I mean I can't, really. My parents told me to see as much of Europe as I possibly could while I was over here. And i have done that to the best of my ability. But I am tired. And I am burnt out. And I want to come home. I am filled with apprehension at the thought of leaving krakow. I love it in krakow. But Europe has done me well and it is time to hug my mom and dad again. It's time to play spelunky. It's time to spread my gifts around.
Berlin was a last minute change from Romania. Romania's outside of schengen, and so it would have been very difficult to get there if we HAD a car or bus or train. That wouldn't take basically the ENTIRE WEEKEND to get there.
90% of the cars in eastern Europe are manual. I have driven a manual exactly once and so I could probably figure it out if my life depended on it, but the ENTIRE WORLD would be safer if I stayed in a manual. (Keep that in mind, it comes up later.) So instead we thought about going up to see more of Poland, but because of lack of automatic cars and the busses and trains taking too long, what if we just went straight to Berlin?
We booked a hostel and bussed it.
My computer FUBAR'ed itself wednesday evening, I took it in Thursday morning, and they said they would call me Friday to let me k ow what was wrong with it and how much it would be to fix it. So here I am, freaking out about money, my computer, my final essay being due, and three entire tripe changers one on top of the other. I had been booking everything when my computer gave out, so I let the friend of mine who I'd be travelling with get the tickets.
When we got to Berlin, we found out the hostel we booked was about 25 miles out of the way and renting a car was out. When we asked a taxi driver, he got us a room but the internet was spotty in that room. The first day we just recovered because I had not slept at all. The second day we walked for hours and hours until I couldn't walk anymore. Probably 6ish hours, total. We saw the wall, various buildings, an awesome flea market with cool antiques and paraphernalia from the Nazis, Soviet occupation, and coins from all over the world.
Today we saw more stuff but when we got to the bus station to bus home, it turned out she had booked it for Monday. I had been sitting all weekend on her dime, because I couldn't get Euro out of a polish ATM and I hadn't told my bank I would be in Germany so it wouldn't work. So there we are, stranded, and we can't buy tickets last minute for that bus, or the next one, so Ivana says "lets get to a car rental place and you can drive so you don't miss your final on Monday.
We sit in the busses station looking for rental place after rental place (remember the whole manual/automatic problem?) Before we find ONE PLACE that has an automatic, and I am trying quietly to make mild comments and make jokes to ease the tension we both feel, before I say "Just get the phone number and give me your phone and I will call." Because she is having trouble trying to book it over her phone's internet.
I call and some woman from Oklahoma helps me book it. It'll be about €450, and i'm looking at Ivana like 'I CAN'T AFFORD. THAT SHIT!' and she is like "do it. What choice do we have? We can't stay here all night!". So i do, and we use MORE money to make it to the rental place via taxi. When we get there and the 45 mi utes it takes the super nice ladies to find out reservation (Oklahoma had booked us for TOMORROW), scrap it (it wouldn't rent is the car until TOMORROW,) and restart the whole thing ended is up with a price of about €700.
Now, they knocked it down for us by having us rent per km instead of for time, but if e erythinf went right it was still €550 and I have my computer to think of and the rest of the weekend. My cheap Berlin weekend just more-than-doubled-down in one, small, incredibly stressful hour.
I will be paying Ivana back in installments after I get home. Along with my parents this is my nightmare.
That said, Berlin is beautiful. The wall is amazing. The architecture is incredible, and I emailed my prof and she is being incredibly nice about everything.
No. I don't regret Berlin. I regret my computer dying before I could make the fucking arrangements.
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