Berlin and Back
Jared Pelletier
This weekend Jared and I sojourned North to Berlin, which is approximately 6 hours from Mannehim.
We set out on Friday afternoon and took the ICE train to Berlin. We arrived at our Hostel, St. Christopher's and immediatly found our way to the hostel bar. They were playing some important Rugby game and Jared, along with every other man in the bar, watched excitedly. We spent the night there enjoying a few new types of beers before heading up to our room.
The next day, Jared and I set out to the Berlin Mercedes-Benz Arena for an e-sporting event (details on this to come). After the event, we walked along the Berlin Wall East Side Gallery, which is a stretch of the Belin Wall that is covered in Graffiti by over 118 artisits to celerbrate the demise of the wall.
For dinner we went to the Hofbräuhaus Berlin. We were joined by some freindly and smartly dressed chaps. Jared kept inisiting that he knew on of them but couldn't recall how. After a few more beers and a bit of conversation, Jared discovered that he and his familar beer house companion went to highschool together! As Jared always says, "It's a small world!" We finished off our night by catching some live music. The artisit played a few of our Hurley's favorites including "Wagon Wheel" and "Wonderwall." We felt right at home.
We kicked off today with a 3 hour walking tour of Berlin. We visited several important sites including the Holocaust Memorial, Check Point Charlie, the Reichstag, Pariser Platz and Gendarmenmarkt.
We then met up with our ride back to Mannheim, a man Jared found on Blablacar. He asked us if we had ever been on the autobahn before and if we were comfortable with high speeds. We proudly told him that yes we had and yes we were! In no time at all we were flying at... 200 km/h!!! I am thankful that I did not pee my pants or loose my lunch. I nearly kissed the ground when we arrived (safely but a little shaken) back in Mannheim.
Jared and I both agree that Berlin is one of our favorite cities! Hopefully we will make our way back someday soon.