Here’s a riddle; when is 900 US dollars not 900 US Dollars?
Answer: When you go into a bank without realising – and without them mentioning – that they can’t cash your travellers cheques directly into US dollars. They have to do it into Euros first, which means you lose twice on weak exchange rates, and when you have just over twenty minutes until your train to Berlin leaves Karlsruhe, the last thing you really want to hear after waiting in various lines is that your $900 is now $818.
Anyway… what was more important was that we actually catch the train, which we did with about 3 minutes to spare. Another two hours in Karlsruhe wouldn’t have been that bad anyway, seeing as we didn’t really want to leave. Having made it aboard the train the trip itself was pretty relaxing. The countryside on the way is green and nice and so on, and even though we had seats in one of the plastic bubble cabins (rather than in the rows of seats), once some other people got off we had the bubble to ourselves.
Berlin itself is magnificent. After checking into our hotel (which was very tidy indeed – I can recall the word ‘palace’ being used), and having a suspicion of having been charged twice, we walked up down and around Berlin on the route suggested by Lisa’s father. That is, we walked back up past Potsdamer Platz to the holocaust memorial, which is stunning, then up to the new and old parliament houses (the Reichstag and Bundestag), over the river and along one bank for a bit, then back over and along the other bank. Turning down the Wilhelmstrasse we found a chinese/vegetarian restaurant and had a quality dinner with real vegetables, leaving ourselves 6 euros to get the bus to the airport and so on the next morning.
Back up the Wilhelmstrasse you can turn right onto the Unter den Linden which takes you past other sites such as the opera house, the contemporary art museum and the TV tower. One train trip back home from Alexanderplatz via the Hauptbahnhof later (our Eurail tickets meant we could ride the regional trains for free until midnight), we crashed into our comfy comfy bed.
Greg
