Upon arrival in Berlin, we realized we had no clue where to go from the train station. But that’s what makes it an adventure, there is no itinerary, there are no plans. We may be the most flexible people to ever travel to Europe. We dipped into a souvenir shop to take a peek at a travel guidebook. Leah penned the directions on her hand while I tried my best to look nonchalantly at the coffee mugs and postcards. Leah was a tad unsettled by the presence of the German police just outside the shop, armed with assault rifles in hand. Oddly enough, I hadn’t noticed.

The sun had just set upon the city, but we decided to walk instead of scrounging up money for a subway ticket. It was a pleasant walk nonetheless and after passing countless luxury hotels, we happened upon our hostel in about fifteen minutes. We stood outside the gates in awe and there was only one word that came to both our minds: funky. The place was loaded with character. The walls were a creamy orange color, the décor was retro, and the staff was friendly. Each room had a theme and ours happened to be “A Sailor’s Tale.” There was a mural of a sailor’s adventure on the wall, complete with dragons, pirates, and a passage from Tennyson.

Hunger got the best of us and we slipped out to a “bistro” down the street. I would hardly consider it a bistro, as the menu was comprised of pictures of fried, yet delicious, food. We ordered and stood at the counter waiting. The worker, whom we later befriended, seemed perplexed as to why we weren’t sitting down at one of the tables. He motioned to us to sit down and told us he would bring us our food and silverware. It had been entirely too long since we had sat down at a restaurant that the concept had gone over our heads. It was a pleasant change of pace.

We went back to the hostel to get our bearings straight, relax, and plan the next day’s activities. We plopped down onto one of the many plush sofas and charged up our electronics. A few minutes into this process, a guy walked up to us and introduced himself as Jake. He wore skinny jeans and flip-flops. This scraggly-haired guy was from Melbourne, Australia, of course. We compared the prescribed lifestyle of American youth and the carefree lifestyle of the Australians. He had gone to college for a while, worked for a while, and decided to come to Europe until he was too broke to go any further. We enjoyed his company very much, especially since he spoke English natively. Jake and I played a few rounds of pool (he was surprised by my skill) and then Leah and I retired to our bunk beds.

There was a free tour offered at 10:15am, but we are relatively autonomous and prefer to pave our own way through the cities, so we slept in a bit, since the mattresses were nothing short of heavenly. You could put a wine glass at the end, jump on the opposite end and not spill a single drop of the wine. Anyway, we headed out to the subway station, bought a day ticket and headed to the Jewish Museum. Unfortunately, it was just about noon when we arrived and there were huge groups of middle-aged people waiting in line outside. We decided to forgo the Jewish Museum in favor of saving some time. We walked a few hundred meters to Checkpoint Charlie, the dividing point between East and West Berlin and the tourist spot for the Berlin Wall.

The spot was overwhelmed with tourists, beggars, and souvenir stands, but it didn’t compromise the authenticity and authority of the location. Leah charitably donated a Euro or two to a Bosnian woman, then we snapped a few photos next to the preserved section of the wall and bought lunch at Subway. I wasn’t necessarily satiated, so we also ordered some spaghetti and fleischsauce from a local spot.

We browsed the city center a bit, spotted a bicycle that could be ridden by four people sitting in a square (I ran after it to catch a picture). We then explored the Holocaust Memorial, which is a maze of large stone blocks. Germany doesn’t seem to think it’s necessary to explain the significance of any of their attractions, so we remained ignorant for the majority of the day and promised to Wiki it all later. A few minutes later, the great Brandenburg Gate came into view. This was the spot where Hitler made some of his most famous speeches for his propaganda videos. Napoleon also made a few grand entrances under this arch. Walking under the same archway was loaded and eerie. The square was filled with breakdancers, living statues, and horse-drawn carriages. A few steps across the street led us to the Statehouse and eventually to Tiergarten, the Central Park of Berlin. We walked a few kilometers down the stretch, which was golden and tree-lined, a perfect Autumn day.

All of the sudden, we heard a high-pitched squeal. Leah said, “I think I just heard a bird.” I told her it had been a child in the woods, not a bird. Then a couple of meters later, we came across a clearing and to our surprise, it was a man riding a zipline through a park. You better believe we jumped all over that opportunity. It was the most light-hearted fun we’d had the entire trip. Such a novel idea!

We saw a few other sites, such as monuments and churches, but to keep from boring everyone, I’ll skip over them. You can see the pictures and I’m sure that will suffice. It started to rain and we got back to the hostel just in time. We went to dinner at the bistro again because the rain was heavy, then came back and had another easy night. The Australians tried to convince us to go on a pub crawl, but we declined despite being called “lame” several times. We talked to a Colombian neuroscience Ph.D candidate for an hour or so while enjoying some hot chocolate then went to bed, but not for long because one of the guests in our room had a snoring problem. I cannot even begin to describe the agony I was in the entire night. His snoring had to be at least 70 decibels. If I had had something to propel at him, or a water gun, I would have taken full advantage. I know many of the other guests in the room felt the same. This guy could not possibly have a girlfriend. Nine o’clock came around eventually and we went merrily on our way to the train station for our next destination…. Prague!