Katies do Euro Summer

[Katie]

AY132 Thurs 24 July SIN-HEL
Finally, we can say we've flown from sin to hell. Groan.

The Finnair amenity kit is a bit underwhelming. You can ask for socks if you want them. I think I used the eye mask and ear plugs and that was it.
I really liked the seats. The only downside as a side sleeper was one side worked with my body conforming to the contours around the table area, and the other side didn't work.






Blueberry juice pre-takeoff!


Progress on my knitting so far ... bad mistake to bring a lace pattern shawl.


Getting ready to go.


Pre-dinner champers, water and nuts


As I hate mushrooms (these flights were really mushroom heavy in the meal options!!), I had the prawns followed by the toffee tart.



The meals were tasty. The toffee tart was more chocolatey than I hoped for.


I had some wine after dinner and did some more knitting. The AY IFE choices were more limited than the QF offerings, somewhat surprisingly. Lately I normally hunker down with some trashy reality TV show (Real Housewives or similar), especially if I'm knitting as I don't need to pay much attention to the show.

I think I watched Gossip Girl (xoxo), which I've never seen. I got some knitting done and slept a bit. We landed in HEL a little bit early, maybe 10 mins, which we appreciated as we had a 60 min connection.
To our relief, despite what the information video on connections at HEL stated, we only needed to go through passport control to get into the Schengen zone, not security as well.
Passport control had no lines and was efficient and direct. The Finnish guy was cheerily Finnish (that is, not cheery at all) and wanted to know about every country we were visiting and when we were leaving. I ended up showing him the printed TripIt itinerary.
Mr Katie was behind me and when he was called forward, he just said "the same as her".

 

[Katie]

OOPS

Breakfast before arrival in HEL:

Knitting progress


Flight path - away from hotspots in the ME and RU (mostly)

Coming in to land in HEL!


OK, back to our transfer time in HEL.

In the Schengen zone, we stopped by the Moomin store and bought the Teen some Moomin Papa socks. She loves the actor who voices Moomin Papa.


We popped into the AY lounge for a quick loo break and to set up our eSims. We'd bought multi country Europe data-only eSims from SimCorner.
Some faffing about with Mr Katie's Android phone, but overall they were set up pretty quickly. We spent maybe 10 mins in the lounge; I had a quick look at the meals, but really wasn't hungry.

AY1431 HEL-BER
Off to the gate to board. AY intra-Europe J is basically Y seats with a spare seat in the middle and I guess a bit more leg room. There were something like 8-10 rows of J, we were in 2A, 2C. J was lightly loaded.
Some of the pax boarding seemed to be going to a steampunk convention in Berlin.

My view during boarding.
The crew were really pleasant on this short flight down to Berlin.

Breakfast was a potato waffle with sausages and a corn sauce.


I used my 30 mins of free wifi to check email ...

I was both happy to see a proactive email alerting us to baggage that didn't make the flight and saddened to know that baggage didn't make the flight.
I checked my Air Tags, and suspected it was my clothing bag and Mr Katie's bicycle that didn't make it. I was correct. I had a second suitcase that was basically full of a friend's belongings that she's had stored at our house for the past year. She lives outside Potsdam, so it was perfect to deliver this to her. Luckily, her suitcase arrived.

When we got to Berlin and the luggage carousel, yup, Mr Katie's bike and my suitcase were missing. Thank goodness I always have a spare change of clothes in my carryon, given I was wearing all merino clothing heading into a summer's day in Berlin.

So, my first exercise of my German was dealing with Swissport at BER to report the delayed luggage, even though AY knew it was delayed. I had luckily taken photos of our bags at BNE checkin, so I could show the Swissport agent exactly what the bags looked like rather than use their big sheet of similar bags to identify mine. I gave our hotel details and they were going to deliver the bags to our hotel. Yay!
Except the bags arrived on the next flight to BER, by maybe lunchtime, and they weren't delivered until well into the afternoon the next day.

We caught the train to Zoo station; I think it was an RE or semi-express train. When we got on the train, we got into the first carriage and ending up standing with our luggage in the bicycle area. The train was chockers (so we were happy we didn't have the other duffle bag and bike bag!). We could not move down the carriage with our bags to try to find a better spot.

