September 16-17 – Warsaw to Berlin – A Day in Berlin

September 16-17 – Warsaw to Berlin – A Day in Berlin

Arising Wednesday my head cold was bothering me and Rose had a sore throat. We readied ourselves for the train trip and took a hotel taxi to the station for Zloty 27.50, - gave the driver 30, about 11 CAD. The train station is the same building as in 2003 when we last used it but with improvements. In 2003 there was an information desk for foreigners. Now there is a tourist office and a train assistance office for visitors. The large main hall of the train station, not quite the size of a football field, used to be empty in the middle with ticket counters and offices around the edges and pigeons flying around. Now there is some nicely arranged seating in the centre with a few trees and plants around the seating, several tables of new and used books for sale, two tuck shops, a toiletries store, doors to the outside, and no Pigeons. Pigeons are well loved in Warsaw as they were a source of food for those trapped by the Germans in the Warsaw Ghetto of WWII. The restaurant which in 2003 was several tables in an open area with pigeons landing all about, is now covered, with nicely designed and arranged wooden tables amid artificial plants. Two good coffee cost us 14 Zloty – $4 CDN. Lucky that Janusz Lipkowski had given us the Platform number because we could not figure it out from the electronic train schedules on the walls. However the train information office also confirmed the platform number. We went down two levels to our platform, but it was still confusing as to where to wait and from which direction the train would come. There was an electronic sign about the trains coming but it was in German for people going to Vienna and Berlin. By talking to people we finally found someone going to Berlin and hung around him.

We boarded the train without any trouble and immediately found our seats. I hucked my nearly 50 lb hockey type bag with rollers up the 5 feet to the shelf above the seats along with Rose’s bag, and we settled in to our good sized 1st class seats. Even though we were in 1st class seats from Jaroslaw to Warsaw, this time the train was different. It was incredibly smooth. The toilets were clean with little smell and actually flushed as opposed to dumping their loads on the tracks below. By the end of our trip from Jaroslaw to Warsaw the toilets had serious odour problems, enough to make us gag. I slept most of the way to Berlin trying to fend off my cold, and Rose got ahead of me in reading our book for the trip – John Steinbeck’s 1983 novel: Travels with Charlie: In Search of America. Our lawyer, Robert Stephenson, gave it to me for my 60th birthday but we had not yet read it.

On arrival in Berlin, a city of 3 million, we found ourselves in a large very modern metropolitan train/mall/subway station, of about 4-5 levels. We made our way to an information desk and got advice on how to get to our Pension Hotel. Cute isn’t it – that retirees stay at a pension hotel. Don’t know what the term is used. We were surprised that we were not able to find any free tourist information. Everything had a price – eg. A nice little booklet on Berlin, complete with maps, for 15 Euro – 23 CAD. We found an ATM machine and took out 200 EURO from our bank account in Saskatoon, at $1.61/Euro and a $5 fee. Then we found our platform 14, of 18 platforms, (there were 4 platforms in Warsaw, a city of 2 million) and we were off. On arrival at a station close to our hotel we took a taxi a couple of kms to our Hotel Pension Messe for 12 Euro.

After the Hilton the Hotel Pension Messe, with 18 rooms was a surprise www.hotel-pension-messe.de . The buildings are 5 story and are all connected in the block. You enter a little door and walk up creaky old stairs or take a small 3’x4’ elevator to the reception where there is a small counter and buzzer for the attendant. It looks like a rooming house. The attendant lady did not speak English, but was able to collect the 124 Euro for 2 nights, after which we went to our room. The room has the toilet, shower, and double bed promised on the internet when I ordered it in Saskatoon. An indoor/outdoor type carpet is laid unprofessionally and tacked down in some places. It also has 3 cots and a fold out chesterbed, some of which had long strands of women’s hair on them. The bathroom is a 4’x4.5’ area for toilet and sink, plus at 36” shower. The shower has a bifold door with plastic raindrop panels, one cracked. The shower head was on an adjustable height bar, but would not stay in position. I fashioned a brace for it from the plastic chords for our luggage tags.

Despite the language problems, we were able to exchange the feather pillows for foam ones. We also found out that they have wireless internet. With some difficulty and advice from a man who seemed to come from nowhere, we got it going. But it usually will not work in our room. The room has a small TV with only German channels, and no phone. I still had my cold and Rose’s was getting worse so we took some Ibuprofen and went to bed.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that they provide breakfast. The next morning we found the breakfast very good: cereals, fruit cocktail, yogurt, breads, cheeses, sliced meats, butter, margarine and jams. We found a ‘chemist’ nearby and even though he did not speak English we were able to select a cold medicine that combined decongestant, cough suppressant, and pain killer. We also asked for advice to get to the centre of the city. Just then a friend of the chemist, a man originally from India but who studied in England and had been in Canada, arrived. He advised us where to buy bus tickets and to take buses 49 and 100. Well, we made bus 49 which took us to the Zoological gardens but could not find bus 100. Later we found that bus 100 drove throughout the tourist area and we could have taken it at no cost with our bus day pass. Berlin is a large urban area with many stores and tourist buses, so we decided, since we only had one day and we know nothing about getting around the city, to do a city tour on the ‘Berlin City Tour’ bus for 11.25 Euro each.

The Berlin City Tour bus took us to all the sites: sections of the Berlin wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Alexanderplatz, Brandenburg Gate and many other places. This company’s tour buses run the same route every 20 minutes. There are several points at which you can get off and then pick up a bus later at that point. Sounds good but at one point we stood around for an hour waiting for our bus. Made me wish I had done more to look into the promo I received from Rail Europe which would allow me to buy a Sim card for my Rogers Cell phone which we left at home. The tour guides on each bus speak alternatively in German, and English with a heavy German accent. That plus the speakers on the bus were not good, so it was difficult to follow the commentary. Another time, which I don’t expect to ever happen, I would try to find a tour with a solely English guide. Despite the situation we saw a Berlin highly urbanized and organized, a modern city of the world. After the tour we decided to head home. There was a large electronic store nearby so we tried to find a replacement battery charger for my Canon Mini DV video camera. No Luck. The charger quit working in Ukraine so we have not been able to use the video camera since.

Getting back to the hotel was also a challenge but we overcame it by finding a bus information centre and learning to take bus 49, wandering around, and finally finding the bus. The driver did not speak English and could care less, but a passenger finally took up our cause with the driver. Even that left us in doubt and the bus had already started moving. The bus was proceeding on ‘Kanstrabe’, similar to our hotel street called ‘Neue Kanstrabe’ so we stayed on hoping it would come to our area. Sure enough Rose recognized a restaurant near our hotel and we hopped off at the next stop.

After a shower and a rest we went to the Viet-Frish www.viet-frisch.de authentically decorated restaurant, and shared a tasty meal of green tea with ginger, wonton soup, and a stir fry for Euro 13.70. We gave 16 ~ 26 CAD. As we lazily strolled back to our hotel, enjoying the perfect breeze, the waitress came running out with our bag – all our train, plane, cruise tickets and my wallet. I fully expect at some point in life to have an incident where we lose or have stuff stolen, but we were so grateful we tipped well in this case. We even gave the waitress a hug to her surprise. These incidents really reaffirm our belief in the natural goodness of most ordinary people. I recall another incident on the train from Warsaw. A man found a wallet on the train and was going by compartments to find the owner. Of course that doesn’t mean that life for all is fair. I recall the incident in Canada where a young man on a bus was randomly selected by a deranged man who stabbed him to death and cut his head cut off. And that is all for now!