Being in Berlin: an arrival and a departure

"I'm currently in Berlin with the lovely Alicia. I've known her amongst the longest of my friends, and so we have quite a history of hilarity, madness, and merry-making behind us."

The above was all I managed to get written about Berlin while I was actually in Berlin. I was very busy running around, seeing sites (or sights), eating good food, and getting into decorous hijinks with Alicia. Oh the fun we had.

But really, that's not where I'm going to start on Berlin. I'm going to start with another love song to trains. I could, probably shouldn't, and maybe someday will, write a book about my adventures and musings on trains.

The trip to Berlin started out with what I like to think of as a bang. I hopped the train from Flers to Paris, metro'd from Gare Montparnasse to Gare du Nord, and purchased myself a ticket on the night train to Berlin.

Did that sink in?

The night train!

Oh so exciting! So I spent about three hours killing time in the train station and at 7:00 that evening I boarded a train. We had a full sleeping car. Six of us, folded into one little car. There are six board-like slats, three on each side of the car, that march up the walls as make-shift cots. Everybody gets a pillow, a sleeping bag style sheet and a blanket.

Did I enjoy it? Oh yes I did!

Something about sleeping on a train appeals to me. Perhaps mostly because I've read too much romanticized fiction... but it also just seems so practical:
-Step one: Get on train. Consume dinner if you wish (I brough my own sandwich and cookie and was very happy)

-Step two: Brush your teeth and prepare for bed.
(Lucy Travel Tip: I ended up changing from my jeans into leggings and was very comfortable. Others didn't change. Were I to Night Train again, I might wear leggings under a skirt for ease of changing, but it depends on what makes you happiest.
Second Lucy Travel Tip: Bring water! I got a bit dehydrated on the train, and was glad for my bottle of water. I brought a bigger one for the return trip because I didn't like the water in the sinks for brushing my teeth. It tasted funny.)

-Step three: Sleep.

-Step four: Wake up and  you are at your destination!

Bam.
Wasn't that easy?

I slept remarkably well on the way there, and even better on the return voyage four days later. It's really sort of a soothing motion, and I usually pass out on trains as it is... so actually getting regular sleep on one wasn't that much of a leap for me to make.

My cabin on the way east was full. It was a Friday night and everyone seemed to be headed to Berlin for a holiday.

I was the only girl in the cabin that night. There were two German-Arabs who had immigrated to Berlin when they were children. The chatty one was a friendly taxi driver who spoke Arabic, German, English, and a smattering of French. (That'll take a you a notch or two down when you are so proud of a University degree in a second language...) The skinny one was a cigarette addict and spent much of the waking hours of the trip sneaking off for a smoke in the lavratories.

We also had a father and his two young boys. They were headed off to meet friends in Berlin. The boys swarmed like monkeys up and down the ladders and happily took the uppermost bunks (which none of the adults had wanted in particular-- they are suuuper tall!). I got the impression that the father didn't do lots of active parenting, as he seemed slightly befuddled as to how to get the boys to eat their dinner. The older boy was about in 6th grade, bemused by the idea that I liked living in a little village (they lived in Paris, oh city children), and addicted to the iphone. It was a nice family.

Coming back west I ended up on a nearly empty train. I shared a cabin with a girl from Colombia who had come to Paris to study French and then art. She wants to be an illustrator, hopfeully a science illustrator- diagrams, text books, the beautiful and fiddly images that I grew up seeing in all my father's books. She had been in Berlin with friends for a music festival.
She is far cooler than I will ever even dream of being, wrapped up in pleather leggings, colorful hoodie and a leather bomber jacket. We talked about books, art, and travel; how important it is, and how hard it is, to leave everything you know and love behind to see the world and follow a dream. She impressed the hell out of me, and I really hope she does well! I think she will.

So I'm basically totally sold on the Night Train. It's comfortable, inexpensive, and certainly less stressful than flying.

Lucy Travel Tip: Flying to Berlin from Paris was about the same price as the night train. Excluding the cost of a hotel in Paris for the night (as all cheap flights out are EARLY), cost of the train to the airport, and the cost of having to be at the airport at 5am. Bascially, the train "takes longer" but only if you look at just travel time and not the full picture. With the train I went from city-center to city-center non-stop, with no hotels or complex security checkpoints to endure. Basically it boils down to: consider the whole journey, not just price and air time when you are plotting a journey.

This further underlines my burning desire to take the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul one day. It's happening people. It is.

So, this isn't really about being in Berlin. It's an ode to Night Trains and the people you meet on them.

Next up: Being in Berlin part two: or why I love to travel with a friend!