You're. A. Hotdog.

So today we well and truly departed Berlin - tear.*

definitely a little sad. berlin was great and more than anything, kinda felt like a home, of sorts. 

But, like all good places, we will be back. Foh Sho!  

We had to get up at the crack of dawn (Berlin time at least) to finish packing, cleaning and fetching of coffee and breakfast. Our landlord's assistant arrived in impeccable German time (this punctuality thing with the germans is really impressive), with a nod toward the table and "deez are zee keeze? Gut. Here ees zee depozit. Goodbye." He then stood there with his arms folded, which I quickly realised was him saying 'please get out now.' So in good spirits we shuffled our bazillion bags out and got to our train with an hour to kill. 

after the issues we had when we arrived (wet laundry, no heater etc) we were half expecting some sort of problem on our check out. maybe something like a raised concern over a scratch on the wall, unmopped floors, unclean shower. 

nup.

simple swap of cash for keys and off we went.

easy! 

I soon got myself into a right panic when I realised we had to change trains at Liepzig with 6 minutes to spare for our connection. I managed to sit still on the train for the first hour, clammy and with lips pursed. 

really, lucy is no good if things are cutting it close to the bone. much stress.

Hey, I think we can agree that I am SO good - I got us here didn't I? Yes, yes I did.  

this laptop was owned by a 12 yr old kid. this is where we're at with the future of sexuality. a golden era? probably not.

After an hour, the man sitting next to me gasped "Are you American? No? Oh. Sorry. Wow. You don't sound Australian." And then proceeded to describe all the places in Australia that he'd been to, particularly in penthouses, and parties where he was guest of honour. "Australians do love to party!" "Australians do love to travel!" He was quite an expert on our culture. I think he hadn't heard English speaking anyone in the two weeks he had travelled, and was positively bursting with a fortnight's worth of his life to blurt. However, he was a very friendly man and we enjoyed chatting with him! 

look at the palpable sense of relief - turns out we had to travel all of 4.6m across from platform 9 to platform 10 (for all intents and purposes, the exact same platform) to catch the connecting train. I hate this photo.

Anyway, we made it onto our connection in perfect time (it may have been on the same platform, ahem) and had a grand old time playing cards, reading books and snoozing with the old ducks we were sharing a 4 seated table with.

this is really the most civilised way to travel. smooth, quiet and roomy.

the occasional castle sliding by through the windows, rolling green hills, quaint little villages everywhere. 

Travelling by train is the shit.  

the view from our hotel window

Which is a good thing, because Frankfurt is kinda bleh. Not as bleh as I thought it would be, but I still don't feel better being able to confirm its bleh-i-ness. Concrete jungle filled with cars. Such a massive contrast to Berlin, where it is so pedestrian/cyclist based. Frankfurt, while it manages to still have a gorgeous array of gardens, parks, beautiful pre-war buildings, is still cement pit. Having said that, I have been most impressed in the few hours of exploring, in the pretty diverse architecture here, particularly in contrast to the old. Some buildings were obviously badly damaged and near destroyed, but instead of pulling them down and starting again, or recreating the same building, modern design has been built into the original architecture. The result is awesome gigantic collage buildings! Love it! 

Aside from that, we seem to be faced with a kinda soulless city, lacking in vibe, interesting spaces and interesting people. 

an example of the revamping of the old

yeah - we're both totally agreed. it's ok, there's some nice bits, but there's no soul in the place. of course, that's pretty rich coming from some dude who just rocked up like 5 minutes ago and wandered around the old town for the afternoon. but still, after travelling around a bit, you get a sixth sense about whether there's a good vibe in a place, and really, we aren't feeling it here.

having said that, which i feel sounds kinda bitchy, there are some interesting sights.

 one of the intriguing things is the juxtaposition between old and new.

there's lot of modern skyscrapers in town, some are quite interesting looking 

nice bit of contemporary architecture - although, it happens to be a facade for a shopping mall 
- yeah man, it's awesome! SUCKING YOU INTO CONSUMERISM!!!

 this was in some sort of corporate plaza in the banking district. i really like it - kinda art nouveau-ish.

the total lack of people our age here obviously makes it feel a little less inviting. 

but there are some characters about that keep us engaged. 

  nothing says 'anarchy' like a politely requesting t-shirt slogan. except maybe if you're also carrying a chain-store shopping bag from the mall.
We saw her twice! So exciting!

we took off out of the old city area to get some dinner, on the way we noticed this u-bahn entrance...

 

cheesy enough for ya? haha - love that 'fresh wind' talk!