Off to Berlin

While Stephanie is visiting friends and family in Iowa, I decided to head over to Berlin for a week of Christmas markets, history, and beer. And probably a lot of Glühwein.

I got to the train station early, which paid off which I learned my original route had been cancelled due to … who knows. Deutsche Bahn’s reputation has cratered in the past decade and I always build in extra time to account for delays and problems.

And today DB was on brand.

The NS Rail person told me there was an NS International desk in Utrecht, which was the direction I was headed anyway. So I headed east … Train window views:

And video:

Once in Utrecht, the nice lady figured out a new timetable for me. It added an hour to the journey, not counting the extra 30 minutes because DB was running late.

But the new route stopped in Osnabruck, which had this little beauty of a train station:

(Confession: I may have eaten Burger King for lunch. It was the first time I’ve eaten American fast food in Europe since we moved and I don’t regret it.)

When the Intercity Express arrived (eventually), it became clear there were a lot of people rerouting like me. Only four people came off my train car and 50 of us piled in, which led to this:

Standing for the first hour of the trip. The lady behind me managed to not only sit on her suitcase but whipped out her laptop and got work done.

Once we reached Hannover, enough people departed that I could grab a seat.

We eventually reached Berlin HBF and wow, what a station. In addition to the train there’s light rail (S Bahn) and subway (U Bahn). The station serves 300,000 riders a day. I struggled with the ticket machine to buy a 7-day pass (49 euros) — it wouldn’t play nice with Apple Pay for some reason — but I found a ticket office in the basement and they sold me one.

Once I had that, I took the S-Bahn and three stops later was at my hotel, the H10 Berlín Ku'damm (65 euros per night including breakfast).

More pictures tomorrow …