A ticket collector came through checking tickets, luckily I remembered to validate our tickets with the machine after we boarded - I hopped off and validated them. She scored a few fines and tried to stop more bicycle riders from boarding. I was amused to listen to the exchanges with the bike riders asserting their rights to board the train and getting grumpy at people they could see with suitcases on seats.

It was about an hour ride to Zoo station (Zoologischer Garten station), the closest station to our hotel.

 

[Katie]

Hotel: Hampton by Hilton Berlin City West
1 Queen room interconnecting with 1 twin room

Roughly between Zoo station and Savignyplatz SBahn station. I chose this one due to Hilton loyalty and it was cheaper than the Hilton at Gendarmenmarkt, where we stayed 11 years ago. The Teen wished we were at the Hilton, as the Hampton brekky didn't have an egg/omelette station, and omelettes are her go-to. With her sensory issues and aversion to new foods, coupled with being gluten-free, breakfasts during this week were a bit stressful as I didn't book hotels with that kind of breakfast. Going to cafes is even more fraught with new foods. Lesson for Mumma Bear!
(Please don't tell me she'll have to learn, that's just not how her neurospicy brain works and she will go without food rather than attempt non-safe foods).

We walk to the hotel from Zoo station, arriving around 9:30am. The lovely Sandra at the front desk is able to check us in to one of our rooms, and as it would happen, it was the Queen room for Mr Katie and me. We were delighted to be able to shower and change clothes before meeting our friend whose belongings we had brought with us.




The room backed on the s-Bahn line between Zoo and Savignyplatz. I'd read comments about the train noise in hotel reviews, but with the window shut, we really didn't notice the train noise at all. The room was well designed, though the bed felt a touch more like a Double than a Queen.
The cupboard door doubled as the bathroom door.

This hotel is barely a block away from Ku Damm, so a great location if you want to do some shopping. There's a number of restaurants near Savignyplatz, which is about 5-10 mins walk away.

After showering, etc, we went to Ku Damm for a wander while waiting for our friend to make her way into town to meet us. I went into the Deutsche Bank branch on Ku Damm to withdraw some cash (Westpac card and Deutsche Bank and Postbank are DE partners, so no ATM fees). We had about EUR 160 in cash, but I wanted some extra as some places in Germany are still cash-only and I knew I'd need some tip money/Trinkgeld for tours on the cruise.

Cue the next pain point of the morning. The AMT ate my card. I tried to withdraw cash, everything seemed fine until I got a message saying something like "We can't complete this transaction". That was it.
I spoke to the customer service person in the branch, told her what happened. "Oh, that's bad" she said. (My brain had more swear words in it than that !!!) then she asked if I was a customer of Deutsche Bank, "No" I replied. She said "That's even worse then". She explained that branch staff don't have access to the ATMs at all. As I had no other debit card, but multiple credit cards, my only other option would be to withdraw cash from a credit card and take the hit on interest/pay the CC to avoid interest or something like that.
After that experience, we were reluctant to use Mr Katie's ATM card in any ATM.
I tried adding my debit card to my Apple Wallet, but couldn't find any ATMs in Germany that would accept contactless options - they only had card slots. There were some in Amsterdam, but none of them worked with the card in my Apple Wallet. I've used that card without issue to withdraw cash in the USA before, and probably back in 2018 on our last EU trip, but for whatever reason, this didn't work.

We met our friend at Zoo and wandered up to KaDeWe. It was strange going past the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedaechtniskirche without it having a Christmas market around it!
We were surprised to find Tim Tams in KaDeWe - our friend is now going to get her wife to buy them there! But maybe not the Penfold's Grange.

We ate lunch at a German restaurant in the top of KaDeWe. I had a fancy Currywurst mit Pommes. We confused our server with our mixture of German and English (Mr Katie is English-only and myself and our friend can do either)


We wandered some more, walked back to our hotel, gave our friend her suitcase to take home and unpack. Then Mr Katie and I caught the train back to the airport to pick up Mumma Katie and the Teen. I should have tried calling Swissport about our luggage, as it had arrived in BER. When we got to the airport and we were waiting for them to come out, I could see the bags were within 100m of us, but they were on the other side of security.

