with the additional charge of one pound for the transaction.
The rest of the trip was actually not too bad. The bus was comfy and it had wifi so that I could blog and get some other work done, and this was probably the first trip that we did not have to spend our entire time on an airport floor for hours upon hours staring at the screen waiting for our gate to come up. We got a nice dinner, had a few drinks, and raced to our gate the second we saw it up on the board. The plane ride was decent, except the landing, of course. I’m not sure why EasyJet, Ryanair, and Wizz Air have the worst landings but every time we touch the ground in one of those big planes, I find myself to be happy to still be alive.
After finding the rest of the people that we were staying with, we got a cab and we were off to find our Hostel. The hostel was a decent one, I mean not the best I’ve stayed in but not the worst, and we were all so exhausted that we just went right to sleep when we got in. However, the next day we went downstairs, got a sort of unusual breakfast that had salami, cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, bread, and yogurt that tasted like it was 3 weeks old. We had heard about a walking tour that was free that we all wanted to go on to learn more about the city of Berlin, so we hopped on the metro and found ourselves in the middle of this beautifully historical city.
At the center of the city there were so many people around us that were street performers, and people dressed up in costumes like Mario and Luigi and mickey mouse. There was even one guy that was dressed up like a baby in a crib and had this little thing inside of his mouth that made it sound like he was whining. I’m not sure how these people make a living off of doing this and actually enjoy it because I know that if I had to dress up in a ridiculous costume, in the cold, and have people stare at me all day, I would not be a happy camper.
I was really glad that we decided to go on the walking tour because I ended up learning so much about this city. Our tour guide was this short man wearing a beri and half of his long hair pulled back into a pony tail while the other half was hanging out the side of his hat. We were a bit skeptical to follow him at first because he didn’t really look too professional, but after talking with him for a while we were convinced that he was doing these walking tours out of the pure love that he had for Berlin and wanting to share its history with the rest of the world.
This tour was perhaps the most freezing that I have ever felt in a very long time. Regardless of the fact that I was wearing leg warmers, comfy socks, a big hat, gloves, a scarf, and my jacket, my entire body was turning numb. We were all standing there shivering trying to listen to the stories that this man had to tell us, but it was so hard to listen when all I could think about was the idea of my fingers falling off from being so cold! Every opportunity we had to go inside we took, and the tour guide actually gave us some advice to drink beer to warm up our bodies. So we took him up on that and carried our beers around on the tour, since there is no “open container” law in Germany. The beer actually helped a lot and made the trip go a little bit smoother so that I was less worried about my body temperature and more in tune with everything that was going on around me.
The tour ended really close to one of the center christmas markets, which was the main reason we came here in the first place, so we broke off after the end and decided to go searching in there. It cost one euro to get in, but it was so beyond worth it. I have never seen christmas markets that were this beautiful in my entire life. There was christmas music playing, a stage that looked like it was preparing people to put on a show, and rows and rows of stalls filled with christmas goodies for us to buy. I tried my first mulled wine here, and even though it was not my favorite drink, at least I can say that i’ve had hot wine in Germany now!
That night was very interesting because it was Harry’s 21st birthday that upcoming Monday and we were not about to let him have a non-traditional United States 21st birthday just because he was in another country. We went on this really fun pub crawl and met a lot of really cool people, but if I were to type out the entire happenings of this event, I don’t think anyone would have enough time to read that.
The next day, Saturday, was a little more laid back. We decided to get a good breakfast and wander around Berlin to find the other christmas markets. The next one that we found had a giant ferris wheel in the center of it as well as a skating rink. We didn’t have a chance to go ice skating, but the ferris wheel was absolutely stunning. When we got to the top we could see over the entire markets and out over the city. There were so many people all over the streets and the city looked like a giant winter wonderland. I love these types of places because not only does it get me in the christmas spirit, but it makes me happy to see all of these people coming together to celebrate such a great time of year.
Last night was a lot more casual and relaxed than the night before. We went to a bar to escape the freezing cold and get a few drinks in us before looking for yet another christmas market. This was a really cute pub with people serving us that actually spoke fairly perfect english. I found that the city of Berlin was very americanized, very much like London, and it was funny because anywhere we went it said “tip not included” on the bill when in fact we had been told since the day we all arrived in Europe that it is not a custom here to tip. Some people actually take it offensively if you even try. We walked around the christmas markets a bit more and finally got so cold that we had no choice but to call it a night.
Courtney and I messed up and made our flights a day later than everyone else, so we had to stay in the hostel an extra night. I’m laying in my bed right now trying to think of what we should do on our last day, but all I can think of is the christmas markets. It’s snowing really hard outside and the thought of walking out of this warm and cozy hostel into the freezing winter cold outdoors of Berlin is just not appealing at all. Courtney is taking a little nap so I’ll probably just do the same and wake up hoping that it wont be as freezing outside as it was the past few nights that we have been here. We’ll probably end up taking it pretty slow anyways because we have to be at the airport by 5 am to catch our flight at 7. But if someone asked me if this was a successful trip, I would definitely say yes and recommend that everyone come to visit Berlin at some point in their lives. Especially during the christmas season because even though it is freezing cold, I have never seen so much happiness and christmas spirit than what this city has shown me.
No comments:
Post a Comment