Aug 12, 2018
📸 — Berlin, Germany
We had planned to stay in Berlin a week but extended a few more days as the city is so lively, fun, rich with history and full of amazing places to eat and drink.
Its nice to settle in a place for a while and develop a little bit of a routine and how you get about your day — it gives a sense of sanity or the feeling like you have a home base (because in long-term travel, packing up and going for just 2 weeks can feel absolutely exhausting, let alone a year!).
Some of our daily habits include: finding cheap lunch menus — a total treat getting a full course meal and wine for 8–10€, reading and hanging out in our Airbnb during the day (It was 35+ degrees! and unbearable to walk around outside in the sun), then getting as close to our 14,000 steps a day site seeing by night and working on our night photography skills. Oh, and if we got anxious during the afternoon — would walk to a museum or mall that often had kick-ass air conditioning.
After 8 days of intense heat, the rain finally came and brought the most comfortable weather we’ve had in 5 months!
Berlin has so many public monuments and displays of the happenings from WW2 and the Cold War. You can really feel how impactful this time was as well as how much the city has changed since then.
Here is a look at our leisurely travels through Berlin.
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While we were on the train, the sound system came on to tell us that we would be getting off the train, and boarding ferry ship. At first, we were both really confused and assumed that we would just board a new train once we arrived across the board from Denmark to Germany… but boy were we wrong.
Our train actually boarded the ferry! And we got off the train, went upstairs on the 45 min boat ride and then went back down to board the same train on continue on our way to Hamburg.
We were walking around one night and noticed that one street in Berlin has almost all the worlds’ embassy buildings! So we were on a look out to find the coolest one… which we secretly hoped was Canada… but it wasn’t. So we may not be pretty, but at least we are nice. 😊
Oh yea, the visa thing. The first few days in Berlin were a bit more stressful than we had thought as we were in a frenzy trying to figure out our travel visa. Essentially, you can only stay in the Schengen zone (pretty much all of Europe, minus the UK, Croatia and a few other countries) for a total of 90 days…. and we knew this, but thought that applying for a visa would be easier than the current hassle we’re going through.
We’ve been calling embassy after embassy to figure out our options and now have to change our travel plans to accomodate the rule.
Luckily, it was so hot out during the day… we could stay at our airbnb and plan what we had to do next.
AC isn’t a popular thing in Europe, as you can tell by Oli’s looks on photo above.
A girl had come up to us the other day while walking through a park and shoved a piece of paper in our face that she wanted us to sign. Oli let his guard down and started to sign the paper until she started pushing very hard to give her money. We declined and kept walking.
Then when we got to the Typography of Terror museum, we saw this sign and realized we totally dodged a pick pocket!!! Maeghan’s constant European nightmare!
More friendly faces in random places! Christine used to work with Maeghan in Montreal at Beyond The Rack and now lives and works in Berlin with her tiny porg dog, Merlin.
Holocaust Memorial. This place represents the graves of all the Jews who were murdered during the Nazi reign. When you walk through the maze of rectangles, it leaves a pretty haunting feeling.
Things Maeghan loves — stationary, ice cream and coffee. Today she splurged on all three.
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