Mumma Katie and the Teen flew AF Y from CDG to BER. They'd caught the train to CDG from Republique - but the ticket seller sold them tickets that weren't valid for CDG despite Mumma Katie and the Teen asking for that. They both copped a EUR35 fine on the train, which the Teen was livid about. Their flight was due to arrive at 16:30 ish and eventually arrived closer to 17:30, there were delays due to weather and they sat on the tarmac in CDG for at least an hour.

Luckily, the train back to Zoo was nowhere near as crowded as the one in the morning. I pointed out the little garden and various sights to Mumma Katie.

We arrived at the hotel, Swissport had called and said they would deliver the luggage tomorrow. We ended up having dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe on Ku Damm, not our idea of a yummy German meal, but safe for the Teen and we were getting pretty tired by this time. There was an Edeka up the road, we stopped by on our way home (though it's in the opposite side of Ku Damm to the hotel) to grab tissues and some things I needed that were in my suitcase. I contemplate a Tschibo nightie or t-shirt and decided I didn't need to buy supermarket/coffee shop clothes.
We crashed and slept well that night.

 

[VPS]

I still remember my card had been eaten by a ATM in France and if I can, I always choose contactless and have more than one debit card

 

[Seat0B]

Passport control had no lines and was efficient and direct. The Finnish guy was cheerily Finnish (that is, not cheery at all) and wanted to know about every country we were visiting and when we were leaving. I ended up showing him the printed TripIt itinerary.
Mr Katie was behind me and when he was called forward, he just said "the same as her".

We must have had the same guy when we arrived in HEL on Wednesday. Same cheerful enjoyment of his work. Same detailed questions about itinerary and same “same as her” comment. National stereotypes exist for a reason!

 

[ellen10]

I can't believe I missed this trip report when you started it. I love trip reports!

I have enjoyed caching up on your travels so far.

 

[Katie]

We must have had the same guy when we arrived in HEL on Wednesday. Same cheerful enjoyment of his work. Same detailed questions about itinerary and same “same as her” comment. National stereotypes exist for a reason!

I remember it being exactly the same style of questions when we entered the EU via HEL in 2018.

 

[Katie]

Saturday 26 July
As we're staying at a Hampton Inn, breakfast is included. *cue angels singing*
We head downstairs for breakfast after 9am. Mumma Katie had already been down, as she was booked on a bus tour to Potsdam and Sansoucci. I'd seen both as a know-it-all 17yo *cough* many years ago, so we didn't join her on the tour. Conveniently, the tour pickup point was on KuDamm outside the Mephisto store, so barely a block away.



Reader, Mr Katie and I gorged ourselves. We enjoyed our first proper German breakfast in about 11 years. Cheeses, meats, bread rolls, Leberwurst, Teewurst, Kaffee, OMG we were in heaven.

Reader, we did not need to eat lunch that day.
I didn't get a photo at this location, but we were impressed with the juice machine, as the jugs of juice were automatically refilled by the machine. There'll be a pic from another location later in the TR.

Mumma Katie went on her tour, and the Teen met up with our friend to go hunting for English manga in Berlin. What a culture mix!

Mr Katie and I wandered to Karl-August Platz to check out the Saturday morning market. We enjoyed wandering around the square, somewhat regretted being completely full from our delicious breakfast, and watched bees swarming all over sweet pastry items on display!

On the way, I spotted an antiquarian bookstore and was delighted to see a copy of Faust and a Struwelpeter in Latin!


Half of this egg stall was this fascinating display of chickens, including a chicken train!!

'
Interesting options at the flower stalls:


Compact cars for big cities:

We found a Macca's! No burgers, just hair cuts:


We also went past a guarded building, we couldn't figure out why the police were outside. Trying to retrace our steps, I think it may have been a Jewish synagogue, but there was nothing obvious outside. I didn't take a photo of the police outside the building.

We walked back to Savignyplatz, checking out the stores around the S-Bahn station. Eventually I gave up hope of my clothes being delivered before we would meet our friends near Nollendorfplatz for the Berlin Pride parade. I was wearing the same outfit as Friday (after showering) and really wanted to have my Love shirt on. Oh well. I was glad Friday wasn't too hot and sweaty and I could wear the same clothes two days in a row!

