....the remaining few days in Berlin.
A few more observations:
- Apparently Berliners smoke a lot. Cigarette butts everywhere.
- Speaking of everywhere, the horizon seemed to be filled with construction cranes.
- I kept speaking Spanish! They would say hello or thank you in German and I would respond with 'Hola!' and 'Gracias'!!! DOH!!!
Day 8 - Friday: Time to go home. I cleaned my hosts apt and did laundry. I’m spoiled having a dryer. Here, and in Spain too, most people have washers (either in the bathroom or kitchen) but no dryer. They drape their stuff from a rack outside the window, or a standing rack on the balcony.
More ranting about signage (or lack thereof or poorly presented).
I went to the train station to go to the
airport. Google maps directions said to
catch the RE1 train. In the train
station, there was no mention of any RE trains….only a hallway to go to S trains. I wandered aimlessly until a lady helped me by telling me where to go (so to speak). She said I should go to platform 8.
Walking down the long hall I saw the large platform numbers. I walked all the way to the end. I saw 7, then 9, 10, 11. Where’s 8?
It wasn’t until I turned around to head back that I noticed odd numbers were
displayed walking one direction and the even numbers were facing as if you were
walking the opposite direction. How dumb
is that? I went up to platform 8.
The lady who ‘helped’ me said I could take S3, S5, or S7. I asked about S9 as I thought it went where I wanted. She said ‘Nein nine’ (no 9). We laughed. But, as it turned out S9 was exactly the train I needed, and took, to the airport.
BER is a new airport having opened less than a year ago...10 years late. Two other airports were closed and one airport integrated into the new BER operation. As my luck would have it, my gate was A38….the LAST gate all the way down at the end of a concourse, starting at A1. Did this ‘modern/new’ airport have moving sidewalks where they should have moving sidewalks? NO!!!
The reader board displaying my flight and gate # also had 18 in one of the columns. I thought it meant they would start boarding in 18 minutes which seemed odd as it would’ve been very early. I looked again and realized it was the estimated time it would take to walk to the gate!!! Due to my bad knee situation, I was already walking (more like waddling) like a little old man.
The concourse had to be at least 500 ft long. It wasn’t until about gate A20 a moving sidewalk appeared….but it wasn’t moving. GRRRRRR. I did, however, get to ride an actual moving sidewalk for the last 8 or so gates. I was looking forward to a snack and/or drink near the gate. Nothing was open. 😒😤 I guess it’s one of the negatives of low-cost airlines….they operate out of the lower-rent gates which are the furthest away from the word ‘convenient’.
In summary:
- # of days = 8 (2 of which were travel)
- Cost of City pass = $52
- Cost of HoHo bus and River tour = $41
- Cost of Apartment = .00 (Home Exhange)
- Cost of taxi to/from PMI $20 to, $20 from = $40
- Cost of flight $122 + $60 for priority boarding,
seat selection, 1 extra bag = $182
- Other incidentals but those are things I would be spending at home anyway
Total, approx: $315
Or, click here: https://youtu.be/JhqASeckr2E
By the way, if you're interested in viewing any of my past entries about travelling around Europe and where I live in Mallorca, simply scroll down past my signature to the end. There, you'll see 'Blog History'. You can click on any Month/Year to see the titles I published at that time. Simply click on the title you're interested in and it will take you to that page.
Time for a brand new knee, maybe??
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