• Day 23

    18. Juni 2024 in Deutschland ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Today I had arranged to meet up with my cousin Simone but since she was busy until lunchtime, I spent most of the morning in the apartment. Since I’m flying home tomorrow, I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the best route home possible. After checking seat numbers, connection times and destinations, I chose the route of Berlin-Frankfurt-Hong Kong-Melbourne. So you can imagine the frustration when the staff travel website crashed as I was about to buy the tickets! I called Ted for help and fortunately, he had no trouble buying them for me on the computer at home.

    After walking to the train station, the connecting train to Simone’s location was easy to reach. I bought a 24 hour train pass which ended up being fortuitous as I needed to take several transport options during the day. Simone came to meet me at the train station with her 4 month old baby David who was really sweet and happy. Simone suggested we go for lunch, so we went to a Thai restaurant not far away.

    The food was really nice and we were amused that the waitress was wearing a Melbourne T-shirt, although she told us she’d bought it in London. As I paid for lunch, Simone offered to pay for coffee and cake, so we went to a place nearby called House of Small Wonder which was previously a Jewish school. The two girls who worked there were actually from Australia and New Zealand, and the Aussie girl and I talked about her interest in becoming a flight attendant. Simone and I couldn’t decide on the bread pudding or the chocolate cake so we ordered both and shared them between us.

    When we headed towards the U-Bahn we were detoured slightly as an apartment building was on fire, meaning there were a lot of firemen and emergency crews blocking the street. Simone was keen on having me meet her daughter Clara so we went to her daycare to pick her up. I think Clara may have been very tired though, because as Simone described it, she’s going through the Terrible Twos! After a short while at their apartment, I headed towards the U-Bahn for my journey back to Roman’s house.

    The first part was easy however, trying to find the train line after leaving the U-Bahn was far from easy since the connecting station was split into two different parts depending on the train taken. Thanks to Google maps, I eventually reached the correct station and was able to return to Roman’s house without any further problems.

    Even though I’d offered to buy sushi for dinner, Roman ended up paying for it, insisting that I was the guest and shouldn’t pay. Therefore I made a promise to pay when they all came to visit Australia! Tomorrow I have an early start to the day (4:30am) as I will need to be at Berlin airport for the first flight to Frankfurt. Even though there are plenty of flights, it’s better to get on the first flight possible in case there are cancellations or delays.

    After packing up all my remaining items, I farewelled Roman and Steffi and thanked them for their hospitality. I’ve already ordered an Uber for tomorrow so hopefully I can still get some good sleep.
    Weiterlesen