Mr Katie and I then caught the S-Bahn to Hackesher Markt to check out the markets there. These ones were more crafty, but there were some made foods (rather than fruits and veggies) and alcohols to try.

View towards the Frensehturm/TV tower and Alexanderplatz


There was a cool stall with rings made out of coins from around the world. I found one from my birth year, but decided I wouldn't wear it often enough to warrant the expenditure.

We then made our way to Nollendorfplatz to meet our friends and the Teen. We spent the next few hours with them watching the Pride parade.
Overall: less synchronised choreography than what I've seen of Sydney Mardi Gras on TV; more trucks (they were trucks, not floats) with portaloos on them; not enough portaloos - or any - for the crowd around Nollendorfplatz and lots of happy people.

Pride is also known (or primarily known) as CSD - Christopher Street Day - named after the street where the Stonewall Inn is located in New York. I found it slightly odd to be named for an NY location (though understanding the significance of the Stonewall Inn). Various governments had trucks, as did various corporate organisations. There were about 80 trucks in all.

A really nice part of Berlin Pride is that onlookers can join in on the parade and continue through to the Brandenburg Gate, where the big party is at the end of the march.




The protestant church (Evangelische Kirche - literally evangelical, but not how it's understood in English, it's more of a protestant church) had a truck and were handing out rubber bracelets with "Love is good for the soul"

To be continued, dinner calls.

 

[Katie]

Saturday 26 July, part 2

More Pride scenes, caught a few interesting outfits:

Glitter beard!

I'm not sure about posting these balloons. Also seen in Amsterdam the following Saturday!!


Overall, there was a LOT of street pee-ing in the area. Many folks were peeing in bushes/against trees, some peed against buildings (even near the door to the building??!!), there was a garden mostly surrounded by bushes where women were squat peeing. I found a nail salon charging EUR2 for their loo and peed there, and took the Teen back there a bit later. I was horrified later to see lots of tissues left on the aforementioned garden bed where women were squatting.

Rather than condemn the participants, I really think organisers or the city could have arrange portaloos in this key vantage point. There were lots at the Brandenburg Gate that we saw the next day - but even there it seemed more would have been useful. You don't want to know what the Teen told me that makes me say that.
We stayed until about 6pm; the Teen wanted to go with our friends on the parade route to the Brandenburg Gate and the party, but they politely directed her to stay with us. We tried to go to the station, but it was barricaded by police and we had to walk to the next station, which was Wittenbergplatz. We almost walked all the way to our hotel, but sensibly decided not to after ~4hrs on our feet.

Metropol theatre at Nollendorfplatz


We got back to the hotel. I talked to someone at the front desk, saying some luggage had been delivered (I hadn't interacted with this staff member before). She asked if I had a confirmation of the delivery. I got a bit frustrated, said No (because the delivery people had bloody rung the hotel the day before to advise they would be delivered, not me, so apart from tracking my AirTags, I'd had no flipping correspondence!!).
Then I mentioned a bicycle bag, and she realised she had taken delivery of our bags.

Yay! Clothes! And the AirTags realised we'd been reunited.



I'd researched GF meal options near our hotel, and suggested to the family we have Italian. We went to Mamma Monti as I'd found them through the Find Me Gluten Free app (essential help for any coeliac or GF traveller). All the outside tables were taken, and we were still dealing with the shock of people smoking next to people eating, so we sat inside.
It was quite an international meal, with one German waiter who could speak enough basic Italian to get by and our main water was Indian and found it much easier to speak in English as he's still learning German. He also knew a few Italian words useful for a waiter. Mr Katie and our waiter ended up discussing cricket ...

I had a lovely beetroot pasta filled with yummy cheese:


We received a complimentary liquer after our meal; limoncello all around. The Teen liked it, at least initially.

On the way home, I tortured the family by suggesting I'd bring home one of these cheeky monkeys:



I woke during the night on the Sat night, not as solid a sleep as the first night, but not too bad really.

Regarding Pride - why attend Pride when you're not a member of the LGBTQ+ community?
A few reasons - it's fun, to learn, to remember it's also part protest, and when I tell family and friends about going to Pride, some of them may realise I'm a safe person to come to if they ever need it in the future.

