Today we woke up feeling refreshed as we actually got about 8 hours of sleep in real beds (our hotel had two twin beds). We took our time getting ready and even squeezed in some time for a workout. Once we checked out, we sadly realized it was raining outside - and this was Berlin rain, coming down (at times) in near-torrential amounts. We had hoped to walk into the Museumsinsel (or the Museums Island) and spend some time exploring one of the four museums in the area. We spent a few minutes in the hotel lobby writing out postcards and then walked to the closest post office to send them and to see if we could tolerate the rain. As the rain was coming down pretty hard, we decided to take the train into the center of town and chill out for a bit in the train station in hopes that maybe the rain would stop. Once at the train station, we found a cafe and ate our lunch while watching the rain come down even harder. We decided this might not be the best day to explore Berlin after all.
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| James prepares for the rain - his rain sheath on his pack in back, and his front pack underneath the raincoat. |
The train stations in Berlin are very sophisticated (as are all of those in Europe that we have seen so far), and are considered places of commerce - similar to airports in the USA, but even more so, since they also serve as hubs for local metro and light rail transportation. The stations also, generally, have plenty of places to eat (at least 15-20), as well as lots of places to shop and relax. The train stations also have places to store your luggage – this is especially handy if you are traveling around with big backpacks like we are.
As far as public transportation options, we found it very interesting that in Berlin, the transit authority does not require you to swipe a ticket before entering or leaving the underground rails (subways) or the buses. It is generally assumed that if you are riding the underground, bus, or tram, you have paid for a ticket. No one bothered to check to see if we had in fact purchased our tickets (which we did), but we read that if you are caught without a ticket you must pay a fee of 40 Euros.
The rain let up immediately before we were heading to the subway (the "U") to the Berlin Main Station ("Hauptbahnhof"), so we ended up walking back instead of riding. Our train into Warsaw, Poland was leaving at 4:30pm, so we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the train station – again, still working on our travel plan for the rest of the time in Europe. As we have had to purchase our train tickets on a near-daily basis, we have also had to find accommodations for each place as we go. It isn't always easy to find a place to stay at the last minute. And, it isn't easy to figure out where the hotels/hostels are in relation to the train stations either. We've been doing our best to find inexpensive accommodations that are close to the center of the cities we are visiting, but doing so is a team effort. Some of the site we have had success with are: kayak.com, airbnb.com, tripadvisor.com, hostelworld.com, expedia.com, hotwire.com, and latebooking.com.
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| James has some local cuisine (read: pretzel) at the Hauptbahnhof |
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| In case you thought our spelling was off... |
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| It turns out that members of the Bomba clan are welcome... (the full sign read "Bombadier") |
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| Erin is "thrilled" to get back on the train! |
Right on schedule, we boarded our train to Warsaw. This was a 6-hour ride, and it wasn't overnight – so it wasn't as bad as our trip from Amsterdam to Berlin. Additionally, the seats on our train were much nicer and we had nice afternoon views of Germany outside the window as we headed to Poland.
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| There was no confusion about where this train was headed. |
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| Erin demonstrates the very latest in Sherer-travel technology. |
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| Passengers standing to leave our train at an intermediate stop. |
We arrived in Warsaw late in the evening – at about 11pm. The train station was right in the middle of the city center, and as we exited the station we were greeted by bright lights and plenty of high-rise hotels and buildings.
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| Not only were there plenty of high-rises - our old friend TK Maxx was also here to greet us. |
We were able to find our accommodations quite easily and were pleasantly surprised by how fancy it was! (James gets full credit for this one because he picked it out). To say that we were thrilled by the quality of the hotel is an understatement - after a week of hostels, we found ourselves on the top floor of a re-done section of the hotel, wrapped in luxury. There was a little bit of regret that we had not scheduled an additional night in Warsaw - but we fully understood just how busy this month would be going in...
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| Our re-done bedroom area. Notice the lack of other inhabitants. |
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| A functioning desk - and LCD monitor? |
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| The view from the Metropol's 9th floor. |
Once we were checked into our hotel, we decided to grab a late night snack. We headed down some of the nearby streets and saw many people out and about (after all, it was Friday night). We passed a few clubs (playing American techno music) and several kebab places. We saw a grocery store, but it was closed, as by this time it was about 11:30pm. We finally wandered into a place called "Kebab King" where we hoped they would either accept a credit card or take the Euro because we hadn't had a chance to get any Polish money yet. We were in luck - not only did they take our credit card, but they also had someone at the counter who spoke English and was interested in finding out where we were from in the states. James ordered a kebab, but Erin decided she would just have a snack back at our hotel. However, when the order arrived, we got two kebabs. At first we thought maybe we miscommunicated (even in English!), but then we realized that we had not - rather, that it had been a freebie on the part of our very gracious host. We readily accepted the extra food, and ate it on the way back to our nice hotel for the night.
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| It tasted even better than it looks. |
We drifted off, content in our clean beds and excited to explore Warsaw in the morning.
