Germany!

Hello everyone! I know it's been forever since I posted about our European adventure, but life has been soooo busy! This post is about our first day in Germany, because we did so much, I thought I should separate the posts, so it wouldn't be too much to read!

( Quick life update: Jeff and I have both gotten jobs and are working towards moving into our own apartment down in LA! Hence the hectic busy life excuse, Ha ha. )

Now back to the fun part: talking about our lovely time in Berlin, Germany. We spent four days days in Berlin, and our days were jam-packed! We took an early morning flight from Oslo, to Berlin. To get from where we were staying in Oslo to the airport, we had to take a train. We bought tickets for the cheaper and longer train, to only find out that the train did not leave that early. So we hopped on the pricer faster train, and we had to pay more once we got to the airport. We were pretty disappointed.

If you are planning a trip to-and-around Europe I would highly recommend flying between countries. We flew to all of our destinations, and spent less than $200 dollars a person. Other forms of transportation such as getting the Eurorail-pass can cost anywhere from $500-$700 dollars a person. We also took a few trains from airports and a few buses but the fares were very low, and I would say we spent less than $50 dollars all together! It's worth it to fly, Europe has many low-fare flights, but also keep in mind, that the low-airfare airlines have very strict regulations about the weight of bags, and some airlines only allow one bag per person! I would recommend looking this info before packing and leaving for your trip! (If you're interested in what I packed for my Europe trip & packing tips, and what to bring, I will write a separate post about that!)

My last recommendation about flying between countries is to if possible book later morning flights. We decided to book the earliest flights possible, with the idea in mind that if we book earlier we would have more time in the countries we were flying into. However, it turned in trouble, as we could not always get trains and transportation that early in the morning to make the flights, and we were sometimes forced to pay for expensive taxis, and trying to converse with with hotel/hostel staff that we could not call the taxies ourselves because we did not have cell service. It was truly a nightmare. Book flights, but book later flights, even if they are a little bit more expensive, it will save you $$ in the end!

So, we finally made it to the Oslo airport, there is only one airport by the way, most European airports are small and you do not need to get there early, in fact you do not know what gate you need to be at until it's time to board the flight at most airports. We flew Norwegian Airlines, which by the way is amazing, and arrived at the Berlin airport.

The Berlin airport was extremely small. We walked around looking for train information and ATM's that wouldn't rip us off. We finally stumbled upon a counter with a worker, who booked our tickets on the U-BAHN, which was about $1.50 a person. We mapped out which trains we needed and which stops were closest to our hotel, and took off. The U-BAHN was extremely hot, and hardly any seats, but we managed to find some seats, and took off our heavy backpacks and settled down for the 20-30 minute train ride through what appeared to be German country side. We got off and then caught another train, which took us to a stop about a mile or so from the Hotel. We walked for a while, and then realized we were walking in the wrong direction. Eventually we got on the right path, and we made it to our hotel.

Here's a picture of one U-BAHN station entrance, that I found to be really cool!

The hotel was your average hotel, we had a suite, and they provided turn-down services, and even had harbo gummy bears on each of our beds! Dani and I had accidentally booked this hotel, when we were searching for hotels. We were trying to decide between the hotel we stayed at and another hotel that provided breakfast for a little more cost. Well, we thought we booked the breakfast hotel, and when we got the confirmation we were shocked that neither one of us had realized that it was the other hotel! Also the booking was non-refundable, so we were stuck! That being said the hotel was actually in a great location!

Berlin is HUGE, and did I mention there is 100's of 1000's of things to do there??? Well, we were luckily centrally located, that if we went any direction from our hotel, we would find something interesting to do and see! Maybe that is just how all of Berlin is, but we were only a few miles away from everything that we all wanted to see!

After arriving and checking into our hotel, we were all very exhausted, and starving. We found a mexican-style restaurant and got burritos that were very good, Dani and Shane got burrito bowls, and had left overs. After that we went back to our hotel and everyone relaxed. I fell asleep, exhausted from the travel. I was asleep for about 30 minutes when suddenly, I was being woken up, because Shane had found a place he wanted to visit that did free tours on certain days (the day we had arrived) that was going to close, and we were going to get there in time, if we left right away! I was so so so groggy, but Jeff grabbed my hand and guided us there. I pleaded with him to just leave me behind, but i'm so glad he didn't! It was worth the rushed, sickly-sleepy feeling walk! Shane wanted to see the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was originally built in the 1890's.

Here is the backside of the church, I did not get a picture of the front, (BTW all these pictures were taken by yours truly)

We walked about 1 mile or so, and we stumbled upon the church. It was so beautiful, it was in the middle of a plaza, surrounded by new buildings, shopping, a restaurants. Inside the the bottom of the church is a museum about the churches history.

Here is a picture of the entrance to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church museum section.

These pictures showcase some of the amazing details of the inside. It was seriously amazing! There were also displays, and pictures on the walls, I just did not photograph them.

After we went to the church, we heard some live music playing, in English. It was a punk rock type band playing music in a plaza. There was lots of people around, some dancing, some eating at surrounding restaurants and others were there enjoying the sites, such as us. There was a huge fountain with kids playing in the water, and people cooling their feet off. We looked at some shops, and walked back to our hotel. As we were walking we saw lots of little stands selling curry wurst, and found an interesting fountain. Living in California with severe drought, seeing multiple fountains and lush green plants everywhere was spectacular!

We stopped here and rested our sore and swollen feet, and took a couple of candid selfies, and pictures. Notice how Dani and I are wearing basically matching shirts, I guess it's a BFF thing!

This day was pretty relaxed compared to the days that followed...