 

[drron]

Saturday 26 July, part 2
some of them may realise I'm a safe person to come to if they ever need it in the future.

The most important part of this post.
We had an experience with a young woman we know well and are best friends with her parents who had rumours. So last month we met her and her partner for dinner last month when we were in Sydney. It couldn't have been better and since has taken her partner to meet her parents. There were no problems at all in their visit.
But a real warm feeling for us.
PS click to expand.

 

[Katie]

Sunday 27 July

First up - breakfast and breakfast dessert! I only eat nutella in Europe.

At all of the brekky buffets, there were little cups, seemed to be made of the same stuff as ice cream cones, for your jams and nutella. We pondered what a coeliac would do and decided they'd just decant their jam straight onto their plate. Jams and so on were all in vats, you couldn't call them jars.

The primary activity for Sunday was a tour to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. We booked our tickets in early July and opted for the tour that went by the S-Bahn rather than a bus (at EUR30pp dearer). Tickets were EUR29.90 for adults and EUR 24.90 for the Teen and Mumma Katie (under 25 and over 65). I hadn't thought about getting a Berlin Welcome Card, that might have been an idea with the train tickets we bought over the weekend.

We met our tour guide, Campbell from Melbourne, outside Friedrichstr. station and the Traenenpalast (Palace of Tears). He made sure all the people who didn't read the details had a Berlin ABC train ticket AND we all had lunch/sufficient snacks as there would be basically no chance or locations for food during the tour.

We hopped on the S-Bahn and about 45 or so mins later, we arrived in Oranienburg. It was Sunday, so everything was pretty much closed. We walked by a number of retirement homes - and lots of medical supplies and practitioners for a market with many older people - optometrists, hearing aids, etc etc.

The monkeys I was travelling with:


I spent the ride chatting to another tourist, an English teacher from Italy who loves to travel. Her husband doesn't speak English and so sometimes she travels to places where she can go on tours, etc, in English without him!

We walked along Bernauerstr. and Campbell explained these Stolpersteine/Stumbling Stones to us all. They were new to Mum, but not to the other 3 of us. These three members of the Baerwald family were lucky enough to escape to Shanghai and then to the US.


We took a left at Strasse der Einheit and then a right at Hans von Dohanyhi Strasse. Some old walls.

Before the entrance to the Sachsenhausen Memorial, we stopped at looked at the T-Building. This was the main office, at least now just outside the camp, and was the central office for all concentration camps under the naz_ regime.

We stopped at this model of the camp at its largest. Pretty much only the space in and slightly around the triangle in the upper right corner of this picture:


The size of it was horrifying to contemplate.
We were able to have a quick break to eat our lunch and go to the loo before walking through the site and learning more.

Sachsenhausen was primarily a camp for political prisoners and not initially for Jewish and other peoples part of the naz_'s killing regime. It was also a Soviet special camp from 1945-50, then not used and parts destroyed throughout the 50s until the East German regime decided to make it a memorial in the 1960s. Germany overall was having a hard time dealing with the country's past, but East Germany took steps earlier to make memorials of places like Sachsenhausen as West Germany was very much trying to ignore that past until the 1980s or 90s.

Entrance and the Arbeit Macht Frei sign (Work makes you free)

The Appellplatz, the roll call area. At one stage, prisoners here were made to stay standing until they dropped, many of them dying as it was the middle of winter.

The building from a couple of photos earlier is on the left, neutral zone with the barbed wire between where I was standing and that building, and the roll call area to the right.

Due to the years of disuse and using building wood for other purposes, many buildings are no longer standing. There are a couple of barracks left that show the bunks where a few hundred people were trying to live.


The other end of this barrack was a Jewish museum; we were told that photos/videos aren't allowed so I have no photos. After the museum was opened, neo-naz_ vandals set it on fire attempting to destroy the artefacts and history within. The fire burns have been kept in the building as a reminder.
Throughout the triangular site were outlines of where the original buildings stood, like in this pic:


The idea of the triangle shape was that fewer guards would be needed, because they could be in the main building and "see everything". Not quite, so after the initial triangle area, the rest of the camp was in more standard rectangles.

