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Tuesday, the last day of Europe's spring, we said farewell to the old, traditional city of Munich & travelled 7 hours by train to modern, hip & happening Berlin! It was raining & muggy when we got there, but fortunately our hostel was only a hop, skip, & a jump from the metro station after a relatively quick commute from the central train station. By the way, Berlin's central train station is about 5 times as Perth's international airport!! I actually don't think I'm exaggerating there…
As Ozzie drilled into us, it is a COMPLETELY different city to Munich, & had a completely different feel to the whole place. It's a lot grungier & there's a lot of graffiti everywhere, particular on the East side of Berlin, which is where we stayed for the first couple of days. When I spoke to Mum & told her we were staying on the East side of Berlin I don't think she could quite get her head around it, seeing as last time she came to Berlin the wall was still up & the East side of Berlin was definitely not the kind of place you wanted (or were allowed) to go! Berliners don't try to pretend that their city is particularly beautiful (& will readily admit that yes, it is situated on swamp land), but what it lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in cool. It's a very alternative city & pretty much anything goes here…for example, did you know that the under cut is back in? Only this time round it appears to be more popular with the ladies!
We spent our first evening getting our bearings, doing laundry, grocery shopping etc. All that boring stuff that unfortunately still needs to get done when you travel! We were staying in another Wombats hostel, having had such a great experience with the place in Munich. Again it was fabulous & really well run. It had a New Orleans style Louisiana restaurant attached to it that served delicious Southern food like gumbo & jambalaya (Berlin is not known for it's cuisine so you're really better off just finding a restaurant that serves good food, rather than worrying too much about how "German" it is), where both of us were fed & watered for under 20 euro - not too shabby! ;)
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Mutti I suppose you know that once when your Mother & Elaine (I think) were over there in the time of the wall, they caught a (wrong) train which delivered them to the East berlin station! A very scared pair got out as quickly as possible!!