Berlin

Will woke up at 9 but I was in no rush cause it’s a looooonnnnnggggg day.
I think we left the hotel around 11:45, right before checkout.
Hate leaving our little bags in the bag room but my back is so sore and tight so imma risk it. 🤓

It was about a 5km walk to the East side gallery.
Man, Berlin is NOT pretty. Totally missed this side of it last time.
This walk was so derelict the whole way!!
We went past some commune thing. Big sign no photos no tourism. Only reason people are taking photos is so they have evidence to show the police.
Holy moley.
Crap everywhere. Broken chairs, rubbish, tyres. Anything and everything.
Tarps.
Wowzers.

The whole walk was graffiti.
Inspired by the gallery, obviously 🥴

So the East side gallery is a huuuuuge section of the Berlin Wall.
It has a lot of famous art pieces on it.
The 2 I knew ahead of time was the men kissing and a car crashing through it. Lots of lovely arts though.
It had one section that was just for what I’ll describe as train station graffiti.
Genuinely genuinely surprised that no knob head has ruined any of the street arts.
We had salad for lunch then walked back via the city.
10-11km round trip I’d say.
On our way back through the city we walked towards some massive incident. Police and fire and just general emergency lights everywhere. Also news channeled everywhere. No panic though so wasn’t sure what went on.
Got closer and wow… we weren’t sure if there had been a gas explosion or terrorist attack. The whole front of the raddison hotel was a mess.
Activated Wills roaming to find out.
The worlds largest fish tank exploded.
Over a million liters of water and 1500 fish.
All fish died and thankfully only 2 people injured. If that happened during a prime time like check in time, lunch or diner etc so many would be dead from glass and just general trauma and drowning.

We then just sat in the foyer for an hour. I did my Facebook update then the hotel called us a taxi because the trains were being stupid and frankly couldn’t be assed.
That’s the main reason in fairness.

Taxi was good.
Drove like a maniac BUT did have the decency to ask if it was ok if he spoke on the phone.
I don’t think I’ve had a driver ask me that before.
He also didn’t ask for a tip so we liked him.
Will felt sick after the journey and was keen to get some food.
We arrived 3.5 hours before our flight.
It is the only time I/we have nearly missed a flight.

BRUHHHH
they didn’t open the check in until 2 hours prior. However, to add to the drama they do not offer early check in so the entire plane is in this line and dropping off bags.
We had only 30 minutes until boarding when we got through but still 2 rows of people to go behind us.
Then TSA took 20 minutes.
SUPER HUNGRY by this stage so we rushed to the food court and got some pizza/salad then rushed to our gate. Boarding started at 8 and it was 8:05.
Up the escalators and what do we find.
Customs CHOKKA BLOCK FULL.
I did feel better because the whole line was our flight so if we missed it, they did too.
Customs was ridiculous. I don’t know why they were so thorough when people are leaving not entering the country.
All workers in a foul mood.
Whole line in a stressed mood.
With 5 minutes before our plane leave we raced to the gate.
And it had been delayed 35 minutes.
Good. Absolutely not fair if people missed the flight because they don’t have enough workers. Even though we chose to get food we were closer to the front than others on our plane who had come straight from check in. We don’t have a long layover though so that may be an issue later on and if I have to be stuck I’d rather be stuck in Berlin than Belgrade.

Flight 1 was fine.
Finding flight 2 was fine
Flight 2 was NOT fine.

I haven’t been that terrified on a plane in a very long time, if ever.
First of all it was a rotary plane held together by actual sticky tape.
So I was nervous before take off.
Will, who usual calms my anxiety kept going on and on about how garbage the plane was and pointing out what was wrong with it and how it’s wasn’t good so I was crying before he even took off which I don’t think has happened before.

Then there was the turbulence.
45 minutes in the dark, in a storm. The flight attendance did not actually get to stand up before we started our decent. They quickly gave out water and sat again again.
I was terrified.
Will was sick.
He wanted a motion sickness tablet BEFORE we got on the plane but everything shut so we were like we will get water once on the plane HA.
That was a disaster.

Arrived and got through customs at lightening speed. 300% faster than Germany and we were entering not exiting..

And our next problem was our bags didn’t make it 😪😪😪😪

The lost baggage lady could at least speak understandable English.
If they are stuck in Belgrade as they should be, we will get them in 2 days. No flight from Belgrade tomorrow 🙃🙃🙃

THANKFULLY our taxi driver was still waiting for us. We were over an hour late.
Once we got onto Wi-Fi at the hotel we had an email saying you driver is still waiting for you…..
So very happy he waited.
Would have tipped if I had the correct currency.
3.30am and we were in our beds.
What a day.Read more