The East Germans would use the site for political speeches and rallies; this tower was built in the East German era:


This is the pit (execution trench) where they used to murder prisoners by shooting them. They quickly realised it wasn't an effective way to murder lots of people, and they would of course get scared and try to escape. So they worked out more effective methods to quickly murder hundreds.
We learned of other murder methods tried here, being the main camp for working out those horrific things.

The white building in the background is where the crematorium was. Not much is left inside, mostly destroyed, but there are some warped bit of metal from around ovens and the like.

A quote from a Sachsenhausen survivor -
"And I know one thing more - that the Europe of the future cannot exist without commemorating all those, regardless of their nationality, who were killed at that time with complete contempt and hate, who were tortured to death, starved, gassed, incinerated and hanged ..."
Andrzej Szczypiorski in 1995
I spotted the rocks at the bottom of this quote. It is a custom for Jewish people to place stones on graves.


The tour was both excellent and awful. The Teen couldn't handle going into the barrack buildings. There was a medical building at the end, and the kitchen areas were off limits due to the buildings or trees nearby being unsafe.
It was about 4-4.5 hours of solid standing and walking, with limited options for rest. I mention this for anyone considering this tour. You can visit Sachsenhausen without a guide, but I appreciate the knowledge and guide skills of Campbell.

I'm going to leave this post here and continue the rest of the day in a new post.

 

[jastel]

Did that tour a fair while back, sounds like not much has changed there.

 

[Katie]

Sunday 27 July, part 2

We walked back to the station; the Imbiss (snack stand) at the station was open, which was a relief to get a bottle of water as we'd drunk all of ours. ~45 mins back to Berlin on the S-Bahn. Campbell was very surprised when he talked to us about our next plans - travelling to Essen. He said no other tourist has ever said that to him. I'm not surprised.

We went to the Hauptbahnhof so I could go to the Deutsche Bahn office and book a spot for Mr Katie's bike on the train. While I did that, the rest of the family grabbed a snack. Mr Katie was keen to walk from there to the Brandenburg Gate/Reichstag building, but I knew we wouldn't cope, so we got the U Bahn to the Brandenburg Gate. Heaps of tourists, and tech crews packing up from last night's Pride celebrations. Mum and I went to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe and Mr Katie went to the rough spot of the bunker.

Down towards the Siegesaule, and still packing up from Pride celebrations. More portaloos around the Brandenburg Gate than yesterday at Nollendorfplatz.

Spandau ballet anyone?


Now to dinner, we were all buggered, I was trying to find somewhere with GF food the Teen would eat, but the other three of us really wanted some German food. After lots of googling, facebooking, and checking with Find Me Gluten Free, the Teen wanted a burger and we didn't.
So, she went back to the Hard Rock Cafe and we went to the Dicke Wirtin near Savignyplatz (Fat Widow), practically next door to last night's Italian restaurant. It was a great little pub, we had to sit inside, which was warm, but the terrace outside was full.

I decided it was time to try a Radler (shandy) to see if that would help me like beer again. People keep saying beer is refreshing after a hot day.


Sorry, Berliner Kindl, I'm still not a beer person. Wise decision back when I was 3 to give up beer.

I had the schnitty with chips, Mumma Katie had roast pork and Mr Katie had liver.

We were definitely happy to have a good German meal at a nice pub. Oh, we were also offered a free liquer after our dinner. It was hazelnut or something flavoured; this pub has their own liquers they make.

 

[Katie]

Monday 28 July, Berlin to Essen

Up first, our last breakfast buffet - here's most of it. Honestly, it was probably better than I expected for a Hampton Inn after our experience in NYC last year. Plenty of German options to keep Mr Katie and me happy, and yoghurt and eggs and bacon to keep Mumma Katie happy. The Teen would have preferred an omelette station.




The hotel had a bear matching its wallpaper:

Years ago, Mr Katie and I were in Berlin, maybe around 2002/4 something like that, and there was a big ring of these bears near the Brandenburg Gate. Each bear was decorated to represent a country. It's a play on the name of Berlin - Baerlin!

We went up to Kantstr. to a yarn store, and then wandered up to Ku Damm and then to Ka De We to kill time before we had to drag all our gear to Zoo station and then on to the Hauptbahnhof.



