berlin

Ani and I arrived in Berlin on Thursday night. We took a taxi from the airport out to our hotel...which ended up being in the middle of nowhere. Literally. It cost us 50 euros to get there and we never even found our hotel. We had passed by 2 hotels near where our Hotel Formule 1 was supposed to be so we had the taxi driver just take us back there and we said we'd get a room. One of the hotels was called Etap and we saw underneath the name that it was part of Accor hotels, which is the big parent company of Hotel Formule 1. We both thought that maybe it was this hotel and we just didn't realize it. We tried to check in with the automatic machine outside but it wouldn't recognize anything, including any of Ani's cards. I made a reservation for that night with one of my cards instead. It wouldn't take my French card so I had to use my Wachovia card. Not only did I have the 40 euros, but also the monthly international fee and the 2% fee the bank charges me for each purchase with my card. We went upstairs to our room and pretty much went to bed. We did have free WiFi, so I looked up reservation and legal information about Formule 1 and was going to go downstairs in the morning and ream those German dumbasses really hard. I woke up that morning and went downstairs to talk to the receptionist. The guy there said that Etap was not part of Hotel Formule 1. In fact, Hotel Formule 1 was further down the road - further than a kilometer. He gave us directions and we checked out and headed toward Formule 1. It was WAY further than a kilometer. When we finally got there, we went inside to the receptionist and explained the situation. He didn't understand what we wanted. I said that I wanted him to refund us the money they charge for not checking in (automatically charge first night), paying us back for the hotel the night before, our taxi ride to the middle of nowhere for NO reason and our hotel for the next 2 nights. The guy was a complete effing idiot. He said the only thing he could do was refund us the automatic charge to Ani's card. We had him call us a taxi and we went to the nearest train station. We took a train into Berlin and met a really nice German lady who understood a lot of languages but couldn't speak any of them. Ani was able to understand a lot of what she said in German...don't ask me how. ha ha.
We finally got into Berlin and figured out the metro system to find the Holiday Inn we'd looked up online the night before. It was something like 60 or 70 euros a night, so we decided we could swing that. We got to the hotel and it was most definitely NOT that. Online they had reservations - aka rooms - available, but at the check-in desk it was 120 euros a night. I almost passed out. So we booked it for 2 nights. 240 euros. 2 nights. Oh yeah - Hotel Formule 1 is going to get some shit for all of our inconveniences. I'm going to make sure of it. Anyway, we checked in, went to find some dinner and did basically nothing the rest of the evening. Saturday we took a 1 hour boat tour of Berlin in the morning and went to the Berlin Zoo in the afternoon. The Berlin Zoo isn't the largest zoo in the world but it has the most species of animals. We were most excited about 3 animals we'd never seen in zoos before: panda bears, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses. After we saw what we wanted in the zoo, we went to the adjoining aquarium we'd paid a little extra for. I got to see all my Nemo characters. I have videos of them - and a lot of them have me recounting my favorite parts from the movie with each of them. Sweet. And in case you were wondering, yes, I do this every single time I go into an aquarium. It's my thing about Nemo, yo. :)
The 2nd floor of the aquarium was reptiles. Yes, reptiles. Ani dragged me there. I stepped out of the elevator and barely glanced to the right and saw one of those things. I nearly screamed. I wanted to leave immediately but Ani made me go through. I walked through it entirely staring at the floor and shaking and somewhat hyperventilating. I could have, and still could, killed Ani for that. That was pure motherfreaking torture. The only part I could stand to look at was the crocodiles, turtles, and geckos. Anything else, including lizards, was completely out of the question. It's freaking me out just thinking about it, so I'm going to stop. By the time we finished there, the gift shop had closed, so I was pissed. I had wanted to buy something there. We then made our way back by the Metro/Underground to the Sony Center in Potsdamer Platz to the Legoland Discovery Center...which was closed. This museum was the one thing I wanted to see in Berlin and I didn't get to, so needless to say I was extremely disappointed. At least I got to see the giant giraffe out front. Oh well. Ani and I headed back toward the hotel and went to the Berlin Center, or something like that, where there was a grocery store. We planned to stock up on snacks and alcohol and go back to the hotel. We grabbed Chinese lo mein for dinner near the hotel and went back to the room. We flipped through all the German channels and noticed an animated movie coming on: Over the Hedge. We started to watch it in German and made up words, but then I realized we could watch it online for free! So we started snacking and drinking, then watched Over the Hedge online. Yay for expensive internet! lol
Then we woke up this morning, went down to breakfast, checked out, headed toward the Underground/Metro to the airport. It was a long metro ride, but we made it to the airport! We're currently en route to Athens. When we were waiting in line to check in, my aunt called me on my cellphone and I was so incredibly grateful because when I am outside of France, I can't call anything but French numbers and numbers in the country I am in. She's going to pick us up at the airport in Athens and I am super excited because I haven't seen her in years! I think the last time I saw her, I was about 12 or 13, had blonde hair and was much shorter. She probably won't even recognize me today! I'm sure she'll look about the same, so yay for that!
Side note from randomly walking down the street in Berlin on Friday: we walked right by a condom dispenser on the street. On the street...in plain view! I took a picture of it, of course, because that's not something you see everyday. Maybe in a bathroom or something, but just slapped on the side of a building along a busy street? Not so much. Weird Germans, yo. For real! But anyway, that's my side note and now I'm pretty much done telling you about Berlin. We didn't get to do much, mostly because it took us so much time to figure out our lodging situation. Never again will we try to stay in a Hotel Formule 1 outside of France, if at all even in France. Blah.

Peace out.