A foggy day in London town...: Euro Trip Day #4: Berlin, Germany

Friday 17^th December

Day 2 of Berlin was equally as exciting. My language/communication fears were still present…but iun a different form. It seems that my accent was too convincing (Jan and Hannah had both asked where my German relatives were). Now when I tried out my limited vocabulary on a german they qould take me as a native and rattle something back at me. That is the point where the typical “confused tourist” eyes would kick in and I would respond with “Sprechen Sie Englisch bitte.“

It didn’t help that half the German words I knew were completely inappropriate for daily conversation...or any conversation for that matter!

I headed off to the Reichstag, Parliament House, after leaving the others to do the same walking tour I had done the day before.

Berlin is currently under a Terrorism Alert so there is a heigtened police and security presence around the place. All the embassies have an armed officer outside. The UK embassy has 4 officers whereas the rest have 1...intersting!

Consequently, the Reichstag’s usual policy of “turn up on the day, take a tour and check out the view from the top of the giant dome we built ontop of our parliament house built in the 1800s“ wasn’t in play. Instead you had to book online which involved a 3-4 week waiting list. Oh well.

After a lot of walking and sigtseeing I headed back to the hsotel for a quick nap before heading out with the others on a pub crawl organised by the free tour guides. It took us to a very cultural and funky side of Berlin with some great street art and great vibe!

Knowing I had a 6am flight the next moringin I didn’t party as hard or as long as the others. I headed back to the hostel to work out transport to the airport. When I realised I would need to leave by 3.30am I figured deepsleep would be redundant. After skypiung dad for a bit I packed my bags and lay down for a nap only to realise there wasn’t even time for that! I am currently questioning why I paid for a second night at the hostel???

So here I am typing away in my seat aboard my flight to Geneva. When you read this I will be well and truely back in England but rest assured your are getting a minute-by-minute live recap of my European adventures.

It is with a sad sight that I say Auf Wiedersehen to Germany. I am eager to get back here one day very soon and perhaps with a slightly larger German vocabulary.