The Ampelmann was not on Ku Damm in 1992 when I first went to Berling, or even 1997/98 when they were trying to save him! Now you can see him all over Berlin.

Very expensive Smeg/Dolce &Gabbana coffee machine in KaDeWe:

I'm used to being in Berlin in December, so it's strange to see the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church *not* surrounded by Christmas markets!


The Cafe Kranzler is now past its prime.


Time to go back to the hotel and drag all our bags to Zoo then to Hauptbahnhof. We arrived at the Hbf. and then ran around grabbing snacks for our ICE train ride to Essen, which would take about 3hr40m. Mumma Katie couldn't find what she wanted, some plain potato chips, so I ran downstairs to the supermarket to get her some.

We then boarded the train, it was decided I would deal with Mr Katie's bike (in case there were language issues, I could do all the German speaking) and he would help Mumma Katie and the Teen get all of our luggage into our carriage. We had lots of carriage seat numbers like 31, 32, etc, and I had the bookings on my phone ... and I told Mr Katie and co the wrong carrige, they were off by one.
There were lots of bikes getting on the train - all of the other bikes were "naked", ready to be ridden, not packed away in a bag like Mr Katie's:


Another bike rider, a man travelling with at least two tween/teen kids, said something to me as I tried to find where the bike belonged in the storage carriage. As I didn't respond quickly enough, he swapped to English and told me I couldn't leave the bike there. He wasn't a DB employee, I had my hand luggage on the platform and the train was about ready to go. I left the bike where it was at the edge of the storage area, got my luggage and had another DB employee tell me to board in my own carriage. So I did, where Mr Katie and co are fighting against the flow to get our bags near our seats.

Then I hear "Hey lady, hey lady, I told you you can't leave your bike there".
I dump my carry on in the nearest bag storage area, and go back to the bike compartment. The DB ticket inspector is there, like the other man, they've decided I'm some idiot tourist who doesn't speak German, and the DB employee tells me I can't leave the bike there.
So I ask, then what do I do with it?
He responds: Do you have a reservation?
Me: Yes, and I show him the reservation ticket. I think I even had the bike in the correct location.
DB employee: looks at the ticket, I think maybe he told me the bike bag needed to be hung up on a hook, and Mr Katie was there soon enough doing that.

PHEW.

Mr Katie was meant to arrange a courier to ship the bike from Berlin to Brussels or Ypres, but as the hotel in Ypres didn't respond to his email asking if he could ship his bike to them, he gave up on arrangements.
Lucky he's cute and cooks well.

We arrive in Essen and drag our bags slightly uphill to the Mercure Hotel Plaza Essen. I managed to use a bunch of ALL points I didn't even know I was accruing for this stay! It ended up costing around EUR90 for two rooms for two nights. The location was super close to my former host mother's house, and she'd told me the Ruettenscheid high street is much more popular than downtown, so I chose that location rather than somewhere closer to the station. Overall it was a good location, but I'm not sure downtown would have been too bad.

The carpet was soft and in these pics, it looks like our bed was floating!

Shub, and yes I got half the bathroom wet having my first shower:


Mumma Katie wasn't keen to go anywhere, so she stayed in the bar and ordered a Flammkuchen. The Mercure only has a bar, no restaurant, and there are light snacks like Flammkuchen at night.

I had a Limoncello Spritz before we wandered up to the Rue for some dinner.


We went to the Edeka at Ruettenscheider Stern, and then went to Cafe Zucca for dinner. We sat inside to avoid smokers.
Bierchen (little beers) and funky pears at Edeka


Dinner was good, Teen didn't like her steak for some reason and they didn't have any ketchup. Our waitress, who was a younger lass, heard us speaking English together and responded to me in English each time I spoke German to her. I decided she wanted to practice her German.

We retired back to the hotel. For the first time, Mr Katie put on the TV and started channel surfing. He found a show about skin cancer and all the research and commentary was from researchers at RBWH/Clive Berghofer and all the outdoor shots with the German TV interviewer were spots around Brisbane. Too funny!!

 

[Katie]

Monday part 2

My dinner


Ruettenscheid high street at night


Whoops, QIMR not Clive Berghofer, though I think his name is on the QIMR building?

 

[RB001]

funky pears at Edeka

Autocorrect appears to have turned peaches into pears...