"Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall"

Guten Tag von Leipzig. Some of you may be waiting for my entry on food, I can promise you that is currently in the works! As we were sitting around on Friday, a couple of us decided that we'd rather not stand around and do nothing this weekend. So, we went to Berlin! We had no idea where we were going to stay or how we were going to get there, but we were going! We woke up early saturday morning and headed to the train station. We found a ticket there for 30,00. it was good until 3 am the sunday morning anywhere in Germany, on any train, with the exception of the ICE high speed rails, and it was for 5 people. The title of the ticket translates to "Happy Weekend" Pass. There were 8 of us in for the trip. If any of you avid readers have seen the movie Euro Trip, our trip was a bit like that. If you haven't, check it out, it's pretty funny. Anyways, it was a 2.5 hr train ride. We met a girl named Maja on the train, and she told us to go to Alexanderplatz and start searching for stuff. We decided to take a bus tour to see all of the sites in the city and maybe a hostel as well. We had the addresses of a few, but if any of you have ever traveled abroad, you know its very hard to find addresses. I got tons of pictures of a city with arguably the most history on the face of the earth. I will post these in an album on facebook as soon as I can. I will also share a few on here. Before the reunification West Germany used to broadcast TV and Radio so East Germany could receive it. Below is a picture where we began our trip!

So we left Maja at Alexanderplatz and decided to walk around and see what we could find. If anyone has been to Berlin, it doesn’t really work like that. It is a very very large city, with many tram lines as well as bus lines, but we’re doin it live, so let’s go! We had two goals, we want to take a tour of the city, and we HAVE to find a hostel. On we go into Berlin. We immediately find a bus tour with the open top. PERFECT! Let’s go! So we get into the bus, we see all of the major sites of the city minus the Olympic stadium. We can hop on and off as we please because the bus comes every 20 minutes. If you’d like to see my pictures of Berlin, you must look at my facebook album, because there are too many to post on here.

Brandeburg Gate^^

Checkpoint Charlie Now it’s around 3 pm, and we don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight. Now it’s time to find a hostel. We immediately ask where all of the pubs are and head in that direction. We find a hotel…Nien…Ask directions to a hostel and walk into the “city center”. As we grow nearer and nearer I begin to notice an ever growing police presence.

Now, as a college student with no place to sleep, and a backpack of clothes, you start to wonder what’s going on….not. We found the hostel at last, they’re full, dammit. We receive directions to the next and on we march. I begin to notice a still growing number of police officers. Now they’re in full riot gear…Hmmmm… this could be bad. As we arrive at the city center, there had to be at LEAST 200 police in full riot gear searching bags, and seemingly waiting for something. OK, seriously? What is going on? We found the next hostel. Nien, they’re full as well, AH! They speak English! We have them call around. They found us a hostel on the other end of town with an 8 bed room. PERFECT! To the train we go…. Oh wait, why are there so many cops outside? Political protests? Racism? Fascism? NEIN!!! It’s the last day for regular season Futbol DUH!

We arrive at the hostel at 7 pm, Frank is going to put it on his credit card perfect, where is the bar? Ah, perfect it’s in the lobby. J I order a beer and the others follow suit. What’s this says Frantz? It’s a brochure for a pub crawl, picks you up nightly in the lobby at 8 pm. Oh? This could be fun. Nick, what do you think? I think we need to finish this beer so we can get some food before the pub crawl starts! How convenient, there is a Donor place at the end of the stairs. (Donors are similar to Gyros, except they have a spicy Curry sauce).

It’s now 8 pm, we are sitting in the lobby having yet another Beer, Berliner, the local brew. In walks the pub crawl woman. Ya, we want to go. 10,00 Euro 2 free shots at every bar and VIP access (no Lines). PERFECT! Off we go, first objective, figure out how to get home, Check. I won’t go into too much detail, but we met 2 girls from Ontario, one guy from Chicago who buys produce, I gave him my card (thanks mom) and a few brits that thought they could drink. I think we know who won that battle. GO UD. We made it home at 2 am after a run in with the local pay to play girls and a late night Donor.

We checked out at 11 hoping to catch the train, with our “Happy Weekend” passes, to Potsdam, a small town with “cool castles”. We defiantly got on the train to Leipzig thinking that it went through Potsdam when in reality it goes around it; so, no Potsdam but a quick trip to Leipzig. We arrived at 2 pm, ate lunch at the train station, and made it home at last. I tried extremely hard to stay awake as long as I could by watching streaming shows like house and family guy. I think I made it to about 6 pm. I woke up at 12, “washed my hands” (peed) and woke up at 7:15 am to go to BMW. What a weekend.