"The Layman on a Eurotrip" - Volume 1, The Lille-Paris-Berlin leg

Date : 30.9.2006,
Time : 5.50 pm European Standard time (whatever its called)
Starting Place : Lille Flanders Railway station

So this is where it started, the trip that was planned for 8 days (turned out to be a lot different from what was planned!) and that promised to cover a major chunk of Scandinavia. The train journey to Paris was uneventful, with me gasping a bit for breath due to the usual running in the end to catch the train thanks to chatting with BK till the last minute. Paris was expensive as expected and the Marlboro I got in the station pinched me badly, and that was the sore thumb in an otherwise good few minutes in Paris. I had a taste of the first of million burgers n fries that I was destined to endure in the trip here!

We peacefully reached Berlin, and the two hours at Berlin station where we tried working out plans for the week were mind numbing to say the least, with a lot of complexities and the Eurail website showing 2 different timetables to irritate the sh*t out of us... Whatever, the Berlin leg didn't start nicely at all, and we proceeded at around 12 noon to finally check out the Berlin wall (we now realized we had to spend the next day at Berlin), which a co-passenger said was right outside the Berlin Ostbahnhof station we were in. And all my plans of seeing something huge and historic fell flat when we saw a "kutti-chevaru" level wall full of interesting graffiti in front of us. A few of us did not believe that this indeed is the Berlin Wall! But yeah, the graffiti captured my interest, and some of them were brilliant pieces of art - ofcourse in the sarcastic sense! Some art pieces that ridiculed the commie regime, and how long germany stayed two countries were time-pass level. Check out this pic, that is my tribute to Rahul 'The Wall' Dravid! It was a particularly good snap considering the fact that I do 99% of the photography in my cam.
Apart from that, the day in Berlin was spent at the usual "Lonely Planet recommended" places.
The Reichstag, the Brandenberger tor, Babel Platz, Alexanderplatz and the World clock. I found them interesting, and the walk in the bustling Unter-den-Linden in the evening was something I thoroughly enjoyed. Most European cities have musicians playing on the roadside with hats collecting money. The feel it gives walkers on the road is amazing. Some of the wind instruments played that day were mindblowing and I spent quite a while simply enjoying the music and slowening my pace of walking. Anyways, Thanks to the big queue to go up the Reichstag, I had to settle for a view from the outside, and did some photoclicking that will be uploaded at my photolog in snapfish. I had dinner in a fair, and had some german speciality dish made of potatoes and mushrooms. It tasted good, and it blended well with the beer served at the Biergarten, which for the uninitiated are gardens that brew and serve their own beer.
So much for the day in Berlin, but let me tell you something else. Germany and Berlin were things that I got attracted to immediately for the following reasons -
1. The stark difference in prices compared to France - Sutta refill in Germany for sure.
2. The mystique that I could sense in Berlin, the brilliant intertwine of the old and the new. Here was a very intriguing city with a dark layer to it that I could sense - dont ask me how.
3. The German language, which I found to be more engrossing than French - all day, I was reading out German words aloud like (Stra-beta-e, Hauptbahnhof, Reichstag), much to the embarrassment of my co-travellers! Some of you do know my obsession with getting foreign language accents right! (Sebastian Grosjean etc...)
4. The S-Bahn - excellent train service, free for eurail pass holders and good frequency - what more could one ask for?

The night sleep in a bunker at a youth hostel (First time I slept in a bunker bed;)), and the rather forgettable experience at the wash room the next morning (Ping me and ask me why) were the only other things that were worth a mention in the Berlin first leg. There was to be a second Berlin leg to come in the trip - little did I know about that at this point in time (arnd 12 noon 2.10.2006)
So thus ended the Berlin leg, with a train from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Hamburg Centraal. We planned to hit Copenhagen by night, but the turn of events since are reserved for my next volume - that will cover the next few days of my so-called Scandi trip. But as u would have realized, the first part of the trip had nothing to do with Scandinavia. So much for planning! But one thing I must admit - the kick you get out of being a backpacker who nomads his way around, little knowing where he is headed for next is something else!
Till the next entry - here is a Gute-Nacht from me....