Night Train and Berlin

The night train sucked. There's three types of carriages, 1st class, which has beds in it but I think costs roughly $1,000,000 to reserve. There's also Couchettes, which sound lovely, and normal carriages. I didn't specify when I reserved my place and ended up with a couchette, this is just a room with two rows of seats facing each other, impossible to sleep in, there's no where to put your head, I think they designed them with pointy bits on all the edges that you could lean on. When we first set off I started talking to two american guys and a dutch girl that were in another couchette, we discussed how Holland was so flat and the Dutch girl said around half of it is below sea level, I said "is that where all the cheap houses are then?" she asked what I meant and I said "with part of them being underwater", "No, they're dry" came the response, she really didn't get my crap joke and stopped talking shortly after.

I got to Berlin at about 6 am and couldn't work out the train system, so I just got off and headed towards the tv tower. I got a few cool pictures of places that would normally be really busy but because I didnt have a map I couldn't find the Reichstag or brandenburg gate, which I was a bit sad about, because when I did go back to the brandenburg gate they were setting up some big celebration (I think it was 40 years of something), so it was really noisy and there were cranes about and stuff. My hostel was awesome, it was called generator and was huge, i think it had floors, it had a massive common room, bar, free breakfast 7 euros a night. Oh and the bar had happy hour between 5 and 7 so I could get bottles of Schofferhofer Black (Kind of like Newcastle brown) for 1.25 Euro's.

On my first night in the hostel I met a lot of people, first I met two guys from Georgia (U.S) called Slaton and Jake. Then we all started talking to an Australian (there were lots of Australians). Slaton asked "Hey you're from Australia, do you know a guy named John Cantor", "Yeah we ride the same fuckin Kangaroo to school" came the response, aparently everyone from anywhere knows someone from australia, and when they meet another australian a lot of them ask if they know them, pretty silly when australia is as big as it is. I didn't ask if he knew my relatives. Slaton (who hadn't drank for a month and a half and was keeping up with me and quite drunk by this point) also asked "do you guy's have Outback?", "we have THE outback yeah", "No Outback the australian themed restaurants, they do these things called Bloomin' Onions and they dip them in Ozzy sauce" , "Whats Ozzy sauce?", "Sauce that you Australians eat". Needless to say, when I saw Slaton the next day he was feeling a little hungover. Also on the first night I met some Canadians, and also after everyone had gone to bed I had a beer with Macca from behind the bar, Felix, who was massive and did the night shift on reception and a girl who was just starting and did the breakfasts.

Monday morning, I woke up to late to do the early free walking tour, so I had a look round then did the later one. It was really good, not as humourous as the one in Amsterdam, but contained a lot. I went to the place where Hitler shot himself, but its just big buildings and a patch of grass where people don't pick up their dog's poo. Also went to the Berlin wall, my Grandad wanted me to bring a piece back for him, but there was a fence around it to stop people, kind of a blessing in disguise, would have been silly carrying a bit of concrete around the world. On the tour I met a guy called... I can't remember, but he was alright, we went and got some food after, then I went back to the Hostel to make happy hour.

Karaoke night..... A large group of Australians enjoyed it at least, and a few times I heard "The next song will be sung by John Cantor". I met some Americans that had been studying in Sweden, and were now traveling bits of Europe. And later the guy who was in the bed below me came over, his name was Sam. After we had all talked for a while a girl turned up who knew Sam from school, but they didn't know each other would be in Berlin, Sam didn't seem pleased. I also met a girl from Edinburgh called Katie who does that kind of stop start animation but with glowsticks, she showed me some on her Camera, they were pretty good. Later Sam and Katie got their Ipod's or whatever out and we listened to music each other liked, I've left mine at home to make sure I didnt just sit and listen to it on my own all the time, otherwise I would have showed them some Animal Collective or something.

Tuesday, rented a bike and bombed it down the hill to get to the TV tower before there was a big queue. From the top you can see everything, it's really cool, I think all citys should have something big that you can look out of. I went up another floor to the rotating restaurant, and ordered a small and overpriced orange juice. I drank it really slowly and waited for the restaurant to do one full turn, while the waitresses were coming over and asking again and again if I wanted to order breakfast. After the TV tower I went to the Reichstag, there was already a big queue, so I had to wait for about 45 mins, was pretty cool though. I also had a ride round the park and went to the Holocaust memorial. That night I tried to go on a pub crawl organised by the free tour people, but I missed it so I ahd a few beers and chatted to some Gremans, but not much of interest happened, so I went back to the hostel and met up with Katie who had met some new people. We all talked for a bit, there were a couple of Americans that had just arrived from Krakow, which was quite cool because I was going there the day after (yesterday). I got Katie's email address and went to bed.

Yesterday I got the train to Krakow, 9:40 to 20:00, but wasn't to bad, slept a little bit, I think I only averaged about 5 hours a night in Berlin. The hostel here seems really good, a lot smaller than the one in Berlin though.

Yes Nutter I just go up to people and talk at them, sometimes they respond, never has anyone said sod off. Was a bit weird at first, but getting better at it, only got one photo of people so far though, seems strange taking them of people I don't know.

I'm running out of net time now though, so I'm off.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee