travel with aimee

I thought Milan was bad, Berlin was worse. I didn’t really have much expectations for the city however it definitely lowered my idea of Berlin. When we arrived on the 7th of April, we immediately were met with a woman and man completely off their heads, stumbling and playing music. This pretty much sets the scene. Our Hostel, 36 Rooms was set outside of the centre, which was possibly the worst area ever. As we walked there we saw all we needed to see to get an opinion of the place. Two people being searched by police, homeless people, graffiti building, rickety shacks and a lot of drugged up people.

Furthermore, when at the hostel checking in, the girl at reception was super lovely as she offered me a female only room due to ‘there being super weird men there’. Despite it possibly providing a more eased mindset, I’d rather stick with Ben and same with him. She searched and put us in the ‘nicest’ dorm which was on the fourth floor. The elevator didn’t work so we climbed the staircase, calves burning from the pressure of our bags. We set up our beds and settled into a mindset of ‘what on earth are we doing’. The room we were put in seemed to have okay people in, mainly due to the fact 3/4 were girls. However after a little wander around the area, we got beckoned to reception and asked to move rooms. This was due to the girls wanting to be in a female only room… Like sorry but it’s a mixed room, you can’t kick us out. Oh well, the receptionist moved us to a room on the second floor and after I asked if it was full of ‘non weird’ people she appreciated my concerns and assured me it wasn’t.

So we went up, unmade our beds, got our bags packed again, headed down to the second floor and went to our new room. I guess the upside was less stairs! Sadly the lockers in this room didn’t work so it was quite scary knowing i’d be leaving my bags there each day.

We stayed in and chilled, our room filled with a harmless guy in one bed, another decent guy above, and a lovely swiss guy in another. The other bed though, was quite a different story. At first an Asian ethnic guy was snoozing there but went out after a bit. While he was gone, a different staff member showed another person in. We told them that there was no beds, however this staff believed the Asian shouldn’t be there so unmade the bed and handed it to the new person. This wasn’t surprising for the hostel as apparently it fills with homeless people who search for a bed at night…brilliant.

We went to sleep, albeit not peacefully, and hoped main Berlin held better things for us.

8th April –

We woke up the next morning and got ready for a trip to Berlin. Ben talked to the new guy for a little bit, despite many words being lost on him. Due to the unsafe atmosphere of the hostel, I made sure to take photos of our bags and beds before leaving so we could see if anything had been touched while we were out. Ben wished he had a baby monitor to keep watch, that’s how dodgy it felt.

Our day started…well, it started with pure panic. When we got off the metro to Berlin, Ben realised he had left his phone on it. Dread dawned on us as we realised this was probably the worst possible place for this to happen. Since the team had already left setting off back, we waited for the next one and hopped on to follow it, thanks to Find My Iphone location sharing. However the tram that had Bens phone on had stopped between two platforms. We decided to go to the further one and wait for it to continue down the line. Bad decision. The tram left, turning around to go back to where we started. We then had to wait for another tram, also heading in the same direction to follow it back the way we came. We kept on calling it, in hope a good samaritan would find it and eventually, as our tram neared its final stop, someone answered. Thank God! Someone had handed it in to the station guy and he answered saying where he was and so we found him, got the phone and fortunately we were at the stop we intended to be at anyway! Suddenly the world felt sunnier and Ben felt over the moon. Due to the sheer stress he had just been through i offered to buy him a beer at a beer garden which he gladly accepted. It was nice and sunny too which made our drinks taste even better.

We made sure to see most things, including the Cathedral, Brandenburg gate and the Victory Column. We also walked down a street called Haus Schwarzenberg which is full of graffiti and art work.

9th April –

The day began horribly for me. The newer guy in our room chatted to Ben and I for a bit until Ben then went to the loo. While Ben was out, the guy began to call me sexy and stare at me with oggling eyes. It was so uncomfortable and he kept saying I should model. I couldn’t wait for Ben to return and once he did, I practically made us run out of the door. I was very shook up all day and told Ben that I would not be sleeping that night if he was still there.

We decided Berlin really wasn’t for us and so found an area to go on a little woodland walk in, just outside of Berlin. It was lovely and peaceful in comparison to the previous day and there was even hogs! Ben told me I shouldn’t touch one though as it would try to eat me…

When we got back, the creepy dude wasn’t in, thank god. We got settled, ate a cold bag of half cooked tortellini pasta and prepared for our final night of horror. The creep did come to our dorm much later on but since the Asian was in the bed, Ben told him he couldn’t come in as he had made me uncomfortable and we had found out he wasn’t meant to be in our room anyway!

10th April –

The one thing I wanted to tick off before leaving Berlin was seeing the East side Gallery, Berlin Wall. We had a drink nearby and then went back to our hostel.

11th April –

Happy to be leaving, we set off quite early to get the tram towards the station. We didn’t realise that our time at Berlin was about to get worse. We hopped on the tram and when we reached its first stop, we had been asked for our tickets. The machines had been so confusing so we didn’t have one and asked to buy one there and then. Annoyingly, the lady escorted us off the tram then, literally the stop before we needed, and made us wait. Another guy got off and after pleading with him, he gave us a €60 fine and threatened to call the police. Safe to say, we were missing our train to copenhagen. He said we had to stay in Berlin and go to a certain address to pay the fine but obviously we couldn’t, we were literally leaving the country! Once they left, we got the next identical tram and continued with our journey. We passed a woman shooting heroin on the stairs to the platform which pretty much sums up Berlin for me.

Getting to the train station (finally), our originally train was in sight. We ran to it, got to the doors as they closed yet the conductor was stood outside. We waved to him and he beckoned us over to the door where he was stood. Cheeky buggar waited for us to get there and then started the train. Due to this we had to wait a long time for our train and got to Copenhagen about 3 hours later than we should have.

Berlin really wasn’t for us. It beat Milan. The atmosphere was just dodgy and horrible. Everyone seemed dangerous and untrustworthy. Druggies filled the streets and strange people wandered around constantly.

I understand those who want to see Berlin and tick it off, that was my opinion, however if you’re unsure about whether to go : don’t. There are so many better places to invest your time in.

SIGHTS :

• Berlin wall
• East side Gallery
• Victory Column
• Brandburg Gate
• Berlin Cathedral
• TV tower
• Checkpoint Charlie