the trip to berlin started at the rather early time of 02h00 on saturday morning. this waking up early has started to become a real common theme for trips :/. this is something i need to correct on for my future adventures.
the need for waking up this early was brought on by the fact that we would be driving to germany. berlin [en|de|wiki] is a six hour drive from warsaw and we wanted to arrive reasonable early so that we would have enough time to sightsee before it got dark.
i suppose i should first explain why we decided to go on this trip and who decided to come along. earlier this year, in poland, there was a competition run by intel and bmw where they created a f1 simulator using a real f1 bmw car body, a logitech steering wheel, pedals and some racing software. as you might have guessed, the aim of the competition was to race faster than the other opponents in this simulator. my mates from work; adam, kuba and sylwia (kuba's girlfriend (who does not work with us)) took part in this competition. after trying in a few cities, both kuba and sylwia won first place in two parts of the competition. kuba won the overall prize of a trip to germany to go-kart against robert kubica and sylwia won the seperate women's competition with a rather fancy computer as the prize. so in light of kuba's success in poland we decided we could give it a go in the german competition of the same nature. so kuba, adam, wojtek, sylwia and i decided we would go to german for; a) the competition (not all of us) and b) to generally have a good time in germany (lots of beer and such).
so by 03h00 i had arrived at kuba's house where we set off to germany. what ensued was a rather uncomfortable 6 hour drive to germany. for those of you that complain about south african roads, you really have nothing to complain about. polish roads are some of the roughest roads i've had the discomfort to travel on (barring perhaps any south african dirt roads). the roads were constructed in such a way as to save as much money as possible. as a result, the roads are so thin that cars and trucks literally create impressions in the road from the pressure of the tires on the road (i'll try and get some photos next time). most of the drive was uneventful expect where is started snowing. this was the first time it has snowed since winter back in february and the sight was rather amazing.
in the end we made some really good time in the car and arrived at the german border in a little over five hours. the plan after getting to berlin was to first go straight to the competition, then do some sightseeing and finally go to the hostel.
at the mall where the competition was held we were pleasantly surprised that we could practice and race in the simulator as long as we wanted to due to the relative lack of people wanting to taking part. in the end adam and i only raced about four or five times after which we went with wojtek on a walk to see the surrounding area. kuba on the other hand decided to stay and continued to race. despite our relatively short time racing we all made it into the top 100, with kuba currently at 31, adam at 80 and myself at 68. our results were better at the time but since our trip we have been slowly dropping in the standings.
towards the end of our walk, the skies let loose and it started to snow. that was my first proper snow fall in europe and it was fantastic.
after getting back to the mall, we took the car to the tiergarten where we walk about looking at parliament buildings, reichstag and the brandenburg gate. by then it was already getting dark quite early in the afternoon as d.s.t. had ended a few weeks before. unfortunately we did not go inside reichstag as the queue was about an hour and a half long.
the hostel was actually quite nice, despite the price. the bunk beds are, however, rather squeaky (some reviews mentioned that as well) which isn't pleasant if someone is tossing and turning. in our quest to find a nice german place for dinner we found an excellent place in oranien platz. for about 12 euro each, we got a huge basket of bread for starters, a huge salad, and the largest schnitzel i have ever seen (with fried potato wedges, i think). we were mighty stuffed after that dinner.
afterwards, the waiter suggested that we should go to wittenburg platz (as we wanted to find a night club). so we took s-bahn which is one of the quietest undergrounds i've ever been on. in the end we did not find any night clubs, but wittenburg platz happened to be on the road that leads to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche which was well worth seeing (unfortunately my camera is not so great in the dark).
the next morning it was snowing a bit, but after breakfast the snow had stopped. fortunately we didn't encounter any more snow during our sightseeing :).
on our way to see the memorial to the murder jews of europe we stumbled upon the remains of the berlin wall. up until that point we were not sure where the wall was and we were very lucky to find it by accident. the berlin wall is also very close to the sony center, which is also worth seeing.
afterwards we went to see the berlin tv tower after which we made our way to museum island. we really didn't have any time to go to any of the museums, but the actual island itself is really interesting.
because we were driving back as well, we had to cut our sightseeing short at about three or four o'clock, but despite our short time in berlin, i think we managed to see quite a lot. next year, i think we will make another trip to germany to take part in the competition again. when we do, we will try and pick a city close to a ski resort (or something else just as interesting).
4 comments:
really cool photos :)
thanks :)
You had to get up at 2 in the morning? I find it hard to muster up much sympathy if you get such a neat trip out of it :-P
Did you go before or after the Poland/Germany border was dissolved? http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/19/europe/border.php
it was before the dismantling of the border. but it was really a non-issue anyway, as all you needed was an id to get thru.
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